Listen to the full interview via the podcast
Just over two years ago, one of the all-time great boxers passed away in Havana at the age of 60.
A three-time Olympic heavyweight champion, Teofilo Stevenson is often regarded as Cuba's greatest boxer. But in the eye of a Cold War storm, he could have achieved even more.
Tonight, we were joined by the author of A Cuban Boxer's Journey: Guillermo Rigondeaux, from Castro's Traitor to American Champion documentary filmmaker Brin-Jonathan Butler to tell the story of a man who could have fought Muhammad Ali.
"Teofilo Stevenson won his first Olympic medal in 1972 and went on to win two more to become the second man in history after Laszlo Papp to do it. Along the way, around 1976, both Bob Arum and Don King offered him around €5 million to leave Cuba and fight professionally against Muhammad Ali as his first fight," said Butler.
But he turned it down and spent the rest of his life in Cuba, leaving a question of what might have been.
Butler revealed that heavyweight legend George Foreman once told him that Stevenson was "the class of that heavyweight era and would have dominated every heavyweight had he turned professional."
Outside the ring, Stevenson was a political tool and symbol for Fidel Castro's communist regime in Cuba.
"Castro always used boxing and Teofilo Stevenson was his great champion, his favourite athlete," Butler explained, recounting how Stevenson's weighed up decision not to defect, choosing between wealth in the US, and not leaving his family behind in Cuba.
A few years ago, Butler interviewed Stevenson and the latter wanted money to sit down for the chat, and one then wonders whether his alcoholism and personal descent was related to his decision to remain in Cuba.
Butler then discussed the dilemma faced by Cuban fighters who decide to defect and turn professional in the US.
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