Luis Santana and the Cadillac

In 1989 when Tony Baltazar was getting ready for his fight against Buddy McGirt we set up camp at the La Mancha Athletic Club in Phoenix, Arizona. After one month of training at La Mancha it came time to break camp and get ready for our flight to New York City, fight was held In Swan Lake, upstate New York. The night before our departure to New York City the owners of La Mancha, Charlie and Diane, threw a going away party for us at their home in Surprise, AZ. Surprise is about 40 miles from Phoenix. There were about ten of us that drove in two cars to Surprise. The group included Jimmy Montoya, Jerry Cheatham, Grant Elvis Phillips, Luis Santana, Tony, I and others. There was food and drinks served by our host. Luis Santana who was a non-drinker was putting away the tequila that night. Tony and some of the guys left early in one of the cars, soon some other ones left in the second car, left behind without a car was Jimmy, Jerry, Elvis, Luis and me. Our host Charlie said not to worry; we could use one of his cars to get back to the La Mancha when we were ready to go. Around 2:00 AM we thanked Charlie and Diane, told them that it was time for us to get back to the La Mancha. Charlie walked us out to the back of the house where three brand new cars were sitting, two Cadillac’s and a Jaguar; take your pick he told us, we picked one of the caddies. Elvis got behind the wheel, with Jimmy riding shotgun, sitting in the back were Jerry, Luis and me, with Luis, who was Tony’s hired sparring partner, sitting in the middle..

No sooner had we gotten on the road when we got lost, we wind up on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. The dirt road came to a dead-end in a desert so dark that not even the rattlesnakes could see where they are going. As we made the stop at the dead-end Luis started to get sick, Jerry and I jumped out of the caddie just as Luis barfed on the rear floor of the new caddie. After making sure that Luis was done barfing we somehow got back on the right road; we drove back to La Mancha with our heads sticking out the windows. 

Sunrise found Elvis, Jerry and Luis at a self-serve car wash trying to clean the caddie. When Charlie was told what had happened he said “don’t worry about it, I’ll just get another car” I don’t know if he bought another car or not.

Diane, Charlie and their teenage daughter, Kelly, made the trip to New York with us. We were put up at a hotel on 8^th Ave just off 42 St. On the morning after our arrival we were sitting at the hotel’s coffee shop having breakfast when Diane told us about what Kelly had seen. Kelly had been looking out the window in the middle of the night when she seen what she took to be a prostitute talking to a “john” Kelly told Diane “mom, look, the girl is talking to a “client”

Luis went on to win the WBC Light Middleweight title from Terry Norris on a DQ

Elvis is now the Founder/CEO of Grant Inc, manufacture of boxing equipment.