In Celebration of Miguel Cotto

Published

10 years ago

June 9, 2015

Miguel Cotto entered his dressing room at Barclays Center on the night of June 6 at 8:25 PM.

He was casually dressed, wearing faded blue jeans, a well-worn gray T-shirt, a blue leather jacket, and loafers with no socks.

There was a time when winning a world championship was boxing’s equivalent of a mobster becoming a made man. No more. In an era characterized by multiple sanctioning bodies and more than a hundred world “champions” at any point in time, only a handful of fighters matter to the public.

Miguel Cotto matters.

There has been a premium in the new millenium on trash-talking and glitz. That’s not Cotto’s way.

Miguel has always respected the sport of boxing and its practitioners. “I am where I am in boxing because I work hard instead of complaining,” he says. “I don’t ask for anything I didn’t earn.”

He would have been respected as a fighter in any era.

Cotto’s journey through boxing began in 1992.

“I was a chubby child,” Miguel recalls. “I weighed 162 pounds at age eleven. My sport was to sit in front of the TV and eat. I started boxing to lose weight and fell in love with it.”

Cotto has been fighting professionally for fourteen years. At his peak, he was a destructive force, devastating good fighters like Zab Judah, Carlos Quintana, and Paulie Malignaggi and outpointing great ones like Shane Mosley. He learned English at a late age to improve his marketability. Then something bad happened.

On the morning of July 26, 2008, Cotto had a 32-0 record and was ranked in the top five on most pound-for-pound lists. That night, he stepped into the ring at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to face Antonio Magarito and suffered a horrific beating. The weight of the evidence strongly suggests that Margarito’s gloves were “loaded” that night.

After that, Miguel wasn’t the same fighter. On November 14, 2009, he absorbed another beating at the hands of Manny Pacquiao. Thereafter, he fought sporadically, earning victories over Yuri Foreman, Ricardo Mayorga, and Margarito (in a rematch) before being outpointed in back-to-back losses to Floyd Mayweather and Austin Trout.

After the loss to Trout, Cotto’s days as a star attraction seemed to be over. On October 5, 2013, he scored a third-round knockout over Delvin Rodriguez. But Rodriguez has won only four of eleven fights dating back to 2008, so that didn’t count for much in the eyes of the boxing establishment.

Then, on June 7, 2014, Cotto challenged Sergio Martinez for the middleweight championship of the world.

Cotto knocked Martinez down three times in the first stanza. The fight was stopped after nine lopsided rounds. But it was an open issue as to whether Miguel had looked good or Sergio (who’d undergone extensive knee surgery prior to the fight and would require more surgery afterward) looked bad.

The victory over Martinez brought Cotto’s record to 39 wins against 4 losses with 32 knockouts and gave him renewed bargaining power. In January of this year, he signed a lucrative three-fight contract with Roc Nation that included a substantial signing bonus, a contribution by the promoter to Miguel’s charity in Puerto Rico, and an agreement between Roc Nation and Cotto Promotions to co-promote a series of boxing cards and rock concerts on the island.

In the aftermath of the signing, there were harsh words from Todd DuBoef of Top Rank (Cotto’s former promoter). At a February 5, 2015, luncheon to formally announce the deal, a reporter asked Gaby Penagaricano (Miguel’s attorney) about DuBoef’s negative comments.

“I am going to be the only one to talk about it,” Miguel interrupted. “We had a fight by fight deal with Top Rank. I expect respect, and a lot of people I knew from the beginning of my career didn’t show that.”

Later, when asked if there was any lingering bitterness between him and Top Rank, Miguel answered, “ If they want to say hi to me, they have my number.”

Cotto’s opponent at Barclay’s Center was Daniel Geale.

Geale (31-3, 16 KOs) had been competitive in past outings against fighters like Darren Barker, Anthony Mundine, and Felix Sturm. But when last seen in New York, he’d been knocked out by Gennady Golovkon in three rounds in a fight that evoked images of a bug flying into the windshield of a 16-wheel truck on an interstate highway.

“I didn’t come here for a holiday,” Geale said of his impending confrontation with Cotto. “I came here to fight.”

But Daniel (a 5-to-1 underdog) had been brought in on the assumption that he would lose. He was a respectable but “safe” opponent. Not too fast, not too skilled, not a big puncher. He wouldn’t bring anything to the table that Miguel couldn’t deal with.

Furthering Cotto’s advantage, the fight was to be contested at a catchweight of 157 pounds although Miguel’s 160-pound title was at stake. But the belt was of secondary importance. In a world inundated with phony belts and make-believe champions, this was a Miguel Cotto fight.

Barclays Center is the home of the NBA Brooklyn Nets. Cotto was treated like visiting royalty. Geale had been given an ordinary dressing room. Team Cotto was ensconsed in the Nets suite.

The dressing area was a spacious enclosure, thirty-six feet long and thirty feet wide with a twelve-foot-high ceiling and recessed lighting above. A white Brooklyn Nets logo was woven into plush black carpet. There were twelve separate dressing stations, each one with its own vertical closet, sliding drawer, and swivel chair. The last name and number of a Nets player was on a placard affixed to the wall by each station. The rest of the suite consisted of a lounge, lavatory, shower room, whirlpool room, and medical area.

For the first two hours after Cotto’s arrival, well-wishers came and went. Family members and friends, sanctioning body officials, representatives of Roc Nation. Through it all, the core group remained the same. Trainer Freddie Roach, assistant trainer Marvin Somodio, cutman David Martinez, strength and conditioning coach Gavin MacMillan, and Bryan Perez (Miguel’s closest and most trusted friend).

Former New York Yankee great Bernie Williams (who’d been asked by Miguel to walk him to the ring) sat quietly to the side.

The mood was relaxed, almost festive.

Cotto doesn’t smile often in public. He’s self-controlled and gives the impression of being on guard at all times. One might describe him as “stoic” (a person who endures hardship and pain without complaint and rarely shows his true feelings). But Miguel has expressive eyes that, depending on the moment, can be soft, hard, thoughtful, happy, lonely. His smile is genuine and warm.

Miguel smiles more in the dressing room on fight night than he does at press conferences and other media events. As time passed, he chatted casually with Perez, Somodio, and others as though he were circulating at a cocktail party. Other times, he sat alone with his thoughts or paced wordlessly with his arms folded, sipping from a bottle of water.

There were the normal pre-fight rituals supervised by New York State Athletic Commission inspectors George Ward and Sue Etkin. Referee Harvey Dock gave Cotto his pre-fight instructions. Miguel applied underarm deoderant before putting on his boxing gear and checked his smart phone for messages.

Times have changed. It’s hard to imagine Rocky Marciano checking a smart phone for messages in the dressing room before a fight.

At 9:00 PM, the salsa music of Ismael Miranda wafted through the air, adding to the festive aura.

Trainer Freddie Roach stood off to the side. Cotto-Geale was the third fight that he and Miguel had prepared for together.

In an earlier incarnation, Roach compiled a 39-and-13 ring record as a combatant. He’s still every bit as much a fighter as the men he trains. But now he’s fighting a different kind of battle, against the ravages of Parkinson’s syndrome.

Miguel calls Freddie “the best thing that ever happened to my career” and says, “Freddie brought confidence back to me. He comes every day to the gym and gives his best. The only way you can pay a person like that back is to give your best.”

Now Roach was reflecting on the time he has spent with Cotto.

“Miguel has a great work ethic,” Freddie said. “Once he’s in the gym, it’s all work. He’s one of the most disciplined fighters I’ve seen in my life. He’s very quiet. Every now and then, he tells a joke. He’s a pleasure to work with.”

“The biggest thing when I started with Miguel,” Roach continued, “was, I said to him, ‘When you were an amateur, you were a boxer. Why are you throwing every punch now like you want to kill the other guy? It’s not enough to have skills. It’s not enough to have heart. You have to fight smart.’ And Miguel listened. He tries to do what I tell him to do. You’ll see that tonight. I don’t know if Geale will come at us and try to impose his size or run all night. Either way, he’ll keep his hands high. That’s what he always does, so we’ll attack the body.”

Roach went down the hall to watch Geale’s hands being wrapped.

Cotto began stretching his upper body and leg muscles.

At 9:30, Marvin Somodio started wrapping Miguel’s hands, right hand first.

Miguel whistled in tune with the music as Somodio worked.

“Miguel loves fight night,” Bryan Perez said. “He’s enjoying the moment.”

Roach returned.

“Geale got a terrible handwrap,” Freddie announced. “I don’t think his guy knows how to wrap hands. The way he did it, there’s not much protection or strength.”

That led to Roach reminiscing about an oddity that occurred years ago when he was training Virgil Hill.

“I went in to watch the opponent getting his hands wrapped, and the guy who was wrapping had no idea what he was doing. Finally, the fighter said, ‘Freddie, will you wrap my hands?’ I said, ‘I can’t. You’re fighting my guy.’ He said, ‘Please!’ So I did it.”

At 9:50, Cotto lay down on a towel on the floor and Somodio began stretching him out.

Miguel shadow-boxed briefly.

Somodio gloved him up.

At 10:27, Miguel began hitting the pads with Roach; his first real physical exertion of the night. Four minutes later, they stopped.

At 10:40, a voice sounded: “Okay, guys.”

It was time to fight.

This was Cotto’s first fight at Barclays Center after having fought once at Yankee Stadium and nine times at Madison Square Garden.

Geale had a decided size advantage. One day earlier earlier, Miguel had weighed in at 153.6 pounds (under the junior-middleweight limit), while Daniel tipped the scales at 157. During the ensuing thirty hours, Geale had gained approximately twenty pounds. He weighed 182 in street clothes on fight night. But size was his only edge.

Cotto-Geale was a craftsman versus an ordinary fighter. It was clear from the start that Miguel was faster and the better boxer.

For the first three rounds, Cotto piled up points with his jab and scored points in addition to doing damage with hard hooks to the body. Thirty-two seconds into round four, a picture-perfect left hook up top smashed Geale to the canvas and left him on his back with his upper torso stretched beneath the bottom ring rope.

Daniel rose on unsteady legs at the count of nine and managed to stay upright for another thirty seconds before a barrage of punches punctuated by a short right hand deposited him on the floor for the second time.

Once again, he beat the count.

“Are you okay?” referee Harvey Dock asked.

Geale shook his head.

“No,” he said.

Dock appropriately stopped the fight.

There was joy in Cotto’s dressing room after the fight. It wasn’t that he’d beaten Geale as much as the way he beaten him that impressed.

“Miguel boxed very well tonight,” Roach said. “The angles were good. He got off first and went to the body a lot.” Freddie smiled. “It’s a lot easier when the fight happens the way you planned it.”

As for the future; Cotto isn’t one of the kids anymore. He’s much closer to the end of his ring career than the beginning.

“I said that I would be out of boxing by the time I am thirty,” Miguel noted recently.” I am thirty-four now.”

How many fights he has left will depend in large measure on how much punishment he takes in them and, to a lesser degree, how much each training camp takes out of him.

Meanwhile, June 6 was one more performance to be treasured. But in some ways, it was just another fight. Miguel showered and put on the same faded jeans, gray T-shirt, blue leather jacket, and loafers without socks that he’d worn earlier in the evening. He looked like a factory worker getting ready to go home after an honest night’s work.

Thomas Hauser can be reached by email at thauser@rcn.com. His most recent book – Thomas Hauser on Boxing – was published by the University of Arkansas Press.

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Thomas Hauser

Thomas Hauser is the author of 52 books. In 2005, he was honored by the Boxing Writers Association of America, which bestowed the Nat Fleischer Award for career excellence in boxing journalism upon him. He was the first Internet writer ever to receive that award. In 2019, Hauser was chosen for boxing's highest honor: induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Lennox Lewis has observed, “A hundred years from now, if people want to learn about boxing in this era, they’ll read Thomas Hauser.”

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

Published

19 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

2 days 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

3 days ago

January 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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

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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