Florentino Fernández (Boxer) Height, Age, Wife, Family, Biography & More

Some Lesser Known Facts About Florentino Fernández (Boxer)

• Fernandez briefly served as a mentor in the early 1980s, while he was just an amateur boxing trainer at Elizabeth Virrick Gym in Coconut Grove, Florida.

• While Cuba’s communist government banned professional boxing, Fernandez lived in exile in Miami Beach, Florida, where he earned a great appreciation on television and fight cards promoted by Chris Dundee. The majority of Fernandez’s fights have involved him knocking opponents out or self-inflicted.

• Fernández was believed to be one of the greatest knockout punchers of the 1960s. It was considered that with a left hook that could turn cinder blocks to dust. Fernández was a coast-to-coast regular during the final days of television’s golden age.

• Fernández was a converted southpaw whose punches were so hard that he would often fracture his opponents. He left Gene Fullmer, of all things, with a fractured elbow due to his monstrous power.
  

  A picture of Gene Fullmer and Florentino Fernández in action

• It was during some of the most brutal street fights of the 1960s that Jesus Rivero, Dick Tiger, and Jose Gonzalez all met him.

• Fernández didn’t let go in five relentless rounds when he defeated future light heavyweight champion Jose Torres in San Juan in 1963.

• Fernández was considered one of the greatest American fighters at the end of the fights even if he never won any world titles. Florentino Fernández, ultimately, was, like so many other exiles, a symbol of audacity.

• Fernández suffered from bouts of his grueling schedule in the mid-1960s, and he began losing fights regularly. In 2013, Fernández was working as a dishwasher in Miami, having retired from boxing less than five years before challenging Fullmer for the middleweight title. In 1969 he returned to the ring after his dream persuaded him to do so.

• His popularity in Puerto Rico rose as he fought in “La Isla del Encanto” six times during his career.