Erislandy Lara Was Born To Fight

Published

11 years ago

November 9, 2012

Lara media day 121107 002a Lara gets advice from trainer Shields leading up to his scrap with Martirosyan. (Chris Farina)

It is training day.

Over in the corner of the expansive Plex fitness center, where athletes of all shapes and sizes travel from far and wide to hone their skills, sits a boxing ring. The blue floor remembers men who’ve already dared to grace it in its short life (Plex Boxing has only existed since summertime), and they are some of the very best fighters in the world.

This is Ronnie Shields’ gym, and Ronnie only trains the best.

Today, a slender but sturdy figure is sitting in a chair in front of him. Shields has wrapped the hands of some of the very best champions the sport has seen, men like Evander Holyfield and Pernell Whitaker. Today is no different, even if people don’t yet recognize it.

Shields works slowly. The hands he wraps appear strong, but he cares for them carefully. He’s a surgeon, meticulously caring for his patient. It is a solemn affair. When one dares enter such a scene, he should be happy to be but glanced upon. It is a silent ritual.

Erislandy Lara waits patiently.

I snag pictures of the two as they work. It must be strange for them, a grown man sitting on the floor of the gym taking pictures of something they do every day, but I seem to go unnoticed. Lara’s eyes seem to drift…

***

There he lay, in the middle of the ocean. He is on a boat with twenty strangers. He is property of smugglers now, and soon they will realize who he is and how much more he is worth than the fifteen thousand dollars they first asked for.

For now, though, Lara waits.

The boat rocks back and forth. There are many ways to drift in the ocean and today the seas are choppy. The six-hour trip from Cuba to Mexico takes eleven more when trying to go unnoticed, partly because the travelers must wait for the safety of night. They must not be seen. They must not be caught. He must not be caught. Not again. Not this time. Not today. Today, he will escape Cuba. Today, he will be free.

***

Lara and Shields are up now. The two head over to the ring, and I’m waved over by Shields. It is time to shadowbox. Shields squares up to Lara, and the two begin a rhythmic dance across the floor. Lara stabs his strong southpaw jab out towards his trainer and follows it up with a short cross.

Back and forth, the two men go. Sometimes, Shields plays the aggressor, coming forward as Lara moves away effortlessly with counters.Sometimes, Shields is in retreat. Lara moves steadily in and out of range all the while. His wide stance would give tremendous power to his punches should this be more than just a dance, but he’s quick and nimble nonetheless.

He’s at his peak, this Erislandy Lara. At twenty-nine, his body is as fast and strong as it will ever be, and his skill level is as good as any competitor in the sport today. He’s been fighting all his life and it shows. He’s the real deal.

***

Lara was born in 1983, a product of one of the poorest areas of Guantánamo, Cuba. It is there he learned he’d have to fight for his life, one way or another. He never met his father. His mother, Marisol, struggled with alcoholism which left Grandmother Silvia with everything else. She did her best to keep tabs on young Lara and his sister, but she worked all day to try and make ends meet so the kids were often left to fend for themselves.

Such is life for the impoverished in Cuba.

On his own Lara learned to do what the other kids did. He’d brawl on the street, sometimes mimicking his country’s national heroes, sometimes out of sheer necessity. Often times, it was a bit of both.

When Grandmother Silvia died, Lara was just eleven years old, but knew he had to make a change in his life.

“She was my favorite person,” Lara told Tim Elfrink of miaminewtimes.com. “When she was gone, I had to do something different to cope with it.”

What was different was boxing. Yes, boxing is fighting, and to the untrained eye it may seem similar, but boxing is different. It takes the same kind of courage, but it also takes science and skill. It is a craft; a trade. The best boxers in the world treat the hammers of their fists with the scientific exactitude of a scalpel.

Lara began boxing in Cuba’s youth competitions, where his quick hands and natural instincts served him well long enough for old fashioned grit and determination to do the rest. Before he knew it, he was a teenager moving up the ranks and vying for Olympic spots on the best boxing team in the world.

Soon enough, Lara was captain of the Cuban national team and poised to become a national hero. He might have been considered one already, but no matter – soon enough he’d be ready to leave. Soon enough, he’d be labeled a traitor.

***

After three rounds of boxing shadows, Lara is ready to punch something real. Shields grabs two padded mitts and the two are back at it. Lara lets out grunts with each hard shot. Booms reverberate fiercely through the room as each punch makes its mark.

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Three men stand near the corner, two nodding in improvement. One is Lara’s manager, Luis Decubas, Jr., who’s guided Lara’s professional career from near the beginning. The other is Lara’s strength and condition coach, Edward Jackson. Both men seem pleased with what their fighter is doing.

The other person in the corner is me, and I’m just trying to stay out of the way. Fight week is fast approaching.

“Everything is going as planned,” Decubas tells me. “We’ve been with Ronnie for three years now. It’s our tenth fight with him. We’re just doing what we do.”

Jackson concurs. Standing in the middle of one of the more impressive fitness centers the world has to offer (a place where elite NFL, MLB and NBA athletes surround us as we are speaking), Jackson remains unmoved. He’s an old school man training an old school fighter.

“A gym is a gym,” he says. “We’ve got what we need here. We need bags and a ring. We get the same work wherever we are. We could be out there on that football field. What we do is what we do.”

Lara comes over to the corner between rounds. He swishes water in and out his mouth and spits it into a big, rusty bucket. He’s working hard today.

***

Lara’s first attempt to defect from Cuba happened during the 2007 Pan American Games in Brazil. One fateful evening, he and teammate Guillermo Rigondeaux slipped quietly past the guards (tasked with keeping them from doing such things) for a night on the town. Once out, they were met by German boxing promoter, Ahmet Oner, who had perhaps-not-so-coincidentally helped Yuriorkis Gamboa and Yan Barthelemy defect from Cuba a short time earlier.

After having a few drinks together and deciding to make their move to Germany that very night, the two would-be defectors were hidden away by Oner in a safehouse until they could be smuggled safely out of the country.

It was more difficult to escape than they thought.

The two languished for three weeks, fugitives in a strange land. Cuba worked diligently with Brazilian authorities to search for the missing boxers. In the end and contrary to popular belief, Lara and Rigondeaux decided to turn themselves in (they were never caught). What had seemed like a good plan turned to ruins in an instant alongside their careers as boxers for their home country of Cuba. Castro would not be pleased.

Upon their return, the two were branded traitors. Lara was stripped of his team captainship and placed on indefinite suspension (i.e., forever).The men were then confined to their homes, and earning enough money for even simple family necessities became more difficult than ever.

Being no longer allowed to participate in the sport he had mastered had its consequences, none of which more revealing than Lara being forced to sell the remnants of his 2005 World Championship run. What good is a boxing medal if you can’t eat?

“It was a pointless existence,” Lara later told Gerhard Pfeil.

***

He works out for around two hours today, but everything seems to move by so fast. After his ring work, Lara climbs through the ropes and heads over to the mat. He smiles and laughs with Decubas before reaffirming his scowl. There is still work to do. Now it is time for some stretching and core strengthening.

Decubas asks Jackson about how many crunches Lara does per day. Another fighter of his was asking, he says, and Decubas had never really thought about it.

Oh, I don’t know,” Jackson says. “Probably like six or seven hundred.”

The two keep talking and then I make a joke about how I did thirty or so myself yesterday at my local gym. Everyone laughs but Lara who is on the floor doing his routine at a fevered pace. He’s been doing crunches the whole time, likely meditating on his opponent’s promise to break his ribs come fight night.

***

Four months after Brazil, Lara was back at it. After making contact again with Oner and company, Lara decided he’d give it another go. This time, he said to himself, he’d make it no matter what. He’d do anything. He’d make it even if he had to do it alone. He’d make it even if he had to leave his family behind for now. He’d travel rough and choppy seas with twenty strangers under the cover of night if he had to, and he’d even pay the smugglers ten times the amount they had previously agreed upon to take him, but he’d make it.

“It was a very difficult decision to leave Cuba which is why it took me so long to leave, but I did it for the right reasons,” he told me after his six or seven hundred stomach exercises. “I did it to better my life and better my family’s life and that is what I’ve done. I came here to work hard and fight and obviously my ultimate goal is to move my family in Cuba over here to the United States.

Lara has four children. Two of his children remain in Cuba to this day, along with his mother who he keeps in contact with and hopes to have come to live with him now in the United States. His other two children are with him in Houston, where Lara now lives with his wife. The two met during Lara’s two-year, two-fight stint in Germany under the management of Oner. Lara says the two didn’t see eye to eye on important matters, so he signed with Decubas afterwards, who was then working with longtime fight manager Shelly Finkel, and moved to the United States. He lived and trained in Miami for a bit, but ultimately wanted to move to Houston so he could work with Shields more and have his family in a more hospitable environment.

Fight fans know the rest. He’s essentially undefeated, having only a draw versus the crafty Carlos Molina in what was Lara’s sixteenth professional fight paired with a disputed decision loss to Paul Williams that subsequently earned the judges of the bout unprecedented suspensions by the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board.

***

Lara is finished with his work for the day. I am motioned over by Decubas who tells Lara in Spanish who I am and why I am here today. We talk about a lot of things. He’s getting ready to take on undefeated prospect Vanes Martirosyan in the headliner bout of an HBO Boxing After Dark telecast scheduled for November 10 so there are no shortage of questions about it. How’s camp? What do you think of your opponent? Who do you want to fight next?

To finish things up though, I ask Lara about America: is it everything he thought it’d be especially in comparison to all he did to get here? The rough and choppy seas…the hours and hours of waiting…the smugglers and the strangers….was it all worth it?

“Yes, yes, yes,” he says without hesitation. “No question…it is more than I expected. It is the American dream. In this country, you can accomplish anything you put your mind to. In America, we have freedom and opportunity.”

Lara is about ready to leave. He makes it a point to shake my hand not once but twice so I use my freedom and opportunity to ask him what it was like on that boat that and how it shapes his life today. Lara’s eyes drift again but this time he looks thankful.

“Being on the sea, not knowing whether you are going to live or die—whether I’d make it or not,” he says. “I’m grateful to God I was able to pass that stage of my life and now that is why I work so hard in this country to make the most out of my life. I believe that God put every human being on this planet for a reason.”

And after being at the gym with him for just a couple hours and listening to his story, I do think I agree because one way or another, Erislandy Lara was born to fight.

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The Sweet Science

Ramon Cardenas Channels Micky Ward and KOs Eduardo Ramirez on ProBox

Published

1 day ago

April 24, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Ramon-Cardenas-Channels-Micky-Ward-and-KOs-Eduardo-Ramirez-on-ProBox

The Wednesday night bi-monthly series of fights on the ProBox TV platform is the best deal in boxing; the livestream is free with no strings attached! Tonight’s episode was headlined by a super bantamweight match between San Antonio’s Ramon Cardenas and Eduardo Ramirez who brought a caravan of rooters from his hometown in Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico.

Cardenas, coached by Joel Diaz, entered the contest ranked #4 by the WBA. He was expected to handle Ramirez with little difficulty, but this was a close, tactical fight through eight frames when lightning struck in the form of a left hook to the liver from Cardenas. Ramirez went down on one knee and wasn’t able to beat the count. It was as if Cardenas summoned the ghost of Micky Ward who had a penchant for terminating fights with the same punch that arrived out of the blue.

The official time was 1:37 of round nine. Cardenas improved to 25-1 with his14th win inside the distance. Ramirez, who was stopped in the opening round by Nick “Wrecking” Ball in London in his lone previous fight outside Mexico, falls to 23-3-3.

Co-Feature

In an upset, Tijuana super welterweight Damian Sosa won a split decision over previously undefeated Marques Valle, a local area fighter who was stepping up in class in his first 10-round go. Sosa was the aggressor, repeatedly backing his taller opponent into the ropes where Valle was unable to get good leverage behind his punches.

The 25-year-old Valle, managed by the influential David McWater, was the house fighter. This was his 10^th appearance in this building. He brought a 10-0 (7) record and was hoping to emulate the success of his younger brother Dominic Valle who scored a second-round stoppage of his opponent in this ring two weeks ago, improving to 9-0. But Sosa, who brought a 24-2 record, proved to be a bridge too high.

The judges had it 97-93 and 96-94 for the Tijuana invader and a disgraceful 98-92 for the house fighter.

Also

In a fight whose abrupt ending would be echoed by the main event, 34-year-old SoCal featherweight Ronny Rios, now training in Las Vegas, returned to the ring after a 22-month hiatus and scored a fifth-round stoppage over Nicolas Polanco of the Dominican Republic.

A three-punch combo climaxed by a left hook to the liver took the breath out of Polanco who slumped to his knees and was counted out. A two-time world title challenger, Rios advanced to 34-4 (17 KOs). Polanco, 34, declined to 21-6-1. The official time was 0:54 of round five.

—

The next ProBox show (Wednesday, May 8) will have an international cast with fighters from Kazakhstan, Japan, Mongolia, and the United Kingdom. In the main event, Liverpool’s Robbie Davies Jr will make his U.S. debut against the California-based Kazakh Sergey Lipinets.

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Haney-Garcia Redux with the Focus on Harvey Dock

Published

3 days ago

April 22, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Haney-Garcia-Redux-with-the-Focus-on-Harvey-Dock

Saturday’s skirmish between Ryan Garcia and WBC super lightweight champion Devin Haney was a messy affair, and yet a hugely entertaining fight fused with great drama. In the aftermath, Garcia and Haney were celebrated – the former for fooling all the experts and the latter for his gallant performance in a losing effort – but there were only brickbats for the third man in the ring, referee Harvey Dock.

Devin Haney was plainly ahead heading into the seventh frame when there was a sudden turnabout when Garcia put him on the canvas with his vaunted left hook. Moments later, Dock deducted a point from Garcia for a late punch coming out of a break. The deduction forced a temporary cease-fire that gave Haney a few precious seconds to regain his faculties. Before the round was over, Haney was on the deck twice more but these were ruled slips.

The deduction, which effectively negated the knockdown, struck many as too heavy-handed as Dock hadn’t previously issued a warning for this infraction. Moreover, many thought he could have taken a point away from Haney for excessive clinching. As for Haney’s second and third trips to the canvas in round seven, they struck this reporter – watching at home – as borderline, sufficient to give referee Dock the benefit of the doubt.

In a post-fight interview, Ryan Garcia faulted the referee for denying him the satisfaction of a TKO. “At the end of the day, Harvey Dock, I think he was tripping,” said Garcia. “He could have stopped that fight.”

Those that played the rounds proposition, placing their coin on the “under,” undoubtedly felt the same way.

The internet lit up with comments assailing Dock’s competence and/or his character. Some of the ponderings were whimsical, but they were swamped by the scurrilous screeching of dolts who find a conspiracy under every rock.

Stephen A. Smith, reputedly America’s highest-paid TV sports personality, was among those that felt a need to weigh-in: “This referee is absolutely terrible….Unreal! Horrible officiating,” tweeted Stephen A whose primary area of expertise is basketball.

Harvey Dock

Dock fought as an amateur and had one professional fight, winning a four-round decision over a fellow novice on a show at a non-gaming resort in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. He says that as an amateur he was merely average, but he was better than that, a New Jersey and regional amateur champion in 1993 and 1994 while a student New Jersey’s Essex County Community College where he majored in journalism.

A passionate fan of Sugar Ray Leonard, he started officiating amateur fights in 1998 and six years later, at age 32, had his first documented action at the professional level, working low-level cards in New Jersey. The top boxing referees, to a far greater extent than the top judges, had long apprenticeships, having worked their way up from the boonies and Dock is no exception.

Per boxrec, Haney vs Garcia was Harvey Dock’s 364^th assignment in the pros and his forty-second world title fight. Some of those title fights were title in name only, they weren’t even main events, but, bit by bit, more lucrative offerings started coming his way.

On May 13, 2023, Dock worked his first fights in Nevada, a 4-rounder and then a 12-rounder on a card at the Cosmopolitan topped by the 140-pound title fight between Rolly Romero and Ismael Barroso. It was the first time that this reporter got to watch Dock in the flesh.

Ironically (in hindsight), the card would be remembered for the actions of a referee, in this case Tony Weeks who handled the main event. Barroso was winning the fight on all three cards when Weeks stepped in and waived it off in the ninth round after Romero cornered Barroso against the ropes and let loose a barrage of punches, none of which landed cleanly. Few “premature stoppages” were ever as garishly, nay ghoulishly, premature.

With all the brickbats raining down on Weeks, I felt a need to tamp down the noise by diverting attention away from Tony Weeks and toward Harvey Dock and took to the TSS Forum to share my thoughts. Referencing the 12-rounder, a robust junior welterweight affair between Batyr Akhmedov and Kenneth Sims Jr, I noted that Dock’s Las Vegas debut went smoothly. He glided effortlessly around the ring, making him inconspicuous, the mark of a good referee. (This post ran on May 15, two days after the fight.)

Folks at the Nevada State Athletic Commission were also paying attention. Dock was back in Las Vegas the following week to referee the lightweight title fight between Devin Haney and Vasyl Lomachenko and before the year was out, he would be tabbed to referee the biggest non-heavyweight fight of the year, the July 29 match in Las Vegas between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr.

The Haney-Garcia fight wasn’t Harvey Dock’s best hour, I’ll concede that, but a closer look at his full body of work informs us that he is an outstanding referee.

—

While the Haney-Garcia bout was in progress, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman threw everyone a curve ball, tweeting on “X” that Devin Haney would keep his title if he lost the fight. Everyone, including the TV commentators, was under the impression that the title would become vacant in the event that Haney lost.

Sulaiman cited the precedent of Corrales-Castillo II.

FYI: The Corrales-Castillo rematch, originally scheduled for June 3, 2005 and aborted on the day prior when Castillo failed to make weight, finally came off on Oct. 8 of that year, notwithstanding the fact that Castillo failed to make weight once again, scaling three-and-a-half pounds above the lightweight limit. He knocked out Corrales in the fourth round with a left hook that Las Vegas Review-Journal boxing writer Kevin Iole, alluding to the movie “Blazing Saddles,” described as Mongo-esque (translation: the punch would have knocked out a horse). After initially insisting on a rubber match, which had scant chance of happening, WBC president Jose Sulaiman, Mauricio’s late father, ruled that Corrales could keep his title.

Whether or not you agree with Mauricio Sulaiman’s rationale, the timing of his announcement was certainly awkward.

Haney’s mandatory is Spanish southpaw Sandor Martin (42-3, 15 KOs), a cutie best known for his 2021 upset of Mikey Garcia. A bout between Haney and Martin has the earmarks of a dull fight.

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In a Shocker, Ryan Garcia Confounds the Experts and Upsets Devin Haney

Published

5 days ago

April 21, 2024

David A. Avila

In-a-Shocker-Ryan-Garcia-Confounds-the-Experts-and-Upsets-Devin-Haney

Its good to be crazy. Like a fox.

Ryan “KingRy” Garcia knocked down WBC super lightweight titlist Devin Haney three times to remind everyone of his fighting abilities in winning by majority decision on Saturday.

“I just knew what I could do,” Garcia said.

Fans will not forget the lanky kid from Victorville, California now.

Garcia (25-1, 20 KOs) fooled everyone in playing crazy weeks before the fight, then showed shocking power to hand Haney (30-1, 15 KOs) his first loss as a professional at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

Haney’s WBC super lightweight title was not at stake for Garcia because he weighed three pounds over the limit.

After Garcia seemingly acting out of control on social media, Haney’s guard must have slipped in the first round during the first few seconds as Garcia connected with that hellish left hook and Haney, with a look of shock in his eyes, almost went down. He barely survived the first round.

“He caught me with it,” said Haney.

During the next few rounds, Haney proceeded to advance toward Garcia seemingly fully aware of the lethal left hook. He used feints and rights to score with a busier approach as Garcia seemed cocked and ready to counter with a left hook.

In the fourth round it seemed Haney was confident he had regained control of the fight, but every time he opened up with more than a two-punch combination Garcia reminded him whose hands were faster and more dangerous.

Though Garcia seldom jabbed he seemed bent on looking for the right moment to unleash his deadly left hook. And every time the Southern California fighter opened up with a combination he scored and Haney dare not exchange.

A few times Haney smiled as if signifying he escaped.

In the seventh round Haney looked to punish Garcia’s body and instead was met with a three-punch combination included a left hook to the chin and down went Haney slumped on the ground. He managed to beat the count and as soon as Garcia came within reach Haney wrapped his arms around him with a python grip. Despite the warnings by referee Harvey Dock, the fallen fighter would not release and Garcia impatiently fired a weak punch during the break. The referee deducted a point from Garcia though he could have deducted a point from Haney for not obeying his instructions to release his hold. Haney actually went down three times in the round but only one was counted by the referee.

From that point on Haney was very cautious but still looking to win by decision.

Though Garcia kept using a shoulder-roll defense that left his body exposed, he would retaliate with three and four punch combinations that usually Haney could defend against other fighters.. But Garcia’s blazing combinations were too fast to defend.

In the 10^th round Haney looked to attack and was countered by Garcia’s right and a blinding left hook to the chin and another two blows that sent the former undisputed lightweight champion to the floor again.

It didn’t look good for Haney to survive.

Garcia walked into the 11^th round still composed and never out-of-control He dared Haney to exchange and when within striking distance Garcia unleashed another lightning combination and down went Haney again with a defeated look.

Both fighters had fought each other as amateurs six times so there were no surprises between them. But Garcia’s power and speed were superior and that was the difference in a professional fight.

In the final round both were cautious with Garcia’s combination punching proving too dangerous for Haney to open up. Garcia celebrated early as the round ended confident of victory.

After 12 rounds Garcia was seen the victor by majority decision 112-112, 114-110, 115-109.

“You really thought I was crazy,” Garcia told the interviewer and the crowd. “You guys hated on me.”

Other Bouts

Arnold Barboza (30-0) won a curious split decision victory over United Kingdom’s Sean McComb (18-2) in a 10-round super lightweight fight. McComb’s long reach and busy southpaw style gave Barboza trouble. But he managed to win the fight though the crowd was not pleased.

Bektemir Melikuziev (14-1, 10 KOs) defeated France’s Pierre Dibombe (22-1-1) by technical decision after eight rounds due to a cut on his eye from an accidental head butt. It was a very competitive super middleweight fight.

Costa Rica’s David Jimenez (16-1, 11 KOs) outworked John “Scrappy Ramirez (13-1, 9 KOs) in a 12-round scrap to upset the Los Angeles based fighter. After a few close rounds Jimenez simply bullied his way inside and forced Ramirez against the ropes and unloaded his guns.

After 12 rounds two judges saw it 117-111 and 116-114 all for Jimenez.

“I’m a hard-working man from Cartago I come from nothing,” said Jimenez. “My corner told me I had to work inside.”

Charles Conwell (19-0, 14 KOs) stepped on the gas early with vicious body shots and uppercuts and blasted through the resilient Nathaniel Gallimore (22-8-1, 17 KOs) for several rounds. After a brutal fifth and sixth round the referee halted the one-side beating in favor of Conwell who was fighting for the first time under the Golden Boy banner.

Another winner was Sergiy Derevyanchenko (15-5) by decision over Vaughn Alexander (18-11-1) in a super middleweight match.

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