Spanish great Romero dies by Eric Armit Jul 9th 2008

Spain lost one of its great heroes with the death last month of Luis Romero, a former Spanish bantamweight and featherweight champion, titles he held simultaneously, and European bantamweight champion. Luis fought over here quite often in the late 40's and early 50's beating Bobby Boland twice, Ronnie Draper, Eddie Carson, Teddy Peckham twice and famously Danny O'Sullivan in a European title defence, who he floored 11 times on the way to a 13th round stoppage. He lost his European title to Peter Keenan at Firhill Park in September 1951 and just two months later dropped a 15 round decision to Vic Toweel in Johannesburg in a challenge for the world bantamweight title. Born in Arcila, Spanish Morocco on 5th October 1921, southpaw Luis was only 5'0 tall but such a bundle of pure aggression that the Spanish fans adored him. There are various versions of his record as BoxRec has him as starting in March 1943 and boxing until February 1958 and having a 102-14-5 record with 1 no contest, whereas I have seen a start date of 1939 and Spanish Record Book Espabox gives his record as 151-18-6. He also fought great featherweights such as Roy Ankrah and Hogan “ Kid” Bassey.

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