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The Life and Mysterious Death of World Title Challenger Eloy Perez

Eloy Perez had 27 pro fights and lost only one. That came in his final bout when he challenged Adrien Broner for the WBO world super featherweight title. The bout aired on HBO from the big hockey arena in St. Louis. Deontay Wilder and Keith Thurman appeared on the undercard.
A week ago, Oct. 11, Perez was found dead in Tijuana. When he was remanded to the Mexican border town, it was like being packed off to a foreign country. Perez was born in Mexico but came to the U.S. as a toddler. He wasnât fluent in Spanish.
Eloy Perez grew up in Rochester, Washington, a place where there were relatively few people who identify as Hispanic or Latino. He grew up poor. The family lived in a trailer that was eventually moved to the property of Eloyâs boxing coach, Jim Douglas, who let the Perez family live there rent free. With the money they saved, Eloyâs parents were able to purchase a house in the neighboring town of Rainier where Eloy spent his last two years of high school.
The best way to become popular with the Anglo crowd was through the medium of sports and Eloy was very good at it. He excelled at soccer and as a running back on the football field although he stood only five-foot-five. Where he really excelled, however, was in boxing, a sport he took up at the age of 13.
The highlight of Perezâs amateur career came in an international tournament in Kansas City. There were 32 fighters in his weight class. Perez came out on top, defeating a 27-year-old man in the finals.
Cameron Dunkin, a scout for Bob Arum, was in attendance. Dunkin encouraged Arum to sign him, but Arum backed off, ostensibly because Perez was still in high school. In recent years, the Top Rank honcho has signed boxers as young as 16 to professional contracts, but back in those days Arum drew a harder line in the sand.
As an amateur, Perez could only go so far. The governing body of amateur boxing in the United States had a rule that once a boxer reached the age of 17, he had to prove citizenship. The process, from application to acceptance (or denial), was tedious. Pursuing it would have meant a substantial gap in Eloy Perezâs amateur timeline.
When Perez turned pro, he didnât have to leave home. Rochester was home to an Indian casino, the Lucky Eagle, which ran club fights on a regular basis. The promoter and matchmaker there was none other than Bennie Georgino. (A fabled fight character in Los Angeles during the glory days of the Olympic Auditorium, Georgino, who died in 2016 at age 95, had managed or co-managed three world champions: Albert Davila, Jaime Garza, and Danny âLittle Redâ Lopez.)
There were very few pro boxers residing in the vicinity of the Lucky Eagle. Georgino filled his cards with fighters from California and Canada. Eloy Perez was a godsend. Georgino didnât have to dip into his thin budget to feed him or pay his travel expenses. More importantly, Eloy was a big draw right out of the box. For a grassroots promoter, there is no commodity more prized than a hometown hero.
Perez was a junior in high school when he made his pro debut. To be on the safe side, Georgino made him fudge his I.D., making a year older than his actual age.
At this early stage of his career, boxing didnât pay the bills. Perez took a job working at a warehouse owned by the Fred Meyer company, the operator of a chain of Walmart-like stores in the Northwest. It was there that he had his first brush with the law.
Security caught him leaving work with a packet of batteries in his pocket, an $11 item, and turned him over to the police. He pled guilty to a charge of third-degree theft, receiving a fine and a suspended sentence.
There came a day when Perez had to fly the coop, go somewhere where he could refine his skills with world-class trainers and good sparring partners. He hooked up with Max Garcia, a prominent Northern California trainer and small-time promoter whose base was in Salinas. Garcia had good contacts and it wasnât long before Eloy was fighting under Oscar De La Hoyaâs Golden Boy umbrella.
In September of 2009, Perez won a regional belt with a 10-round decision over fellow unbeaten Dannie Williams at the Playboy Club in Beverly Hills. (The photo shows Perez displaying the belt shortly after winning the fight.) He was 23-0-2 with 1 NC entering his title fight with Adrien Broner and riding a 15-fight winning streak.
Broner was too quick for him. In the fourth round of the one-sided fight, Perez was knocked down and the referee waived it off as Eloy was struggling to get back on his feet.
Things got worse for him. His post-fight urine test revealed the presence of cocaine. His California handlers were so disgusted they wanted nothing more to do with him. With only one defeat blemishing his record, it would seem that Eloy Perez had a lot of boxing left in him, that maybe he could claw his way back to another title fight, but he would never fight again. He drifted back to the state of Washington and got in more trouble.
His second arrest for driving while intoxicated landed him at an immigrant detention center in Tacoma where he languished for more than a year. Purportedly given the choice of prison or deportation, he chose the latter so that his girlfriend in California could visit him unfettered by prison constraints. ICE dumped him in Tijuana.
The authorities say that Eloy Perez took his own life. His sister Emma will never believe it. She is certain that he was murdered.
Her theory is actually more plausible. Back in the days of Prohibition and even before, Tijuana was a popular playground for American tourists looking to let their hair down. In those days, words like âdusty” and âsleepyâ were invariably used in descriptions of Tijuana by travel writers.
That place doesnât exist anymore. Tijuana has grown into a city of nearly 2 million people, many of whom migrated here from other parts of Mexico. It is also one of the most violence-plagued places on the planet. In 2018 there were 2,519 homicides, the highest number per capita of any city in the world, the bulk of it attributed to turf wars between low-level drug dealers.
Itâs likely that the true cause of Eloy Perezâs death will never be known. Whatever the cause, these bare facts wonât change: He was a high school sports hero in a small town in Washington, was a professional boxer good enough to fight for a world title, had legal problems that caused him to be evicted from the country where he had resided since he was scarcely old enough to walk, and he drew his last breath in Tijuana.
Upon learning of his death, fight publicist Rachel Charles wrote that Perez might be one of the greatest âwhat ifâ stories in boxing. There are a whole lot of âwhat ifsâ here.
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âBreadmanâ Edwards: An Unlikely Boxing Coach with a Panoramic View of the Sport

Stephen âBreadmanâ Edwardsâ first fighter won a world title. That may be some sort of record.
Itâs true. Edwards had never trained a fighter, amateur or pro, before taking on professional novice Julian âJ Rockâ Williams. On May 11, 2019, Williams wrested the IBF 154-pound world title from Jarrett Hurd. The bout, a lusty skirmish, was in Fairfax, Virginia, near Hurdâs hometown in Maryland, and the previously undefeated Hurd had the crowd in his corner.
In boxing, Stephen Edwards wears two hats. He has a growing reputation as a boxing coach, a hat he will wear on Saturday, May 31, at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas when the two fighters that he currently trains, super middleweight Caleb Plant and middleweight Kyrone Davis, display their wares on a show that will air on Amazon Prime Video. Plant, who needs no introduction, figures to have little trouble with his foe in a match conceived as an appetizer to a showdown with Jermall Charlo. Davis, coming off his career-best win, an upset of previously undefeated Elijah Garcia, is in tough against fast-rising Cuban prospect Yoenli Hernandez, a former world amateur champion.
Edwardsâ other hat is that of a journalist. His byline appears at âBoxing Sceneâ in a column where he answers questions from readers.
Itâs an eclectic bag of questions that Breadman addresses, ranging from his thoughts on an upcoming fight to his thoughts on one of the legendary prizefighters of olden days. Boxing fans, more so than fans of any other sport, enjoy hashing over fantasy fights between great fighters of different eras. Breadman is very good at this, which isnât to suggest that his opinions are gospel, merely that he always has something provocative to add to the discourse. Like all good historians, he recognizes that the best history is revisionist history.
âFighters are constantly mislabled,â he says. âEveryone talks about Joe Louisâs right hand. But if you study him you see that his left hook is every bit as good as his right hand and itâs more sneaky in terms of shock value when it lands.â
Stephen âBreadmanâ Edwards was born and raised in Philadelphia. His father died when he was three. His maternal grandfather, a Korean War veteran, filled the void. The man was a big boxing fan and the two would watch the fights together on the family television.
Edwardsâ nickname dates to his early teen years when he was one of the best basketball players in his neighborhood. The derivation is the 1975 movie âCornbread, Earl and Me,â starring Laurence Fishburne in his big screen debut. Future NBA All-Star Jamaal Wilkes, fresh out of UCLA, plays Cornbread, a standout high school basketball player who is mistakenly murdered by the police.
Coming out of high school, Breadman had to choose between an academic scholarship at Temple or an athletic scholarship at nearby Lincoln University. He chose the former, intending to major in criminal justice, but didnât stay in college long. What followed were a succession of jobs including a stint as a city bus driver. To stay fit, he took to working out at the James Shuler Memorial Gym where he sparred with some of the regulars, but he never boxed competitively.
Over the years, Philadelphia has harbored some great boxing coaches. Among those of recent vintage, the names George Benton, Bouie Fisher, Nazeem Richardson, and Bozy Ennis come quickly to mind. Breadman names Richardson and West Coast trainer Virgil Hunter as the men that have influenced him the most.
We are all a product of our times, so itâs no surprise that the best decade of boxing, in Breadmanâs estimation, was the 1980s. This was the era of the âFour Kingsâ with Sugar Ray Leonard arguably standing tallest.
Breadman was a big fan of Leonard and of Leonardâs three-time rival Roberto Duran. âI once purchased a DVD that had all of Roberto Duranâs title defenses on it,â says Edwards. âThis was a back before the days of YouTube.â
But Edwardsâ interest in the sport goes back much deeper than the 1980s. He recently weighed in on the âPittsburgh Windmillâ Harry Greb whose legend has grown in recent years to the point that some have come to place him above Sugar Ray Robinson on the list of the greatest of all time.
âGreb was a great fighter with a terrific resume, of that there is no doubt,â says Breadman, âbut there is no video of him and no one alive ever saw him fight, so where does this train of thought come from?â
Edwards notes that in Harry Grebâs heyday, he wasnât talked about in the papers as the best pound-for-pound fighter in the sport. The boxing writers were partial to Benny Leonard who drew comparisons to the venerated Joe Gans.
Among active fighters, Breadman reserves his highest praise for Terence Crawford. âBody punching is a lost art,â he once wrote. â[Crawford] is a great body puncher who starts his knockouts with body punches, but those punches are so subtle they are not fully appreciated.â
If the opening line holds up, Crawford will enter the ring as the underdog when he opposes Canelo Alvarez in September. Crawford, who will enter the ring a few weeks shy of his 38th birthday, is actually the older fighter, older than Canelo by almost three full years (it doesnât seem that way since the Mexican redhead has been in the public eye so much longer), and will theoretically be rusty as 13 months will have elapsed since his most recent fight.
Breadman discounts those variables. âTerence is older,â he says, âbut has less wear and tear and never looks rusty after a long layoff.â That Crawford will win he has no doubt, an opinion he tweaked after Caneloâs performance against William Scull: âCaneloâs legs are not the same. Bud may even stop him now.â
Edwards has been with Caleb Plant for Plantâs last three fights. Their first collaboration produced a Knockout of the Year candidate. With one ferocious left hook, Plant sent Anthony Dirrell to dreamland. What followed were a 12-round setback to David Benavidez and a ninth-round stoppage of Trevor McCumby.
Breadman keeps a hectic schedule. From Monday through Friday, heâs at the DLX Gym in Las Vegas coaching Caleb Plant and Kyrone Davis. On weekends, heâs back in Philadelphia, checking in on his investment properties and, of greater importance, watching his kids play sports. His 14-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son are standout all-around athletes.
On those long flights, he has plenty of time to turn on his laptop and stream old fights or perhaps work on his next article. Thatâs assuming he can stay awake.
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Arneâs Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More

Arneâs Almanac: The Good, the Bad, and the (Mostly) Ugly; a Weekend Boxing Recap and More
Itâs old news now, but on back-to-back nights on the first weekend of May, there were three fights that finished in the top six snoozefests ever as measured by punch activity. Thatâs according to CompuBox which has been around for 40 years.
In Times Square, the boxing match between Devin Haney and Jose Carlos Ramirez had the fifth-fewest number of punches thrown, but the main event, Ryan Garcia vs. Rolly Romero, was even more of a snoozefest, landing in third place on this ignoble list.
Those standings would be revised the next night â knocked down a peg when Canelo Alvarez and William Scull combined to throw a historically low 445 punches in their match in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, 152 by the victorious Canelo who at least pressed the action, unlike Scull (pictured) whose effort reminded this reporter of âCat on a Hot Tin Roofâ â no, not the movie starring Paul Newman, just the title.
CompuBox numbers, it says here, are best understood as approximations, but no amount of rejiggering can alter the fact that these three fights were stinkers. Making matters worse, these were pay-per-views. If one had bundled the two events, rather than buying each separately, one would have been out $90 bucks.
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Thankfully, the Sunday card on ESPN from Las Vegas was redemptive. It was just what the sport needed at this moment â entertaining fights to expunge some of the bad odor. In the main go, Naoya Inoue showed why he trails only Shohei Ohtani as the most revered athlete in Japan.
Throughout history, the baby-faced assassin has been a boxing promoterâs dream. Itâs no coincidence that down through the ages the most common nickname for a fighter â and by an overwhelming margin — is âKid.â
And that partly explains Naoya Inoueâs charisma. The guy is 32 years old, but here in America he could pass for 17.
Joey Archer
Joey Archer, who passed away last week at age 87 in Rensselaer, New York, was one of the last links to an era of boxing identified with the nationally televised Friday Night Fights at Madison Square Garden.

Joey Archer
Archer made his debut as an MSG headliner on Feb. 4, 1961, and had 12 more fights at the iconic mid-Manhattan sock palace over the next six years. The final two were world title fights with defending middleweight champion Emile Griffith.
Archer etched his name in the history books in November of 1965 in Pittsburgh where he won a comfortable 10-round decision over Sugar Ray Robinson, sending the greatest fighter of all time into retirement. (At age 45, Robinson was then far past his peak.)
Born and raised in the Bronx, Joey Archer was a cutie; a clever counter-puncher recognized for his defense and ultimately for his granite chin. His style was embedded in his DNA and reinforced by his mentors.
Early in his career, Archer was domiciled in Houston where he was handled by veteran trainer Bill Gore who was then working with world lightweight champion Joe Brown. Gore would ride into the Hall of Fame on the coattails of his most famous fighter, âWill-o’-the Wispâ Willie Pep. If Joey Archer had any thoughts of becoming a banger, Bill Gore would have disabused him of that notion.
In all honesty, Archerâs style would have been box office poison if he had been black. It helped immensely that he was a native New Yorker of Irish stock, albeit the Irish angle didnât have as much pull as it had several decades earlier. But that observation may not be fair to Archer who was bypassed twice for world title fights after upsetting Hurricane Carter and Dick Tiger.
When he finally caught up with Emile Griffith, the former hat maker wasnât quite the fighter he had been a few years earlier but Griffith, Â a two-time Fighter of the Year by The Ring magazine and the BWAA and a future first ballot Hall of Famer, was still a hard nut to crack.
Archer went 30 rounds with Griffith, losing two relatively tight decisions and then, although not quite 30 years old, called it quits. He finished 45-4 with 8 KOs and was reportedly never knocked down, yet alone stopped, while answering the bell for 365 rounds. In retirement, he ran two popular taverns with his older brother Jimmy Archer, a former boxer who was Joeyâs trainer and manager late in Joeyâs career.
May he rest in peace.
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Bombs Away in Las Vegas where Inoue and Espinoza Scored Smashing Triumphs

Japanâs Naoya âMonsterâ Inoue banged it out with Mexicoâs Ramon Cardenas, survived an early knockdown and pounded out a stoppage win to retain the undisputed super bantamweight world championship on Sunday.
Japan and Mexico delivered for boxing fans again after American stars failed in back-to-back days.
âBy watching tonightâs fight, everyone is well aware that I like to brawl,â Inoue said.
Inoue (30-0, 27 KOs), and Cardenas (26-2, 14 KOs) and his wicked left hook, showed the world and 8,474 fans at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas that prizefighting is about punching, not running.
After massive exposure for three days of fights that began in New York City, then moved to Riyadh, Saudi Arabia and then to Nevada, it was the casino capital of the world that delivered what most boxing fans appreciate- pure unadulterated action fights.
Monster Inoue immediately went to work as soon as the opening bell rang with a consistent attack on Cardenas, who very few people knew anything about.
One thing promised by Cardenasâ trainer Joel Diaz was that his fighter âcan crack.â
Cardenas proved his trainerâs words truthful when he caught Inoue after a short violent exchange with a short left hook and down went the Japanese champion on his back. The crowd was shocked to its toes.
âI was very surprised,â said Inoue about getting dropped. ââIn the first round, I felt I had good distance. It got loose in the second round. From then on, I made sure to not take that punch again.â
Inoue had no trouble getting up, but he did have trouble avoiding some of Cardenas massive blows delivered with evil intentions. Though Inoue did not go down again, a look of total astonishment blanketed his face.
A real fight was happening.
Cardenas, who resembles actor Andy Garcia, was never overly aggressive but kept that left hook of his cocked and ready to launch whenever he saw the moment. There were many moments against the hyper-aggressive Inoue.
Both fighters pack power and both looked to find the right moment. But after Inoue was knocked down by the left hook counter, he discovered a way to eliminate that weapon from Cardenas. Still, the Texas-based fighter had a strong right too.
In the sixth round Inoue opened up with one of his lightning combinations responsible for 10 consecutive knockout wins. Cardenas backed against the ropes and Inoue blasted away with blow after blow. Then suddenly, Cardenas turned Inoue around and had him on the ropes as the Mexican fighter unloaded nasty combinations to the body and head. Fans roared their approval.
âI dreamed about fighting in front of thousands of people in Las Vegas,â said Cardenas. âSo, I came to give everything.â
Inoue looked a little surprised and had a slight Mona Lisa grin across his face. In the seventh round, the Japanese four-division world champion seemed ready to attack again full force and launched into the round guns blazing. Cardenas tried to catch Inoue again with counter left hooks but Inoueâs combos rained like deadly hail. Four consecutive rights by Inoue blasted Cardenas almost through the ropes. The referee Tom Taylor ruled it a knockdown. Cardenas beat the count and survived the round.
In the eighth round Inoue looked eager to attack and at the bell launched across the ring and unloaded more blows on Cardenas. A barrage of 14 unanswered blows forced the referee to stop the fight at 45 seconds of round eight for a technical knockout win.
âI knew he was tough,â said Inoue. âBoxing is not that easy.â
Espinoza Wins
WBO featherweight titlist Rafael Espinosa (27-0, 23 KOs) uppercut his way to a knockout win over Edward Vazquez (17-3, 4 KOs) in the seventh round.
âI wanted to fight a game fighter to show what I am capable,â said Espinoza.
Espinosa used the leverage of his six-foot, one-inch height to slice uppercuts under the guard of Vazquez. And when the tall Mexican from Guadalajara targeted the body, it was then that the Texas fighter began to wilt. But he never surrendered.
Though he connected against Espinoza in every round, he was not able to slow down the taller fighter and that allowed the Mexican fighter to unleash a 10-punch barrage including four consecutive uppercuts. The referee stopped the fight at 1:47 of the seventh round.
It was Espinozaâs third title defense.
Photo credit: Mikey Williams / Top Rank
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