Circa 1973,
shortly after winning the lightweight title from Chango Carmona, Rodolfo
Gonzalez had a boxing show (smoker) at a church in Long Beach, CA. He invited
me to bring the boys to box in his show. Frankie was 15 years old at the time,
Tony was 12, Bobby 10. As soon as we got there we run into many old friends,
including Jackie McCoy and Freddy Merino, who had some young boxers ready to
box.
Freddy had
two brothers who were match with Tony and Bobby. I was having a hard time
finding an opponent for Frankie when Freddy said "I got somebody for him"
I looked at the guy and I told Freddy "he is kind of old for Frankie"
he had to be about 22-23 years old, Freddy replied, "yeah, but he just
started boxing" I took the fight.
Tony and
Bobby made quick work of their opponents, both won by second round TKO.
Now it was
Frankie's turn, we got into the ring and Frankie kept looking at his opponent, After
the introduction we got called to the center of the ring to get our instructions
from the referee, (have you notice how I always say “WE”) as we headed back to
our corner to start round one, Frankie looked at me and said "dad, that
guy is a grown man" I asked him, “why do you say that” and he replied
"Because he has hair under his arms", well, Frankie won by decision
and Freddy couldn’t believe it, I was to find out later why. After the fight
while we were in the dressing room Jackie McCoy came in laughing his ass off, I
asked him "what so funny?" he told me that Freddy thought he was
going to pull one over on me, I asked him what he meant by that, he said that
the guy Frankie fought was a pro, Frankie looked at Jackie and pointing at me
told Jackie "with his guts and my blood we're going places" at that
moment Freddy walked in and asked me if I had any more kids, Jackie started
laughing again and told Freddy "Freddy, he beat you three out of three, two by
KO and one against a pro, and you’re still looking for more?"
“Memories”
