Juan Domingo Roldan Succumbs to Covid-19 at age 63; fought Hagler and Hearns

As first reported by The Ring writer Diego Morilla, the boxing fraternity has lost another gladiator in the form of Juan Domingo Roldan who died today, Nov. 18, in San Francisco, Argentina, the town of his birth, where he had been hospitalized with respiratory problems after testing positive. A barrel-chested middleweight who carved out a 67-5-2 (47) record during an 11-year career that began in 1978, Roldan was 63 years old.

Roldan stalked Marvin Hagler and eventually succeeded in luring the Marvelous One into the ring. The Argentine’s first two fights in the United States were preliminary matches on Hagler title defenses in 1983, the first in Worcester, Mass, and the second in Providence, RI. Later that same year, he opposed Frank “The Animal” Fletcher on the undercard of Hagler-Duran at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Roldan made a big splash, knocking out Fletcher with a crushing right hand near the end of round six. It took several minutes before “The Animal” was able to regain complete consciousness. Asked after the fight whether he expected Fletcher to provide stiffer opposition, Roldan answered “no.” It was the perfect answer; he wasn’t prodded to elaborate.

Bob Arum immediately matched Roldan against Hagler who would be making the ninth defense of his world middleweight title. They met at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas on March 30, 1984.

Roldan was a big underdog. At the leading sports book on the Las Vegas Strip, Hagler was a 7 ½ – 1 (minus-750) favorite. Bob Verdi of the Chicago Tribune provided the book on Roldan — “finesse is not in his game” — while writing that the Argentine, ranked #1 by the WBA, was a “mandatory annoyance.”

Hagler stopped him in the 10^th. Roldan lacked finesse, that was true, but he wasn’t an easy nut to crack. “That guy was very strong,” Hagler told reporters after the fight.

Roldan returned to Argentina and ran off a 13-fight winning streak to earn another ticket to Las Vegas. On April 4, 1986, on the undercard of the Hagler-Leonard megafight, he thrust himself back into the middleweight picture with a TKO over favored James Kinchen who Roldan clubbed into submission in the ninth round.

The carrot was a match with Thomas Hearns. They met on Oct. 29, 1987 at the Las Vegas Hilton in a makeshift outdoor arena behind the property’s SuperBook. Roldan was down twice in the first round and again in the second and was counted out in the fourth, but that doesn’t begin to tell the story. The “Hitman” was two punches away from being knocked out himself noted Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter John L. Smith who likened the donnybrook to a poor man’s version of Hagler-Hearns.

Michael Nunn appeared on the undercard and looked sensational while advancing his record to 27-0 with a fourth-round stoppage of Darnell Knox. Roldan was of a mind to retire after losing to Hearns, but he couldn’t pass up the big payday when offered a chance to fight Nunn for Nunn’s IBF middleweight title belt. Nunn stopped him in the eighth round and Roldan called it quits.

Juan Domingo Roldan was the son of dairy farm workers. According to the aforementioned Morilla, Roldan used some of his ring earnings to purchase the very farm on which his family had worked and became a successful rancher and businessman. Unfortunately, he also let his weight balloon to an unhealthy level which made him more vulnerable when he caught the virus.

We at The Sweet Science send our condolences to his family and loved ones. May he rest in peace.

Check out more boxing news on video at the Boxing Channel 

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE