The Ugly American: One Shot at Glory for Florentino Fernández

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Among the most feared KO punchers of the 1960s, Fernández, billed as The Ox because of his physical strength and KO power, could turn cinderblocks into dust with his left hook, and a kill-or-be-killed attack that saw 53 out of his 67 professional fights end via stoppage ensured that he was a coast-to-coast regular during the waning days of the television Golden Age. A converted southpaw, Fernández hit so hard that he broke bones when he fought. Indeed, his freakish power left Gene Fullmer with, of all things, a shattered elbow. Fernández regularly rearranged features in the ring the same way a Cubist did via paintbrush on canvas. But, in some kind of symbolic counterpart to his dreams and ambitions—the same ones shared by all fighters—he was often too brittle for the rigors of his own pitiless style. Read more: The Ugly American: One Shot at Glory for Florentino Fernández.