For decades, one of the most celebrated rivalries in boxing has been Puerto Rican fighters against their Mexican counterparts.
Boxing is hugely popular in both countries and part of the culture. Clashes between their fighters have produced some of boxing's most memorable promotions and fights.
The storied rivalry began in 1934 when bantamweight Sixto Escobar became Puerto Rico's first world champion by scoring a ninth-round knockout of Mexico's Rodolfo "Baby" Casanova in Montreal. In the 80 years since, boxing fans have been treated to many more significant fights in the rivalry.
Commercially, the 1999 welterweight unification fight between Puerto Rico's revered Felix Trinidad and Mexican-American star Oscar De La Hoya was a juggernaut. Both were undefeated champions in their prime. And while the fight did not live up the hype -- and resulted in De La Hoya getting badly robbed of the decision -- it was enormous, selling 1.4 million pay-per-views, a record at the time for a non-heavyweight fight.
Other memorable fights include some classics, such as featherweight champion Salvador Sanchez's eighth-round knockout of junior featherweight champion Wilfredo Gomez in 1981 (a personal favorite); Gomez's 14th-round knockout of Lupe Pintor in a 1982 junior featherweight title defense; junior welterweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., the hero of Mexico, outpointing Hector "Macho" Camacho Sr. in a heavily hyped 1992 showdown; and Mexico's Jose Luis Ramirez's fourth-round knockout of Puerto Rico's Edwin Rosario in San Juan in 1984 in a lightweight title rematch.
The first huge Puerto Rico-Mexico fight I covered was in 2000, when Trinidad and Mexican-American Fernando Vargas, both undefeated, met to unify junior middleweight titles at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Fifteen years later, the excitement I saw and felt in Las Vegas going into the fight has rarely been matched. It was everything Trinidad-De La Hoya was not -- a dramatic, action-packed slugfest with multiple knockdowns that ended definitively with Trinidad taking Vargas out brutally in the 12th round.
More recently, Puerto Rico's Miguel Cotto split two bitterly contested fights (2008 and 2011) with Mexico's Antonio Margarito in emotion-filled fights. Also, Mexico's Orlando Salido scored a pair of upset knockouts of Puerto Rico's Juan Manuel Lopez in featherweight title fights in 2011 and 2012, and Salido's loss and draw in junior lightweight title fights against Puerto Rico's Roman "Rocky" Martinez this year are both fight-of-the-year candidates.
There have been dozens of terrific fights in the rivalry. But the biggest and best could be what we are about to see Saturday night (HBO PPV, 9 ET) at Mandalay Bay: Cotto's middleweight championship defense against Mexican star Canelo Alvarez.
"History shows when you put a Puerto Rican fighter and a Mexican fighter inside the ring, you are guaranteed to get excitement and fireworks, so everyone across the globe is really, really excited," said De La Hoya, Alvarez's promoter from Golden Boy.
Cotto, the 35-year-old warhorse still going strong, has long been one of boxing's biggest stars for years. He will go down as one of the greatest Puerto Rican fighters ever. He is the first boxer from the island of enchantment to win world titles in four weight classes, which he accomplished by scoring an upset 10th-round knockout of Sergio Martinez in a dominant performance last year.
Alvarez, still only 25, is a former unified junior middleweight titlist and Mexico's most popular active fighter.
Cotto-Alvarez is not only star against star for the lineal middleweight championship, but virtually everyone expects it to be a terrific action fight given the styles both fight in. In other words, this won't be the dog of a fight we saw in May between Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao. If you plunk down your $60 for the pay-per-view, you are likely to get your monies' worth in the main event (not to mention a high-quality undercard).
Cotto (40-4, 33 KOs) and Alvarez (45-1-1, 32 KOs) both fight for pride and country (not to mention a boatload of money) and have regularly delivered exciting fights.
Like those fighters who came before them, they know the rivalry is a big deal to their countrymen.
"I'm Puerto Rican; Canelo is Mexican. The rivalry between Puerto Rico and Mexico is huge. It's history," Cotto said. "There's a lot of history behind it, and we're going to contribute to that."
Said Alvarez, who will be participating in his first big-time Puerto Rico-Mexico fight: "There's a great history between Mexico and Puerto Rico, and this is going to be a historic fight, another one for the storybooks. I have a lot of pride to be fighting for my country.
"It's going to be a great fight. I want this to be a historic fight. I'm honored to be fighting a true warrior. It's an honor, and I'm going to prepare very well because I want to win this fight."
Hall of Fame broadcaster Larry Merchant called many of the great Puerto Rico-Mexico rivalry fights during his long run at HBO. He is so pumped up for this one that he is going to travel to Las Vegas to watch the fight as a fan.
"This fight is a significant part of the Mexico-Puerto [Rico] pantheon of big fights," Merchant said. "Prize fighting is still an important part of the culture in those countries, and when there is a top champion for those countries, it grabs hold of fans in a way that it used to be in the U.S. and isn't anymore. Both of these countries have developed fighters who have resonated with people in their own countries as well as people from other countries."
Merchant said he was not sure if anything would ever top the event status of Trinidad-De La Hoya, but if anything can, he thinks Cotto-Alvarez just might.
"Trinidad-De La Hoya was a supernova, bigger than big," he said. "Sometimes, like with Sanchez-Gomez, it's become bigger in hindsight than it was at the time. Sanchez-Gomez was big and in hindsight became bigger, but nothing quite approaches De La Hoya-Trinidad, although the rematch between Cotto and Margarito, because of the narrative about Margarito's gloves, was a big deal."
Margarito had been caught trying to fight Shane Mosley with loaded hand wraps, and many believe he got away with it in his knockout win against Cotto in their first fight, so that just added to the emotion of the rivalry.
But to take its rightful place in the lore of the Puerto Rico-Mexico rivalry, it does depend on what happens come fight night. No matter the hype, if the fighters don't deliver, it won't be as fondly remembered as the fights that have.
"In terms of the rivalry and the excitement going in, I think Cotto-Canelo ranks right behind Oscar and Trinidad," Merchant said. "It has potential -- and I'm a romantic hoping it's so good there has to be a rematch -- for being a really serious and dramatic fight. That's why fans are excited.
"The match speaks for itself. This is one of those fights where it doesn't need the extra hype of trash talking. This is two stars colliding in a meaningful fight. That's what everyone wants, and the fact that it's Puerto Rico versus Mexico just adds a lot of juice to it. It has potential to impact the whole of boxing, especially after the bad taste of Mayweather-Pacquiao, because it can show that a big fight can also be a real fight."