Macho Camacho Too <i> Mucho</i> for Ramirez, Wins Title

Hector (Macho) Camacho displayed a gift of garb as well as gab Saturday night, stepping into the ring at the Riviera Hotel and Casino in a costume fully as outrageous as his rhetoric. How to describe it? It was a suit of lights, his trunks spangled with the colors of a post-nuclear rainbow, his cape a sparkling red-white-and-blue.

Thereafter, he displayed additional gifts, no less colorful. For 12 unforgettable rounds, the undefeated challenger presented his iridescent self to the somewhat confused but nevertheless resolute Jose Luis Ramirez, the World Boxing Council lightweight champion. He dazzled him and everyone else with his speed, his athletic wit and his sheer talent.

Camacho scored a unanimous decision to win his second title at the age of 23 and in only his 27th straight fight. No fighter has ever won a second title in so short a career. It was a brilliant performance, made at the expense of the workmanlike but outclassed and much-bloodied Ramirez.

Camacho seemed to have gone through the fight without suffering a single blow, circling beyond the plodding champion, darting in to deliver his blur of jabs, drawing blood from Ramirez’s nose in the third round, and, in the same round, knocking Ramirez down with a hard left.

But at his postfight press conference, Camacho, wearing a leopard loincloth that would have made Tarzan blush, admitted receiving a blow to the body so hard he didn’t dare try even to recall it. Even so, the statistics provided by HBO showed that Camacho connected with his punches at the amazing ratio of two to one.

It was a one-man show, Macho with a capital M . Beginning with his breakthrough in fight fashion, through his 12-round brutal ballet and including a press conference in which he stretched the term playful to the limit, Camacho dominated. Ramirez, who didn’t bother to show up after the fight, seemed not to have shown up for the fight, so negligible were his contributions to the drama.

Oh, he tried. A veteran of at least 96 fights at the age of 26, the baby-faced tamale salesman from Culiacan tried to do what he does best--move forward and strike a single paralyzing blow. It had always worked. Even in his few defeats. The great Alexis Arguello had gone down, for goodness sakes.

But as Ramirez, 134 3/4, moved forward, he found himself face to face with equally surprised ringsiders. Where was Camacho? At times it seemed more a bull fight than a boxing match, with Camacho, 134, sidestepping the charging bull. So that’s what the cape was for.

Camacho’s foot and hand speed were already legendary, even before he took up boxing. Those fast hands pilfered more than a few items during a decidedly delinquent youth in New York’s Spanish Harlem, and his feet paced many a beat cop after he surrendered stolen automobiles. And even in the ring, his motion was celebtated.

But could he do it for 12 rounds, non-stop. He could and did.

Afterward, Camacho, who earned $500,000 to Ramirez’s $400,000, pretended indignation at the press, scolding them for denying his talents, though really few have ever done so. “Now you know,” he said, “pound for pound, I am the little macho man.”

Calming somewhat, he explained how he defused the dangerous Ramirez by sticking to his avowed game plan. “I said I would be dangerous early, and I was,” he said “I said I was gonna make him miss, hold him, spin him, return him to the center of the ring. The guy was strong, but I proved I could hit back.

“I am the kid of the ‘80s, here to dominate the game.”

As usual, Camacho’s tactics were spiced with some moves from the ghetto, including one where he holds his opponent by the back of the neck and brings it forward to his oncoming fist.

Referee Mills Lane warned Camacho several times but never actually deducted a point. Camacho thought that “was uncalled for. That ref, he was lousy.”

Lane, for his part, thought Camacho won at least 10 rounds, though only one of the three judges agreed. Two other judges gave Camacho seven and eight rounds, respectively, calling two and four rounds even.

The victory might have been more lopsided, except that Camacho finally slowed the pace, clinching and once even tackling the ever-advancing Ramirez. But that was according to plan, too. Trainer Jimmy Montoya told him he had the fight won and to take his time. “We’re six minutes from a world title,” Montoya said. “He doesn’t have anything to prove.”