Flurried Ramblings!

R.I.P. Jennifer and Edwin Valero
After all is said is done, the end of Edwin Valero turned into a real tragedy. In a career that only saw victory with twenty-seven wins, all by knock out, his life outside of the ring, at least in the last couple of years, was filled with a number of misfortunes which ended with Valero murdering his wife and then taking his own life in his jail cell. None of us will ever known why or what was inside the head of Valero but what we do know is that the life of a champion was cut short and like so many times before, it could have been avoided. I met Valero once and you could see the intensity in his eyes and in his handshake, a vice-like grip who showed you who was boss, at least in his mind. The first time I met him, it was in the most surprising of places. I was at a movie theatre in Tijuana, MX, and about to watch “The Hangover”. This movie theatre in Tijuana is what they call a VIP one, one where you can enjoy a couple or six or an infinite number of alcoholic beverages that get brought to your leather lazy boy by an army waiters ready to serve you. After two or maybe six of these beverages, I had to visit the men’s room. I made myself to the restroom as quickly as I could since I didn’t want to miss any part of the movie. As I made myself around a corner, Edwin Valero strolled right behind me. I did a double take and said “Edwin Valero!”. Without missing a beat the two time world champion responded with “asi es (That’s right)”. We both went about our business in the rest room but I took a little bit longer than usual in washing my hands and as soon the Valero washed his, I asked him for picture which he more than happily took. In trying to make small talk, I asked him who his next opponent was and he said that it would be Humberto Soto. This encounter took place before the bout with DeMarco was made. As I thanked him for his time and made myself back to my seat, I wondered what he was doing in Tijuana. Later I found out that he was getting ready to cross into San Diego, CA, and apply for his visa which eventually was denied forcing him to defend his lightweight title against DeMarco some months later in Monterrey, MX.

In Monterrey, I did not have the chance to speak to the Venezuelan but was around him prior to the bout and at the weigh-ins. When he made his way to the small bar on the second floor of the Arena Monterrey for the official weigh in, it was a sight to behold. Valero in all his glory walked in front of his twelve to fifteen person entourage with a look in his eye that if allowed, he would fight DeMarco right then and there and the rest of the DeMarco team for good measure. I never heard him say a couple of words to anybody as he took the pre-fight medical examination and waited for his chance at the scale. It was known that he was having trouble making the lightweight limit but you wouldn’t know if from looking at him. Although his eyes looked sullen, Valero looked strong, confident and ready when he stood face to face with who turned out to be his last KO victim the next night. I have been to my fair share of weigh-ins but I had never seen any fighter as intense and ready as Valero looked that day.

I will never forget it.

Margarito’s “Switches”

-Now that the return of the “Tijuana Tornado” Antonio Margarito has been announced, his reaction to his more than a year suspension has been made public by more than one print and internet outlets. Many fans and pundits have made an issue of the fact that Margarito has not accepted fault for illegal hand wraps being found prior to this WBA welterweight title loss against “Sugar” Shane Mosley in January of last year. Margarito claims that he did not know what his former trainer Javier Capetillo was using in his hand wraps, that he only puts his hands “up there” and they get wrapped. Many claim that as a fighter, he should take blame for the actions of his team and that he should know exactly what is being taped to his hands. Many say that he should just admit to the wrongdoing, apologize and have an easier way in moving on.

I offer a different perspective.

Nobody can deny the fact that to become a professional fighter, let alone one at the level as Margarito, one has to have not only talent and skill but also a mental fortitude to will himself to withstand what a non fighter could never do. Not only to these men and women condition their body to into great specimens but their job consists of getting punched to the head and body repeatedly and to not only survive that but to inflict more punishment on their opponent to be able to win. For the last five to ten years, Antonio Margarito has been a force to be reckoned with in the welterweight division and we can say that Margarito has what it takes mentally to reach the pinnacle of his sport. He has been able to turn on whatever switch mentally that leads him to push himself to an unimaginable degree while turning off whatever switch is needed to ignore pain, fatigue and sometimes self preservation.

Would it be hard to believe that within what makes Margarito be a world champion, the turning on and off of these mental “switches”, Margarito has turned off the switch that would bring him to admit any wrongdoing? That his brain will not let him admit that he had something to do with the illegal hand wraps that were used just like his brain did not tell him to stop after Miguel Cotto had connected with his one hundredth power punch?

It is a thought.

Tired of “Money”

-When I met Floyd Mayweather Jr. I couldn’t not like him. I met him at a press conference prior to his bout against Ricky Hatton and for all intents and purposes, he was the same arrogant, cocky, but confident fighter he is today. After both fighters, promoters and trainers took part in all the pomp and circumstance of a pre fight press conference, the media was given an opportunity to interview each fighter.

I never got around to interview Ricky Hatton.

As a number of internet scribes circled Mayweather Jr. and his advisor Leonard Ellorbe, it so happens that Gabriel Montoya, then of DoghouseBoxing.com and now of MaxBoxing.com, and myself ended sitting next each other. I then took my turns to ask questions of Mayweather not of Hatton but of Antonio Margarito, a fighter that at that time had called out Mayweather Jr. numerous times but “Money” would not heed the call. After my fourth or fifth Margarito question, sprinkled in between Montoya’s nicer questions on purpose, in a sense our own version of good cop/bad cop, it was no secret that Mayweather and Ellorbe weren’t too happy with me. As soon as the interview session question was over, I asked Mayweather Jr. for a photo, mentioning that we had a friend in common, Rafael “Pride of San Diego” Ramirez, a San Diego fighter who had been a part of Mayweather’s camps as a sparring partner more than once. Mayweather Jr. not only granted my wish of a photo together but put his arm around me as if we were long lost friends and complete forgot the fact that only minutes before I was asking for his head on a platter for not accepting the challenge of Tijuana’s favorite son, Antonio Margarito.

The Mayweather that I remember is nothing like that monster that gets portrayed on the latest “24/7” promoting his up coming bout against “Sugar” Shane Mosley. The Mayweather back then was brash, cocky, confident and arrogant but it seemed that everything that he said was tongue in cheek. Yes,. we all know that Mayweather is one of the best fighters of his era and probably will go down as one of the best of all time. When he would say it back then, there was always a smile that came with it, a twinkle in his eye that almost gave you the idea that he was saying it only for the sake of hearing him talk.

Now when he said in the last episode of “24/7” (episode 2) that he was better than Muhammad Ali and “Sugar” Ray Robinson, it took all my restrain not to throw my laptop thru the window. There was no twinkle, no smile afterwards but just the deranged look of a man who says he is Jesus Christ himself a la Charles Manson.

It seems that Mayweather has taken this persona of the bad guy, the character that made him one of the most paid fighters in history, the character that led him to be part of the most bought PPVs in boxing history, and morphed him into his true self. I hope for all those around him, his family, his loved ones that it is not the case but I could not believe that this person can be lived with and only those who do, do so to be around his millions.

Millions that he might not have according to the IRS.