By kiki
My first
time stepping through the doors of the Teamster Gym was around 1949 when a
friend and I rode the bus and street car from the Simons Brickyard to watch
boxers train. I fell in love with that gym—and its people. The doorman was an
old cranky guy, Joe Kelly, who even though he only weighed about 110 pounds
would grab you and throw you out if you didn’t pay your two bits.
The cast of
characters that made up the Teamsters boxing family were some of the elite
fighters, trainers, and managers of Los Angeles boxing in that golden era.
Johnny Forbes trained Gil Cadilli, Frankie and Juan Luis Campos, Keeny Teran,
Carlos and Al Chavez, and many others. Louie Jauregui and Bob De La Fuentes
managed Rudy Jordan, who went on to become a well-known referee. Also under
their wing was Hank Aceves, a top main eventer, as well as some top prelim
fighters. Louie and Bob had a falling out and they went their separate ways
with their fighters. Louie went on to manage Butch and Dave Contreras and
co-managed Mando Muniz to world title fights against the great Jose Napoles.
Bob went on to manage his sons, Ray and Orlando De La Fuentes.
Hoyt Porter
had mostly amateur fighters in his stable at the gym, with one or two pro
fighters. Hoyt was my first “professional” trainer. I fought a few amateur
fights for him, and then I finished my amateur boxing career with Louie
Jauregui; I never fought pro. Some of the top fighters who I sparred with in
that old building were Lou Bernal, Fabela Chavez, Bernard and Maxie Docusen,
Lauro Salas, Rudy Jordan, Rudy Garcia, Gil Cadilli, Cisco Andrade, Hank Aceves,
Dave and Butch Contreras, Carlos and Al Chavez and Keeny Teran—the list goes on
and on!
In the early
‘60s after I had stopped boxing I would still go to the Teamster on Saturday
mornings just to work out and to spar with the young guns. It was during those
Saturday mornings workouts in 1964 that I introduced my two older boys, Frankie
and Tony, to the sport of boxing. The boys took to boxing the way ducks take to
water. They were soon winning multiple Junior Golden Gloves titles. My other
boy, Bobby, later joined the team; he too won a number of JGG titles. Frankie
and Tony went on to have good professional careers. Bobby had six pro fights
and called it a day, which was okay with me; I was never one to tell them “you
have to fight.”
In the early
1950s, with the backing of the Teamster Union, Louie Jauregui and Johnny Flores
started the Junior Golden Gloves. In 1965 I became tournament director and was
so for ten years. In those ten years we had kids come through the program that
later on went on to have stellar boxing careers. Some became world champions,
some top contenders, and to be honest, some didn’t win more than twenty five
percent of their fights—but to their credit; they fought on when the odds were
against them.
Today that
old building is still there, but the gym was closed years ago. All that remains
of the storied Teamsters Gym are the ghost of those great and, yes, some not so
great fighters that trained there, fighters who I would like to think are still
shadow boxing on the wooded floor of that old gym, with old Joe Kelly yelling
at them, “you better not spit on the floor!”
