Jo Jo Torres vs Stan Ward

                                      

                                                   By kiki

In spring of 1973, I and the Southern California Coaches and Managers Association took a Los Angeles amateur boxing team to the state Capital, Sacramento, for a box off against their local champs. Our heavyweight was a part time amateur boxer, Jo Jo Torres, whom real passion was been a playboy. But for the Torres vs Ward fight it was for the most part a forgettable trip in which we lost 7 out of 10 fights. When Jo Jo found out he was fighting Ward, who was known to be the best amateur heavyweight in California, I could see in his eyes that he would rather be in some nite club in LA then in a boxing ring in Sacramento. In the first round Jo Jo went down from what seemed like a so-so right hand. Down on one knee he kept looking at the canvas as the referee counted. I could see that he wasn’t going to get up, even though he could have. As the ref was about to count nine I jumped in the ring and stopped the fight to save him face. As soon as I jumped in the ring Jo Jo jumped up too and he said to me “why did you stop the fight? I was going to get up” I said to him “of course you were” As we were flying back home he kept telling anybody on the plane that would listen “I was going to get up” Of course he was!

Pencils for the Blind

 

                                               By kiki

Back in 1950’s and well into the ‘60’s there was a middle age black man that used to sit cross-legged outside the main entrance of the Olympic Auditorium on fite nite. He would sit wearing dark glasses with a white cane with a red tip near-by. His hat sitting on the sidewalk was turned upside down and full of pencils. Fans as they walked into the arena would drop coins and paper money into his hat. Very few would take a pencil. Anything to help the blind, right?....Well one night as I was milling among the crowd in front of the arena I spotted local boxing manager Ralph Gambina walking across the street, so did our blind friend, because he jumped up and yelled “hey Ralph” He caught himself but it was too late; many of the fans had seen what he had done. Soon he was gone, only to be back sitting in the same spot the following week.

What’s that old adage? “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me”

DQ=T.D.

I remember back in 1980 when Tony Baltazar was making his 13^th  start against an old veteran by the name of Chuy Rodriguez, Rodriguez was making his 43^rd pro start. After the bell sounded to end the 4^th round Rodriguez hit Tony, Tony hit him back causing a nasty cut over one of Rodriguez’s eyes. The referee called Dr. Bernhart Schwartz up into the ring to examine the cut, the good doctor did so and he told the referee that Rodriguez couldn’t continue the fight. When the referee signal that the fight was over all hell broke loose. Cups full of beer and maybe piss started raining into the ring. We jumped out of the ring before the TD decision was announced and with cops around us we made it by the skin of our teeth to our dressing room. We stay in the catacombs till way after the last fight was over. We were saved to fight another day!

Boxing Books

                                                      By kiki

In the last few weeks I read two great booking books. Let me say here that I am not a big fan of boxing books because there is not much I can learn from them, after all I’ve been around the sport for over 65 Years, first as a very young fan, than as an amateur boxer, amateur/pro trainer/manager, amateur matchmaker and the list goes on.

Now the books: first I read “Mexican American Boxing in Los Angeles” authored by Gene Aguilera. Gene’s book is a pictorial of Mexican American boxers that practiced their trade in Los Angeles and Southern California rings. Gene book covers Los Angeles Mexican American boxing from the 1900’s to 1990’s. I was most interesting in reading the 1940-’50-’60-’70 and 80’s chapters because that was my time in boxing...I read about many of the now forgotten fighters that I grew up watching at venues like the Olympic Auditorium, Hollywood Legion Stadium and the Ocean Park Arena et al….Gene did a great job researching the lives and careers of the boxers he covered in his book. Gene’s book is not about one boxer and any fight in particular. He also didn’t give us his opinion on any boxer or their fights that he wrote about, I liked that.

I next read “Becoming Taz: Writing from the Southpaw stance” authored by former professional boxer, Jeff Bumpus. In his book Jeff writes about his career as a pro boxer. He tells us what he went through in trying to be a champion in a very tough sport, only to fall short of his goal….He digs deep into every nook and cranny of the boxing business, he find that as a prospect you are cater to, only to lose favor as your career starts sliding down…What I liked about Jeff’s book is the human element he inserted in his book, his sister ready to stand up to some loud mouth “motherfucker”, his dad banging his fist on the ring apron ready to take on any sonofabitch that bad mouth his son. Yes, the book is a boxing book, but also about human nature.

As you open Jeff’s book you’ll find after the title page a page with this ‘To the dreamers and the journeymen’ Like all of us, Jeff, you might had been a dreamer, but you were not a journeyman fighter, you beat some top prospects, who were also dreamers, you fought great champions and some good contenders, you won some and lost some, and that my friend does not make you a journeyman boxer, what it does make you is a quality fighter.

I highly recommend both books.

Canelo vs Lara

                                                      By kiki

My take on the fight: I re-watched the fight this morning and in my opinion Lara took Canelo to school. He gave Canelo a boxing lesson, hit and move, a la Willie Pep. Lara had Canelo missing throughout the fight, and when he didn’t have him missing he was blocking his punches. Sure Canelo landed a hard shot here and there, his problem was that he didn’t follow through with more punches. He also never double-up on his punches. There was few times when Canelo threw in bunches, but for the most they were harmless punches as he was hitting gloves and elbows.

I didn’t score the fight, I instead drew on my 65+ years of watching fights to call Lara the winner.

R.I.P. Bobby Padilla

                                          R.I.P. Bobby Padilla

Bobby Padilla, A junior boxing champion out of the Resurrection Gym has passed. Bobby was, along with Tony Valle, Angel Soto, Art Frias, et al. one of the junior boxing stars boxing under Jim Lopez wing in those early years of the Resurrection Gym (mid-‘60s) Bobby was one of the guys we could always depend to be ready to spar with my son Frankie on our weekend visits to the Resurrection Gym in those early years. I hadn’t been in contact with Bobby in over forty years, but thanks to Facebook we were able to reconnect last year. Soon after reconnecting I invited Bobby to join us in a couple of Facebook boxing pages ‘Classic American West-Coast Boxing’ and ‘Fight Group’ he joined gladly. He too joined my music page ‘Music and Cigar Lounge’ at first Bobby was posting regularly on all three pages, then as the month passed by due to his illness; he was posting less and less. His last posts were on the first week of June, after that I was fearing the bad news. Bobby I am sorry we never got together for breakfast at ‘Mike’s Puck’ … Our new friendship was cut short as Bobby’s life journey came to an end yesterday (6-22-14) due to throat cancer. R.I.P. Champ!

Mexican-American Boxing in Los Angeles

                        

                                

 Had lunch with Gene Aguilera, author of “Mexican-American Boxing in Los Angeles”…It’s a great book that covers the Los Angeles chicano boxing community from the early days of Aurelio Herrera and Joe Rivers to the later days of Oscar De La Hoyo and Chicanito Hernandez, and in between there is Baby Arizmendi, Manuel Ortiz, Enrique Bolanos, Art Aragon, Carlos and Al Chavez, Keeny Teran, Gil Cadilli, Mando Muniz, the Montes brothers, Frankie and Tony Baltazar, and many more that made boxing come alive in the City of Angels in those golden years when the chicano boxer was a star….I highly recommend this great book.

Church Boxing

                                                       

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”