{"id":475859,"date":"2026-02-12T21:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-02-12T21:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/475859\/"},"modified":"2026-02-12T21:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-02-12T21:10:10","slug":"bad-bunnys-halftime-show-nodded-to-mexico-puerto-rico-boxing-rivalry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/475859\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Bunny’s halftime show nodded to Mexico-Puerto Rico boxing rivalry"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As Bad Bunny walked through a makeshift sugarcane field<\/a> on Sunday night at Levi\u2019s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif., for the Apple Music halftime show, he passed by several Latino scenes \u2014 from a man selling piraguas, to elderly men playing dominoes to a taco stand<\/a>. At one point in that sequence, the \u201cNuevayol\u201d artist evaded punches from combating boxers.<\/p>\n

That moment not only pointed to the love of boxing across the Americas, but also specifically showed one pugilist wearing shorts with the Puerto Rican flag colors on them and the other rocking Mexico-colored shorts.<\/p>\n

And those weren\u2019t pretend fighters, either. It was 23-year-old Puerto Rican light middleweight champion Xander Zayas<\/a> and undefeated Mexican American boxer Emiliano Vargas<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the greatest experience of my entire life,\u201d Zayas told ESPN this week<\/a>. \u201cI expected to become a unified world champion, but I never expected to be part of the Super Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zayas and Vargas squaring off stood in for the storied boxing rivalry between the two prizefighting countries.<\/p>\n

The feud goes back more than 90 years, when Puerto Rico\u2019s Sixto Escobar became the island\u2019s first world-title holder after defeating Mexican fighter Rodolfo Casanova by knockout in the ninth round on May 7, 1934.<\/p>\n

In February 1960, Carlos Ortiz became Puerto Rico\u2019s second world champion with a 10th-round knockout of Mexico\u2019s Raymundo Torres at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Ortiz entered the match undefeated with a 31-0 record.<\/p>\n

Mexico landed its first big win in the rivalry after Pipino Cuevas beat welterweight champion Angel Espada<\/a> by technical knockout (TKO) in the second round in July 1976. The duo faced off the next year at a bout in San Juan where Cuevas again won \u2014 Espada was forced to retire from the match after suffering a double-fractured jaw. The trilogy capped off in December 1979 when Cuevas defeated Espada by TKO in the 10th round.<\/p>\n

The feud between the two countries further escalated in 1978 when Puerto Rican champion Wilfredo G\u00f3mez and Mexican boxer Carlos Z\u00e1rate fought for the super bantamweight title in an event hosted in San Juan. G\u00f3mez defeated Z\u00e1rate via TKO in the fifth round to retain his title.<\/p>\n

The Boricua pugilist rode a prolonged winning streak heading into his match with Mexican fighter Salvador S\u00e1nchez in August 1981. Ahead of the bout G\u00f3mez evoked<\/a> the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata<\/a> when he said that he\u2019d finish the contest \u201cstanding or dead, but never on my knees.\u201d<\/p>\n

G\u00f3mez would go on to lose the fight in the 10th round by TKO after being left on his hands and knees by S\u00e1nchez. He would later get redemption when he defeated Mexican boxer Lupe Pintor via 14th-round TKO in a December 1992 marathon match.<\/p>\n

Mexico\u2019s greatest boxer, Julio C\u00e9sar Ch\u00e1vez<\/a>, entered the fray with a fourth-round knockout of Puerto Rican fighter Javier Fragoso in a May 1983 match in San Juan. In a December 1986 bout at Madison Square Garden, Ch\u00e1vez defeated the island\u2019s fighter Juan Laporte by unanimous decision.<\/p>\n

In November 1987, Puerto Rican champion Edwin Rosario and Ch\u00e1vez squared off in the \u201cDuel in the Desert.\u201d Heading into the match Rosario had criticized the strength<\/a> of the Mexican boxer\u2019s previous competition. Ch\u00e1vez went on to defeat Rosario<\/a> by TKO in the 11th round.<\/p>\n

The Sonora-born champion improved to 67-0 after forcing the Boricua boxer Sammy Fuentes to retire from their 1989 match in the 10th round. A win against Puerto Rico\u2019s Angel Hernandez in April 1992 brought Ch\u00e1vez to a 80-0 record.<\/p>\n

In a marquee matchup dubbed \u201cthe fight for it all,\u201d Ch\u00e1vez fought Puerto Rican legend H\u00e9ctor \u201cMacho\u201d Camacho<\/a> in Las Vegas on Sept. 12, 1992. The competition went the distance with Ch\u00e1vez winning in a unanimous decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I lose, they won\u2019t let me back in Mexico,\u201d Chavez jokingly told reporters<\/a> in the week leading up to the fight.<\/p>\n

The rivalry carried on through the \u201890s as Puerto Rico\u2019s F\u00e9lix Trinidad handed Mexican American boxer Oscar De La Hoya \u2014 who had previously defeated Ch\u00e1vez \u2014his first professional loss in a September 1999 fight by majority decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have watched the fight seven times and I still don\u2019t understand how he won the fight,\u201d De La Hoya told The Times<\/a> in the days after his loss.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was happy [toward the end of the fight]. I was celebrating. I knew I won more than six rounds. … Even [my father] was happy. I\u2019ve never ever seen him like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mexican fighter Fernando Vargas \u2014 the father of the Mexican American boxer featured in the halftime show \u2014 took on Trinidad in December 2020 with two federations\u2019 light middleweight titles on the line. <\/p>\n

Trinidad won so decidedly after a 12th-round TKO that Vargas was taken to the hospital as a precautionary measure after going down five times.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was my toughest fight,\u201d conceded Trinidad \u2014 who had predicted before the match that this would be his easiest fight \u2014 immediately after the brawl<\/a>. \u201cI want to say that Fernando Vargas is a great champion. But I knew I was ahead and didn\u2019t need the knockout in the 12th round.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 2000s, the bad blood continued when Puerto Rican fighter Miguel Cotto went up against Tijuana\u2019s Antonio Margarito. The two first fought in a July 2008 bout where Margarito won by TKO in the 11th round.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, Cotto is a strong fighter,\u201d Margarito said in the aftermath of the match. \u201cBut as the fight went on I told my corner I would wear him down and then knock him down. I told them [that] the knockout would come and the knockout came. … He never hurt me, really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Six months after Margarito battered Cotto, a California State Athletic Commission inspector confiscated hardened inserts caked with plaster of Paris in Margarito\u2019s hand wraps before a welterweight title fight against Shane Mosley. Margarito\u2019s wraps were changed before he lost the fight to Mosley.<\/p>\n

Margarito and his trainer, Javier Capetillo, had their licenses revoked in February 2009<\/a> by the California commission for one year. The Mexican fighter was reinstated in several states including Texas and New York in the two years following the scandal.<\/p>\n

Cotto and his advisors claimed that a photograph showed evidence Margarito used illegally hardened hand wraps<\/a> in the 2008 match to help him defeat the previously unbeaten Cotto.<\/p>\n

The duo held a rematch three years later in which Cotto won via a ninth-round TKO.<\/p>\n

The feud has carried on into the 2020s as Mexican boxer Canelo Alvarez defeated Puerto Rico\u2019s Edgar Berlanga<\/a> in a September 2024 fight.<\/p>\n

Berlanga lost for the first time in his career, dropping to 22-1-0.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did good. Now what are they going to say? They said I don\u2019t fight young fighters,\u201d said \u00c1lvarez while still in the ring. \u201cThey always talk, but I\u2019m the best fighter in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zayas \u2014 who appeared in the halftime show \u2014 left his mark on the ongoing rivalry when he bested Mexican boxer Jorge Garcia Perez<\/a> in a unanimous decision in July 2025.<\/p>\n

Overall, Puerto Rico has amassed 84 wins all time in the rivalry while Mexico has 74 wins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Bad Bunny walked through a makeshift sugarcane field on Sunday night at Levi\u2019s Stadium in Santa Clara,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[242391,28129,64,63,5975,802,68372,242390,120167,25283,1913,2990,22795,2184,41634,32494,85,17827,1547],"class_list":["post-475859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-10th-round","tag-antonio-margarito","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-bout","tag-boxing","tag-chavez","tag-cotto","tag-december","tag-felix-trinidad","tag-fight","tag-knockout","tag-match","tag-mexico","tag-puerto-rico","tag-san-juan","tag-sports","tag-tko","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}