By Felipe Leon
As the “Golden Boy” OScar De La Hoya announced his retirement a couple of weeks ago, I believed that we were ushering in a new era in boxing.
I was wrong.
After the exciting wins this weekend of two relative new comers to the professional ranks and the boxing radar in Juan Manuel Lopez and Carl Froch, two dinosaurs of years past are threatening to lace up the gloves and try to reacapture their now long lost glory and not to mention plenty of sheckles in their coffers.
It has been reported over the internet that former welterweight, super welterweight and middleweight champion Felix “Tito” Trinidad will try to avenge his 2001 loss to former undisputed middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins later this year.
Their first bout was mirred in controversy. Hopkins desecrated the Puerto Rican flag by ripping it from Trinidad’s hands and throwing it on the ground at the actual bout had to be pushed back because of the 9/11 tragedy.
Hopkins won the first fight with via 12th round TKO when “Papa” Trinidad threw in the towel to save his son.
It seems as if the bout is just about signed, sealed and delivered with minor details being worked out between Don King and Golden Boy Promotions.
Nobody can argue what the careers of both men have meant for the sport of boxing. While Hopkins at 44 years of age continues to school fighters young and old inside the ring as was the case in his last bout when he exposed Kelly Pavlik at a catch weight of 170 lbs, Trinidad has been content in fighting every couple of years for major paydays as he is considered one of the top PPV draws because of his loyal Puerto Rican following.
But is this fight really necessary?
Unlike the two exciting fights over the weekend, the Hopkins-Trinidad will not reveal anything about either fighter or the division.
First of all, we are not sure they will be fighting within a division since it is rumored that they will be meeting at a catch weight.
Although Hopkins did look as sharp as the Hopkins of his middleweight run in his last bout, it does not seem as he is interested in pursuing a belt besides the Ring Magazine strap at super middleweight or light heavyweight and instead just picks and chooses the biggest money fights within those ranks.
Trinidad has not been a player in any division since he announced his retirement.
More than likely I will watch this fight but I believe the result will not surprise anyone. Despite Hopkins looking all of his middle aged years against the slightly younger and more active Calzaghe in April of 2008, he shocked the boxing world when he neutralized the current middleweight champion of the world Kelly Pavlik late last year.
Trinidad is 1-3 since taking a two year exodus from the ring. He announced his retirement in May of ‘05 but returned to the squared circle early last year to another member of the senior citizen tour, Roy Jones Jr.
For boxing to regain its luster that so many have said it has lost, it must move away from these type of fights. The public is not a foolish one and anybody that can fog up a mirror can see that this is purely a money grab.
Although it might be hard to argue that any fight that is broadcast by HBO, Showtime and even ESPN has some type of meaning for the division or the fighter, and argument can still be made, no matter how delicate it might be.
There is no viable reason why this fight should be made.
The pockets of Trinidad, Hopkins, De La Hoya and King might want to rebutt that statement.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
“Jazzy Jeff“, the Quiet Mayweather Speaks Up
By Dan Hernandez
“Boxing is a one on one sport…No one is going to tap you on the shoulder and sub for you!”
Jeff Mayweather, Trainer and Former World Champion Boxer
“Jazzy” Jeff Mayweather had a ring record of 32-10-5 (10 KO’s). He accomplished his goal of winning a world title, the IBO super featherweight crown, from John Ruby on April 21, 1994. He is better known today as an excellent trainer and developer of young boxing talent. He is also part of the royalty of boxing. He is the brother of Floyd Mayweather Sr. and Roger Mayweather, and the uncle to the retired undisputed pound-for-pound kingpin of boxing, Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Jeff is represented by VMG Worldwide Inc. , who is one of the leading presenters of sports, media, and entertainment in the world. VMG is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vexiom Corporation who owns or controls a collection of companies, including; VMG Marketing, VMG Management, VMG Event, and VMG Entertainment. It is my pleasure to thank Nicholas Sampson, Vice President of VMG Worldwide Inc. for arranging this interview and Tyler Barr, CEO/President of VMG Worldwide Inc., for encouraging Jeff’s participation. Mayweather was enthusiastic in discussing the upcoming Pacquiao-Hatton bout in Las Vegas, Nevada, his family, and his personal goals.
DH: Where did you get the nickname of “Jazzy Jeff”?
A lot of people thought I was named after the rapper but basically, a friend of mine gave me that name a long, long time ago. Some of my teachers used it also, they called me Jazzy because I used to dress up when I went to school.
DH: So you always dressed sharp then, is that right?
Yeah, they used to say that, “You look real jazzy today.” The name just kind of stuck.
DH: How about today, do you still dress up sharp?
Occasionally, when I have to. (Laughter)
DH: When you were a fighter, you won the IBO Super Featherweight title. How did it feel when you won that championship?
It felt good; it felt like I had arrived. Anytime you do any kind of sport, at the end of your career, you want to be able to look back and say, I achieved something in this sport. It wasn’t the title that I would have preferred to win, but I’m glad I was able to win a title.
DH: Congratulations on that, you can never lose that, it’s in the records.
No that’s true; I have proof of it, at home.
DH: Jeff, your family is famous in boxing with: Roger, Floyd Sr., and your nephew, Floyd Jr. Were there fighters or other people in your family involved with boxing prior to your immediate family?
No, it started with my brother, Floyd Sr., that’s as far back as I know. My dad was never a fighter and I never heard of anyone in his family being a fighter. It all started with us, with Floyd Sr.
DH: How much older than you is Floyd Sr.?
I think 10 years.
DH: Did you guys ever come to blows growing up?
No, no, never, however, Roger and I had a few.
DH: You all seem to get along well now, do you always work together?
Actually, we all work separately; we all try to be in support of one another. However, we all do our own separate things.
DH: Another nickname for you is “The Quiet Mayweather”, why is that?
They call me that too, because I’m not flamboyant, I’m not boisterous, and I just try to let my work speak for itself and get along with everyone.
DH: I like that. Is your popularity as a trainer growing?
Lately I’ve been getting a lot of calls and a lot of people are trying to contact me, it’s a good position to be in.
DH: Do you enjoy training people as much as you did boxing?
To be honest, I think I enjoy being a trainer better than being a fighter.
DH: How is that?
It’s kind of like being an artist and you’re painting a portrait. Once you start, you don’t really know what it’s going to look like when you’re done. Sometimes you’re lucky and you create a masterpiece, you create something special. So far, I’ve had a pretty good ratio of people that I’ve trained; over 95% of the people that trained with me have been winners.
DH: Are you attending the Hatton-Pacquiao bout?
Yes I am, I’m going in support of my brother and as a fan. I would love to be in the corner but I’m just going as a fan. Unfortunately, that job of training of Hatton was already taken. (Laughter)
DH: Who is going to win that fight?
Well, I’m rooting for Hatton. Of course when I say that, the first thing people say that it is because my brother is training Hatton. But, no, I would say that even if my brother weren’t training him. I think that Pacquiao got far too much credit for beating a drained De La Hoya, I mean Oscar had depleted himself of everything, he went in the ring that way and it showed. I had picked De La Hoya to win that fight, but I didn‘t know that he had done that to himself.
Pacquiao struggled at 126 pounds, I mean the two fights with Marquez could have gone either way. As a matter of fact, the second one I actually gave to Marquez. It’s a situation where Hatton is the bigger man and I believe the smarter man. I think Pacquiao is a heck of a fighter, but I don’t think he has what it takes to makes the adjustments that are necessary to beat Hatton. Hatton gave Floyd Jr. for five rounds before my nephew was able to overcome his style, and I think that in all honesty that Floyd is probably the smartest fighter in the world.
DH: Floyd is awesome, no doubt about it.
So, I can’t see Pacquiao being able to make the same adjustments that Floyd did. A lot has to be taken into consideration when you’re talking about a fight of this magnitude.
DH: Have you found that the smarter a boxer is, the more effective he is, and the longer his career?
Certainly, sometimes you have to make adjustments in the middle of a fight. That’s where the smartness comes through. Just like Bernard Hopkins, at an age where he should be home watching the fights, he’s still winning big matches. He has style and smarts.
DH: Does that go down to training also, showing boxers how to switch styles or plans in mid-stream?
You are fortunate if you have a fighter that can do that. I believe most trainers try to instill that in their fighters but few boxers have that ability.
DH: How many fighters are you working with at present?
Currently I’m working with four professional fighters and a few amateurs as well. Professionals that I am working with are; Mickey Bey, Cortez Bey, Lorissa Rivas, and Renell Griffen. Griffen is a kid from New Orleans and Lorissa is a female fighter. They are all good and I believe that they’ll get better with me. Mickey and Cortez are already proven fighters I just hope to make them even better.
DH: How do you keep them focused with so many distractions?
Boxing is a sport in which you have to focus to get the most out of it you have to be focused. In any sport, you can’t worry about what’s going on in the world, you just got to do what you do. As a trainer I try to come in with a positive mindset and giving them the benefit of that. It’s mutual. I give them my full and positive attention and I expect the same.
DH: Do you have any other goals beyond boxing or in boxing?
Of course, all trainers have the goal of taking their fighters to fight for a championship. I have been blessed by having a few fighters that have been in that position. What’s more important now is what happens after boxing. That’s why my brothers and I have many interests, we all work hard to enhance our name and to add value to our name in the sport of boxing. We are trying to ensure a good future for ourselves.
DH: After the Mayweather-Hatton fight, Floyd mentioned starting his own promotional venture, a la Golden Boy. Has anything come of that?
He actually ended up retiring after that fight and it would have been a perfect time to begin promoting if that’s what he wanted, but he’s young and has time to accomplish whatever he wants. I’m kind of in the dark in that situation, but it seems that that plan is off to the side right now.
DH: Jeff in closing, do you have any words of wisdom that you’d like to share young boxers?
When it comes to boxing as a profession, you have to be focused and it has to be something that in your heart, that it’s something that you know you want to do. It’s not a game, it’s not like most sports. I mean football and basketball are games, but boxing is fighting. If you look at this as a career, you have to realize that what you’re doing and that’s what you’re doing the rest of your life. No one is going to come in a tap you on the shoulder to sub for you; it’s a one on one sport. It is not tidily winks. On the other hand, all the glory and all the spoils will go to you.
“Boxing is a one on one sport…No one is going to tap you on the shoulder and sub for you!”
Jeff Mayweather, Trainer and Former World Champion Boxer
“Jazzy” Jeff Mayweather had a ring record of 32-10-5 (10 KO’s). He accomplished his goal of winning a world title, the IBO super featherweight crown, from John Ruby on April 21, 1994. He is better known today as an excellent trainer and developer of young boxing talent. He is also part of the royalty of boxing. He is the brother of Floyd Mayweather Sr. and Roger Mayweather, and the uncle to the retired undisputed pound-for-pound kingpin of boxing, Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Jeff is represented by VMG Worldwide Inc. , who is one of the leading presenters of sports, media, and entertainment in the world. VMG is a wholly owned subsidiary of Vexiom Corporation who owns or controls a collection of companies, including; VMG Marketing, VMG Management, VMG Event, and VMG Entertainment. It is my pleasure to thank Nicholas Sampson, Vice President of VMG Worldwide Inc. for arranging this interview and Tyler Barr, CEO/President of VMG Worldwide Inc., for encouraging Jeff’s participation. Mayweather was enthusiastic in discussing the upcoming Pacquiao-Hatton bout in Las Vegas, Nevada, his family, and his personal goals.
DH: Where did you get the nickname of “Jazzy Jeff”?
A lot of people thought I was named after the rapper but basically, a friend of mine gave me that name a long, long time ago. Some of my teachers used it also, they called me Jazzy because I used to dress up when I went to school.
DH: So you always dressed sharp then, is that right?
Yeah, they used to say that, “You look real jazzy today.” The name just kind of stuck.
DH: How about today, do you still dress up sharp?
Occasionally, when I have to. (Laughter)
DH: When you were a fighter, you won the IBO Super Featherweight title. How did it feel when you won that championship?
It felt good; it felt like I had arrived. Anytime you do any kind of sport, at the end of your career, you want to be able to look back and say, I achieved something in this sport. It wasn’t the title that I would have preferred to win, but I’m glad I was able to win a title.
DH: Congratulations on that, you can never lose that, it’s in the records.
No that’s true; I have proof of it, at home.
DH: Jeff, your family is famous in boxing with: Roger, Floyd Sr., and your nephew, Floyd Jr. Were there fighters or other people in your family involved with boxing prior to your immediate family?
No, it started with my brother, Floyd Sr., that’s as far back as I know. My dad was never a fighter and I never heard of anyone in his family being a fighter. It all started with us, with Floyd Sr.
DH: How much older than you is Floyd Sr.?
I think 10 years.
DH: Did you guys ever come to blows growing up?
No, no, never, however, Roger and I had a few.
DH: You all seem to get along well now, do you always work together?
Actually, we all work separately; we all try to be in support of one another. However, we all do our own separate things.
DH: Another nickname for you is “The Quiet Mayweather”, why is that?
They call me that too, because I’m not flamboyant, I’m not boisterous, and I just try to let my work speak for itself and get along with everyone.
DH: I like that. Is your popularity as a trainer growing?
Lately I’ve been getting a lot of calls and a lot of people are trying to contact me, it’s a good position to be in.
DH: Do you enjoy training people as much as you did boxing?
To be honest, I think I enjoy being a trainer better than being a fighter.
DH: How is that?
It’s kind of like being an artist and you’re painting a portrait. Once you start, you don’t really know what it’s going to look like when you’re done. Sometimes you’re lucky and you create a masterpiece, you create something special. So far, I’ve had a pretty good ratio of people that I’ve trained; over 95% of the people that trained with me have been winners.
DH: Are you attending the Hatton-Pacquiao bout?
Yes I am, I’m going in support of my brother and as a fan. I would love to be in the corner but I’m just going as a fan. Unfortunately, that job of training of Hatton was already taken. (Laughter)
DH: Who is going to win that fight?
Well, I’m rooting for Hatton. Of course when I say that, the first thing people say that it is because my brother is training Hatton. But, no, I would say that even if my brother weren’t training him. I think that Pacquiao got far too much credit for beating a drained De La Hoya, I mean Oscar had depleted himself of everything, he went in the ring that way and it showed. I had picked De La Hoya to win that fight, but I didn‘t know that he had done that to himself.
Pacquiao struggled at 126 pounds, I mean the two fights with Marquez could have gone either way. As a matter of fact, the second one I actually gave to Marquez. It’s a situation where Hatton is the bigger man and I believe the smarter man. I think Pacquiao is a heck of a fighter, but I don’t think he has what it takes to makes the adjustments that are necessary to beat Hatton. Hatton gave Floyd Jr. for five rounds before my nephew was able to overcome his style, and I think that in all honesty that Floyd is probably the smartest fighter in the world.
DH: Floyd is awesome, no doubt about it.
So, I can’t see Pacquiao being able to make the same adjustments that Floyd did. A lot has to be taken into consideration when you’re talking about a fight of this magnitude.
DH: Have you found that the smarter a boxer is, the more effective he is, and the longer his career?
Certainly, sometimes you have to make adjustments in the middle of a fight. That’s where the smartness comes through. Just like Bernard Hopkins, at an age where he should be home watching the fights, he’s still winning big matches. He has style and smarts.
DH: Does that go down to training also, showing boxers how to switch styles or plans in mid-stream?
You are fortunate if you have a fighter that can do that. I believe most trainers try to instill that in their fighters but few boxers have that ability.
DH: How many fighters are you working with at present?
Currently I’m working with four professional fighters and a few amateurs as well. Professionals that I am working with are; Mickey Bey, Cortez Bey, Lorissa Rivas, and Renell Griffen. Griffen is a kid from New Orleans and Lorissa is a female fighter. They are all good and I believe that they’ll get better with me. Mickey and Cortez are already proven fighters I just hope to make them even better.
DH: How do you keep them focused with so many distractions?
Boxing is a sport in which you have to focus to get the most out of it you have to be focused. In any sport, you can’t worry about what’s going on in the world, you just got to do what you do. As a trainer I try to come in with a positive mindset and giving them the benefit of that. It’s mutual. I give them my full and positive attention and I expect the same.
DH: Do you have any other goals beyond boxing or in boxing?
Of course, all trainers have the goal of taking their fighters to fight for a championship. I have been blessed by having a few fighters that have been in that position. What’s more important now is what happens after boxing. That’s why my brothers and I have many interests, we all work hard to enhance our name and to add value to our name in the sport of boxing. We are trying to ensure a good future for ourselves.
DH: After the Mayweather-Hatton fight, Floyd mentioned starting his own promotional venture, a la Golden Boy. Has anything come of that?
He actually ended up retiring after that fight and it would have been a perfect time to begin promoting if that’s what he wanted, but he’s young and has time to accomplish whatever he wants. I’m kind of in the dark in that situation, but it seems that that plan is off to the side right now.
DH: Jeff in closing, do you have any words of wisdom that you’d like to share young boxers?
When it comes to boxing as a profession, you have to be focused and it has to be something that in your heart, that it’s something that you know you want to do. It’s not a game, it’s not like most sports. I mean football and basketball are games, but boxing is fighting. If you look at this as a career, you have to realize that what you’re doing and that’s what you’re doing the rest of your life. No one is going to come in a tap you on the shoulder to sub for you; it’s a one on one sport. It is not tidily winks. On the other hand, all the glory and all the spoils will go to you.
Freddie Roach . . .
By Rick Farris
Freddie Roach
Occasionally, I'll stop by Wildcard to visit. I'm not close with Freddie Roach, but we will talk sometimes. His favorite fighter is Ruben Olivares, who I worked with for one fight 37-years-ago, so there is common interest. I think I worked a total of two dozen rounds with Olivares during that period, as he trained for Jesus Pimentel. Freddie wanted to know about Olivares, so I shared what memories I had, mainly what I saw him do with other sparring partners, his "habits" which were of concern to his promoter, George Parnassus. I was glad to have something of interest to provide.
Freddie's gym walls are loaded with memorabelia (as mentioned), and he wanted to show me a photo of his late father, in a fighting stance.You could see the family resemblence, the photo was B&W but you could tell the old man had the same red hair has the son. The apple didn't fall far from the tree. "My dad was a tough man, and he was hard on us. We got a lot beatings when he'd drink, my mom took the worst of it."
Roach told me what it was like in the South Boston area (Dedham, Mass.) where he was raised in the projects. "Some kids have swing sets in their yards, we had a boxing ring. Learning to box was not an option." Freddie's brother "Pepper" Roach was also a pro, and he works with boxers in his brother's gym, along with a crazy group of guys that seem to have followed Freddie west to make up quite an interesting group of gym rats. They have qualities that remind one of the old "Dead End Kids" movies.
Also working with boxers there is an old pal, Frankie Duarte. A couple years back, while visiting Duarte, we talked about the Teamster's Gym of the past and, of course, the name Frank Baltazar was mentioned. He told me stories about the 1973 National Golden Gloves team that Frank took to Boston. The stories were funny, and he wanted to talk with Frank, so I called Mr. Baltazar on my cell phone and handed it to Frankie. "Don't tell him who I am," Frankie insisted. I said, "OK, but don't piss him off being silly, or he'll stop taking my calls."
Anyway, this story brought back memories of that day. It's a great gym, Wildcard is that, however, it's too busy these days. Mel Epstein would really have a fit if he saw all the "broads" hanging out. He's say, "What are the whores doing here? Get 'em out or I'm leaving." And he'd leave. Things have changed, Mel.
Freddie Roach
Occasionally, I'll stop by Wildcard to visit. I'm not close with Freddie Roach, but we will talk sometimes. His favorite fighter is Ruben Olivares, who I worked with for one fight 37-years-ago, so there is common interest. I think I worked a total of two dozen rounds with Olivares during that period, as he trained for Jesus Pimentel. Freddie wanted to know about Olivares, so I shared what memories I had, mainly what I saw him do with other sparring partners, his "habits" which were of concern to his promoter, George Parnassus. I was glad to have something of interest to provide.
Freddie's gym walls are loaded with memorabelia (as mentioned), and he wanted to show me a photo of his late father, in a fighting stance.You could see the family resemblence, the photo was B&W but you could tell the old man had the same red hair has the son. The apple didn't fall far from the tree. "My dad was a tough man, and he was hard on us. We got a lot beatings when he'd drink, my mom took the worst of it."
Roach told me what it was like in the South Boston area (Dedham, Mass.) where he was raised in the projects. "Some kids have swing sets in their yards, we had a boxing ring. Learning to box was not an option." Freddie's brother "Pepper" Roach was also a pro, and he works with boxers in his brother's gym, along with a crazy group of guys that seem to have followed Freddie west to make up quite an interesting group of gym rats. They have qualities that remind one of the old "Dead End Kids" movies.
Also working with boxers there is an old pal, Frankie Duarte. A couple years back, while visiting Duarte, we talked about the Teamster's Gym of the past and, of course, the name Frank Baltazar was mentioned. He told me stories about the 1973 National Golden Gloves team that Frank took to Boston. The stories were funny, and he wanted to talk with Frank, so I called Mr. Baltazar on my cell phone and handed it to Frankie. "Don't tell him who I am," Frankie insisted. I said, "OK, but don't piss him off being silly, or he'll stop taking my calls."
Anyway, this story brought back memories of that day. It's a great gym, Wildcard is that, however, it's too busy these days. Mel Epstein would really have a fit if he saw all the "broads" hanging out. He's say, "What are the whores doing here? Get 'em out or I'm leaving." And he'd leave. Things have changed, Mel.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
The Kids of Today and Boxing . . .
By Rick farris
Everything changes. Today, many children are not taught that there are consequences to actions. Legalities prevent parents from disciplining their children, so it's not unusual for kids to grow up believeing that they can do as they wish until the day comes that they are literally hit in the face with brutal reality.
I'm speaking primarily of kids that grow up in America, where privleges are many, where even in economic challenging times such as these, they have it easy compared to the challenges of children in third world countries, where things are always tough and dangerous.
I was talking with my pal Steve Harpst last night. Steve is nearly 50, and grew up in Arizona where he boxed amateur in Tucson around the time the Baltazar boys were developing into solid professionals. Steve got a taste of boxing when there were still a few "old school" trainers around. Of course, that's all I knew in L.A. Nobody had to "encourage" me to hit the road, because I learned in my first bout what it felt like to run out of gas before the final bell. This introduced me first hand to "consequences".
It's kinda like that "picture that's worth a thousand words." You needn't be a Rhodes Scholar to understand a message punctuated by pain and humiliation. That's how I felt when I'd lose, humiliated, which was far more painful than the black eye I might have taken from the contest.
Today as I help Steve work with his young prospects, I'm adapting to working with as many as forty kids at a time. Certainly this is nothing unique. I'm more interested in working with the kid who has a desire, as opposed to the "natural talent" type that could care less about putting in the work necessary.
Today we have a few girls in the program. Little girls, age ten or so, and a few a little older. When I see a kid, girl or boy, really trying to get their feet under them, really trying, I step in and help. Naturally, you put most time in with those who are training for matches, but I really don't care what their future plans are. I hope most of these kids don't attempt to take their lessons into a pro ring, and most won't, or shouldn't.
A young Armenian girl quietly listens and tries hard. She is respectful and looks you in the eyes when you talk. She listens and she learns, she'll never have a fight, and it soesn't matter. Maybe one day she will be a fan and buy a ticket to a match. This is good for boxing.
I can be a disciplinarian when it comes to working with boxers, I don't sugar coat the consequences. I came up in places like the Johnny Flores Gym, Main Street Gym, Teamsters Gym, Shagrues, Stanton A.C., Sacred Heart Boys Club, etc. etc. These places no longer exist, nor do the men who made them thrive with boxing talent. It's a new world, and not a particularly a good one for young boxers in Los Angeles.
My ears are wide open to questions, however, I will not tolerate somebody "questioning" what I know to be true. A question on "how to" is invited, and I'll always provide the reason "why". But I will not debate the answer with a kid, they can listen and learn, or find out the hard way. I have no patience with today's philosophies on "open dialouge". We haven't the time.
How people live their lives outside the gym I've no control over. However, when I'm teaching it's my way, and my way only. I'm not there to be taught a lesson by a kid. Steve likes this, and it seems the kids do to. I love reading Roger's stories of the kids in his class room. He understands how society has changed, and his hands are often bound when it comes to getting his point across. In the boxing gym, I have no such constraints. If a kid is willing, so am I. That's all I can do.
I don't just teach about jabs & hooks, I talk of boxing history. I tell a brief story as the kids are wrapping their hands. They love it. And so do I. I try to let them know what it was like "back in the day."
Things have changed. We must adapt or die. But when it comes to boxing, if you don't learn your lessons properly and take it to a professional level, you can die. Sounds a bit dramatic, but I've seen it happen. We all have who post here.
Everything changes. Today, many children are not taught that there are consequences to actions. Legalities prevent parents from disciplining their children, so it's not unusual for kids to grow up believeing that they can do as they wish until the day comes that they are literally hit in the face with brutal reality.
I'm speaking primarily of kids that grow up in America, where privleges are many, where even in economic challenging times such as these, they have it easy compared to the challenges of children in third world countries, where things are always tough and dangerous.
I was talking with my pal Steve Harpst last night. Steve is nearly 50, and grew up in Arizona where he boxed amateur in Tucson around the time the Baltazar boys were developing into solid professionals. Steve got a taste of boxing when there were still a few "old school" trainers around. Of course, that's all I knew in L.A. Nobody had to "encourage" me to hit the road, because I learned in my first bout what it felt like to run out of gas before the final bell. This introduced me first hand to "consequences".
It's kinda like that "picture that's worth a thousand words." You needn't be a Rhodes Scholar to understand a message punctuated by pain and humiliation. That's how I felt when I'd lose, humiliated, which was far more painful than the black eye I might have taken from the contest.
Today as I help Steve work with his young prospects, I'm adapting to working with as many as forty kids at a time. Certainly this is nothing unique. I'm more interested in working with the kid who has a desire, as opposed to the "natural talent" type that could care less about putting in the work necessary.
Today we have a few girls in the program. Little girls, age ten or so, and a few a little older. When I see a kid, girl or boy, really trying to get their feet under them, really trying, I step in and help. Naturally, you put most time in with those who are training for matches, but I really don't care what their future plans are. I hope most of these kids don't attempt to take their lessons into a pro ring, and most won't, or shouldn't.
A young Armenian girl quietly listens and tries hard. She is respectful and looks you in the eyes when you talk. She listens and she learns, she'll never have a fight, and it soesn't matter. Maybe one day she will be a fan and buy a ticket to a match. This is good for boxing.
I can be a disciplinarian when it comes to working with boxers, I don't sugar coat the consequences. I came up in places like the Johnny Flores Gym, Main Street Gym, Teamsters Gym, Shagrues, Stanton A.C., Sacred Heart Boys Club, etc. etc. These places no longer exist, nor do the men who made them thrive with boxing talent. It's a new world, and not a particularly a good one for young boxers in Los Angeles.
My ears are wide open to questions, however, I will not tolerate somebody "questioning" what I know to be true. A question on "how to" is invited, and I'll always provide the reason "why". But I will not debate the answer with a kid, they can listen and learn, or find out the hard way. I have no patience with today's philosophies on "open dialouge". We haven't the time.
How people live their lives outside the gym I've no control over. However, when I'm teaching it's my way, and my way only. I'm not there to be taught a lesson by a kid. Steve likes this, and it seems the kids do to. I love reading Roger's stories of the kids in his class room. He understands how society has changed, and his hands are often bound when it comes to getting his point across. In the boxing gym, I have no such constraints. If a kid is willing, so am I. That's all I can do.
I don't just teach about jabs & hooks, I talk of boxing history. I tell a brief story as the kids are wrapping their hands. They love it. And so do I. I try to let them know what it was like "back in the day."
Things have changed. We must adapt or die. But when it comes to boxing, if you don't learn your lessons properly and take it to a professional level, you can die. Sounds a bit dramatic, but I've seen it happen. We all have who post here.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Friday, April 24, 2009
Mother Nature threatens to mar opening of trout season
Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times
Johnny Martinez of South El Monte casts a line into Convict Lake last year during the trout season opener.
The forecast is calling for rain and snow, or at least clouds, in parts of the Eastern Sierra through the weekend. Low pressure and cloud cover, however, might inspire more trout activity.
Pete Thomas, Outdoors
April 24, 2009
For thousands of anglers driving northbound today on U.S. 395, the question is not whether fish will cooperate during Saturday's opening of the Eastern Sierra trout season.
All mid-elevation lakes have been ice-free since mid-February. Water temperatures have climbed into the low 50s, which is ideal, and insect hatches are luring rainbows and browns to the surface.
Fish will be eager to bite. In fact, a harvest of high proportion is anticipated beginning at dawn at locales such as Crowley Lake, Bishop Creek Canyon, the June Lake Loop, Convict Lake, Bridgeport Reservoir and Bridgeport's Twin Lakes.
There is, however, cause for mild concern. Mother Nature, after producing balmy and cloudless skies for the previous two openers, is threatening to deliver rain and snow -- or at least clouds -- to parts of the Eastern Sierra through the weekend.
It's a relatively weak system, though, and probably will not dampen spirits or hamper the effort. And the storm brings with it a silver lining: Low pressure and cloud cover might inspire more and longer trout activity.
This would starkly contrast to the previous two openers, when the bite essentially shut down after 9 a.m., and near-summer-like temperatures prevailed.
"Trout-fishing is better during a low pressure, and this could be the year the big browns bite at places like the Twin Lakes," says Anaheim's Marlon Meade, a perennial opening-day angler who traditionally fishes in Bishop Creek Canyon.
But there's more cause for concern: Ice fishermen at the high lakes -- including those above Bishop Creek Canyon -- will find conditions ranging from reasonably safe to perilous.
At South Lake, ice cover is two feet thick. That should be sufficient. Jared Smith, who runs South Lake Boat Landing, described conditions as "favorable" but cautioned, "Dark ice is bad -- don't go anywhere near it!"
At nearby Sabrina Lake, ice cover is only one foot thick and there's open water at the back of the lake. Ice fishing is not recommended; Sabrina-area anglers will be wise to ply creeks below the lake instead. (But don't miss the hot breakfasts and homemade pies cooked by the Apteds, who run the Sabrina concession.)
Anglers are advised to check with concessionaires before venturing out onto the ice at North Lake, Virginia Lakes and Rock Creek Lake.
A few more tidbits to chew on:
* Crowley Lake boat anglers must have their vessels inspected for quagga mussels. They can do so today from 7-10 a.m. at the Vons parking lot in Bishop or at the lake's South Landing today and Saturday morning. Be sure to present a clean, dry vessel, or you'll be denied access.
* Bridgeport Reservoir, traditionally one of the top opening-weekend fisheries, has been drawn down somewhat by the Nevada Irrigation District. It will not affect fishing, but the marina surface area has shrunk and this might delay the morning launching process. Anglers can try the free launch area near the dam, but that's uncontrolled and will be a circus.
* Some fly-fishing hot spots: East Walker River (open year-round; lots of impressive browns caught this past week on nymphs and streamers); West Walker River (good flows now; hike into the canyons to escape the crowds); Crowley Lake tributaries (always fun on McGee, Hilton and Convict creeks, close to but not part of the Crowley madness.)
* Top overall destination: June Lake Loop. The scenery surrounding the lakes is spectacular, and this area always produces top-caliber catches and smiles galore. This might also be one area most affected by the storm, but it's worth the risk.
* Be mindful of regulations. Wardens will be citing those without valid fishing licenses (required of anyone 16 or older) and in violation of the five-fish possession limit.
* Lastly, bring bug spray. If the weather turns nice and warms, as it might despite the forecast, the biting insects will regard Saturday as opening day on humans.
pete.thomas@latimes.com
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Beyond the barbed wire, a string of skinny goldens
By Darrell Kunitomi, Special to The Times
April 20, 2004
The angler in this photograph has no smile and no first name known to us. He's remembered only as Ishikawa, Fisherman — a sweet and haunting mystery from a dark chapter in U.S. history.
Toyo Miyatake made this portrait during World War II at the Manzanar War Relocation Center. It is on display at the Eastern California Museum in Independence, Calif., with other images that Miyatake made inside the camp.
No one knows exactly how Ishikawa slipped away to go fishing. He holds the only evidence of his travels, freedom in a string of trout. His portrait embodies the vibe of Cole Porter's 1944 song "Don't Fence Me In."
Oh give me land, lots of land, under starry skies above
Don't fence me in
Ishikawa had the face of those who "suddenly and deliberately" attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. Within three months, Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 authorizing the internment of Japanese Americans. Two-thirds were American citizens. Manzanar, 220 miles north of Los Angeles, was the first of 10 camps constructed of wood and tar paper. FDR called them concentration camps.
Manzanar would house 10,000 people and become the biggest city between Los Angeles and Reno for the duration of the war. Ninety percent of its residents came from the Los Angeles area. There were some newlyweds too, Jack and Masa Kunitomi, my parents.
The curtain of time obscures Ishikawa's full identity. Archie Miyatake, the photographer's son, recalls Ishikawa. "He lived in our block, but I never knew his first name. He fished a lot. He was gone for two weeks at a time."
The War Relocation Authority recorded 156 Ishikawas throughout the 10 camps; seven men his age, with that name, were at Manzanar. The man in Archie's block had a birth date of 1899, making him around 55 at mid-war. His first name was Heihachi, but we can't be sure he's the fisherman.
Send me off forever, but I ask you please,
Don't fence me in
Ishikawa found himself between a rock (Mt. Whitney, highest point in the Lower 48) and a hard place (Badwater in Death Valley, the lowest). He must have looked at the six-strand barbed-wire fence and dreamed and schemed, finally obsessing. And he left.
"He must have gone at night," says the younger Miyatake. "That's what we did. But we only went up the stream, Shepherd Creek. We didn't go where he went." Native American guide Richard Stewart says, "No one knows exactly where he went."
Perhaps a guard dozed when Ishikawa snaked past the machine guns and rifles in the towers, climbed the alluvial fans through scrub brush, then followed an ancient Paiute trail in Shepherd Canyon that eased the nearly vertical pitch of the Sierran escarpment.
The fine brace he displays are the state fish, the riotously hued golden trout that exist at high elevations. Ishikawa may have fished the lakes at 11,000 feet, where there is but sky and rock, water and ice, where every granitic ledge is as sharp as a 1950s Cadillac fin.
It is a supremely spare landscape, mind-bending, almost psychedelic in the scarce air. It has the stark beauty of a Zen garden, the perfect retreat for a prisoner of his ancestry. He went a ways to find it: He left the wire behind at 3,900 feet.
These are trophy-size goldens. They're a species known for overpopulating and having stunted growth. He must be holding lake fish, fish that have wintered over a few years but bear snaky bodies and oversized heads. There isn't much for a fish to eat where Ishikawa explored.
So he caught a bunch, probably with grasshoppers — that irresistible trout bait — then lugged the catch down the mountain and back through the wire. Miyatake then took the photo inside the camp. He also took the memory of Ishikawa's first name with him when he died in 1979.
Others tell fish tales earned by slipping away from camps like Heart Mountain, hard by the side of the Shoshone River in Wyoming. But no man seems to have gone so far, so high and so alone as Ishikawa, Fisherman.
Ishikawa must have felt he was on the roof of the world, compared to his government quarters below at Manzanar. I hope he found peace of mind and the happy loneliness common to solitary fishers. Local lore tells of Japanese characters inscribed on rocks up there. Maybe he left us his first name on the rocks of the Sierra.
I want to ride to the ridge where the West commences,
Gaze at the moon till I lose my senses
In my mind's eye I see him sitting by a fire miles above the camp his country forced him into. He's picking at a golden he's cooked, wrapped in grasses, encased in mud, steamed to succulent perfection in the coals. He's using pine twigs as chopsticks.
His fire lights the boulders around him, and he's made a bed of soft pine boughs and will sleep with only a wool blanket issued by Uncle Sam. Maybe he smiles at the heavens above.
He's all alone under the Milky Way. He's watching shooting stars. And, as the poet said, he looks up in perfect silence, free.
"Ishikawa, Fisherman" is on display through Aug. 1 at the Eastern California Museum in Independence, Calif. It's part of a 76-photo exhibition titled "Personal Responsibility: The Camp Photographs of Toyo Miyatake."
Darrell Kunitomi is an avid fly fisherman who lives in Echo Park. He can be reached at
darrell.kunitomi@latimes.com.
At Manzanar, fishing was the only escape
Al Seib / Los Angeles Times
Sets Tomita, 77, fishes for trout in Shepherd Creek near the Manzanar War Relocation Center. Tomita, along with other former internees, went fishing after visiting the site where they had sneaked past guard towers to fish for rainbow trout decades ago.
Interned Japanese Americans would do whatever it took to get away from the camp and take a shot at trout in Sierra Nevada lakes and streams.
By Pete Thomas
April 23, 2009
Reporting from Lone Pine, Calif. -- Sets Tomita pauses at Manzanar's southwest boundary and scans the high desert, wistfully.
It's his first visit to this precise location since the World War II-era detention facility for Japanese Americans closed in 1945.
The guard tower is gone, but Tomita walks over its cement foundation, stirring up dust. How his family hated dust, and the afternoon winds that drove clouds of it through a camp that broiled in summer and froze in winter.
But Tomita, 77, harbors fond memories of this place too.
His gaze is to the southwest. Out there, in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada's eastern slope, tree-lined George Creek snakes across the desert like a verdant oasis.
It beckons today as it did then, but today Tomita can go freely. Sixty-seven years ago, with armed guards on high alert, the journey required darkness for cover, a stealthy crawl beneath barbed wire and a fugitive-like escape across boulder- and shrub-mined terrain.
Once at George Creek, as morning sunlight flooded the Owens Valley, the Tomita kids would spend long days beneath tree cover, fishing for rainbow trout with poles made of willow branches and hooks fashioned from paper clips.
"It kind of reminded me of Huck Finn," recalls Tomita, who was 10 and his oldest brother 14 when they first went AWOL. "It was exciting. As a young kid you don't think about the consequences. My brother was going to take care of us, so we just followed him out."
As the Manzanar National Historic Site prepares for Saturday's 40th pilgrimage, an annual commemoration of what was endured during the war; and as the region welcomes thousands for the weekend's opening of trout-fishing season, the detention facility is being fondly remembered by some as a secret fishing lodge.
In part because some of the 11,000 internees typically sneaked out alone or in small groups and kept their exploits secret, it's impossible to know just how many escaped to ply local creeks or high-mountain lakes. But Cory Shiozaki of Gardena, who has been working since 2004 on a documentary film titled "From Barbed Wire to Barbed Hooks, Fishing Stories From Manzanar," estimates as many as 400 would occasionally slip out of camp, mostly for a day or two but sometimes for a week or longer.
Trout fishing symbolized freedom and adventure.
"We fried it and it sure tasted good," recalls Archie Miyatake, 84, who was 16 when he and his family were relocated from Los Angeles' Little Tokyo district to the 6,000-acre camp. "Especially since it was fish we weren't supposed to catch."
Shiozaki began his project after he read a Los Angeles Times story about an internee then known only as Ishikawa. In a portrait captured by Miyatake's father, Toyo, a weather-worn Ishikawa displays a stringer of six golden trout. They were specimens from high-altitude lakes, possibly on the Sierra's western divide.
Shiozaki later determined that Ishikawa's first name was Heihachi. He was 53 when he arrived in 1942, and he remains the most ambitious known angler in Manzanar's mostly dark history.
"Security was high during the first 18 months so they would time their escape as the search lights were panning left to right, just like in 'Hogan's Heroes,' " Shiozaki says, prompting laughter from Tomita, Miyatake and Jiro Matsuyama, gathered for an afternoon tour of their escape routes and nearby fishing spots.
Though it was reasonably simple to escape, there were consequences.
One internee, trying to sneak out during daylight, was thwarted by gunshots aimed at his feet.
Another was captured making his way back to camp. MPs confiscated his equipment and fish, and marched him into camp at bayonet-point.
A 15-year-old was jailed for a week for sneaking off to fish.
Only one internee is known to have died while on a fishing expedition. An elderly artist-angler named Giichi Matsumura accompanied others into the majestic wilderness beyond Mt. Williamson, but lagged behind to paint.
An unexpected snowstorm blanketed the region. The fishermen hunkered for hours in a cave and could not find Matsumura after the storm passed. His remains were discovered weeks later by hikers.
Tomita says he harbors no bitter feelings about his family's three-year detention. In fact, he says, pangs of guilt coursed through the Japanese American community after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
Beginning in 1942, the U.S. government ordered 110,000 Japanese Americans and resident Japanese aliens to be placed in 10 military-style camps in western states.
Tomita was bused to Manzanar, which is eight miles north of Lone Pine along U.S. 395, with his parents, two older brothers, two younger brothers and a sister.
If he experienced guilt, it did not interfere with repeated escapes. The Tomitas left after dusk via the southwest corner because a small creek bed offered banks from which to maintain a low profile.
Miyatake chose the western fence near the cemetery and fished mostly to the north in Shepherd Creek, with a cousin's husband.
"One time he caught so much fish that all the bags were filled up, so he stuck them in his pockets," Miyatake says.
Matsuyama was older and more fortunate. He was manager of the camp's off-site reservoir, so he had a car and freedom to come and go.
"I always carried a fishing pole under the seat of the car," he says. "And whenever I saw a fish I'd run to the car, grab my pole, and run into the bushes."
Matsuyama, 88, was approached often by internees offering payment to sneak them out. He refused, but later disguised them as reservoir project helpers and delivered them five rugged miles -- a full day's hike -- to routes leading to high wilderness.
"The MPs didn't know what was going on," Matsuyama says, waving a hand as if shooing a fly.
Camp life was demoralizing, though. Living quarters were cramped. Communal bathrooms afforded no privacy.
Internees had a volunteer police and fire department, a school and baseball diamond. Parents planted gardens and some had jobs farming or making camouflage netting or extracting rubber from guayule plants.
But barracks-style living broke down the family structure and internees entertained no notions of actual escape. "We're Japanese; you can spot us a mile away," says Tomita, who lives in Northridge.
There was only one place, west of U.S. 395 and opposite civilization, where, Miyatake remembers, "The air just tasted better."
pete.thomas@latimes.com
Jose Napoles
By Rick Farris
Throughout boxing history the welterweight division has been blessed with exceptional prizefighters. Names such as Walker, Ross, McLarnin, Armstrong, Robinson, Griffith and Leonard are just a few of the greats that come to mind. However, another name cannot be overlooked when considering great 147 pounders, Jose Napoles.
Napoles' nickname "Mantequilla" is the Spanish word for butter and anybody who had the pleasure of watching this brilliant boxer perform understands that Napoles’ style was as smooth as butter. It was a style that combined great boxing skill, devastating punching power and cool control of the ring. It was a style that created trouble for any opponent he faced. I'd have to
say the best way to describe Napoles’ style is "timeless". It was a style that could unravel the old timers and the new breed as well.
I had the opportunity to watch this great welterweight's career evolve into a world championship during the years I was boxing. Napoles started out as a lightweight, but had to take on the best junior welterweights and welterweights in the world in order to get fights. Napoles beat them all in
convincing fashion until finally, with the help of a great promoter, a champion finally gave him a title shot.
I'll give a brief run down of Napoles early career, however, my story begins in 1968, about a year before he won the title. Although I never boxed with Napoles, I know three men who challenged Mantequilla for the title. Ironically, all three of these welterweight contenders challenged Napoles for the crown twice. Much of my opinion of Napoles is based on the words of these three men who know him far better than those of us who saw him from ringside or watched him train in the gym. You get to know exactly how great a fighter is, or is not, after banging it out with him for fifteen rounds.
The three contenders whom I am referring to are Ernie "Indian Red" Lopez, Hedgeman Lewis and Armando Muniz. All three were talented and tough welterweights during the 60's and 70's, and all three agree that they never fought anybody better than Jose Napoles.
Jose Napoles was born in Cuba on April 13, 1940. He made his pro boxing debut in 1958, at the age of 18, and fought the first four years of his professional career in Cuba. Between 1958 and 1961, Napoles put together a record of 17-1 (8 KO's) before fleeing the regime of Fidel Castro and making his home in Mexico. Without the perils of living in a communist country,
Napoles would now have a chance to make a name for himself in the world of boxing.
Mexico was almost perfect for Napoles, a Spanish speaking culture and rich in boxing talent. Many of the world's best boxers under 147 pounds hailed from Mexico and the Cuban lightweight would have the opposition necessary to take him to the next level. Of course, it wouldn't be easy. Napoles wasn't a Mexican.
After sixteen months of inactivity, Napoles resumed his boxing career in Mexico in July of 1962. Napoles quickly scored three straight knockouts before winning a ten round decision over Tony Perez. In a rematch, Perez was awarded a controversial decision over Napoles. Napoles scored two more victories including a decision over the highly regarded Baby Vasquez before
losing again, this time in a ten rounder to Alfredo Urbina, one of the greatest lightweights Mexico ever produced.
After losing to Urbina, Napoles went on a rampage and won 18 straight with 17 knockouts, including KO's over Urbina and Perez in rematches. He also defeated Junior Welterweight champs Carlos Hernandez and Eddie Perkins, Adolph Pruitt and scored two knockouts over L.C. Morgan. After losing on a cut to Morgan in their third fight, Napoles KO'ed Morgan for the third time. From there, Napoles put together a string of victories that would lead right up to a shot at the welterweight championship.
In 1968, the legendary George Parnassus became the boxing promoter for the newly built "Forum" in Inglewood, California. Parnassus had promoted boxing for years in the Los Angeles area, as well as in Mexico. Parnassus had a connection that would allow him to bring the very best talent up from below the border to Los Angeles. He would feature the very best Mexican stars at the Forum and it was here that many would become world champions. Champions
such as Ruben Olivares, Chucho Castillo and Carlos Zarate won world titles in Parnassus promotions at the Forum, and so did Jose "Mantequilla" Napoles.
Napoles made his U.S. debut at the Forum in Parnassus' initial promotion that featured bantamweight contenders Jesus Pimentel and Chucho Castillo. I was anxious to see Napoles and was at the Forum that night. However, Mantequilla didn't give us a long look. He KO'ed Lloyd Marshall half way thru the opening round.
A few months later I got a little longer look at the future welterweight king when I saw him flatten Ireland's Des Rea in five rounds on the undercard of a featherweight main event featuring Dwight Hawkins and Frankie Crawford at the Forum.
Hawkins was the number one rated featherweight at the time and helped train me for manager Johnny Flores. I had heard Flores and Hawkins talk about how great a fighter this Napoles was and after seeing him in person at the Forum and in the gym I had to agree. Anybody amazed by the talent of Roy Jones Jr. would be a lot less impressed had they seen Jose Napoles up close.
In April of 1969, Jose Napoles would finally get a shot at World Welterweight Champion Curtis Cokes. Napoles was 29-years-old and had been fighting professionally and defeating the best for 11 years when he stepped into the ring at the Forum before a sellout crowd of more than 18,000. Many of the spectators had come up from Mexico in buses that Parnassus had chartered and the sound of mariachis filled the arena. Mexico had adopted the transplanted Cuban as one of their own and when Napoles climbed thru the ropes the Forum exploded with excitement.
Napoles had his way with Cokes and battered the champion at well. After 13 rounds referee Dick young stopped the fight to save Cokes from further punishment. Jose Napoles had escaped communism, defeated the best in three divisions and now, after 11 difficult years was the Welterweight Champion of the world.
Less than three months after winning the title, Napoles gave Cokes a rematch and again stopped the former champion in the 13th round. Like most champions of the era, Napoles didn't sit on the title between title defenses and stayed sharp with several non-title fights which he won by knockout. Mantequilla finished out 1969 with a unanimous fifteen round decision over former welterweight and middleweight champ Emile Griffith in his second defense of the title.
In 1970, Napoles KO'ed number one rated Ernie "Indian Red" Lopez in fifteen rounds and scored two more knockouts in non-title matches. Napoles closed out 1970 with his fourth title defense in Syracuse, New York against Billy Backus, the nephew of former champ Carmen Basilio.
Backus was given little chance of beating Napoles. However, after opening a cut over the champion's eye with a head butt in the 4th round, the bout was stopped and awarded to Backus.
Six months later, on June 6, 1971, Napoles would regain his title by destroying Backus in six rounds at the Forum. I was 19-years-old at the time and had been fighting professionally for exactly one year. I was scheduled to fight on the undercard of the Napoles-Backus rematch and
remember all the excitement in the dressing room after Napoles had regained the title. I had won my fight that night but the biggest thrill for me was not my win, but having Carmen Basilio compliment me after my fight. Basilio had worked his nephew's corner that night and was kind enough to recognize that I had done well in my fight.
My most vivid memory of Napoles took place six months later, as he trained for his next title defense against Hedgeman Lewis. This would be one of two championship fights at the Forum along with a World Bantamweight title fight between champion Ruben Olivares and Jesus Pimentel.
I was one of Ruben Olivares' sparring partners for the Pimentel fight and each day we would workout immediately following Napoles before a paying audience. Promoter George Parnassus had his office at the old Elks Building, located right off Wilshire Blvd. near Alvarado St. in downtown Los Angeles. Today the Elks Building is the Park Plaza Hotel and sits right across from Macarthur Park.
Parnassus had a gym set up in the ball room of the Elks Bldg. with a ring at one end of the room against the stage and a couple of heavy bags, a speed bag and double-end bag on the stage. People would pay $1 admission to watch the boxers train and we'd usually have several hundred spectators for each workout. I recall that former lightweight champion Lauro Salas, one of Parnassus' friends who'd fallen on hard times, would collect admission at the door and Parnassus would let Salas keep the money so as the former champ could pay his rent and feed himself. Parnassus was a legendary promoter and had a legendary soft spot in his heart for ex-boxers.
Boxers are some of the friendliest people you could meet but people don't realize that most boxers, regardless of how nice, have a mean streak. This was especially true of Jose Napoles.
One of Napoles chief sparring partners was an L.A. club fighter named Baby Cassius. Baby Cassius (Eric Thomas) knew this all too well after sparring with the champ. I remember talking with Baby Cassius in the dressing room following one of his sparring sessions with Napoles. Both of Eric's eyes were swollen and his nose was bloody. Cassius would moan, "All I wanna do is earn a little Christmas money, but this guy is killing me". He also told me that he knew Napoles was drinking because he could smell alcohol on the champion as they were sparring. I didn't feel sorry for Baby Cassius because he didn't receive any worse an ass whipping from Napoles than what I (or any sparring partner) receives when trying to punch it out with a great world champ. That's the business. However, one incident involving Napoles between rounds of a sparring session will always stick out in my mind.
Napoles had an assistant trainer in L.A. named Phil Silvers. I never cared much for Silvers personally and it was obvious that Napoles didn't either. Silvers job was to tie the champions gloves and give him water between rounds of sparring sessions. One day, after pouring some water into Napoles mouth between rounds of a sparring session, the champ spit the water back into Silver's face. He then smirked and turned around. Not even the wildest fans watching the workout made a noise. I remember how surprised I was to see this, and obviously, so was everybody else. "What a jerk", I thought.
A couple of days later I had a strange experience with Napoles myself. One day after he finished sparring, I was warming up for my sparring session with Olivares. I was punching one of the two heavy bags on the stage and had my eye on Napoles as his trainer helped him slip on his bag gloves. I wanted to see if Napoles was ready to hit the bag that I was warming up on and if he
was I'd move to the other bag. Napoles was the champ and he could hit whatever bag he wanted to hit. It was his show, not mine. When I saw Napoles moving my way I assumed he wanted the bag I was punching and I respectfully moved to the other bag. Napoles started banging away at the bag and I began doing the same on the other bag.
As the next round started I saw Napoles approaching me out of the corner of my eye and he tapped me on the shoulder. When I looked at him he motioned for me to move away from the bag and pointed at the other bag. "No problem", I thought to myself, and moved to the other bag. As I'm punching the other bag I see Napoles heading toward me again and noticed a few of his friends smiling. It occurred to me that Napoles was either trying to play a joke on me, or intimidate me, or whatever. Napoles again tapped me on the shoulder and waved me off the bag. When Napoles began to hit the bag, I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the other bag, then stepped in front of him and began hitting the bag again. Napoles grabs my arm and I turn to face him.
In my mind, I had set myself up for an ass whipping by the welterweight champion of the world. However, a fighter does not let himself get pushed around by another fighter and I looked him directly in the eyes. We stood face-to-face for a few seconds that seemed like hours to me. Napoles had a very serious look on his face and I didn't know what was coming next. My trainer, Mel Epstein, saw what was going on and quickly stepped in. "C'mon Ricky, let's get ready for Olivares", he said, trying to pull me out of the situation. All of a sudden Napoles begins to smile and turns toward Epstein, motioning that it was Ok for me to continue working on the bag.
I will never know what Napoles was doing but I assume he was having fun trying to see how much I would take. One thing I did notice was that Napoles reeked of alcohol. I was surprised, despite having this told me earlier by Baby Cassius.
A couple of weeks later, Olivares stopped Jesus Pimentel in twelve rounds and Napoles won a very close fifteen round decision over the flashy Hedgeman Lewis. Lewis was a very flashy welterweight along the lines of a Sugar Ray Leonard, but not the class of Napoles. I realized that Napoles partying had affected his performance. three years later, Napoles and Lewis fight again and this time Mantequilla would ruin Hedge. Lewis was never the same after the beating he took from Napoles in this title fight.
The same was true with Ernie 'Indian Red" Lopez. Three years after losing to Napoles in his first bid for the welterweight crown, Lopez was given a second chance in 1973. After the beating Lopez took from Napoles in this fight he was never any good again. I remember talking with Lopez at the Main Street Gym in Los Angeles just a few days after his second fight with Napoles. I told Ernie I thought he gave Napoles a good fight and was shocked by Ernie's response. "I'll never fight that guy again . . . for any amount of money!" These aren't the kind of words that came out of the mouth of Ernie "Indian Red" Lopez.
At 34, Jose Napoles, a blown-up lightweight who had become one of the greatest welterweight champs in history, challenged another great fighter, Carlos Monzon for the undisputed Middleweight title. Napoles was stopped in seven rounds.
Napoles defended the welterweight title fifteen times and when he was the undisputed champ, something that no longer exists. his last two title defenses were against a friend of mine, Armando Muniz.
Like Lewis, Muniz caught Napoles out of shape in their first match and almost won the title. However, in the rematch held three months later in Mexico City, Napoles had his way with Muniz and scored a unanimous fifteen round decision win.
On December 6, 1975, after holding the welterweight title nearly eight years, Jose Napoles would make his last defense of the title at age 35. Englishman John Stracey would stop Napoles in his hometown of Mexico City.
After the fight, Napoles would announce his retirement from boxing after spending more than half his life in the professional boxing ring.
When thinking about the great welterweights in boxing, don't forget the guy they called 'Mantequilla". He was a true all-time great.
Throughout boxing history the welterweight division has been blessed with exceptional prizefighters. Names such as Walker, Ross, McLarnin, Armstrong, Robinson, Griffith and Leonard are just a few of the greats that come to mind. However, another name cannot be overlooked when considering great 147 pounders, Jose Napoles.
Napoles' nickname "Mantequilla" is the Spanish word for butter and anybody who had the pleasure of watching this brilliant boxer perform understands that Napoles’ style was as smooth as butter. It was a style that combined great boxing skill, devastating punching power and cool control of the ring. It was a style that created trouble for any opponent he faced. I'd have to
say the best way to describe Napoles’ style is "timeless". It was a style that could unravel the old timers and the new breed as well.
I had the opportunity to watch this great welterweight's career evolve into a world championship during the years I was boxing. Napoles started out as a lightweight, but had to take on the best junior welterweights and welterweights in the world in order to get fights. Napoles beat them all in
convincing fashion until finally, with the help of a great promoter, a champion finally gave him a title shot.
I'll give a brief run down of Napoles early career, however, my story begins in 1968, about a year before he won the title. Although I never boxed with Napoles, I know three men who challenged Mantequilla for the title. Ironically, all three of these welterweight contenders challenged Napoles for the crown twice. Much of my opinion of Napoles is based on the words of these three men who know him far better than those of us who saw him from ringside or watched him train in the gym. You get to know exactly how great a fighter is, or is not, after banging it out with him for fifteen rounds.
The three contenders whom I am referring to are Ernie "Indian Red" Lopez, Hedgeman Lewis and Armando Muniz. All three were talented and tough welterweights during the 60's and 70's, and all three agree that they never fought anybody better than Jose Napoles.
Jose Napoles was born in Cuba on April 13, 1940. He made his pro boxing debut in 1958, at the age of 18, and fought the first four years of his professional career in Cuba. Between 1958 and 1961, Napoles put together a record of 17-1 (8 KO's) before fleeing the regime of Fidel Castro and making his home in Mexico. Without the perils of living in a communist country,
Napoles would now have a chance to make a name for himself in the world of boxing.
Mexico was almost perfect for Napoles, a Spanish speaking culture and rich in boxing talent. Many of the world's best boxers under 147 pounds hailed from Mexico and the Cuban lightweight would have the opposition necessary to take him to the next level. Of course, it wouldn't be easy. Napoles wasn't a Mexican.
After sixteen months of inactivity, Napoles resumed his boxing career in Mexico in July of 1962. Napoles quickly scored three straight knockouts before winning a ten round decision over Tony Perez. In a rematch, Perez was awarded a controversial decision over Napoles. Napoles scored two more victories including a decision over the highly regarded Baby Vasquez before
losing again, this time in a ten rounder to Alfredo Urbina, one of the greatest lightweights Mexico ever produced.
After losing to Urbina, Napoles went on a rampage and won 18 straight with 17 knockouts, including KO's over Urbina and Perez in rematches. He also defeated Junior Welterweight champs Carlos Hernandez and Eddie Perkins, Adolph Pruitt and scored two knockouts over L.C. Morgan. After losing on a cut to Morgan in their third fight, Napoles KO'ed Morgan for the third time. From there, Napoles put together a string of victories that would lead right up to a shot at the welterweight championship.
In 1968, the legendary George Parnassus became the boxing promoter for the newly built "Forum" in Inglewood, California. Parnassus had promoted boxing for years in the Los Angeles area, as well as in Mexico. Parnassus had a connection that would allow him to bring the very best talent up from below the border to Los Angeles. He would feature the very best Mexican stars at the Forum and it was here that many would become world champions. Champions
such as Ruben Olivares, Chucho Castillo and Carlos Zarate won world titles in Parnassus promotions at the Forum, and so did Jose "Mantequilla" Napoles.
Napoles made his U.S. debut at the Forum in Parnassus' initial promotion that featured bantamweight contenders Jesus Pimentel and Chucho Castillo. I was anxious to see Napoles and was at the Forum that night. However, Mantequilla didn't give us a long look. He KO'ed Lloyd Marshall half way thru the opening round.
A few months later I got a little longer look at the future welterweight king when I saw him flatten Ireland's Des Rea in five rounds on the undercard of a featherweight main event featuring Dwight Hawkins and Frankie Crawford at the Forum.
Hawkins was the number one rated featherweight at the time and helped train me for manager Johnny Flores. I had heard Flores and Hawkins talk about how great a fighter this Napoles was and after seeing him in person at the Forum and in the gym I had to agree. Anybody amazed by the talent of Roy Jones Jr. would be a lot less impressed had they seen Jose Napoles up close.
In April of 1969, Jose Napoles would finally get a shot at World Welterweight Champion Curtis Cokes. Napoles was 29-years-old and had been fighting professionally and defeating the best for 11 years when he stepped into the ring at the Forum before a sellout crowd of more than 18,000. Many of the spectators had come up from Mexico in buses that Parnassus had chartered and the sound of mariachis filled the arena. Mexico had adopted the transplanted Cuban as one of their own and when Napoles climbed thru the ropes the Forum exploded with excitement.
Napoles had his way with Cokes and battered the champion at well. After 13 rounds referee Dick young stopped the fight to save Cokes from further punishment. Jose Napoles had escaped communism, defeated the best in three divisions and now, after 11 difficult years was the Welterweight Champion of the world.
Less than three months after winning the title, Napoles gave Cokes a rematch and again stopped the former champion in the 13th round. Like most champions of the era, Napoles didn't sit on the title between title defenses and stayed sharp with several non-title fights which he won by knockout. Mantequilla finished out 1969 with a unanimous fifteen round decision over former welterweight and middleweight champ Emile Griffith in his second defense of the title.
In 1970, Napoles KO'ed number one rated Ernie "Indian Red" Lopez in fifteen rounds and scored two more knockouts in non-title matches. Napoles closed out 1970 with his fourth title defense in Syracuse, New York against Billy Backus, the nephew of former champ Carmen Basilio.
Backus was given little chance of beating Napoles. However, after opening a cut over the champion's eye with a head butt in the 4th round, the bout was stopped and awarded to Backus.
Six months later, on June 6, 1971, Napoles would regain his title by destroying Backus in six rounds at the Forum. I was 19-years-old at the time and had been fighting professionally for exactly one year. I was scheduled to fight on the undercard of the Napoles-Backus rematch and
remember all the excitement in the dressing room after Napoles had regained the title. I had won my fight that night but the biggest thrill for me was not my win, but having Carmen Basilio compliment me after my fight. Basilio had worked his nephew's corner that night and was kind enough to recognize that I had done well in my fight.
My most vivid memory of Napoles took place six months later, as he trained for his next title defense against Hedgeman Lewis. This would be one of two championship fights at the Forum along with a World Bantamweight title fight between champion Ruben Olivares and Jesus Pimentel.
I was one of Ruben Olivares' sparring partners for the Pimentel fight and each day we would workout immediately following Napoles before a paying audience. Promoter George Parnassus had his office at the old Elks Building, located right off Wilshire Blvd. near Alvarado St. in downtown Los Angeles. Today the Elks Building is the Park Plaza Hotel and sits right across from Macarthur Park.
Parnassus had a gym set up in the ball room of the Elks Bldg. with a ring at one end of the room against the stage and a couple of heavy bags, a speed bag and double-end bag on the stage. People would pay $1 admission to watch the boxers train and we'd usually have several hundred spectators for each workout. I recall that former lightweight champion Lauro Salas, one of Parnassus' friends who'd fallen on hard times, would collect admission at the door and Parnassus would let Salas keep the money so as the former champ could pay his rent and feed himself. Parnassus was a legendary promoter and had a legendary soft spot in his heart for ex-boxers.
Boxers are some of the friendliest people you could meet but people don't realize that most boxers, regardless of how nice, have a mean streak. This was especially true of Jose Napoles.
One of Napoles chief sparring partners was an L.A. club fighter named Baby Cassius. Baby Cassius (Eric Thomas) knew this all too well after sparring with the champ. I remember talking with Baby Cassius in the dressing room following one of his sparring sessions with Napoles. Both of Eric's eyes were swollen and his nose was bloody. Cassius would moan, "All I wanna do is earn a little Christmas money, but this guy is killing me". He also told me that he knew Napoles was drinking because he could smell alcohol on the champion as they were sparring. I didn't feel sorry for Baby Cassius because he didn't receive any worse an ass whipping from Napoles than what I (or any sparring partner) receives when trying to punch it out with a great world champ. That's the business. However, one incident involving Napoles between rounds of a sparring session will always stick out in my mind.
Napoles had an assistant trainer in L.A. named Phil Silvers. I never cared much for Silvers personally and it was obvious that Napoles didn't either. Silvers job was to tie the champions gloves and give him water between rounds of sparring sessions. One day, after pouring some water into Napoles mouth between rounds of a sparring session, the champ spit the water back into Silver's face. He then smirked and turned around. Not even the wildest fans watching the workout made a noise. I remember how surprised I was to see this, and obviously, so was everybody else. "What a jerk", I thought.
A couple of days later I had a strange experience with Napoles myself. One day after he finished sparring, I was warming up for my sparring session with Olivares. I was punching one of the two heavy bags on the stage and had my eye on Napoles as his trainer helped him slip on his bag gloves. I wanted to see if Napoles was ready to hit the bag that I was warming up on and if he
was I'd move to the other bag. Napoles was the champ and he could hit whatever bag he wanted to hit. It was his show, not mine. When I saw Napoles moving my way I assumed he wanted the bag I was punching and I respectfully moved to the other bag. Napoles started banging away at the bag and I began doing the same on the other bag.
As the next round started I saw Napoles approaching me out of the corner of my eye and he tapped me on the shoulder. When I looked at him he motioned for me to move away from the bag and pointed at the other bag. "No problem", I thought to myself, and moved to the other bag. As I'm punching the other bag I see Napoles heading toward me again and noticed a few of his friends smiling. It occurred to me that Napoles was either trying to play a joke on me, or intimidate me, or whatever. Napoles again tapped me on the shoulder and waved me off the bag. When Napoles began to hit the bag, I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the other bag, then stepped in front of him and began hitting the bag again. Napoles grabs my arm and I turn to face him.
In my mind, I had set myself up for an ass whipping by the welterweight champion of the world. However, a fighter does not let himself get pushed around by another fighter and I looked him directly in the eyes. We stood face-to-face for a few seconds that seemed like hours to me. Napoles had a very serious look on his face and I didn't know what was coming next. My trainer, Mel Epstein, saw what was going on and quickly stepped in. "C'mon Ricky, let's get ready for Olivares", he said, trying to pull me out of the situation. All of a sudden Napoles begins to smile and turns toward Epstein, motioning that it was Ok for me to continue working on the bag.
I will never know what Napoles was doing but I assume he was having fun trying to see how much I would take. One thing I did notice was that Napoles reeked of alcohol. I was surprised, despite having this told me earlier by Baby Cassius.
A couple of weeks later, Olivares stopped Jesus Pimentel in twelve rounds and Napoles won a very close fifteen round decision over the flashy Hedgeman Lewis. Lewis was a very flashy welterweight along the lines of a Sugar Ray Leonard, but not the class of Napoles. I realized that Napoles partying had affected his performance. three years later, Napoles and Lewis fight again and this time Mantequilla would ruin Hedge. Lewis was never the same after the beating he took from Napoles in this title fight.
The same was true with Ernie 'Indian Red" Lopez. Three years after losing to Napoles in his first bid for the welterweight crown, Lopez was given a second chance in 1973. After the beating Lopez took from Napoles in this fight he was never any good again. I remember talking with Lopez at the Main Street Gym in Los Angeles just a few days after his second fight with Napoles. I told Ernie I thought he gave Napoles a good fight and was shocked by Ernie's response. "I'll never fight that guy again . . . for any amount of money!" These aren't the kind of words that came out of the mouth of Ernie "Indian Red" Lopez.
At 34, Jose Napoles, a blown-up lightweight who had become one of the greatest welterweight champs in history, challenged another great fighter, Carlos Monzon for the undisputed Middleweight title. Napoles was stopped in seven rounds.
Napoles defended the welterweight title fifteen times and when he was the undisputed champ, something that no longer exists. his last two title defenses were against a friend of mine, Armando Muniz.
Like Lewis, Muniz caught Napoles out of shape in their first match and almost won the title. However, in the rematch held three months later in Mexico City, Napoles had his way with Muniz and scored a unanimous fifteen round decision win.
On December 6, 1975, after holding the welterweight title nearly eight years, Jose Napoles would make his last defense of the title at age 35. Englishman John Stracey would stop Napoles in his hometown of Mexico City.
After the fight, Napoles would announce his retirement from boxing after spending more than half his life in the professional boxing ring.
When thinking about the great welterweights in boxing, don't forget the guy they called 'Mantequilla". He was a true all-time great.
SAN ANTONIO
By Roger Esty
My wife's hometown,Jiquilpan,is small. The pueblo of San Antonio is even smaller. Oh,there are even smaller pueblitos,but San Antonio is just fine.I try to visit all of them. About 20 minutes outside of Jiquilpan just off the two lane asphalt winding road that goes up and down into the valleys is San Antonio.The green hills off to the horizon.The dairy and the school across the road. I'll pull the car over and park next to the little plaza.I can park anywhere. The church is in the back .Behind the church is a small laguna. The water is like glass.The church looks very big compared to the little houses around it. The doors are always open. The plaza is quiet.Only the birds talk to each other.
I get out and walk to any bench to rest my aching hip. The little store is on the other side of the plaza. I want a raspado(snowcone),but I want to rest my hip a little . After I'm ready, I walk to the little store. A dark skinned "morena" with long straight black hair and big eyes makes me a raspado. She shaves the ice into the paper cup. I ask for limon. Lime. She pumps the green syrup into the paper cup and hands it to me. Her wide smile reveals beautifull white teeth. Her smile accents her modesty.She lowers her eyes as she hands me the raspado. Que bonita.
I walk to the church. It's empty and cool inside. I sit in a pew and enjoy the raspado. After drinking the last of the syrup,I wait and gaze at the inside .The plain beautifull altar. The high adobe ceiling. It's very warm outside. I'll spend the rest of my time inside the church before going back to the car.
Walking back to the car, I don't feel the pain in my hip as much. I can still hear the birds talking to each other.
I think about San Antonio a lot lately.
My wife's hometown,Jiquilpan,is small. The pueblo of San Antonio is even smaller. Oh,there are even smaller pueblitos,but San Antonio is just fine.I try to visit all of them. About 20 minutes outside of Jiquilpan just off the two lane asphalt winding road that goes up and down into the valleys is San Antonio.The green hills off to the horizon.The dairy and the school across the road. I'll pull the car over and park next to the little plaza.I can park anywhere. The church is in the back .Behind the church is a small laguna. The water is like glass.The church looks very big compared to the little houses around it. The doors are always open. The plaza is quiet.Only the birds talk to each other.
I get out and walk to any bench to rest my aching hip. The little store is on the other side of the plaza. I want a raspado(snowcone),but I want to rest my hip a little . After I'm ready, I walk to the little store. A dark skinned "morena" with long straight black hair and big eyes makes me a raspado. She shaves the ice into the paper cup. I ask for limon. Lime. She pumps the green syrup into the paper cup and hands it to me. Her wide smile reveals beautifull white teeth. Her smile accents her modesty.She lowers her eyes as she hands me the raspado. Que bonita.
I walk to the church. It's empty and cool inside. I sit in a pew and enjoy the raspado. After drinking the last of the syrup,I wait and gaze at the inside .The plain beautifull altar. The high adobe ceiling. It's very warm outside. I'll spend the rest of my time inside the church before going back to the car.
Walking back to the car, I don't feel the pain in my hip as much. I can still hear the birds talking to each other.
I think about San Antonio a lot lately.
A BAD ARTIST
By Roger Esty
When Al Capone went to jail for income tax evasion,at the time, that was the stiffest sentence for such a charge. 11 years. Capone went to Atlanta Penitentiary and was going to appeal the case. That's when my father overheard Frank Nitti tell Capone's lawyers,Fink and Aherns,to keep Snorky in the cooler. His syphylis was going to
get him,anmd besides Nitti wanted to be the boss.
They talk about Capone's beef with the tax people,but Nitti was indicted also for not paying his fair share. He served 18 months. When he got released,Capone was still in the slammer working on an appeal. That's when my dad ,who must have been around 16 years of age, heard Frank give up Capone to the feds.
Nitti threatened to kill my father if he passed along what he had heard in the parlor at Al's mommy's house. My dad was no snitch. Besides, he got to liking breathing.
Though Nitti was next in line,he never earned the respect of the Outfit. They called him(not to his face)a "baccala",a lummox. Paul "The Waiter" Ricca who had worked as a young man in my grandfather's restaurant,The Bella Napoli, was the guy who eventually took over.
Diamond Joe,my grandfather,was fond of Ricca. Ricca like many of the Mob guys was somewhat diminutive. Only when riled would he show another side. A dangerous side.
Anyway Nitti,who never ran things very well(because he lacked the talent)accidently brought a couple of strong arm guys out West to control the studio unions. Los Angeles cops didn't like Chicago hoods in their neck of the woods. It was a bad investment for Nitti. Under indictment the Chicago boys rolled over.
Nitti,who's nickname was The Enforcer(because he enforced the rules) lost face with The Outfit. He also knew he was going to lose his life. In the suburb of Riverside where Nitti lived,he walked to the train station,brandished a gun and shot himself.
Nitti was a guy who never showed an art of running the operation. If you had put a brush in his hands ,he wouldn't have been able to paint by numbers.
When Al Capone went to jail for income tax evasion,at the time, that was the stiffest sentence for such a charge. 11 years. Capone went to Atlanta Penitentiary and was going to appeal the case. That's when my father overheard Frank Nitti tell Capone's lawyers,Fink and Aherns,to keep Snorky in the cooler. His syphylis was going to
get him,anmd besides Nitti wanted to be the boss.
They talk about Capone's beef with the tax people,but Nitti was indicted also for not paying his fair share. He served 18 months. When he got released,Capone was still in the slammer working on an appeal. That's when my dad ,who must have been around 16 years of age, heard Frank give up Capone to the feds.
Nitti threatened to kill my father if he passed along what he had heard in the parlor at Al's mommy's house. My dad was no snitch. Besides, he got to liking breathing.
Though Nitti was next in line,he never earned the respect of the Outfit. They called him(not to his face)a "baccala",a lummox. Paul "The Waiter" Ricca who had worked as a young man in my grandfather's restaurant,The Bella Napoli, was the guy who eventually took over.
Diamond Joe,my grandfather,was fond of Ricca. Ricca like many of the Mob guys was somewhat diminutive. Only when riled would he show another side. A dangerous side.
Anyway Nitti,who never ran things very well(because he lacked the talent)accidently brought a couple of strong arm guys out West to control the studio unions. Los Angeles cops didn't like Chicago hoods in their neck of the woods. It was a bad investment for Nitti. Under indictment the Chicago boys rolled over.
Nitti,who's nickname was The Enforcer(because he enforced the rules) lost face with The Outfit. He also knew he was going to lose his life. In the suburb of Riverside where Nitti lived,he walked to the train station,brandished a gun and shot himself.
Nitti was a guy who never showed an art of running the operation. If you had put a brush in his hands ,he wouldn't have been able to paint by numbers.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Armando Muniz & Mexico's "Cut Doctor" . . .
By Rick Farris
Today I joined Armando Muniz, Gwen Adair and Josie Arrey-Mejia at the LAX Marriott Hotel to make the arrangements for this year's WBHOF Banquet, wihich will be held on October 24th. After our meeting with the hotel rep, the four of us had lunch together in one of the hotel's restaurants.
Mando and I were talking about a serious cut he had received in a bout with Hedgeman Lewis, a close bout that Muniz won.
After the fight, Dr. Jack Useem patched Mando up quickly, using ten stitches. A couple of weeks later, Armando joined his manager, Vic Weiss, referee Rudy Jordan, and his trainer, Louie Jareque on a trip to Mexico to watch Welter Champ Jose Napoles KO Argentina's Horacio Saldena in a title defense.
While in Mexico, Muniz was introduced to Dr. Horacio Ramirez, a legendary cut doctor who worked with the Napoles camp. The doctor noticed Muniz's cut was not healing properly and told them to meet him at his office. An hour later, the doctor told Muniz he wanted to re-stitch the wound correctly. At first, Mando was sceptical. Armando knew that in two months he would be fighting Napoles for the title and feared the doctor might try something crooked, however, the doctor was unaware that Napoles next bout was already in the works.
Armando was instructed to take a seat. The doctor threw a towel over the fighter's shoulder and grabbed a razor blade out of his bag. He reached over and slit Mando's cut wide open and the blood dripped downonto the towel. "Man, that really stung when he slit my brow, but once it was open, the doctor removed all the scar tissue that had formed," Muniz said. "He then re-stitched the wound using 25 stitches."
Muniz was amazed that the wound healed perfectly and quickly. Two months later, Muniz battled the great Jose Napoles hard and, without question, defeated the champion in a brutal bout that was stopped when Napoles cuts were bleeding beyond control. Mando had outfought the great champion and should have returned home with the belt. However, as so often happens in Mexico, the official gave the fight to Napoles on some BS technicality.
Muniz laughed as he told of his own wounds. "I was cut over my right eye, and a couple other places. However, despite taking a few direct hits to the old wound over my left eye that had been re-stitched, it stayed sealed and would remain so for the rest of my career."
"I was amazed", Mando said. "Dr. Ramirez did such a great job, fixing a wound that surely would have cost me victories in later fights."
"Can you imagine, having a Mexican docotor that worked for Napoles, do for me what one of our own doctors was unable to do." The former welterweight contender and World Boxing Hall of Fame President smiled as he told the story. Truly amazing.
Today I joined Armando Muniz, Gwen Adair and Josie Arrey-Mejia at the LAX Marriott Hotel to make the arrangements for this year's WBHOF Banquet, wihich will be held on October 24th. After our meeting with the hotel rep, the four of us had lunch together in one of the hotel's restaurants.
Mando and I were talking about a serious cut he had received in a bout with Hedgeman Lewis, a close bout that Muniz won.
After the fight, Dr. Jack Useem patched Mando up quickly, using ten stitches. A couple of weeks later, Armando joined his manager, Vic Weiss, referee Rudy Jordan, and his trainer, Louie Jareque on a trip to Mexico to watch Welter Champ Jose Napoles KO Argentina's Horacio Saldena in a title defense.
While in Mexico, Muniz was introduced to Dr. Horacio Ramirez, a legendary cut doctor who worked with the Napoles camp. The doctor noticed Muniz's cut was not healing properly and told them to meet him at his office. An hour later, the doctor told Muniz he wanted to re-stitch the wound correctly. At first, Mando was sceptical. Armando knew that in two months he would be fighting Napoles for the title and feared the doctor might try something crooked, however, the doctor was unaware that Napoles next bout was already in the works.
Armando was instructed to take a seat. The doctor threw a towel over the fighter's shoulder and grabbed a razor blade out of his bag. He reached over and slit Mando's cut wide open and the blood dripped downonto the towel. "Man, that really stung when he slit my brow, but once it was open, the doctor removed all the scar tissue that had formed," Muniz said. "He then re-stitched the wound using 25 stitches."
Muniz was amazed that the wound healed perfectly and quickly. Two months later, Muniz battled the great Jose Napoles hard and, without question, defeated the champion in a brutal bout that was stopped when Napoles cuts were bleeding beyond control. Mando had outfought the great champion and should have returned home with the belt. However, as so often happens in Mexico, the official gave the fight to Napoles on some BS technicality.
Muniz laughed as he told of his own wounds. "I was cut over my right eye, and a couple other places. However, despite taking a few direct hits to the old wound over my left eye that had been re-stitched, it stayed sealed and would remain so for the rest of my career."
"I was amazed", Mando said. "Dr. Ramirez did such a great job, fixing a wound that surely would have cost me victories in later fights."
"Can you imagine, having a Mexican docotor that worked for Napoles, do for me what one of our own doctors was unable to do." The former welterweight contender and World Boxing Hall of Fame President smiled as he told the story. Truly amazing.
FALLEN LEAVES
By Roger Esty
I talked about Southeast San Diego the other day and the local high school,Lincoln. It wasn't that big in terms of enrollment. I think it was fewer than a thousand. When I was trying to latch on to a permament position,I sustituted there for a week. Not an easy gig.
Being a substitue teacher isn't easy anyway. The kids look at you as raw meat. In Southest San Diego in the late 80's,if you were perceived as being weak...well you were food for the animals. Being cunning was a way to survive by that time. The neighborhood was being devoured by gangs, Valencia Paek,Eastside Pirus,Bloods and Crips. Wearing the "wrong"color socks could cost you your life.
The old Lincoln High at that time was a two story structure. My slot was on the bottom floor. I had an aide in my classroom. The subject was U.S. History. Luckily the aide was a young guy like myself that had the class more or less under control. I was glad he was in there. But I could feel the anxiety on the campus. The kids were rough and many of the teachers wanted out. Transfer papers were a daily topic of conversation in the teachers' lounge. Many of the teachers were downright afraid of showing up to work. One guy even showed me his.38 he had hidden inside his briefcase.
On my last day of my assignment I was teaching the class about the founding fathers and how our Constitution was there for everyone. I don't think those kids believed a word of it. As I was trying to speak above the class noise,I was looking out the window and saw books falling . We were on a split schedule so on my break I went upstairs to the room above mine to find out what was the matter.
There was this teacher. A young guy like myself...well maybe 40 years old. (He was in his first year I later found out.) The guy had his head down on the desk and he's sobbing like a baby. All the while the kids were tossing books out the window.
"What the hell is going on?" I yelled. The kids stopped and turned around. They stopped tossing the books out the window. I think they stopped because they ran out of books. Just then the bell rang and they left the classroom on their merry way. All this time the teacher was still sobbing. He couldn't gather himself.
I left him there like that. I didn't know what to do or say. In a way I felt sorry for him,but in a way I didn't. Sometimes in this profession they want you to handle it on your own. Not much sympathy from the rest of staff or the students.
I talked about Southeast San Diego the other day and the local high school,Lincoln. It wasn't that big in terms of enrollment. I think it was fewer than a thousand. When I was trying to latch on to a permament position,I sustituted there for a week. Not an easy gig.
Being a substitue teacher isn't easy anyway. The kids look at you as raw meat. In Southest San Diego in the late 80's,if you were perceived as being weak...well you were food for the animals. Being cunning was a way to survive by that time. The neighborhood was being devoured by gangs, Valencia Paek,Eastside Pirus,Bloods and Crips. Wearing the "wrong"color socks could cost you your life.
The old Lincoln High at that time was a two story structure. My slot was on the bottom floor. I had an aide in my classroom. The subject was U.S. History. Luckily the aide was a young guy like myself that had the class more or less under control. I was glad he was in there. But I could feel the anxiety on the campus. The kids were rough and many of the teachers wanted out. Transfer papers were a daily topic of conversation in the teachers' lounge. Many of the teachers were downright afraid of showing up to work. One guy even showed me his.38 he had hidden inside his briefcase.
On my last day of my assignment I was teaching the class about the founding fathers and how our Constitution was there for everyone. I don't think those kids believed a word of it. As I was trying to speak above the class noise,I was looking out the window and saw books falling . We were on a split schedule so on my break I went upstairs to the room above mine to find out what was the matter.
There was this teacher. A young guy like myself...well maybe 40 years old. (He was in his first year I later found out.) The guy had his head down on the desk and he's sobbing like a baby. All the while the kids were tossing books out the window.
"What the hell is going on?" I yelled. The kids stopped and turned around. They stopped tossing the books out the window. I think they stopped because they ran out of books. Just then the bell rang and they left the classroom on their merry way. All this time the teacher was still sobbing. He couldn't gather himself.
I left him there like that. I didn't know what to do or say. In a way I felt sorry for him,but in a way I didn't. Sometimes in this profession they want you to handle it on your own. Not much sympathy from the rest of staff or the students.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
How I met and became best friends with John Martinez
By Frank Baltazar
In the early summer of 1968 I was holding a meeting at the Teamsters Gym to plan our Jr Golden Glove tournament, a new group of guys, John was among them, came to our meeting, said they were with the AAU, their leader, Tony Cerda told us that we needed to have the AAU sanction our Jr GG tournament and that they, the AAU, would run the tournament, John was one of the guys pushing hard to get me out as tournament director, I told them that they were welcome to enter their boys in the Jr. GG tournament if they liked, (they did) but, I told them I was running the tournament, that I had been running it for the last four years, their ploy didn't worked, I run the tournament in 1968 and did so for another six years after that. After that I would see John around town, he lived close to me at the time, he had a youth boxing club and he was having a benefit dance for the club at the local handball club, Connie and I decided to go to the dance, when John seen me there he looked at me like,
"what are you doing here?"
After a beer or two we started talking, after that everytime we would run into each other we would talk, soon we were visiting each others home, going out to dinner with the wives, one time during dinner John started laughing and he tells me,
"You know I didn't like you before I met you" through the years John, Bea and Connie and I became best friends.
In the early summer of 1968 I was holding a meeting at the Teamsters Gym to plan our Jr Golden Glove tournament, a new group of guys, John was among them, came to our meeting, said they were with the AAU, their leader, Tony Cerda told us that we needed to have the AAU sanction our Jr GG tournament and that they, the AAU, would run the tournament, John was one of the guys pushing hard to get me out as tournament director, I told them that they were welcome to enter their boys in the Jr. GG tournament if they liked, (they did) but, I told them I was running the tournament, that I had been running it for the last four years, their ploy didn't worked, I run the tournament in 1968 and did so for another six years after that. After that I would see John around town, he lived close to me at the time, he had a youth boxing club and he was having a benefit dance for the club at the local handball club, Connie and I decided to go to the dance, when John seen me there he looked at me like,
"what are you doing here?"
After a beer or two we started talking, after that everytime we would run into each other we would talk, soon we were visiting each others home, going out to dinner with the wives, one time during dinner John started laughing and he tells me,
"You know I didn't like you before I met you" through the years John, Bea and Connie and I became best friends.
My late Best friend, John Martinez
By Frank Baltazar
In mid-1994 John was diagnose with cancer (Leukemia), at that time Connie and I were living in San Diego, one day I received a phone call from John's wife Bea, she told me about John having cancer and that the doctors had told John that he had less then a year to live, we invited John and Bea to come down to San Diego and spent some weekends with us, (They were living in Lake Elsinore), which they did, one weekend in late 1993 we drove down to Puerto Nuevo in Baja, so that John, Bea and Connie could have lobster (Not me, don't like seafood), while we were eating I ask John if he would like a beer or a drink, he told me the doctors told him not to drink alcoholic beverages, I then asked John,
"What else did the doctors tell you?"
"Not to smoke and to kiss my ass goodby" said John
"John" I said "the doctors told you not to smoke and you're still smoking like a train, so have a drink"
He did, then had another one, after that we hire a mariachi for the rest of the day and nite, John had the mariachi sing "De Colores" more times that I can remember, we had a good time reminiscing about our boxing travels.
John died in May of 1994.
See you later, dude...
In mid-1994 John was diagnose with cancer (Leukemia), at that time Connie and I were living in San Diego, one day I received a phone call from John's wife Bea, she told me about John having cancer and that the doctors had told John that he had less then a year to live, we invited John and Bea to come down to San Diego and spent some weekends with us, (They were living in Lake Elsinore), which they did, one weekend in late 1993 we drove down to Puerto Nuevo in Baja, so that John, Bea and Connie could have lobster (Not me, don't like seafood), while we were eating I ask John if he would like a beer or a drink, he told me the doctors told him not to drink alcoholic beverages, I then asked John,
"What else did the doctors tell you?"
"Not to smoke and to kiss my ass goodby" said John
"John" I said "the doctors told you not to smoke and you're still smoking like a train, so have a drink"
He did, then had another one, after that we hire a mariachi for the rest of the day and nite, John had the mariachi sing "De Colores" more times that I can remember, we had a good time reminiscing about our boxing travels.
John died in May of 1994.
See you later, dude...
Monday, April 20, 2009
THE DAY JACK REMEBERED TO DUCK (From Big AL)
By Roger Esty
During Prohibition the athletes in the Windy City liked to hang out in my grandfather's restaurant,The Bella Napoli. The Italian food was strictly Neopolitan. My grandfather,Diamong Joe Esposito,brought the finest chef from Naples to make sure the customers kept coming back. There was also music. Jazz was the rage, though my grandfather preferred opera. Italian of course. Enrique Caruso would have a plate of spaghetti in front of him when he was in town. And if Louie Armstrong was on the bandstand,Satchmo and his band would be scoffin' down a feed of the noodles too.Red Grange,the Cubbies and the White Sox(later their hosiery turned to black),and not too mention the fighters. When The Manassa Mauler was to try to win his title back from Tunney in Soldiers Field,the story was that Al Capone wanted Jack to win. Supposedly they had a conversation at the Bella Napoli.
Jack came back for the dough. He didn't think he had it anymore. His wife Estelle Taylor,the actress,hated fighting and wanted Jack to throw in the towel. But the money was out there and Jack really didn't really think he had much of a chance.He just didn't want to forget to duck that's all. He was getting concerned about how he'd walk around after he put his pants back on.
But Scarface thought Jack was the old Jack and didn't realize that Jack was just plain old. Paul "The Waiter" Ricca,who later became De Capo of the Outfit in Chicago was working at The Bella Napoli at the Capone/ Dempsey sit down. Years later when "The Waiter" had "retired" from the Mob,I remember him telling the story to my father. Diamond Joe's first son.
Capone wanted to "reach"the referee,Dave Miller. Capone was a rotten gambler. Lost big at everything from horses to roulette wheels. He wanted to put a big wager on Jack. Ricca said that Dempsey felt uneasy talking to Capone. Jack said he didn't want to do anything that would bring in an investigation. In the ring he was The Manassa Mauler. On the witness stand he didn't want to get mauled by a D.A.
Anyway,at the last minute they put in Barry as third man. They will be talking about the "Long Count" way after I'm gone. As far as Big Al...well he went back to losing at the craps tables.
During Prohibition the athletes in the Windy City liked to hang out in my grandfather's restaurant,The Bella Napoli. The Italian food was strictly Neopolitan. My grandfather,Diamong Joe Esposito,brought the finest chef from Naples to make sure the customers kept coming back. There was also music. Jazz was the rage, though my grandfather preferred opera. Italian of course. Enrique Caruso would have a plate of spaghetti in front of him when he was in town. And if Louie Armstrong was on the bandstand,Satchmo and his band would be scoffin' down a feed of the noodles too.Red Grange,the Cubbies and the White Sox(later their hosiery turned to black),and not too mention the fighters. When The Manassa Mauler was to try to win his title back from Tunney in Soldiers Field,the story was that Al Capone wanted Jack to win. Supposedly they had a conversation at the Bella Napoli.
Jack came back for the dough. He didn't think he had it anymore. His wife Estelle Taylor,the actress,hated fighting and wanted Jack to throw in the towel. But the money was out there and Jack really didn't really think he had much of a chance.He just didn't want to forget to duck that's all. He was getting concerned about how he'd walk around after he put his pants back on.
But Scarface thought Jack was the old Jack and didn't realize that Jack was just plain old. Paul "The Waiter" Ricca,who later became De Capo of the Outfit in Chicago was working at The Bella Napoli at the Capone/ Dempsey sit down. Years later when "The Waiter" had "retired" from the Mob,I remember him telling the story to my father. Diamond Joe's first son.
Capone wanted to "reach"the referee,Dave Miller. Capone was a rotten gambler. Lost big at everything from horses to roulette wheels. He wanted to put a big wager on Jack. Ricca said that Dempsey felt uneasy talking to Capone. Jack said he didn't want to do anything that would bring in an investigation. In the ring he was The Manassa Mauler. On the witness stand he didn't want to get mauled by a D.A.
Anyway,at the last minute they put in Barry as third man. They will be talking about the "Long Count" way after I'm gone. As far as Big Al...well he went back to losing at the craps tables.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Golden attraction comes to an end
By Robert Morales, Boxing Columnist\
dailybreeze.com
It was 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, about three hours after Oscar De La Hoya announced his retirement from boxing. De La Hoya was playing host to an international conference call to discuss what had been an emotional decision that brought him to tears a couple of time at Nokia Theatre Plaza at L.A. Live.
De La Hoya won championships in a record six weight classes and set pay-per-view records. But that doesn't necessarily mean he was terrific in the ring, and it was inevitable that he would be asked what he would say to those who believe he was more of an attraction than a great fighter.
"I say, `Thank you. Thank you for always watching me. Thank you for making me an attraction. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for being there,"' DeLaHoya said. "I've had the opportunity to face many world champions and a lot of them I won. Some I lost.
"But my satisfaction is because at least I tried. I tried to accomplish the impossible and not too many do that. And so if people want to remember me as an attraction, then I'm glad I gave a lot of people a lot of entertainment."
The question was asked to DeLaHoya because, although he fought most of the best during his 17-year career, he had a losing record in the 11 fights against what most would consider elite competition. We're not counting De La Hoya's two victories over Julio Cesar Chavez, because Chavez was past his prime when he and De La Hoya tangled for the first time in June 1996.
In those 11 fights, he beat Rafael Ruelas, Genaro Hernandez, Pernell Whitaker, Ike Quartey and Fernando Vargas. Referring to Whitaker as an elite fighter is giving De La Hoya the benefit of the doubt because when they fought, Whitaker was 33 and a bit past his prime.
In the other six, De La Hoya lost to Felix Trinidad Jr., "Sugar" Shane Mosley twice, Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
Bob Arum, who promoted DeLaHoya for two-thirds of his career, said De La Hoya could have been much better.
"Oscar was a great attraction, the biggest attraction of his time and he was a very good fighter who fought all the competition that was around at the time," Arum said. "But he was never a great fighter. Later on in his career, when he wouldn't or couldn't push himself like a Manny Pacquiao does in training, he ended up losing fights that he should have won.
"I thought he won the Trinidad fight, but it never should have been that close. Same thing with the second Mosley fight. Should not have been that close. Once he established himself and once he was a big box-office draw, he was unable or unwilling to push himself to the next step to achieve true greatness."
But it doesn't change what DeLaHoya did for boxing after he turned pro in late 1992 after winning the gold medal in the Barcelona Games.
And with De La Hoya having hung up his gloves, it's going to be interesting to see what kind of an effect his absence will have on the business of boxing.
De La Hoya was the one fighter who, regardless of his opponent, always fared tremendously on pay-per-view. His fight with Ricardo Mayorga did nearly a million buys. The inside joke in boxing circles was that DeLa Hoya could fight his sister and get a million buys.
Well, Arum thinks Pacquiao, whom he promotes, is the fighter who can pick up the slack. He does have a huge following among his fanatical Filipino fans. But he never came close to a million pay-per-view buys until he fought De La Hoya last December, in a fight that reached 1.3 million buys.
Still, Arum said he is hopeful that Pacquiao can surpass what De La Hoya has done in this regard.
"CNN is doing an hour show on him," Arum said of Pacquiao, who May 2 will fight Ricky Hatton at MGM Grand in Las Vegas. "It shows he has really achieved a status beyond boxing and beyond sports.
"And look what he has done in the Philippines. There is a whole rebirth in boxing."
Arum, who spoke by telephone Wednesday, hopped aboard a plane the next day to the Philippines, where he is promoting a pay-per-view card tonight that will feature Filipino Nonito Donaire defending his flyweight title against Raul Martinez of San Antonio in the same Araneta Arena that played host to "The Thrilla in Manila" between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in 1975.
Arum said he is expecting a bigger crowd for Saturday's card than there was for Ali-Frazier.
"And it's all because of Manny," Arum said.
Good for Manny. But while we are looking ahead to what might be, let's not forget what was. DeLaHoya gave boxing an injection of popularity that has never been seen before. His 14.1 million pay-per-view buys that generated $696 million in revenue is proof.
His buddy, actor/comedian George Lopez, is hopeful that no one will ever try to put down what the Golden Boy meant to the world of prize-fighting.
"You can't put a punch-count on heart and Oscar has been all heart," Lopez said. "I'm proud to call him my friend and I'm prouder that a guy from East L.A., who came from nothing made a place for himself that will not be surpassed."
Gold-medalist Ward to face test in his back yard
After posting an 18-0 record with 12 knockouts against mediocre competition, Andre Ward is going to face his first real test May 16 when he takes on hard-hitting Edison Miranda in the super middleweight main event in Oakland.
Showtime will televise from Oracle Arena.
It will also mark the first time that Ward, America's only gold-medal winner in the 2004 Olympic Games, will fight in his back yard.
"I've wanted to fight in my hometown for a long time," said Ward, who fights under the Goossen Tutor Promotions banner. "After my last fight (in Lemoore), I said I wanted the next one to be in Oakland, and it is.
"It will be exciting for me finally to be able to fight in front of my friends, family and Bay Area fans. For the longest time, people would ask me why I wasn't fighting in my hometown. But now I am."
Miranda (32-3, 28 KOs), a former top middleweight contender, said Ward and his promoter, Dan Goossen, have bitten off more than they can chew.
"The fight will only go up to the 10th round and that's because that is when I am going to knock Andre Ward out," Miranda said Tuesday. "Andre Ward has never been in the ring with a fighter like me - he hasn't fought anyone talented. If there is one thing that you notice about Andre's fights, he's always running.
"Andre doesn't have the heart of a champion. He is holding onto his one achievement, the Olympic gold medal, but that is all he will ever achieve. I feel sorry for Dan Goossen to have invested so much money in such an untalented fighter."
Ward and Goossen were at a news conference in Oakland. They listened as Miranda called into the news conference and voiced his disparaging remarks through a speaker phone.
"Miranda can say anything he wants right now and I am not going to react," Ward said. "But you can bet that I will retaliate in the ring on May 16."
dailybreeze.com
It was 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, about three hours after Oscar De La Hoya announced his retirement from boxing. De La Hoya was playing host to an international conference call to discuss what had been an emotional decision that brought him to tears a couple of time at Nokia Theatre Plaza at L.A. Live.
De La Hoya won championships in a record six weight classes and set pay-per-view records. But that doesn't necessarily mean he was terrific in the ring, and it was inevitable that he would be asked what he would say to those who believe he was more of an attraction than a great fighter.
"I say, `Thank you. Thank you for always watching me. Thank you for making me an attraction. Thank you for believing in me. Thank you for being there,"' DeLaHoya said. "I've had the opportunity to face many world champions and a lot of them I won. Some I lost.
"But my satisfaction is because at least I tried. I tried to accomplish the impossible and not too many do that. And so if people want to remember me as an attraction, then I'm glad I gave a lot of people a lot of entertainment."
The question was asked to DeLaHoya because, although he fought most of the best during his 17-year career, he had a losing record in the 11 fights against what most would consider elite competition. We're not counting De La Hoya's two victories over Julio Cesar Chavez, because Chavez was past his prime when he and De La Hoya tangled for the first time in June 1996.
In those 11 fights, he beat Rafael Ruelas, Genaro Hernandez, Pernell Whitaker, Ike Quartey and Fernando Vargas. Referring to Whitaker as an elite fighter is giving De La Hoya the benefit of the doubt because when they fought, Whitaker was 33 and a bit past his prime.
In the other six, De La Hoya lost to Felix Trinidad Jr., "Sugar" Shane Mosley twice, Bernard Hopkins, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
Bob Arum, who promoted DeLaHoya for two-thirds of his career, said De La Hoya could have been much better.
"Oscar was a great attraction, the biggest attraction of his time and he was a very good fighter who fought all the competition that was around at the time," Arum said. "But he was never a great fighter. Later on in his career, when he wouldn't or couldn't push himself like a Manny Pacquiao does in training, he ended up losing fights that he should have won.
"I thought he won the Trinidad fight, but it never should have been that close. Same thing with the second Mosley fight. Should not have been that close. Once he established himself and once he was a big box-office draw, he was unable or unwilling to push himself to the next step to achieve true greatness."
But it doesn't change what DeLaHoya did for boxing after he turned pro in late 1992 after winning the gold medal in the Barcelona Games.
And with De La Hoya having hung up his gloves, it's going to be interesting to see what kind of an effect his absence will have on the business of boxing.
De La Hoya was the one fighter who, regardless of his opponent, always fared tremendously on pay-per-view. His fight with Ricardo Mayorga did nearly a million buys. The inside joke in boxing circles was that DeLa Hoya could fight his sister and get a million buys.
Well, Arum thinks Pacquiao, whom he promotes, is the fighter who can pick up the slack. He does have a huge following among his fanatical Filipino fans. But he never came close to a million pay-per-view buys until he fought De La Hoya last December, in a fight that reached 1.3 million buys.
Still, Arum said he is hopeful that Pacquiao can surpass what De La Hoya has done in this regard.
"CNN is doing an hour show on him," Arum said of Pacquiao, who May 2 will fight Ricky Hatton at MGM Grand in Las Vegas. "It shows he has really achieved a status beyond boxing and beyond sports.
"And look what he has done in the Philippines. There is a whole rebirth in boxing."
Arum, who spoke by telephone Wednesday, hopped aboard a plane the next day to the Philippines, where he is promoting a pay-per-view card tonight that will feature Filipino Nonito Donaire defending his flyweight title against Raul Martinez of San Antonio in the same Araneta Arena that played host to "The Thrilla in Manila" between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier in 1975.
Arum said he is expecting a bigger crowd for Saturday's card than there was for Ali-Frazier.
"And it's all because of Manny," Arum said.
Good for Manny. But while we are looking ahead to what might be, let's not forget what was. DeLaHoya gave boxing an injection of popularity that has never been seen before. His 14.1 million pay-per-view buys that generated $696 million in revenue is proof.
His buddy, actor/comedian George Lopez, is hopeful that no one will ever try to put down what the Golden Boy meant to the world of prize-fighting.
"You can't put a punch-count on heart and Oscar has been all heart," Lopez said. "I'm proud to call him my friend and I'm prouder that a guy from East L.A., who came from nothing made a place for himself that will not be surpassed."
Gold-medalist Ward to face test in his back yard
After posting an 18-0 record with 12 knockouts against mediocre competition, Andre Ward is going to face his first real test May 16 when he takes on hard-hitting Edison Miranda in the super middleweight main event in Oakland.
Showtime will televise from Oracle Arena.
It will also mark the first time that Ward, America's only gold-medal winner in the 2004 Olympic Games, will fight in his back yard.
"I've wanted to fight in my hometown for a long time," said Ward, who fights under the Goossen Tutor Promotions banner. "After my last fight (in Lemoore), I said I wanted the next one to be in Oakland, and it is.
"It will be exciting for me finally to be able to fight in front of my friends, family and Bay Area fans. For the longest time, people would ask me why I wasn't fighting in my hometown. But now I am."
Miranda (32-3, 28 KOs), a former top middleweight contender, said Ward and his promoter, Dan Goossen, have bitten off more than they can chew.
"The fight will only go up to the 10th round and that's because that is when I am going to knock Andre Ward out," Miranda said Tuesday. "Andre Ward has never been in the ring with a fighter like me - he hasn't fought anyone talented. If there is one thing that you notice about Andre's fights, he's always running.
"Andre doesn't have the heart of a champion. He is holding onto his one achievement, the Olympic gold medal, but that is all he will ever achieve. I feel sorry for Dan Goossen to have invested so much money in such an untalented fighter."
Ward and Goossen were at a news conference in Oakland. They listened as Miranda called into the news conference and voiced his disparaging remarks through a speaker phone.
"Miranda can say anything he wants right now and I am not going to react," Ward said. "But you can bet that I will retaliate in the ring on May 16."
Sloan and Scattergun
By HYPE IGOE.
NEW YORK, Dec. 25—(INS)—
Tod Sloan died and one of the milestones in
my life crumbled!
When he was clucking his way over the turf on English race
courses, making our own riding stars see red with his wizardry
he saddle, I was holding down a modest berth as an artist on the
San Francisco Examiner. The city by the "Golden Gate' I
woke up one morning to find that the great Tod Sloan had arrived
from New York, fresh from his saddle and social triumphs in England
Jack Doyle tells me that the tiny jockey had a cool $1,110,000 at that
time, well over 30 years ago. That he was "up in the chips" was quite
evident for he had chartered a private car with Its chefs, waiters,
barber, cocktail mixer, all attached to the overland filer.
No single individual ever crossed this continent In greater splendor,
'the trunks, the shoe chests, the hat boxcs, the swagger sticks Western
gay-dogs little dreamed that one man could surround himself with
such royal what-nots.
Sloan told the 20 or more interviewers that he was pleasure bent
only and that one of his reasons for comlng was to enter a live-pigeon
shoot, before the traps, at the fashoniable Ingleside gun club.
Tod had swept everything before him at trap shooting In England
and Monte Carlo and his guns, the most expensive makes in the world,
were as numerous as his walking stcks.
His "armory men," and there were two of them, did nothing but give care
to Tod's shotguns when he wasn't at the traps. •
They danced lavish attendance upon him. Always, Sloan's career had fasinatcd
me. He seemed to be riding skyrockets In my youthful Imagination.
I sat at my drawing table ink rcindering If the day would come
when I'd see him ride.
Suddenly an office boy broke in upon my dreaming. "Managing editor wants to see
you." he said with a snap. The managing editor was Andre
Lawrence. What had I done now' Was it the gate?
Andy Lawrence had a pugnacious jaw which would have carried him
far into Fistiana if ever he had taken up larruping instead of letters.
"Igoe." said Lawrence, "Tod Sloan Is going to join some of the
society bugs out at Ingleside in a
live pigeon shoot this afternoon. I want you to hop out there and do a
funny picture about it. It ought to be quite humorous."
That was all. but it seemed like doom—a sentence to the gallows
for me. I never had drawn a comic picture, a cartoon or a caricature
for publication In all my life. I fumbled around and got a sketch
pad. somehow. Without a word, I went out of thc art room, feeling In
my bones that I was leaving the beloved "den" forever.
I fancied that I was again in the old Mission strcct office, the day
that I had first gone to work. In a dream, It seemed, all came back.
I saw Davenport, Miss Partington, the genius of the pen and ink portraits; picturesque Nappcnbach, the German artist: Hayden Jones, poet of the pen; Jules Pages, who had had a painting hung In the French
salon; the gentle Joe Rafael, brother of Hynie the sportsman, and Frank
the fighter.
Again I saw handsome Wyatt Earp, then Andy Lawrence's bodyguard,
telling me stories of the bad. bad West, of his brothers and himself,
shooting It out with Bat Mastcrson and his brothers, until only
Bat and he remained. Those first days with Wee Willie
Britt on the staff, a daredevil reporter. Harrison Fisher, his superb
pen and Ink sketches. Joe Quail. the editor, ordering me
to the Baldwin hotel to "please ask
Mr. Swinnerton if he won't come
down to work!" "Swin" had married the Treadwell
girl of many millions and came to work only on invitation, wearing n
minstrelman's coat and a silk topper. This weird kaleidoscope still was
Whirling in my brain as I stepped out the car at its terminal and
walked toward the Ingleside shooting lodge.
The shotguns were booming as I rounded the clubhouse
portico. The first object which met my eyes was Tod Sloan, standing
in his place among the other crack shots, swinging a big double-barreled
shotgun Into line at fluttering pigons which seldom got far In
their frantic flights for freedom! Instantly Tod's shotgun loomed
up in tremendous contrast to the tiny man who was doing the shooting.
The barrels on that firing piece looked like the huge guns which
protrude from the turrets of a battleship. I began to laugh to myself.
"Gee, Hint's a funny picture. I'll make the barrels of the gun big and
tod Sloan a speck!" That was the thought which went
into the cartoon In the art room a few hours later. The gang laughed
at It. Could It be that good. "Take It down to Lawrence yourself
Hype," said Charley Tebs, the art director.
I went down the winding stairs and gingerly submitted my first cartoon.
Andy Lawrence laughed to split his side and I still think he
was kidding me. But that caricature
Tod Sloan was my first effort.
Years later, In Jack Doyle's billiard
parlor, Tod and I laughed over that cartoon.
NEW YORK, Dec. 25—(INS)—
Tod Sloan died and one of the milestones in
my life crumbled!
When he was clucking his way over the turf on English race
courses, making our own riding stars see red with his wizardry
he saddle, I was holding down a modest berth as an artist on the
San Francisco Examiner. The city by the "Golden Gate' I
woke up one morning to find that the great Tod Sloan had arrived
from New York, fresh from his saddle and social triumphs in England
Jack Doyle tells me that the tiny jockey had a cool $1,110,000 at that
time, well over 30 years ago. That he was "up in the chips" was quite
evident for he had chartered a private car with Its chefs, waiters,
barber, cocktail mixer, all attached to the overland filer.
No single individual ever crossed this continent In greater splendor,
'the trunks, the shoe chests, the hat boxcs, the swagger sticks Western
gay-dogs little dreamed that one man could surround himself with
such royal what-nots.
Sloan told the 20 or more interviewers that he was pleasure bent
only and that one of his reasons for comlng was to enter a live-pigeon
shoot, before the traps, at the fashoniable Ingleside gun club.
Tod had swept everything before him at trap shooting In England
and Monte Carlo and his guns, the most expensive makes in the world,
were as numerous as his walking stcks.
His "armory men," and there were two of them, did nothing but give care
to Tod's shotguns when he wasn't at the traps. •
They danced lavish attendance upon him. Always, Sloan's career had fasinatcd
me. He seemed to be riding skyrockets In my youthful Imagination.
I sat at my drawing table ink rcindering If the day would come
when I'd see him ride.
Suddenly an office boy broke in upon my dreaming. "Managing editor wants to see
you." he said with a snap. The managing editor was Andre
Lawrence. What had I done now' Was it the gate?
Andy Lawrence had a pugnacious jaw which would have carried him
far into Fistiana if ever he had taken up larruping instead of letters.
"Igoe." said Lawrence, "Tod Sloan Is going to join some of the
society bugs out at Ingleside in a
live pigeon shoot this afternoon. I want you to hop out there and do a
funny picture about it. It ought to be quite humorous."
That was all. but it seemed like doom—a sentence to the gallows
for me. I never had drawn a comic picture, a cartoon or a caricature
for publication In all my life. I fumbled around and got a sketch
pad. somehow. Without a word, I went out of thc art room, feeling In
my bones that I was leaving the beloved "den" forever.
I fancied that I was again in the old Mission strcct office, the day
that I had first gone to work. In a dream, It seemed, all came back.
I saw Davenport, Miss Partington, the genius of the pen and ink portraits; picturesque Nappcnbach, the German artist: Hayden Jones, poet of the pen; Jules Pages, who had had a painting hung In the French
salon; the gentle Joe Rafael, brother of Hynie the sportsman, and Frank
the fighter.
Again I saw handsome Wyatt Earp, then Andy Lawrence's bodyguard,
telling me stories of the bad. bad West, of his brothers and himself,
shooting It out with Bat Mastcrson and his brothers, until only
Bat and he remained. Those first days with Wee Willie
Britt on the staff, a daredevil reporter. Harrison Fisher, his superb
pen and Ink sketches. Joe Quail. the editor, ordering me
to the Baldwin hotel to "please ask
Mr. Swinnerton if he won't come
down to work!" "Swin" had married the Treadwell
girl of many millions and came to work only on invitation, wearing n
minstrelman's coat and a silk topper. This weird kaleidoscope still was
Whirling in my brain as I stepped out the car at its terminal and
walked toward the Ingleside shooting lodge.
The shotguns were booming as I rounded the clubhouse
portico. The first object which met my eyes was Tod Sloan, standing
in his place among the other crack shots, swinging a big double-barreled
shotgun Into line at fluttering pigons which seldom got far In
their frantic flights for freedom! Instantly Tod's shotgun loomed
up in tremendous contrast to the tiny man who was doing the shooting.
The barrels on that firing piece looked like the huge guns which
protrude from the turrets of a battleship. I began to laugh to myself.
"Gee, Hint's a funny picture. I'll make the barrels of the gun big and
tod Sloan a speck!" That was the thought which went
into the cartoon In the art room a few hours later. The gang laughed
at It. Could It be that good. "Take It down to Lawrence yourself
Hype," said Charley Tebs, the art director.
I went down the winding stairs and gingerly submitted my first cartoon.
Andy Lawrence laughed to split his side and I still think he
was kidding me. But that caricature
Tod Sloan was my first effort.
Years later, In Jack Doyle's billiard
parlor, Tod and I laughed over that cartoon.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Corky Gonzales..."I Am Joaquin"
Born on June 18, 1928 in Denver, CO, was 76 years old at the time of his death in Denver, CO, USA.
Won the National Amateur Athletic Union Bantamweight Title in 1946.
After his boxing days, Corky Gonzales went on to become an important leader in the Chicano Movement. In 1965, he wrote I Am Joaquin, a popular poem about a Mexican-American character's struggle in regards to forgetting his or her roots in order to get economic stability in the United States.
I AM JOAQUIN
I am Joaquin, ,
Lost in a world of confusion,
Caught up in a whirl of a
gringo society,
Confused by the rules,
Scorned by attitudes,
Suppressed by manipulations,
And destroyed by modern society.
My fathers
have lost the economic battle
and won
the struggle of cultural survival.
And now!
I must choose
Between
the paradox of
Victory of the spirit,
despite physical hunger
Or
to exist in the grasp
of American social neurosis,
sterilization of the soul
and a full stomach.
Yes,
I have come a long way to nowhere,
Unwillingly dragged by that
monstrous, technical
industrial giant called
Progress
and Anglo success…
I look at myself.
I watch my brothers.
I shed tears of sorrow.
I sow seeds of hate.
I withdraw to the safety within the
Circle of life . . .
MY OWN PEOPLE
I am Cuauhtemoc,
Proud and Noble
Leader of men,
King of an empire,
civilized beyond the dreams
of the Gachupin Cortez,
Who also is the blood,
the image of myself.
I am the Maya Prince.
I am Netzahualcoyotl,
Great leader of the Chichimecas.
I am the sword and flame of Cortez
the despot.
And
I am the Eagle and Serpent of
the Aztec civilization.
I owned the land as far as the eye
could see under the crown of Spain,
and I toiled on my earth and gave my Indian sweat and blood
for the Spanish master,
Who ruled with tyranny over man and
beast and all that he could trample
But . . .
THE GROUND WAS MINE.
I was both tyrant and slave.
As Christian church took its place
in God's good name,
to take and use my Virgin strength and
Trusting faith,
The priests
both good and bad,
took
But
gave a lasting truth that
Spaniard,
Indian,
Mestizo
Were all God's children
And
from these words grew men
who prayed and fought
for
their own worth as human beings,
for
that
GOLDEN MOMENT
Of
FREEDOM.
I was part in blood and spirit
of that
courageous village priest
Hidalgo
in the year eighteen hundred and ten
who rang the bell of independence
and gave out that lasting cry:
"El Grito de Dolores, Que mueran
los Gachupines y que viva
la Virgin de Guadalupe"
I sentenced him who was me.
I excommunicated him my blood.
I drove him from the Pulpit to lead a bloody revolution for him and me I killed him.
His head, which is mine and all of those who have conic this way,
I placed on that fortress wall to wall for Independence.
Morelos!
Matamoros!
Guerrero!
All Compañeros in the act,
STOOD AGAINST THAT WALL OF INFAMY
to feel the hot gouge of lead which my hands made.
I died with them . . .
I lived with them
I lived to see our country free.
Free from Spanish rule in eighteen -hundred- twenty-one.
Mexico was Free
The crown was gone but
all his parasites remained
and ruled and taught
with gun and flame and mystic power.
I worked,
I sweated,
I bled,
I prayed
and
waited silently for life to again commence.
I fought and died for
Don Benito Juarez
Guardian of the Constitution.
I was him on clusty roads on barren land
as he protected his archives as Moses did his sacraments.
He held his Mexico
in his hand
on
the most desolate
and remote ground
which was his country
And this Giant
Little Zapotec
gave
not one palm's breadth
of his country's land to
Kings or Monarchs or Presidents
of foreign powers.
I am Joaquin. I rode with Pancho Villa, crude and warm. A tornado at full strength, nourished and inspired
by the passion and the fire of all his earth, people. I am Emillano Zapata.
"This Land
This Earth
Is
OURS"
The Villages
The Mountains
The Streams
belong to Zapatistas.
Our life
Or yours
is the only trade for soft brown earth
.and maiz.
All of which is our reward,
A creed that formed a constitution for all who dare live free!
"This land is ours . . . Father, I give it back to you.
Mexico must be free . . .'
I ride with Revolutionists
against myself.
I am Rural
Course and brutal,
I am the mountain Indian, superior over all.
The thundering hoof beats are my horses.
The chattering of machine guns'
are death to all of me:
Yaqui
Tarahumara
Chamula
Zapotec
Mestizo
Español
I have been the Bloody Revolution,
The Victor,
The Vanquished,
I have killed
and been killed.
I am despots Diaz
and Huerta
and the apostle of democracy
Francisco Madero.
I am the black shawled
faithful women
who die with me
or live depending on the time and place.
I am
faithful,
humble,
Juan Diego,
the Virgen de Guadalupe,
Tonatzin, Aztec Goddess too.
I rode the mountains of San Joaquin. I rode as far East and North as the Rocky Mountains
and
all men feared the guns of
Joaquin Murrietta.
I killed those men who dared
to steal my mine,
who raped and Killed
my Love
my Wife
Then
I Killed to stay alive.
I was Alfego. Baca,
living my nine lives fully.
I was the Espinoza brothers
of the Valle de San Luis.
All,
were added to the number of heads
that
in the name of civilization
were placed on the wall of independence.
Heads of brave men
who died for cause or principle.
Good or Bad.
Hidalgo! Zapata!
Murrietta! Espinozas!
are but a few. They dared to face The force of
tyranny of men who rule
By farce and hypocrisy
I stand here looking back, and now I see the present
and still
I arn the campesino
I am the fat political coyote
I, of the same name,
Joaquin.
In a country that has wiped out AI my history, stiffled all my pride.
In a country that has placed a different weight of indignity upon my age old
burdened back.
Inferiority
is the new load . . .
The Indian has endured and still
emerged the winner,
The Mestizo must yet overcome,
And the Gachupin will just ignore.
I look at myself
and see part of me
who rejects my father and my mother
and dissolves into the melting pot
to disappear in shame.
I sometimes
sell my brother out
and reclaim him
for my own when society, gives me
token leadership
in society's own name.
I am Joaquin, who bleeds in many ways. The altars of Moctezuma
I stained a bloody red.
My back of Indian Slavery
was stripped crimson from the whips of masters who would lose their blood so pure when
Revolution made them pay Standing against the walls of Retribution,
Blood . . .
Has flowed from
me on every battlefield
between Campesino, Hacendado Slave and Master and
Revolution.
I jumped from the tower of Chapultepec into the sea of fame;
My country's flag my burial shroud;
With Los Niños, whose pride and courage
could not surrender with indignity their country's flag . . . in their land.
To strangers
Now
I bleed in some smelly cell
from club.
or gun.
or tyranny.
I bleed as the vicious gloves of hunger
cut my face and eyes,
as I fight my way from stinking Barrios
to the glamour of the Ring
and lights of fame
or mutilated sorrow.
My blood runs pure on the ice caked
hills of the Alaskan Isles,
on the corpse strewn beach of Normandy,
the foreign land of Korea
and now
Viet Nam.
Here I stand
before the Court of justice Guilty for all the glory of my Raza to be sentenced to despair.
Here I stand Poor in money Arrogant with pride
Bold with Machismo
Rich in courage and
Wealthy in spirit and faith
My knees are caked with mud. My hands calloused from the hoe.
I have made the Anglo rich yet
Equality is but a word, the Treaty of Hidalgo has been broken
and is but another treacherous promise.
My land is lost
and stolen,
My culture has been raped,
lengthen
the line at the welfare door and fill the jails with crime.
These then are the rewards this society has
For sons of Chiefs
and Kings and bloody Revolutionists.
Who gave a foreign people all their skills and ingenuity
to pave the way with Brains and Blood
for
those hordes of Gold starved
Strangers
Who changed our language and plagiarized our deeds
as feats of valor of their own. They frowned upon our way of life
and took what they could use.
Our Art
Our Literature
Our music, they ignored so they left the real things of value and grabbed at their own destruction by their
Greed and Avarice
They overlooked that cleansing fountain of
nature and brotherhood
Which is Joaquin.
The art of our great señors
Diego Rivera
Siqueiros
Orozco is but
another act of revolution for the Salvation of mankind. Mariachi music, the heart and soul of the people of the earth, the life of child, and the happiness of love
The Corridos tell the tales of life and death, of tradition, Legends old and new, of Joy of passion and sorrow of the people: who I am.
I am in the eyes of woman, sheltered beneath
her shawl of black, deep and sorrowful eyes,
That bear the pain of sons long buried or dying,
Dead
on the battlefield or on the barbwire of social strife.
Her rosary she prays and fingers
endlessly like the family working down a row of beets to turn around and work and work There is no end. Her eyes a mirror of all the warmth and all the love for me, And I am her And she is me. We face life together in sorrow. anger, joy faith and wishful thoughts.
I shed tears of anguish as I see my children disappear behind the shroud of mediocrity never to look back to remember me. I am Joaquin.
I must fight And win this struggle for my sons, and they must know from me Who I am. Part of the blood that runs deep in me Could not be vanquished by the Moors I defeated them after five hundred years, and I endured. The part of blood that is mine has labored endlessly five-hundred years under the heel of lustful Europeans
I am still here!
I have endured in the rugged mountains
of our country
I have survived the toils and slavery,
of the fields.
I have existed
in the barrios of the city,
in the suburbs of bigotry,
in the mines of social snobbery,
in the prisons of dejection,
in the muck of exploitation
and
in the fierce heat of racial hatred.
And now the trumpet sounds,
The music of the people stirs the
Revolution,
Like a sleeping giant it slowly rears its head
to the sound of
Tramping feet
Clamouring voices
Marlachi strains
Fiery tequila explosions
The smell of chile verde and
Soft brown eyes of expectation for a
better life
And in all the fertile farm lands,
the barren plains,
the mountain villages,
smoke smeared cities
We start to MOVE.
La Raza! Mejicano!
Español!
Latino!
Hispano!
Chicano!
or whatever I call myself,
I look the same
I feel the same
I cry
and
Sing the same
I am the masses of my people and I refuse to be absorbed.
I am Joaquin
The odds are great but my spirit is strong
My faith unbreakable
My blood is pure
I am Aztec Prince and Christian Christ
I SHALL ENDURE!
I WILL ENDURE!
Thursday, April 16, 2009
State To Monitor USA Boxing Eventes
California State Athletic Commission orders the monitoring for at least two months. The action stems from video that showed young children boxing without parental supervision at a USA Boxing amateur c
By Lance Pugmire
In November, a Bay Area television station aired footage of a USA Boxing amateur card at the exclusive Olympic Club in San Francisco where children as young as 8 boxed without parental supervision and grown men were heard gambling on the outcome.
Last month, the California State Athletic Commission stepped in to issue a cease-and-desist order to stop USA Boxing from sanctioning amateur fights in the state -- throwing legitimate youth boxing into limbo amid a threat to revoke the organization's future participation in the state.
But the situation moved toward resolution Monday when the commission ordered state inspectors to monitor all USA Boxing events for at least two months, after which an updated report will be filed about the amateur organization that sends U.S. fighters to the Olympics.
"Hopefully, it'll work out," said Karen Chappelle, the state's supervising deputy attorney general who brokered the agreement in an hourlong closed-door meeting with USA Boxing Chief Executive Jim Millman and an attorney for the U.S. Olympic Committee. "As you've seen from the turnout at this hearing, there's a lot of interest in amateur boxing in this state."
Javier Molina, a 2008 U.S. Olympian from Commerce, attended the hearing, along with former U.S. Olympic fighters Vicente Escobedo, Henry Tillman and Paul Gonzales.
Commissioners were told that it's unfair to punish 2,200 amateur boxers participating in USA Boxing events in Southern California with the cease-and-desist order.
Chappelle negotiated for USA Boxing to institute a mandatory safety plan for transporting injured fighters to medical facilities, and Millman has tightened guidelines to ban non-boxing clubs such as San Francisco's Olympic and City clubs from hosting USA Boxing events.
The U.S. Olympic Committee placed USA Boxing on probation in February for "fiscal" reasons, USOC attorney Rana Dershowitz told the commission Monday. She said USA Boxing "is moving in the right direction," although the California troubles only added to the organization's tarnished reputation after a dismal showing by U.S. boxers at the Beijing Olympics last summer.
"We were very concerned about our future here in California," Millman said after the hearing. "The single most frustrating issue is that we're talking about one event out of 200. By now defining what a boxing club is, we'll eliminate what happened at the Olympic."
Said Chappelle: "That one show at the Olympic put the spotlight on them, and we found other issues. I don't think all their events were bad, but they weren't responsible to the commission, and now they are."
In addition to the new mandatory safety plan and new club guidelines, USA Boxing must put coaches through background checks, make it easier for amateurs to file a grievance, improve training for coaches and upgrade record keeping for fighters to avoid dangerous mismatches.
lance.pugmire@latimes.com
By Lance Pugmire
In November, a Bay Area television station aired footage of a USA Boxing amateur card at the exclusive Olympic Club in San Francisco where children as young as 8 boxed without parental supervision and grown men were heard gambling on the outcome.
Last month, the California State Athletic Commission stepped in to issue a cease-and-desist order to stop USA Boxing from sanctioning amateur fights in the state -- throwing legitimate youth boxing into limbo amid a threat to revoke the organization's future participation in the state.
But the situation moved toward resolution Monday when the commission ordered state inspectors to monitor all USA Boxing events for at least two months, after which an updated report will be filed about the amateur organization that sends U.S. fighters to the Olympics.
"Hopefully, it'll work out," said Karen Chappelle, the state's supervising deputy attorney general who brokered the agreement in an hourlong closed-door meeting with USA Boxing Chief Executive Jim Millman and an attorney for the U.S. Olympic Committee. "As you've seen from the turnout at this hearing, there's a lot of interest in amateur boxing in this state."
Javier Molina, a 2008 U.S. Olympian from Commerce, attended the hearing, along with former U.S. Olympic fighters Vicente Escobedo, Henry Tillman and Paul Gonzales.
Commissioners were told that it's unfair to punish 2,200 amateur boxers participating in USA Boxing events in Southern California with the cease-and-desist order.
Chappelle negotiated for USA Boxing to institute a mandatory safety plan for transporting injured fighters to medical facilities, and Millman has tightened guidelines to ban non-boxing clubs such as San Francisco's Olympic and City clubs from hosting USA Boxing events.
The U.S. Olympic Committee placed USA Boxing on probation in February for "fiscal" reasons, USOC attorney Rana Dershowitz told the commission Monday. She said USA Boxing "is moving in the right direction," although the California troubles only added to the organization's tarnished reputation after a dismal showing by U.S. boxers at the Beijing Olympics last summer.
"We were very concerned about our future here in California," Millman said after the hearing. "The single most frustrating issue is that we're talking about one event out of 200. By now defining what a boxing club is, we'll eliminate what happened at the Olympic."
Said Chappelle: "That one show at the Olympic put the spotlight on them, and we found other issues. I don't think all their events were bad, but they weren't responsible to the commission, and now they are."
In addition to the new mandatory safety plan and new club guidelines, USA Boxing must put coaches through background checks, make it easier for amateurs to file a grievance, improve training for coaches and upgrade record keeping for fighters to avoid dangerous mismatches.
lance.pugmire@latimes.com
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
THE NEW YE OLDE
By Roger Esty
The 32nd Street Naval Gym was a an active spot for the boys in the South Bay area to train. Junior Robles's Gym and the 32nd Street Gym had the market on fighters in the South Bay area of San Diego. National City,Chula Vista,and San Ysidro. I liked the 32nd Street Gym because I could work out with larger fighters. Many of them were in the service. Some were already amateurs. Some were like me. Interested to work out in the ring and maybe learn a few things. A couple of the trainers like Dick Wood were pushing for me to take up the sport seriously,but I had already been playing football for a while and was practicing and playing for the local college team.
I knew I would have to decide with one or the other. I opted for football. I was an All League Defensive Lineman. That was enough of an accomplishment for me. Starting to box at 21 years of age was a task I wasn't about to undertake.
But I really enjoyed going to the 32nd Street Gym. I wasn't an All League anything,and maybe that's why I liked going. I was nervous,but I wanted to test myself with something that was another kind of contact sport. I always considered boxing superior to football even though if you put a fighter with no football experience on the gridiron,he get his butt kicked just as I was getting it kicked out of me at the 32nd Street Gym.
The 32nd Street Gym ,although full of fighters back then,was a casual place in a way to train. There were no super egos in there. The trainers. The fighters. Aside from dishing it out to each other and making you sweat,i felt I was among friends. People who wanted to see you make good.
A few months ago I went back to the 32nd Street Gym. From outside the gate,the sign read"The New Ye Olde 32nd Street Gym." The guard wouldn't let me pass. In fact I was pulled aside and questioned why I wanted to go inside the gym. When I told them I used to work out there years ago,the MP's got suspicious. They grilled me pretty good before they realized I wasn't a terrorist.
Needless to say I didn't revisit the old gym. I'm sorry,"The New Ye Olde Gym".
I don't think it was the same inside anyway.
The 32nd Street Naval Gym was a an active spot for the boys in the South Bay area to train. Junior Robles's Gym and the 32nd Street Gym had the market on fighters in the South Bay area of San Diego. National City,Chula Vista,and San Ysidro. I liked the 32nd Street Gym because I could work out with larger fighters. Many of them were in the service. Some were already amateurs. Some were like me. Interested to work out in the ring and maybe learn a few things. A couple of the trainers like Dick Wood were pushing for me to take up the sport seriously,but I had already been playing football for a while and was practicing and playing for the local college team.
I knew I would have to decide with one or the other. I opted for football. I was an All League Defensive Lineman. That was enough of an accomplishment for me. Starting to box at 21 years of age was a task I wasn't about to undertake.
But I really enjoyed going to the 32nd Street Gym. I wasn't an All League anything,and maybe that's why I liked going. I was nervous,but I wanted to test myself with something that was another kind of contact sport. I always considered boxing superior to football even though if you put a fighter with no football experience on the gridiron,he get his butt kicked just as I was getting it kicked out of me at the 32nd Street Gym.
The 32nd Street Gym ,although full of fighters back then,was a casual place in a way to train. There were no super egos in there. The trainers. The fighters. Aside from dishing it out to each other and making you sweat,i felt I was among friends. People who wanted to see you make good.
A few months ago I went back to the 32nd Street Gym. From outside the gate,the sign read"The New Ye Olde 32nd Street Gym." The guard wouldn't let me pass. In fact I was pulled aside and questioned why I wanted to go inside the gym. When I told them I used to work out there years ago,the MP's got suspicious. They grilled me pretty good before they realized I wasn't a terrorist.
Needless to say I didn't revisit the old gym. I'm sorry,"The New Ye Olde Gym".
I don't think it was the same inside anyway.
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