The Beast of Stillman's Gym, Part 8

Published

12 years ago

February 6, 2012

Springs Toledo

beast 9

Mary Darthard, surrounded by family members after the tragedy that was Lytell-Darthard II.

PART 8: THESE HANDS

Bert Lytell was haunted by a ghost. It followed him wherever he went for the last four decades of his life. Sometimes he’d be sitting in a chair at his brother’s house in Oakland, surrounded by light-hearted nieces and chattering relatives, and then he wouldn’t be there anymore. His eyes would dull and lower to something that wasn’t there. Ellen noticed her uncle staring at the floor and asked her parents about it. They told her what he saw.

He saw Jackie Darthard, the shadow of Jackie Darthard, dying on a hospital cot.

April 21^st 1948. Bert Lytell was 24 years old and 160 lbs when he marched down the aisle to fight his second main event at the Milwaukee Auditorium. He slipped through quivering ropes and paced the ring, rolling his shoulders and reveling in his physical prowess like boxers do.

Ten paces away, the sixth-ranked middleweight in the world reveled just as much. His name was Jackie and he was one in a parade of teenage glory-boys that boxing used to beckon, a slugger good enough to fight Bert to a draw the first time they met. “Once an opponent has been hurt, Darthard is after him without letup,” his hometown paper boasted. “He packs lethal wallops in either hand.”

Like most black contenders, Jackie had to take an extra job to make ends meet. He worked at a mattress factory and washed dishes when he wasn’t training, though he had high hopes about this rematch with Lytell. He was sure it would launch him into the big-time, and the lucky blue cap he wore into the ring and everywhere else would make it a cinch. His wife remembered that cap and the tiffs they had when he wore it to bed. She made the mistake of hiding it once; “I thought we was gonna get a divorce,” she said years later.

In the third round, Bert landed a right hook to Jackie’s head and a left that went deep into his stomach. Jackie went down on his face and didn’t get up until the referee counted nine. Another left sent him down again. He used the ropes to get to his feet and barely beat the count. In the fifth round, Sammy Aaronson peered under the ropes from the Lytell corner and saw a sick look on Jackie’s face. His instincts, honed over twenty-seven years in the racket, told him something was wrong and he started hollering at the referee: “That kid’s hurt! Stop the fight!” It seemed to be a stunt to get his man the win and the referee ignored him. “Get a doctor! Take that kid out of there!” An official leaned over his shoulder. “Keep your mouth shut,” he warned, “or you’ll be suspended.” Sammy knew he was breaking the rules but kept at it anyway. No one listened. After the round ended, he told Bert to take it easy.

In the closing seconds of the sixth round Bert crowded Jackie into a corner and then landed a clubbing left to his temple at the bell.

Jackie slumped on his stool. “Give me a drink of water,” he said as he draped his arms along the ropes. He started tossing his head and his trainer started worrying. “Jackie, how do you feel?” he asked.

“Give me a drink of water and I’ll get him this round.”

“You can’t go out this round.”

“No, don’t stop it. He’ll get a knockout on me!”

“You can’t go out this round, we are going to stop it.”

“No don’t stop it, don’t stop it.”

The trainer then asked Jackie where they were staying. Jackie said “sixteen, sixteen… Oh my head hurts, my head hurts, my head hurts…” The rest was incoherent and he went limp.

Sammy wasn’t even looking at Bert during the one minute rest. He was fixated on what was happening in the other corner and was already heading over there when Jackie slid off the stool to the canvas.

Officials rushed up the stairs into the ring. One of them scrambled under the ring, grabbed a stretcher and slid it under the ropes. Silence like a black veil fell over the 5,044 in attendance. Bert dropped to his knees. “Is he gone?” he kept asking. Jackie was carried out of the auditorium and rushed to the County Emergency Hospital.

A reporter approached Bert and asked him if he knew that Jackie was in bad shape. “I don’t know if he was talking to me or mumbling to himself but he said that he was hurt in the stomach,” he answered before excusing himself to go visit his opponent at the hospital.

By 1am reporters, state officials, and trainers from both corners were standing around in silent vigil outside of Jackie’s room. A few fans filtered in and volunteered to give blood transfusions. Sammy peeked into the room and saw the unconscious fighter’s head wrapped in bandages and his chest rising and falling with deep gasps that came too far apart. “I couldn’t stand it,” he said. Bert sat in a chair and prayed. Tears were seen streaming down his cheeks. A reporter from The Milwaukee Journal was watching him. He saw the flattened nose that all fighters eventually share and the scar tissue over the eyes. “It’s easy to see he packs a terrible wallop,” he wrote, “but when he talks it’s a quiet, gentle voice, you might say like a woman’s.” He was fondling a cigarette and the reporter remarked how it looked like a little white match in those big hands of his.

Those hands killed a contender. A nurse came out of the operating room and said that Jackie Darthard was gone. It was 8:40 in the morning on April 22^nd 1948 and Jackie was still wearing his boxing trunks. Bert was inconsolable. The county medical examiner said that the cause of death was “a brain hemorrhage, caused by external violence.” Bert killed him, and he knew it. He was going to quit the ring.

Mary Darthard was Jackie’s mother. She and a few family members were on their way to Milwaukee in a borrowed Buick when a newsflash said that Jackie had died that morning. When they arrived into the city, they went to the District Attorney’s office where an official hearing was being conducted. Bert was already there. He was standing further down the corridor when he saw the family come in. He watched Mrs. Darthard sob convulsively while Jackie’s sister and younger brother dabbed at her tears and stayed close. Some minutes passed before he was able to gather up his courage and approach the slender, well-dressed woman.

“I’m Bert Lytell,” he murmured, “I just want to say I’m sorry.”

Mrs. Darthard quickly composed herself and took his hands into her hers. “I know how you feel, son. Just like Jackie would have felt,” she said, “it wasn’t your fault. It was God’s will, I guess.”

The most feared middleweight in the world began to cry.

“Brace up, honey,” she told him. “Don’t let it ruin your life.”

Bert wouldn’t let it ruin his life. But it changed him. He began pulling his punches whenever he had an opponent hurt and he could no longer bring himself to stage those all-out attacks like before.

The beast was gone. Only the man remained.

…..

Twenty years later, the hands that killed Jackie Darthard were shining shoes in an Oakland Laundromat. Their power to startle was undiminished. “I can still see his knuckles and joints, all worn and beaten,” his nephew Kelvin told me, “—they were huge.” Bert probably looked at them with both pride and sorrow. Those hands could not offer a glittering championship belt for his nephew and nieces to admire, but they could offer a lesser treasure more dear: a fraying scrap book with old newspaper clippings carefully taped to pages. It told the story of what he was —.

Bert Lytell’s scrap book was lost. More losses would follow.

In 1986, he was 62 years old and evicted from his apartment on Sunnyside Street. He moved only as far as the driveway and was determined to stay right there. His girlfriend was with him. At 4’5 she must have reminded him of Tiny Patterson. Her name was Patricia Taplin and she was less than half his age —“Pat” he called her. The police were called by the new tenant and the couple refused to make a statement after being admonished for trespassing. The responding officer wrote “offense likely to continue” in the report.

Soon after that, Ellen got word that her uncle was living in his car and she too responded to the call. She became his angel. Never far from her mind were those Christmas packages he used to send to her, her brother, and her sisters, wherever he was. She would be there for him now, wherever he was. Ellen set him up in a hotel room in downtown Oakland and paid the bill.

The old fighter eventually found an apartment with his girlfriend and was on solid ground …for a little while. Pat died, unexpectedly, in 1987. The loss devastated him. He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know where to turn, so he went for the bottle with both hands. He tipped and drained, tipped and drained, and tumbled down into alcoholism. He stayed there, uncomfortably numb, until a doctor told him that unless he wanted to die he had no choice but to give up drinking. Bert gave up drinking.

In June 1989, he was chosen to receive a special acknowledgement at an awards banquet for distinguished former athletes in Cuero, Texas. Someone even remembered his right name: The Victoria Advocate announced him as “Calvin Lytle, middleweight boxer.” He didn’t attend. In January 1990 he was admitted into Fairmont Hospital in San Leandro, California after he couldn’t endure the pain in his abdomen any longer. A liver biopsy revealed that he had a “metastatic adenocarcinoma of unknown primary origin” —cancer.

It was too late to save him.

____________________________

THE BEAST OF STILLMAN’S GYM winds down to its conclusion this Thursday. Don’t miss it.

Graphic is from The Milwaukee Sentinel, 4/23/48 (Frank Stanfield, photographer).

Darthard tragedy covered in The Milwaukee Journal 4/22,23/48, The Milwaukee Sentinel 4/22,23/48, and As High As My Heart: The Sammy Aaronson Story by Sammy Aaronson and Al Hirschberg, pp.87-91. Telephone interviews with Kelvin Lytle and Ellen V. Choyce, October 2011 and January 2012. Description of Darthard’s syle in Kansas City Times, 2/10/48. Pete Ehrmann’s “The Jackie Darthard Story” was another resource for this essay and is highly recommended. It offers more details about Jackie Darthard as remembered by his wife. Awards banquet reported in Victoria Advocate, 6/17/89. Cause of death found in Bert Lytell’s Certification of Death, State of California, #000693.

Springs Toledo can be contacted at scalinatella@hotmail.com“>scalinatella@hotmail.com.

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Springs Toledo

Boxing Odds and Ends: The Ryan Garcia PED Rumple and More

Published

1 day ago

May 3, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Boxing-Odds-and-Ends-The-Ryan-Garcia-PED-Rumple-and-More

Canelo Alvarez returns to the ring on Saturday. His fight with Jaime Munguia marks his seventeenth appearance in a Las Vegas ring and his twelfth Las Vegas engagement on a Mexican holiday weekend. But the pre-fight pub has been beclouded by a more arresting news story involving Canelo’s stablemate Ryan Garcia.

Dan Rafael and his successor at ESPN, Mike Coppinger, were the first to report that the banned substance Ostarine showed up in two urine specimens collected from Garcia by agents of the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association (VADA). The specimens were collected on April 19 and April 20, the day prior and day of his conquest of heavily favored Devin Haney. The April 19 sample also showed traces of the banned drug 19-nonandrosterone, but apparently not a sufficient trace to express confidence in the finding.

A PED popular among bodybuilders, Ostarine helps build muscle mass and improve stamina. The substance, which has been found in dietary supplements, is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, an arm of the International Olympic Committee, and by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

Upon leaning of this finding, “KingRy” took to social media to proclaim his innocence.

“Fake f***ing news…I never f***ing took a steroid in my f***ing life. I beat Devin Haney fair and square,” Garcia said in one of his many tweets. “I don’t even know where to get steroids at the end of the day…I barely take supplements,” he said in another. “I’m (going to) find out who paid to create this lie,” he said in a third.

Garcia’s promoter Golden Boy Promotions released a formal statement: “Ryan has put out multiple statements denying knowingly using any banned substances – and we believe him. We are working with his team to determine how this finding came to be and will address this further once we conclude the process.

Any sanctions imposed on Ryan Garcia will have to await the findings of his “B” samples. Reversals are extremely rare so the best guess is that the VADA finding will stand. The big question then becomes whether the New York State Athletic Commission will take away Garcia’s “W” and declare the match a no-contest. According to a bulletin published by the NYSAC in 2016 and updated in 2017, a boxer found to have used an unapproved drug, medication, or supplement is subject to various disciplinary actions including “modification of the official bout result.”

If the NYSAC changes the result to a no-contest, boxrec, the sport’s official record-keeper, would follow suit and Devin Haney would remain undefeated. Haney was 31-0 heading into his date with Garcia and considering his tender age – he doesn’t turn 26 until November – was accorded a reasonable shot of breaking Floyd Mayweather Jr’s 50-0 mark.

R.I.P. – Dingaan Thobela

Boxing fans in South Africa are mourning loss of Dingaan Thobela who passed away of an undisclosed illness on Monday, April 29, at his flat in Johannesburg at age 57.

Thobela won world titles at 135 and 168 pounds. He captured the WBO world lightweight belt at age 25, out-pointing Mexico’s Mauricio Aceves in Brownsville, Texas, and, 10 years later, in the twilight of his career, won the WBC super middleweight title with a 10^th-round stoppage of England’s Glen Catley in Johannesburg.

The WBO, founded in 1988, was a new organization with little cachet. Thobela abandoned the belt after two successful defenses to compete for the more prestigious WBA diadem. That led to two lightweight title fights with Tony Lopez, the first in Lopez’s hometown of Sacramento and the rematch four months later in South Africa at the Sun City resort in Bopthuthatswana.

Both fights went the distance. Lopez won the first meeting. Although all three judges (they were from Panama, Puerto Rico, and California) had the hometown fighter winning by 2 points, the verdict was highly controversial. At the finish, Tony the Tiger was all marked-up. “It looked, for all the world, that Lopez got his head handed to him,” wrote Sacramento Bee ringside reporter Mark Kreidler.

Thobela was nicknamed “The Rose of Soweto,” the reference to the ramshackle, all-black township in Johannesburg where he was born and raised. Although apartheid hadn’t yet been officially abolished, Soweto was well-represented in the inter-racial audience at the rematch in June of 1993 and there was dancing in the aisles when Thobela avenged his loss to Lopez with a well-earned unanimous decision.

Back in those days, flamboyant ring entrances were virtually unheard-of. Thobela may have started a trend with his outlandish procession. A tumbling acrobat led the way, followed by eight ring girls in colorful costumes and an African chief in full regalia. Thobela threw roses to the crowd as he made his way to the squared circle.

Thobela lost his last seven fights, finishing 40-14-2 (26 KOs) in a career in which he answered the bell for 418 rounds. At the time of his death, he was separated from his wife and living alone. Heavyweight contender Kevin Lerena was among those paying tribute. “Rest in peace to South African boxing legend Dingaan Thobela,” he wrote on Instagram. “Your talent and determination in the ring will never be forgotten. You always supported me and believed in my abilities, pushing me to reach my fullest potential. Thank you for your inspiration and motivation, Champ.”

Bazinyan

In case you missed it, Erik Bazinyan (32-0-1, 23 KOs) kept his unbeaten record intact last night (Thursday, May 2) when his match with former sparring partner Shakeel Phinn (26-3-2, 17 KOs) at the Montreal Casino was ruled a draw.

Although both reside in Quebec, the Armenia-born Bazinyan was the house fighter. This was his sixth straight appearance at the Casino and his 11^th appearance at this venue overall. And as the house fighter, he got a little help from the judges against his Jamaican-Canadian adversary.

Veteran judge Pasquale Procopio had it 97-93 for Phinn who was the aggressor, constantly backing Bazinyan into the ropes. That tally jibed with those in attendance and those looking on at home on ESPN+, but both fighters got their hand raised at the finish.

Bazinyan is ranked #3 by the WBC and the WBA, a notch behind his French-Cameroonian stablemate Christian Mbilli. The WBO ranks Bazinyan a notch above Mbilli (26-0, 22 KOs), which on the face of it is absurd considering their respective abilities.

Mbilli returns to the ring on May 25 in Shawinigan, Quebec with England’s Mark Heffron in the opposite corner. Mbilli is currently a 25/1 favorite. That sounds about right. His promoter Camille Estephan is notorious for matching his fighters soft.

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 283: Canelo and Munguia Battle for Mexico and More Fight News

Published

2 days ago

May 2, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 283: Canelo and Munguia Battle for Mexico and More Fight News

Prepare for Mexican war.

Guadalajara’s Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (60-2-2, 39 KOs) fights Tijuana’s Jaime Munguia (43-0, 34 KOs) in another Mexican war on Saturday, May 4, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. PPV.COM and Prime pay-per-view will stream the card.

“I’m going to win, I’m going to prevail and it’s going to be decisive,” said Alvarez, a four-division world titlist. “I’m different. I’m Canelo.”

Munguia reveres Canelo.

“Outside the ring he has all my respect,” Munguia said. “Inside the ring, respect goes out the window. And that’s what is going to happen on Saturday night.”

If you know Mexican history, wars between different regions of that country took place even before Hernando Cortes arrived with his Spanish Conquistadores.

During the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910 you had Porfirio Diaz, Francisco Madero, Pancho Villa, Emiliano Zapata and then came Victoriano Huerta, Venustiano Carranza, Pascual Orozco, and Alvaro Obregon as players.

Fighting between regions in Mexico is not a new thing.

In boxing the 1960s brought those Mexican wars to California with guys like Vicente Saldivar, Cuban exile Sugar Ramos, Chango Carmona, and in the 70s Chucho Castillo, Jesus Pimentel, and the great Ruben Olivares.

Perhaps the two greatest battles between Mexican warriors saw Carlos Zarate and Alfonso Zamora battle in the Inglewood Forum. Both Mexican bantamweights held world titles and each were undefeated with all knockouts.

It was a madhouse that April night in 1977. During the action a wannabe wrestler jumped into the boxing ring during the action and was tossed out like a rag doll by a security gang. When Zarate eventually knocked out Zamora in the fourth, Zamora’s father chased after Zarate’s trainer Cuyo Hernandez right there. Explosions from cherry bombs rocked the arena and a mini riot took place.

Later, in the 80s and 90s, we saw Julio Cesar Chavez batter fellow Mexican sluggers like Jose Luis Ramirez, Rafael “Bazooka” Limon and then Miguel Angel Gonzalez who fought the great Julio Cesar Chavez to a draw in Mexico City.

These battles between Mexicans are never easy.

Canelo has been the top Mexicano for the past 10 years and among the best pound-for-pound fighters for just as long. In his career that began when he was a mere 15 years old, he’s reached heights never before attained by any other Mexican fighter.

His three wars with Gennady “GGG” Golovkin will be etched in history as among the best. His last fight eight months ago saw the redhead dominate Jermell Charlo for a win by unanimous decision.

Alvarez has one of the best chins in boxing history.

Munguia arrived like a burglar in the night. He was unceremoniously packed off to fight New Yorker Sadam Ali for the WBO super welterweight title in a New York card. Ali had just beaten the great Miguel Cotto for the title and was expected to have a long run. His first defense was against little-known Munguia and he was bludgeoned by the tall Mexican in four rounds.

The surprise win by Tijuana’s Munguia made him the toast of the country. He was barely 20 and many liked his easy-going manner and will to destroy once the bell rang. After his fifth title defense it was apparent he could not make 154 pounds anymore and moved up. Five fights later he could not make 160 pounds. Now he’s at 168 pounds but one man holds all the belts and that’s fellow countryman Canelo Alvarez.

Like Canelo, Munguia has one of the best chins in boxing.

“Canelo is a great fighter with experience against great fighters,” Munguia said. “But what I have is youth on my side.”

Since working under Erik Morales and now Freddie Roach, his technique in defensive skills has improved dramatically from his days as a super welterweight. Back then Munguia would take a sledge-hammer blow or two and then return with a barrage of his own.

Last year Munguia fought the feared Sergiy Derevyanchenko through 12 of the most savage rounds ever seen. It was the Fight of the Year and established the Tijuana fighter as someone worthy of watching.

“You can expect a full-out Mexican war,” said Munguia during the press conference on Wednesday.

“I’m very proud to be here and to make history with both Mexican fighters fighting for the four belts for the first time,” said Alvarez the undisputed super middleweight champion.

Although this is a battle between Mexicans the whole boxing world will be watching.

PPV.COM

Jim Lampley leads his crew again on the Canelo-Munguia fight card on Saturday May 4. The famed boxing analyst will be doing a play-by-play of the fights and also participating via text. Accompanying him will be Lance Pugmire, Chris Algieri and Dan Canobbio.

During the past nine months they’ve covered several of the best boxing cards. Lampley has a unique style and has covered the biggest fight events in the past five decades.

Riverside Fights

Undefeated middleweight prospect Raul Lizarraga leads a Red Boxing card on Friday May 3, at the Riverside Municipal Auditorium in downtown Riverside, Calif.

Lizarraga (12-0, 12 KOs) meets Puerto Rico’s Marcos Osorio-Betancourt (11-1-1, 8 KOs) in the main event for a regional title. There are seven other bouts tentatively scheduled. Doors open at 5 p.m. For tickets go to Ticketmaster.com.

Monster Inoue

Japan’s Naoya “Monster” Inoue (26-0, 23 KOs) defends the super bantamweight championship against Mexico’s Luis “Pantera” Nery (35-1, 27 KOs) on Monday. May 6, at the Tokyo Dome in Tokyo. ESPN + will stream the Top Rank card that begins at 1 a.m.

Many rate Inoue the top fighter pound-for-pound. His destruction of titleholders Marlon Tapales and Stephen Fulton were clear samples of his overall superiority in his weight division. At 31, he faces two-division champion Nery who recently engaged in a riveting battle against Azat Hovhannisyan in Southern California.

The card also features three other world title bouts.

Fights to Watch

Sat. PPV.Com, Prime PPV 5 p.m. Saul Alvarez (60-2-2) vs Jaime Munguia (43-0). Brandon Figueroa (24-1-1) vs Jesse Magdaleno (29-2); Mario Barrios (28-2) vs Fabian Maidana (22-2); Eimantas Stanionis (14-0) vs Gabriel Maestre (6-0-1).

Mon. ESPN+ 1 a.m. Naoya Inoue (26-0) vs Luis Nery (35-1); Jason Moloney (27-2) vs Yoshiki Takei (8-0); Takuma Inoue (19-1) vs Sho Ishida (34-3); Seigo Yuri Akui (19-2-1) vs Taku Kuwahara (13-1).

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A Closer Look at Weslaco ‘Heartbreaker’ Brandon Figueroa and an Early Peek at Inoue vs Nery

Published

4 days ago

April 30, 2024

Arne K. Lang

A Closer Look at Weslaco ‘Heartbreaker’ Brandon Figueroa and an Early Peek at Inoue vs Nery

Brandon Figueroa returns to the ring on Saturday after a 14-month absence. He meets Jessie Magdaleno in a 12-round featherweight affair at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas with the winner potentially headed to a match with Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue. Figueroa vs. Magdaleno will be part of the four-fight pay-per-view telecast topped by Canelo Alvarez’s super middleweight title defense against Jaime Munguia.

Akin to Magdaleno, Figueroa (24-1-1, 18 KOs) is a former super bantamweight (122-pound) champion. He won the WBA version of the world title with a 10^th-round stoppage of Damien Vazquez and added the WBC belt with a seventh-round KO of previously undefeated Luis Nery who fights Inoue this coming Monday at the “Big Egg” in Tokyo.

Throughout history, many prominent boxers have been identified with the place that hewed them. Students of boxing history can identify the Saginaw Kid, the Terror Haute Terror, the Cincinnati Cobra – the list is long – and even casual fans can name the Brockton Blockbuster, the immortal Rocky Marciano.

Brandon Figueroa hails from Weslaco, a small city in the southern tip of Texas. It is part of the Lower Rio Grande Valley, commonly abbreviated RGV, and the locals feel an emotional tie to the entire valley, a place where the unofficial language among the adult population is Spanglish, a melding of Spanish and English.

Brandon’s older brother Omar Figueroa Jr, who retired in 2022 with a record of 28-3-1 after losing his last three fights, became a local hero after becoming the first boxer from the Valley to win a world title, in his case the WBC lightweight diadem. Brandon, 27, has the opportunity to out-do him by becoming the first boxer from the Valley to win titles in two weight divisions.

The brothers were introduced to boxing by their father, Omar Figueroa Sr. A mailman now in his twenty-seventh year working for the U.S. Postal Service, the elder Figueroa never boxed but followed the sport closely and hoped that one of his sons would follow in the footsteps of his sporting heroes Julio Cesar Chavez and the late Salvador Sanchez. Brandon borrowed a page from the Chavez playbook when he scored his signature win over Luis Nery. A left to the solar plexus ended the match. Nery replied with a sweeping left hook, but it was all instinct. In a delayed reaction, he crumpled to the canvas after launching the errant punch and was counted out.

Although Omar Sr has a picture in his cell phone of Brandon in fighting togs when Brandon was two years old, he insists that he discouraged his younger son from pursuing a career in boxing. “He was too skinny and didn’t have Omar’s natural talent,” the elder Figueroa told this reporter when we chatted at Las Vegas’ Pound4Pound Boxing Gym. “Then, when Brandon was about 12 or 13, he started hurting bigger boys with punches to the body in sparring and I thought, hold on, maybe I have something here.”

Omar Sr. opened a gym, Pantera Boxing, to give his sons a leg up and eventually enough kids from the neighborhood started coming by to field an amateur boxing team.

Omar Figueroa Sr was born in Northern Mexico and came to the United States at age nine. Many of his siblings – he was one of nine children — reside in Mexico but close enough for family get-togethers. The Figueroa family has crossed the international bridge that connects the two countries on many occasions. Returning to Weslaco, they share the span with border-crossers seeking refuge in the United States.

“One of the things I’ve noticed,” says Brandon, “is that there are a lot more Europeans crossing over that bridge into the U.S. than we used to see, especially people from countries like Russia and Ukraine.”

About that nickname: Brandon acquired it while visiting relatives in Rio Bravo, Mexico, situated roughly 18 miles from Weslaco. He was just a boy, perhaps 11 or 12, and it was teenage or pre-teen girls who affixed the “Heartbreaker” label to him. Indeed, in the looks department, he could give Ryan Garcia a run for his money. (Back off, ladies, Brandon has a steady girlfriend.)

Brandon Figueroa doesn’t want boxing to define him. “I’m also a businessman,” he says, noting that he owns several parcels of Weslaco real estate and owns stock in one of his sponsors, LOCK’DIN, a start-up, high-performance beverage company whose Board of Directors includes Manny Pacquiao.

Brandon Pacquiao

In high school, Brandon took classes in theater. He has a role in a forthcoming Amazon Prime movie, “Find Me,” and a starring role in the first episode of the reconstituted “Tales from the Crypt” which will air on HBO Max.

When Brandon quits boxing, will Hollywood beckon? “I can’t imagine settling down anywhere but in the Valley,” he says. “The Valley will always be a part of me.”

In his last outing, Figueroa won an interim WBC featherweight title with a lopsided decision over Mark Magsayo. In theory, that boosted him into a fight with Rey Vargas who was allowed to keep his WBC featherweight title after moving up to 130 where he suffered his first defeat at the hands of O’Shaquie Foster. But in boxing, “money” trumps “mandatory” and Vargas jumped at the chance to fight in Saudi Arabia where he was fortunate to retain his title when he received a draw in his match with Liverpool’s Nick Ball.

The most lucrative fight out there would be a match with four-belt super bantamweight champion and pound-for-pound king Naoya Inoue who has expressed an interest in moving up to featherweight after disposing of Luis Nery. Yes, that’s putting the cart before the horse, but Brandon Figueroa thinks the challenger from Tijuana, despite his impressive record (35-1-1, 27 KOs) has scant chance of winning. “I found a hole in Nery’s style,” he said, “and knew that once fatigue set in for him, he would be mine.”

Inoue vs. Nery is a very big deal in Japan in part because there’s a hero and a villain. Luis Nery is the only man to defeat the popular Shinsuke Yamanaka, a long-reigning title-holder who quit the sport after Nery knocked him out twice. After their first meeting, Nery’s “A” and “B” samples tested positive for a banned substance and he came in three pounds overweight for the rematch (a substantial edge in a small weight class), for which he was suspended and dropped from the WBC rankings. Nery, wrote TSS correspondent Tamas Pradarics, “repeatedly cheated on the Japanese in ugly and disgusting ways,” and the Japanese haven’t forgotten.

If Brandon Figueroa goes off to Japan some day to oppose Naoya Inoue, it will take some doing to contort him into a villain. “I love the Japanese people and the Japanese culture,” he says, “the whole Samurai thing which is so in tune with the warrior spirit of Mexicans.”

—

The pay-per-view portion of Saturday’s show is available for purchase on various cable and satellite platforms including Prime Video, DAZN.com, and PPV.com. First bell is slated for 8 pm ET/5 pm PT.

Brandon Figueroa vs. Jessie Magdaleno will be the second bout on the four-fight PPV program. It will follow the WBA world welterweight title fight between Eimantas Stanionis and Gabriel Maestre and will precede the WBC interim world welterweight title fight between Mario Barrios and Fabian Maidana.

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