When Floyd Did Lose (And Why He Might Again)

Published

12 years ago

April 30, 2013

As a professional boxer who has plied his trade for 17 dominant years, and earned pyramid-high stacks of cash in the process, Floyd Mayweather Jr. has not had to swallow the sour taste of defeat. He is 43-0, with 26 knockouts, and aside from a few momentary hiccups , never has been seriously threatened during all that time. Even at the relatively advanced age of 36, “Money” is so confident that his oh won’t ever go that he has proclaimed himself high above the vaguest hint of failure. How could the most flawless fighter ever to lace up a pair of gloves (and if you don’t believe that, he’ll be glad to tell you again) be taken down by a mortal man? Would the mighty gods of Greek mythology atop Mount Olympus fear someone on Earth hewn of flesh and bone?

Mayweather, who puts his WBC welterweight championship on the line Saturday night against Robert Guerrero (31-1-1, 18 KOs) in a Showtime Pay-Per-View bout at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand, considers the possibility that he might not be invincible to be as ridiculous as Dr. Sheldon Cooper, the resident know-it-all on The Big Bang Theory, might the suggestion that he isn’t always the smartest guy in the room.

“Of course I feel unbeatable,” Mayweather replied to a teleconference question regarding his own towering sense of self-worth. “I’m the best. I’m not going into any fight figuring that I’m beatable. Anything is possible in life, but as far as my career, I feel I can adapt to anything.”

Ask Mayweather how he would stack up, prime on prime, with the most gifted and charismatic fighters of all time in and around his weight class – Sugar Ray Robinson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, pick a legend, any legend – and the Grand Rapids, Mich., native always envisions having his hand raised in triumph. He is not so much about getting past Guerrero – or any potential victim, if he actually does fulfill the six-bouts-in-30-months terms of his contract with Showtime/CBS that conceivably could pay him up to $250 million – as he is about adding ever-higher and more ostentatious levels to the monument to himself he continues to construct.

“I want to make a legacy for myself as the greatest fighter who ever entered the ring,” he said. “Being a legend, wanting your name mentioned in the mix of other (great) fighters’ names, that’s why I work so hard right now. I’ve been fighting since 1987. I’ve been a professional for 17 years, and I’ve been dedicated to my craft.

“Last time I checked, I was 43 and 0. I’m not going to be impressed by no opponent. I’m going to go out and do what I do best, which is to always beat the opponent that’s in front of me.”

But, if you go back far enough into Mayweather’s past, it’s reasonable to assume he is as susceptible to disappointment inside the ropes as anyone else. Guerrero might hold the winning numbers to the megabucks lottery in which all of Mayweather’s wannabe dance partners are intent on playing, although it does seem a longshot proposition. A few years ago, the Powerball jackpot might or might not have gone to Manny Pacquiao, although that’s something we aren’t likely to know for sure since that superfight’s expiration date seems to have passed forever. Maybe the most dangerous future test for Floyd – the guy now cast as the Pac-Man equivalent – is WBC/WBA 154-pound champ Canelo Alvarez. We’ll just have to wait and see how Mayweather’s end game works out before offering any final judgments.

But let the record show that Floyd Jr. – just 10 when he was introduced to the family sport (Floyd Sr., who now trains his son, took Leonard into the 10^th and final round before being stopped in 1978, and uncle Roger was a two-division world champion) – was 84-6 as a celebrated amateur, winning three national Golden Gloves titles and a berth on the 1996 U.S. Olympic boxing team that competed in Atlanta.

Several of those six amateur setbacks came when Floyd was a kid, still mastering the myriad nuances of boxing. But even when his undeniable skills were almost fully developed, the last of those slaps to his sensibilities came at the Olympics, which should serve as a reminder that any fight that goes to a decision, be it amateur or professional, can end with the scales of justice tipped crazily to the wrong side. Ask Roy Jones Jr. about what happened in his gold-medal bout against South Korean punching bag Park Si-Hun in the 1988 Seoul Olympics. Ask any number of pro superstars who did everything seemingly necessary to win only to be stunned when the official scorecards were announced. Big reputations are generally a plus for a fighter, but they do not offer total protection from malfeasance by pencil.

For 19-year-old Floyd Mayweather Jr., the myth of his own invincibility was shattered, if it hadn’t already been by his five previous stumbles, in the Olympic semifinals. Touted by U.S. Olympic coach Al Mitchell as the best defensive fighter on the team, and not bad on offense either, he had defeated Kazakhstan’s Bakhtiyar Tileganov (by RSC-2, the equivalent of a technical knockout), Armenia’s Artur Georgynan (16-3) and Cuba’s Lorenzo Aragon (albeit by a tight 12-11 margin in the computer-scored bout) to reach the semis, where he faced reigning world amateur champion Serafim Todorov of Bulgaria.

What happened in that matchup likely remains Mayweather’s most indelibly bad memory in boxing, and to now is the last time he did not exit the ring a winner. No, the 10-9 decision that went against Mayweather isn’t as controversial as Jones’ “loss” to Si-Hun, but that’s only because it came in the semis instead of the title match. Mayweather left Atlanta with a consolation-prize bronze medal that wasn’t really much of a consolation at all.

For those who don’t remember the particulars, here’s what happened. Although Egyptian referee Hamadi Hafez Shouman did not deduct any penalty points from Todorov, although warning him numerous times for slapping, Shouman was so convinced that Mayweather must have won that he mistakenly raised the young American’s hand after the decision was announced.

U.S. boxing team leader Gerald Smith filed a protest with AIBA, complaining not only of the failure to penalize Todorov for alleged infractions, but because he believed that Olympic officials were hesitant to take action against anyone representing the home country of Emil Jetchen, a Bulgarian who served as AIBA’s chief of judges and referees.

“We feel the officials are intimidated where anyone competing against Mr. Jetchen’s fellow countrymen do not have a chance, as demonstrated in this bout,” Smith complained in his letter. Smith also claimed that Mayweather landed clean punches that did not count, and Todorov was awarded points on occasions when he threw punches that whiffed entirely or did not land to a scoring area.

Although the ’96 U.S. boxing team was generally successful when stacked against more recent editions, like the 2012 men’s squad that went to London and failed to bring back a single medal, the overall haul – a gold for 156-pounder David Reid and bronzes to Mayweather (125 pounds), Terrance Cauthen (132), Rhoshii Wells (165) and Antonio Tarver (178) – was less than expected, or maybe even deserved.

“Mayweather was the best defensive fighter on the team,” recalled Mitchell, whose longtime gig as the head boxing coach at the U.S. Olympic Education Center in Marquette, Mich., ended in early 2009, when the program was disbanded. “What surprised me is how he pressured the Cuban (Aragon) when they fought. I told him, `You can’t just rely on your defense or you’ll lose.’ And he did step it up on offense. He really surprised me.”

And the semifinal showdown against Todorov?

“Mayweather got the shaft,” Mitchell said. “He should have gone on to the final (in which Thailand’s Kamsing Somuck defeated Todorov, 8-5) and if he had, he would have won the gold medal. No question about that in my mind. I got all those Olympic fights on tape and I look at them quite a bit. I still can’t believe they screwed him like they did.”

The unexpected hero for the U.S. was Reid, who was trailing by 10 points entering the third and final round when he unleashed a thunderbolt of an overhand right that landed flush on the jaw of the heavily favored Cuban, Alfredo Duvergel, who went down and stayed down to the count of 10. The dramatic finish meant that Reid, not Mayweather or Tarver, got the big build-up and the big contract to turn pro. It was reported that Reid received a $1.5 million signing bonus and the guarantee of a $14.4 million over the life of a five-year deal to sign with a new promotional company, America Presents, although those figures were probably exaggerated.

“It is our belief that in five years David Reid will surpass $50 million in earnings,” the president of America Presents, Dan Goossen, said at the time. “This young man is a superstar waiting to happen.”

Reid went on to have a nice, albeit brief, pro career which was shortened by a persistent droopy left eyelid that several surgeries failed to correct. He retired with a 17-2 record, with seven wins inside the distance, and won the WBA super welterweight title in only his 12^th pro outing. After making two successful defenses, his championship was brutally claimed by Felix Trinidad, who overcame a third-round knockdown to floor the Philadelphian four times en route to a one-sided unanimous decision. Reid was never the same after that, going 3-1 against second-tier competition before retiring in 2001. For the past eight years Reid, who suffers from occasional bouts with depression and mood swings, has lived in a modest, two-bedroom apartment in Marquette, Mich. Almost all of his money from boxing is gone.

Contrast that with Mayweather, who signed with Top Rank, made a lot of money with that company and, after an acrimonious split with TR founder Bob Arum, makes even more now as the head of his own outfit, Mayweather Promotions. His nine previous PPV fights heading into the Guerrero bout have generated 9.6 million buys and $543 million in TV revenue, and he has appeared in the four biggest non-heavyweight PPV bouts in boxing history, No. 1 on the list being his May 5, 2005, split decision over Oscar De La Hoya, which did a whopping $136.85 million.

Life clearly is good for the Money Man, and apt to get even better if his insistence that defeat is not an option proves correct.

Still, I have to wonder if somewhere in the back of his mind is a nagging melancholia over his missed Olympic opportunity. More than a few millionaire pros have said their most lasting and satisfying memory in boxing came from representing their country on the brightly lit Olympic stage. Of course, those saying that more often than not came away with gold medals.

I would have asked Floyd about his reflections of his Olympic experience during last week’s teleconference, but a snafu with the automated process resulted in my not being placed in queue. Thus my inquiring mind did not learn if Mayweather’s psyche bears any scars from losing out on the gold he probably deserved, or if he has maintained any kind of relationship with his 1996 Olympic teammates, especially Reid.

So let’s leave it to Mitchell to fill in whatever blanks can be filled.

“I’m cool with Mayweather,” said Mitchell, whose fighters frequently work out in Mayweather’s Las Vegas gym when he and they are in town. “He treats me real good, and I think he’s gonna treat the fighters he has now (who are under contract to Mayweather Promotions) good. He takes care of them, tries to do right by them. That means so much when you’re a young fighter trying to get ahead.

“To tell the truth, he surprised me a little. Back in 1996, I thought he’d be really good, but maybe not this good. He always had lots of talent, but he’s shown he’s a smart businessman, too. He put himself in a position to succeed and he’s still succeeding.”

And is Mayweather’s relationship with other members of the ’96 U.S. Olympic boxing team as solid as with the young fighters he currently mentors?

“Until two years ago, he talked to (his former teammates) all the time,” Mitchell said. “Now … not so much. I don’t know why that is. That might be his choice. Maybe it isn’t. Time goes by and things change. Nobody said everything has to stay the same forever.

“You know, it’s kind of funny. At first, nobody on that ’96 team got along. There were about four different cliques. But in that last month before we left for Atlanta, everybody started to come together to work toward a common goal.

“Remember, that might have been America’s youngest team ever. We mostly had a bunch of kids, and they had to deal with that computer scoring. There wasn’t no boycotts either. All the big boxing countries were there.

“When people look back , they’re gonna say it was one of our better teams, no matter what the medal count was. Mayweather wasn’t the only one of our guys to get a bad decision. He just got the worst one. And you know what? They still did all right. What they did was unbelievable.”

The 1996 U.S. team produced five world champions in Mayweather, Reid, Tarver, Fernando Vargas and David Diaz. Three others – Eric Morel, Zahir Raheem and Rhoshii Wells – were challengers for widely recognized world titles. All in all, a good bit of collective success, if not exactly on a par with the renowned 1976 and ’84 squads.

Yet you wonder if Mayweather, the breakout star of that ’96 bunch, is headed for a fall if he continues to box past a point where the pendulum begins to swing back in the other direction. If Guerrero is not the pro equivalent of Serafim Todorov, isn’t it at least possible that Alvarez could be? Is there a judge or judges with faulty eyesight or a hidden bias who could contribute to the first smudge on Mayweather’s pro resume? And what if his remarkable skills eventually diminish to where he comes back to the pursuing pack?

Remember, then, Mitchell’s warning of what once was, and could be again. Nobody said everything has to stay the same forever.

It will be interesting to see how much of forever remains for the finest fighter of his era, beginning now.

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Bernard Fernandez

Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce

Published

2 hours ago

January 18, 2025

David A. Avila

Mizuki-Hiruta-Dominates-in-her-U.S.-Debut-and-Trinidad-Wins-Too-at-Commerce

Japan’s Mizuki Hiruta smashed through Mexico’s Maribel Ramirez with ease in winning by technical decision and local hero Omar Trinidad continued his assault on the featherweight division on Friday.

Hiruta (7-0, 2 KOs), who prefers to be called “Mimi,” made her American debut with an impressive performance against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez (15-11-4) and retained the WBO super flyweight world title by unanimous decision at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

The pink-haired Japanese southpaw champion quickly proved to be quicker, stronger and even better than advertised. In the opening round Ramirez landed on the floor twice after throwing errant blows. On one instance, it could have been ruled a knockdown but it was not a convincing blow.

In the second round, Ramirez again attacked and again was met with a Hiruta check right hook and down went the Mexican. This time referee Ray Corona gave the eight-count and the fight resumed.

It was Hiruta’s third title defense but this time it was on American soil. She seemed nervous by the prospect of getting a favorable review from the more than 700 fans inside the casino tent.

For more than a year Hiruta has been training off and on with Manny Robles in the L.A. area. Now that she has a visa, she has spent considerable time this year learning the tricks of the trade. They proved explosively effective.

Though Mexico City’s Ramirez has considerable experience against world champions, she discovered that Hiruta was not easy to hit. Often, the Japanese champion would slip and counter with precision.

It was an impressive American debut, though the fight was stopped in the eighth round after a collision of heads. The scores were tallied and all three saw Hiruta the winner by scores of 80-71 twice and 79-72.

“I’m so happy. I could have done much more,” said Hiruta through interpreter Yuriko Miyata. “I wanted to do more things that Manny Robles taught me.”

Trinidad Wins Too

Omar Trinidad (18-0-1, 13 KOs) discovered that challenger Mike Plania (31-5, 18 KOs) has a very good chin and staying power. But over 10 rounds Trinidad proved to be too fast and too busy for the Filipino challenger.

Immediately it was evident that the East L.A. featherweight was too quick and too busy for Plania who preferred a counter-puncher attack that never worked.

“He was strong,” said Trinidad. “He took everything.”

After 10 redundant rounds all three judges scored for Trinidad 100-90 twice and 99-91. He retains the WBC Continental Americas title.

Other Bouts

Ali Akhmedov (23-1, 17 KOs) blasted out Malcolm Jones (17-5-1) in less than two rounds. A dozen punches by Akhmedov forced referee Thomas Taylor to stop the super middleweight fight.

Iyana “Roxy” Verduzco (3-0) bloodied Lindsey Ellis in the first round and continued the speedy assault in the next two rounds. Referee Ray Corona saw enough and stopped the fight in favor of Verduzco at 1:34 of the third round.

Gloria Munguilla (7-1) and Brook Sibrian (5-2) lit up the boxing ring with a nonstop clash for eight rounds in their light flyweight fight. Munguilla proved effective with a slip-and-counter attack. Sibrian adjusted and made the fight closer in the last four rounds but all three judges favored Munguilla.

More Winners

Joshua Anton, Tayden Beltran, Adan Palma, and Alexander Gueche all won their bouts.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Published

1 day ago

January 16, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Best wishes to the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires that took place last week and are still ongoing in small locales.

Most of the heavy damage took place in the western part of L.A. near the ocean due to Santa Ana winds. Another very hot spot was in Altadena just north of the Rose Bowl. It was a horrific tragedy.

Hopefully the worst is over.

Pro boxing returns with 360 Boxing Promotions spotlighting East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad (17-0-1, 13 KOs) defending a regional featherweight title against Mike Plania (31-4, 18 KOs) on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

“I’m the king of L.A. boxing and I’ll be ready to put on a show headlining again in the main event. This is my year, I’m ready to challenge and defeat any of the featherweight world champions,” said Trinidad.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the Hollywood Night fight card that includes a female world championship fight and other intriguing match-ups.

Tom Loeffler heads 360 Promotions and once again comes full force with a hot prospect in Trinidad. If you’re not familiar with Loeffler’s history of success, he introduced America to Oleksandr Usyk, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the brothers Wladimir and Vitaly Kltischko.

“We’ve got a wealth of international talent and local favorites to kick off our 2025 in grand style,” said Loeffler.

He knows talent.

Trinidad hails from the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. near the Los Angeles riverbed. Several fighters from the past came from that exact area including the first Golden Boy, Art Aragon.

Aragon was a huge gate attraction during the late 1940s until 1960. He was known as a lady’s man and dated several Hollywood starlets in his time. Though he never won a world title he did fight world champions Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Carter and Lauro Salas. He was more or less the king of the Olympic Auditorium and Los Angeles boxing during his career.

Other famous boxers from the Boyle Heights area were notorious gangster Mickey Cohen and former world champion Joey Olivo.

Can Trinidad reach world title status?

Facing Trinidad will be Filipino fighter Plania who’s knocked off a couple of prospects during his career including Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer and Giovanni Gutierrez. The fighter from General Santos in the Philippines can crack and hold his own in the boxing ring.

It’s a very strong fight card and includes WBO world titlist Mizuki Hiruta of Japan who defends the super flyweight title against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez. It’s a tough matchup for Hiruta who makes her American debut. You can’t miss her with that pink hair and she has all the physical tools to make a splash in this country.

Mizukii Hiruta

Two other female bouts are also planned, including light flyweight banger L.A.’s Gloria Munguilla (6-1) against Coachella’s Brook Sibrian (5-1) in a match set for six rounds. Both are talented fighters. Another female fight includes super featherweights Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) versus Lindsey Ellis (2-1) in another six-rounder. Ellis can crack with all her wins coming via knockout. Verduzco is a multi-national titlist as an amateur.

Others scheduled to perform are Ali Akhmedov, Joshua Anton, Adan Palma and more.

Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

Boxing and the Media

The sport of professional boxing is currently in flux. It’s always in flux but no matter what people may say or write, boxing will survive.

Whether you like Jake Paul or not, he proved boxing has worldwide appeal with monstrous success in his last show. He has media companies looking at the numbers and imagining what they can do with the sport.

Sure, UFC is negotiating a massive billion dollar deal with media companies, as is WWE, both are very similar in that they provide combat entertainment. You don’t need to know the champions because they really don’t matter. Its about the attractions.

Boxing is different. The good champions last and build a following that endures even beyond their careers a la Mike Tyson.

MMA can’t provide that longevity, but it does provide entertainment.

Currently, there is talk of establishing a boxing league again. It’s been done over and over but we shall see if it sticks this time.

Pro boxing is the true warrior’s path and that means a solo adventure. It’s a one-on-one sport and that appeals to people everywhere. It’s the oldest sport that can be traced to prehistoric times. You don’t need classes in Brazilian Jiujitsu, judo, kick boxing or wrestling. Just show up in a boxing gym and they can put you to work.

It’s a poor person’s path that can lead to better things and most importantly discipline.

Photos credit: Lina Baker

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Boxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards

Published

2 days ago

January 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Bob Santos, the 2022 Sports Illustrated and The Ring magazine Trainer of the Year, is a busy fellow. On Feb. 1, fighters under his tutelage will open and close the show on the four-bout main portion of the Prime Video PPV event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Jeison Rosario continues his comeback in the lid-lifter, opposing Jesus Ramos. In the finale, former Cuban amateur standout David Morrell will attempt to saddle David Benavidez with his first defeat. Both combatants in the main event have been chasing 168-pound kingpin Canelo Alvarez, but this bout will be contested for a piece of the light heavyweight title.

When the show is over, Santos will barely have time to exhale. Before the month is over, one will likely find him working the corner of Dainier Pero, Brian Mendoza, Elijah Garcia, and perhaps others.

Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) turned 28 last month. He is in the prime of his career. However, a lot of folk rate Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) a very live dog. At last look, Benavidez was a consensus 7/4 (minus-175) favorite, a price that betokens a very competitive fight.

Bob Santos, needless to say, is confident that his guy can upset the odds. “I have worked with both,” he says. “It’s a tough fight for David Morrell, but he has more ways to victory because he’s less one-dimensional. He can go forward or fight going back and his foot speed is superior.”

Benavidez’s big edge, in the eyes of many, is his greater experience. He captured the vacant WBC 168-pound title at age 20, becoming the youngest super middleweight champion in history. As a pro, Benavidez has answered the bell for 148 rounds compared with only 54 for Morrell, but Bob Santos thinks this angle is largely irrelevant.

“Sure, I’d rather have pro experience than amateur experience,” he says, “but if you look at Benavidez’s record, he fought a lot of soft opponents when he was climbing the ladder.”

True. Benavidez, who turned pro at age 16, had his first seven fights in Mexico against a motley assortment of opponents. His first bout on U.S. soil occurred in his native Pheonix against an opponent with a 1-6-2 record.

While it’s certainly true that Morrell, 26, has yet to fight an opponent the caliber of Caleb Plant, he took up boxing at roughly the same tender age as Benavidez and earned his spurs in the vaunted Cuban amateur system, eventually defeating elite amateurs in international tournaments.

“If you look at his [pro] record, you will notice that [Morrell] has hardly lost a round,” says Santos of the fighter who captured an interim title in only his third professional bout with a 12-round decision over Guyanese veteran Lennox Allen.

Bob Santos is something of a late bloomer. He was around boxing for a long time, assisting such notables as Joe Goossen, Emanuel Steward, and Ronnie Shields before becoming recognized as one of the sport’s top trainers.

A native of San Jose, he grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood but not in a household where Spanish was spoken. “I know enough now to get by,” he says modestly. He attended James Lick High School whose most famous alumnus is Heisman winning and Super Bowl winning quarterback Jim Plunkett. “We worked in the same apricot orchard when we were kids,” says Santos. “Not at the same time, but in the same field.”

After graduation, he followed his father’s footsteps into construction work, but boxing was always beckoning. A cousin, the late Luis Molina, represented the U.S. as a lightweight in the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, and was good enough as a pro to appear in a main event at Madison Square Garden where he lost a narrow decision to the notorious Puerto Rican hothead Frankie Narvaez, a future world title challenger.

Santos’ cousin was a big draw in San Jose in an era when the San Jose / Sacramento territory was the bailiwick of Don Chargin. “Don was a beautiful man and his wife Lorraine was even nicer,” says Santos of the husband/wife promotion team who are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Don Chargin was inducted in 2001 and Lorraine posthumously in 2018.

Chargin promoted Fresno-based featherweight Hector Lizarraga who captured the IBF title in 1997. Lizarraga turned his career around after a 5-7-3 start when he hooked up with San Jose gym operator Miguel Jara. It was one of the most successful reclamation projects in boxing history and Bob Santos played a part in it.

Bob hopes to accomplish the same turnaround with Jeison Rosario whose career was on the skids when Santos got involved. In his most recent start, Rosario held heavily favored Jarrett Hurd to a draw in a battle between former IBF 154-pound champions on a ProBox card in Florida.

“I consider that one of my greatest achievements,” says Santos, noting that Rosario was stopped four times and effectively out of action for two years before resuming his career and is now on the cusp of earning another title shot.

The boxer with whom Santos is most closely identified is former four-division world title-holder Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. The slick southpaw, the pride of Gilroy, California, the self-proclaimed “Garlic Capital of the World,” retired following a bad loss to Omar Figueroa Jr, but had second thoughts and is currently riding a six-fight winning streak. “I’ve known him since he was 15 years old,” notes Santos.

Years from now, Santos may be more closely identified with the Pero brothers, Dainier and Lenier, who aspire to be the Cuban-American version of the Klitschko brothers.

Santos describes Dainier, one of the youngest members of Cuba’s Olympic Team in Tokyo, as a bigger version of Oleksandr Usyk. That may be stretching it, but Dainier (10-0, 8 KOs as a pro), certainly hits harder.

Dainier Pero

This reporter was a fly on the wall as Santos put Dainier Pero through his paces on Tuesday (Jan. 14) at Bones Adams gym in Las Vegas. Santos held tight to a punch shield, in the boxing vernacular a donut, as the Cuban practiced his punches. On several occasions the trainer was knocked off-balance and the expression on his face as his body absorbed some of the after-shocks, plainly said, “My goodness, what the hell am I doing here? There has to be an easier way to make a living.” It was an assignment that Santos would have undoubtedly preferred handing off to his young assistant, his son Joe Santos, but Joe was preoccupied coordinating David Morrell’s camp.

Dainer’s brother Lenier is also an ex-Olympian, and like Dainier was a super heavyweight by trade as an amateur. With an 11-0 (8 KOs) record, Lenier Pero’s pro career was on a parallel path until stalled by a managerial dispute. Lenier last fought in March of last year and Santos says he will soon join his brother in Las Vegas.

There’s little to choose between the Pero brothers, but Dainier is considered to have the bigger upside because at age 25 he is the younger sibling by seven years.

Bob Santos was in the running again this year for The Ring magazine’s Trainer of the Year, one of six nominees for the honor that was bestowed upon his good friend Robert Garcia. Considering the way that Santos’ career is going, it’s a safe bet that he will be showered with many more accolades in the years to come.

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