Yamil Chade
Encyclopedia
Yamil Chade was a part Lebanese
, part Cuban
and Puerto Rican
sports team owner and athlete manager.
, but by his 20s he had moved to Puerto Rico
, where some of his ancestors came from. By the late 1940s, Chade became interested in boxing
; although he himself had no interest in getting into boxing as a participator, he gained a license to manage boxers while still a relatively young man.
One of the first boxers that Chade managed was Kid Gavilán
. On May 17, 1951, Gavilán became Chade's first world boxing champion when he defeated Johnny Saxton
by a decision in fifteen rounds to win the world Welterweight title. By then, Chade had become a fixture around boxing circles in the Eastern coast of the United States.
Two decades later, Chade met a young Puerto Rican prospect, Wilfredo Gómez
. Chade signed Gómez when Gómez was still an amateur fighter. After Gómez won the professional, WBC
world Jr. featherweight title in 1977, both him and Chade gained celebrity status in Puerto Rico and abroad. Chade attempted to make Gómez famous around the world, going with Gómez to Central America before Gómez won his first world title, and taking him to Japan and Thailand
to defend it. But Gómez became an iconic figure in Puerto Rico and among Hispanic
s in the United States, so most of his fights were confined to those two countries.
Many people in Puerto Rico actually believed that Chade was Gómez's trainer as well, but Gómez was trained
by Félix Pagan Pintor.
Chade's relationship with Gómez became sour after Gómez's fight with Lupe Pintor
in 1982; Gómez went through a transitional period during 1983, becoming a Featherweight, and he only had two, non title bouts that year. This was due in fact that one of Gómez's lifelong dreams was to win the world Featherweight title (which he did in 1984 by beating Juan Laporte
). Chade, meanwhile, signed a contract to try to revive Wilfred Benítez
's career during that same year.
After Benitez lost to Davey Moore
in Monaco
, a retirement seemed imminent for the former three division world champion. After Chade and Benitez became contractually involved, however, Benitez returned with three wins, including two over world ranked boxers: Benitez knocked out former Donald Curry
world title challenger Elio Diaz in two rounds at Venezuela
, and he outpointed Kevin Moley, who was ranked among the top ten Jr. Middleweights at the time, in ten rounds at New York City's Madison Square Garden
. Benitez lost his next two fights and was left stranded in Argentina
after his passport was stolen, however, and Chade then concentrated on the career of Carlos De León
, four times world Cruiserweight champion. During his tenure with DeLeon, there were talks about a "super-fight" involving DeLeon and the then undisputed world Heavyweight champion Mike Tyson
(the term "super-fight" is used in boxing when two well known boxers are to fight each other; for example, Tyson's fight with Michael Spinks
in 1988 was named the "super-fight 1988" by most United States boxing magazines).
During 1991, Chade and Félix Trinidad Sr. began a partnership in order to take Félix Trinidad Jr.
to professional world championships. Once again, Chade employed the same tactics that he tried to use with Gómez on Trinidad Jr., by taking him to different countries to box so he could become well known around the world. Trinidad Jr. fought in France and Italy early in his career. Before Trinidad knocked out
Pedro Torres
in Mexico as part of the Julio César Chávez
- Greg Haugen undercard, Chade suffered a heart attack
, requiring hospitalization. Chade recuperated and was soon again one of the two men leading Trinidad Jr.'s career.
After Félix Trinidad Jr. became the IBF
's world Welterweight champion in 1993, Chade continued on trying to make him well known across the world; Trinidad defended his title once in Monterrey
, Mexico, in 1994.
The relationship between Chade and the Trinidads became so bad that, in 1995, a court
dissolved the contract tying Chade and the Trinidads.
Perhaps fed up with boxing, Chade turned to basketball
, buying the BSN's Arecibo Captains
in 2003. The Captains had not won a Puerto Rican national championship tournament since 1959, and when Chade and other team personnel promised the city of Arecibo, Puerto Rico
that they would become champions again soon, they were met with many skeptics, both among Puerto Rican basketball fans and sports writers. But, after signing Larry Ayuso, Edgar Padilla, Mario Butler
, Keenon Jourdan, former Chicago Bulls
player Dickey Simpkins
, and Sharif Fajardo
, among others, the Captains became champions for the second time in their team's history, when they defeated the Bayamón Cowboys in four games at the 2005 BSN finals.
During march of that year, rumors surfaced that Chade, alongside Captains' vice-president Regilio Babilonia, was planning to buy a Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League team as well, but Chade and Babilonia soon after dropped their offer, with Chade saying that "With the Captains' win, we have enough".
Lebanon
Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among...
, part Cuban
Cubans
Cubans or Cuban people are the inhabitants or citizens of Cuba. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
and Puerto Rican
Puerto Rican people
A Puerto Rican is a person who was born in Puerto Rico.Puerto Ricans born and raised in the continental United States are also sometimes referred to as Puerto Ricans, although they were not born in Puerto Rico...
sports team owner and athlete manager.
Biography
Yamil Chade was born in Lebanon. He spent his teenage years in CubaCuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, but by his 20s he had moved to Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
, where some of his ancestors came from. By the late 1940s, Chade became interested in boxing
Boxing
Boxing, also called pugilism, is a combat sport in which two people fight each other using their fists. Boxing is supervised by a referee over a series of between one to three minute intervals called rounds...
; although he himself had no interest in getting into boxing as a participator, he gained a license to manage boxers while still a relatively young man.
One of the first boxers that Chade managed was Kid Gavilán
Kid Gavilan
Gerardo González , better known in the boxing world as Kid Gavilan, was a former world welterweight champion from Cuba...
. On May 17, 1951, Gavilán became Chade's first world boxing champion when he defeated Johnny Saxton
Johnny Saxton
Johnny Saxton was an American professional boxer in the welterweight division. He was born in Newark, New Jersey, learned to box in a Brooklyn orphanage and had an amateur career winning 31 of 33 fights, twice becoming World Welterweight Champion.- Professional career :Saxton turned professional...
by a decision in fifteen rounds to win the world Welterweight title. By then, Chade had become a fixture around boxing circles in the Eastern coast of the United States.
Two decades later, Chade met a young Puerto Rican prospect, Wilfredo Gómez
Wilfredo Gómez
Wilfredo Gómez , sometimes referred to as Bazooka Gómez, is a former boxer and three time world champion.-Biography:...
. Chade signed Gómez when Gómez was still an amateur fighter. After Gómez won the professional, WBC
World Boxing Council
The World Boxing Council was initially established by 11 countries: the United States, Argentina, United Kingdom, France, Mexico, Philippines, Panama, Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil plus Puerto Rico, met in Mexico City on February 14, 1963, upon invitation of the then President of Mexico, Adolfo...
world Jr. featherweight title in 1977, both him and Chade gained celebrity status in Puerto Rico and abroad. Chade attempted to make Gómez famous around the world, going with Gómez to Central America before Gómez won his first world title, and taking him to Japan and Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
to defend it. But Gómez became an iconic figure in Puerto Rico and among Hispanic
Hispanic
Hispanic is a term that originally denoted a relationship to Hispania, which is to say the Iberian Peninsula: Andorra, Gibraltar, Portugal and Spain. During the Modern Era, Hispanic sometimes takes on a more limited meaning, particularly in the United States, where the term means a person of ...
s in the United States, so most of his fights were confined to those two countries.
Many people in Puerto Rico actually believed that Chade was Gómez's trainer as well, but Gómez was trained
Boxing training
Boxing training is the training method that boxers use in order to get more fit for their sport. This training method is often cited by medical doctors, boxing trainers, and writers as one of the most spartan forms of sports training.- Training :...
by Félix Pagan Pintor.
Chade's relationship with Gómez became sour after Gómez's fight with Lupe Pintor
Lupe Pintor
Jose Guadalupe Pintor Guzman , better known as Lupe Pintor, is a former world boxing champion from Cuajimalpa, Mexico. Nicknamed El Indio De Cuajimalpa or The Indian From Cuajimalpa, he started boxing professionally in 1974...
in 1982; Gómez went through a transitional period during 1983, becoming a Featherweight, and he only had two, non title bouts that year. This was due in fact that one of Gómez's lifelong dreams was to win the world Featherweight title (which he did in 1984 by beating Juan Laporte
Juan Laporte
Juan Laporte is a former boxer who was born in Guayama, Puerto Rico.-Amateur career:Juan Laporte won the 1976 112 lb New York Golden Gloves Sub-Novice Championship. He defeated Long Island's Ricky Brown in the finals. Laporte was defeated by Joseph Nieto of the Police Athletic Leagues Lynch...
). Chade, meanwhile, signed a contract to try to revive Wilfred Benítez
Wilfred Benitez
Wilfred Benítez , is a Puerto Rican boxer. He is remembered best as a skilled and aggressive fighter with exceptional defensive abilities who won world championships in three separate weight divisions, and was the youngest world champion in boxing history at the age of 17...
's career during that same year.
After Benitez lost to Davey Moore
Davey Moore (1980s)
Davey Moore was an American world champion boxer, the second of two boxers who shared the name in the late 20th century, and whose respective careers each ended with death by trauma around the age of thirty....
in Monaco
Monaco
Monaco , officially the Principality of Monaco , is a sovereign city state on the French Riviera. It is bordered on three sides by its neighbour, France, and its centre is about from Italy. Its area is with a population of 35,986 as of 2011 and is the most densely populated country in the...
, a retirement seemed imminent for the former three division world champion. After Chade and Benitez became contractually involved, however, Benitez returned with three wins, including two over world ranked boxers: Benitez knocked out former Donald Curry
Donald Curry
Donald Curry is a retired boxer from Fort Worth, Texas, United States. Nicknamed the "Lone Star Cobra," Curry was the Undisputed World Welterweight Champion and the WBC Super Welterweight Champion.-Amateur career:...
world title challenger Elio Diaz in two rounds at Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, and he outpointed Kevin Moley, who was ranked among the top ten Jr. Middleweights at the time, in ten rounds at New York City's Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden
Madison Square Garden, often abbreviated as MSG and known colloquially as The Garden, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the New York City borough of Manhattan and located at 8th Avenue, between 31st and 33rd Streets, situated on top of Pennsylvania Station.Opened on February 11, 1968, it is the...
. Benitez lost his next two fights and was left stranded in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
after his passport was stolen, however, and Chade then concentrated on the career of Carlos De León
Carlos De Leon
Carlos De León, also known as "Sugar" De Leon, is a Puerto Rican former boxer who made history by becoming the first Cruiserweight to win the world title twice. Subsequently, he kept breaking his own record for the most times as Cruiserweight champion by regaining it twice more.- Career :De León,...
, four times world Cruiserweight champion. During his tenure with DeLeon, there were talks about a "super-fight" involving DeLeon and the then undisputed world Heavyweight champion Mike Tyson
Mike Tyson
Michael Gerard "Mike" Tyson is a retired American boxer. Tyson is a former undisputed heavyweight champion of the world and holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles, he was 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old...
(the term "super-fight" is used in boxing when two well known boxers are to fight each other; for example, Tyson's fight with Michael Spinks
Michael Spinks
Michael Spinks is a retired American boxer who was a world champion in the light-heavyweight and heavyweight divisions...
in 1988 was named the "super-fight 1988" by most United States boxing magazines).
During 1991, Chade and Félix Trinidad Sr. began a partnership in order to take Félix Trinidad Jr.
Félix Trinidad
Félix 'Tito' Trinidad, Jr. is a Puerto Rican professional boxer, considered one of the best in Puerto Rico's history. After winning five National Amateur Championships in Puerto Rico, he debuted as a professional when he was 17. He won his first world championship when he defeated Maurice Blocker...
to professional world championships. Once again, Chade employed the same tactics that he tried to use with Gómez on Trinidad Jr., by taking him to different countries to box so he could become well known around the world. Trinidad Jr. fought in France and Italy early in his career. Before Trinidad knocked out
Knockout
A knockout is a fight-ending, winning criterion in several full-contact combat sports, such as boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, mixed martial arts, Karate and others sports involving striking...
Pedro Torres
Pedro Torres
Pedro Torres Cruces is a Spanish former road bicycle racer. He won the Polka dot jersey in the 1973 Tour de France.- Palmarès :1973...
in Mexico as part of the Julio César Chávez
Julio César Chávez
Julio César Chávez is a retired Mexican professional boxer.He is a six-time world champion in three weight divisions, and for several years he was considered the best pound-for-pound boxer in the world...
- Greg Haugen undercard, Chade suffered a heart attack
Myocardial infarction
Myocardial infarction or acute myocardial infarction , commonly known as a heart attack, results from the interruption of blood supply to a part of the heart, causing heart cells to die...
, requiring hospitalization. Chade recuperated and was soon again one of the two men leading Trinidad Jr.'s career.
After Félix Trinidad Jr. became the IBF
International Boxing Federation
The International Boxing Federation or IBF is one of four major organizations recognized by IBHOF which sanction world championship boxing bouts, alongside the WBA, WBC and WBO.- History :...
's world Welterweight champion in 1993, Chade continued on trying to make him well known across the world; Trinidad defended his title once in Monterrey
Monterrey
Monterrey , is the capital city of the northeastern state of Nuevo León in the country of Mexico. The city is anchor to the third-largest metropolitan area in Mexico and is ranked as the ninth-largest city in the nation. Monterrey serves as a commercial center in the north of the country and is the...
, Mexico, in 1994.
The relationship between Chade and the Trinidads became so bad that, in 1995, a court
Court
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...
dissolved the contract tying Chade and the Trinidads.
Perhaps fed up with boxing, Chade turned to basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, buying the BSN's Arecibo Captains
Arecibo Captains
The Capitanes de Arecibo are a team in the Baloncesto Superior Nacional , Puerto Rico's main basketball league. In 2010, the team also played in the Premier Basketball League under the name Capitanes de Puerto Rico....
in 2003. The Captains had not won a Puerto Rican national championship tournament since 1959, and when Chade and other team personnel promised the city of Arecibo, Puerto Rico
Arecibo, Puerto Rico
Arecibo is a municipality in the northern midwest coast of Puerto Rico and located by the Atlantic Ocean, north of Utuado and Ciales; east of Hatillo; and west of Barceloneta, and Florida. Arecibo is spread over 18 wards and Arecibo Pueblo...
that they would become champions again soon, they were met with many skeptics, both among Puerto Rican basketball fans and sports writers. But, after signing Larry Ayuso, Edgar Padilla, Mario Butler
Mario Butler
Mario Butler is a former basketball player who acquired much fame across Latin America, specially in his native Panama and in...
, Keenon Jourdan, former Chicago Bulls
Chicago Bulls
The Chicago Bulls are an American professional basketball team based in Chicago, Illinois, playing in the Central Division of the Eastern Conference in the National Basketball Association . The team was founded in 1966. They play their home games at the United Center...
player Dickey Simpkins
Dickey Simpkins
LuBara Dixon "Dickey" Simpkins is an American former professional basketball player best known for his tenure with the Chicago Bulls in the late 1990s...
, and Sharif Fajardo
Sharif Fajardo
Sharif Karim Fajardo Blanding in New York) is a Puerto Rican professional basketball player. Fajardo has played in the CBA, NCAA, and the National Superior Basketball League of Puerto Rico with Santurce Crabbers, Quebradillas Pirates and the San Germán Athletics. Fajardo has played...
, among others, the Captains became champions for the second time in their team's history, when they defeated the Bayamón Cowboys in four games at the 2005 BSN finals.
During march of that year, rumors surfaced that Chade, alongside Captains' vice-president Regilio Babilonia, was planning to buy a Puerto Rican Professional Baseball League team as well, but Chade and Babilonia soon after dropped their offer, with Chade saying that "With the Captains' win, we have enough".