American Son

by Oscar De La Hoya

  Blood is blood in the ring, whether or not it comes from a common source. I TKO’d John Avila in the ninth round, referee Raul Caiz stopping the fight because Avila had a welt over his right eye that had grown to the size of a tennis ball.

  As we embraced, Avila said to me, “Good fight, cuz.”

  There wouldn’t be a lot of smiles the next time I entered the ring. I was about to step up to another level of competition beginning with John John Molina. After I put Molina down in the first round, he resorted to dirty tactics, hitting me in the back of the head and holding a lot. I found myself struggling to a greater degree than ever before.

  If I had had more experience, or a more experienced trainer, I would have realized I was playing into Molina’s game by engaging in his wrestling tactics. Instead of being hung up on showing I could match his strength—purely an ego thing—and his disregard for the rules, I should have moved outside and used my jab and my reach to pile up points.

  It would have been a good time to go to plan B. But with Robert as my trainer, I didn’t have a plan B. It was the first fight where I realized I had a serious problem in my own corner. The fighter is supposed to be calmed by the trainer in tough situations like that. In my case, I had to calm Robert, who was sweating more than I was. I think he was becoming overwhelmed as my fights got bigger and bigger. He just couldn’t handle it.

  Robert got into such a panic that he just started babbling incoherently as I sat on my stool awaiting what I had hoped would be a new strategy. It wasn’t English, it wasn’t Spanish. It was Alcazarish.

  I survived to win a decision over Molina, but the experience made me realize, as I moved up to stiffer and stiffer competition, that I couldn’t depend on my trainer to elevate me to an ever-higher level of expertise. I would be on my own.

  XIII

  THE MEN IN MY CORNER

  Managers guide you, promoters hype you, publicists protect you, family and friends support you, and the media portrays you to the public, for better or worse.

  But nobody is as important to a fighter as his trainer. It is the trainer who is with you on some lonely road in the middle of nowhere before the sun has peeked over the mountains, running with you or driving beside you, pushing you beyond exhaustion to exhilaration. It is the trainer who analyzes your opponent and designs your strategy. It is the trainer who runs your sparring sessions, determining the number of rounds, the weapons in your arsenal to be tested, and the sparring partners best suited to administer that test. It is the trainer who often works the mitts and wraps your hands. It is the trainer who cooks your meals and monitors your weight, keeps your mind focused and your body tuned.

  And when all the other members of your entourage have exited the ring and the opening bell sounds, it is your trainer alone who will return to work your corner, with help if needed from a cut man, keeping your engine running, your spirits elevated, and your game plan on track, reminding you to throw your jab, launch your hook, and stay alert at all times. It is his voice you hear in the heat of battle, his advice you heed. To a trainer, every opponent is beatable, every round winnable, and every punch thrown by the other guy avoidable.

  When you win, your trainer is the first guy to hug you. When you lose, he’s the last guy to leave you.

  Over the years I’ve had all sorts of trainers, young and old, reserved and flamboyant, old school and New Age, each one indispensable at the time and unforgettable to this day.

  I was happy Robert had stayed on as my first professional trainer after Barcelona because we had clicked from the beginning.

  Robert was the best fighter in the world with his headgear on, according to his old trainer, Joe Chavez. Once the headgear came off, however…not so good.

  That didn’t affect me. Robert wasn’t there to be my sparring partner. As a trainer, he was intense, worked well with the mitts, pumped me up in the corner, and was a likable guy, but his real specialty was the hand wraps. He did a great job wrapping your hands. That may sound like a pretty basic thing, kind of like tying your shoes if you’re a baseball player, but believe me, it’s anything but basic. A good hand wrap can protect those hands from injury, make you feel comfortable when the gloves are on, give you confidence, and allow you the freedom of movement to deliver crisp, sharp punches.

  Ask any fighter. It starts with the hand wraps.

  Perhaps because he was already friends with my father, Robert blended in nicely with our family right away. He became like an older brother to me. I felt he was looking out for me.

  Slipping into the ring as a professional felt very comfortable with Robert in my corner because there wasn’t much change from my glory days as an amateur. My natural style was geared to the pro game, so we had used that style whenever possible in my amateur matches.

  I take my hat off to Robert for that. He saw I had an effective style that fit me and he left it alone. Some trainers try to mold you into their concept of a successful fighter. It’s either a case of the trainer feeling he knows better or wanting to stamp you with his style so he can take full credit if you succeed. That wasn’t Robert. He saw the talent I had and realized that if I was indeed successful, plenty of credit would flow his way.

  The flip side was that while he didn’t change my style, he didn’t improve it, either. We were just doing the same things over and over. I was getting in great shape and was focused and hungry for victory, but he wasn’t giving me any additional tools to achieve those victories. While I appreciated the way he wrapped my hands, I desperately wanted him to show me new, innovative ways to use those hands.

  By the time I signed to fight Rafael Ruelas in 1995, I had become predictable in the ring. When that happens, you leave a smart opponent all sorts of countermoves.

  My father realized what was going on. Robert may have been his friend, but I was my father’s primary concern.

  Still, our mutual recognition of Robert’s limitations remained unspoken between us. We were very loyal to Robert and tried to hold on to him as long as we could.

  One side of me said, “I’ve got to change trainers. I’ve got to do something.” The other side of me was saying, “I’m going to be nice to him because I genuinely like him. Why change? It would be hard on him. If I fire him, what would he do?”

  It was becoming more and more difficult to stay with Robert, though, as my opponents became tougher and tougher. I had to grow.

  Bruce Trampler, Bob Arum’s matchmaker, was the first to finally verbalize what more and more people around me were thinking. Maybe you should consider changing trainers, he told me. He would suggest another trainer, and the next day, that guy would be invited to my camp to observe.

  The media would also bring the subject up, questioning the development of my defensive skills and whether Robert belonged in the corner of a world-class fighter, a level many felt I could attain with the right man tutoring me.

  Robert was hardly oblivious to what was going on. He had always worried about being replaced, right from the beginning. From my first pro fight, he was looking over his shoulder because, I think, he knew he was limited in what he could offer to a fighter with so much undeveloped potential.

  He never got over that jumpiness, the feeling that people were out to get him, that his replacement was always about to walk into the gym.

  Robert’s insecurity created friction between him and me. We never talked frankly about it because I felt it wouldn’t have done any good. It would just have made him feel bad. He wasn’t going to admit that he wasn’t qualified to take me to the top, so what would be the point of confronting him?

  As long as I was winning and moving up the ladder, I stayed with the status quo.

  That didn’t sit well with Arum and Trampler. They became more and more insistent that something be done.

  When I continued to resist, they talked to my father and, eventually, even to Robert himself. They suggested a second trainer be brought in. Not to replace him, Robert was told. Not even to have the final say. Just a second pair
of eyes to analyze and suggest.

  Robert didn’t see it that way. He went straight to my father, telling him Arum and Trampler were trying to undermine him. My father listened politely, but he wasn’t about to buck Arum and Trampler if it wasn’t in my best interests.

  After I struggled to the win against Molina in 1995, the win in which Robert became incoherent in the corner, I gave in to the pressure. I wouldn’t release Robert, but there would be a second trainer for my next fight, the match against Rafael Ruelas.

  Jesús Rivero was brought on board.

  Rivero, a defensive specialist, was a sixty-four-year-old Mexican native best known for training flyweight champion Miguel Canto, but that was mostly in the seventies. Rivero was retired, but was coaxed into returning by Rafael Mendoza, a boxing agent used by Bob Arum.

  Robert was assured he would remain the head trainer, still the man calling the shots. Rivero is coming in just to tweak things a little bit, he was told. Not only will Oscar benefit from this, but you will as well.

  And as an added bonus to keep peace in training camp, Rivero would stay out of sight of the press so Robert would still be the public face of the camp, enabling him to save face.

  To Robert, it was a slap in the face, one he couldn’t forget. Three years later, long after Rivero was gone, Robert cornered Mendoza in El Paso where I was fighting Patrick Charpentier, cussed Mendoza out, and then started choking him until he was finally pulled off by Eric Gomez.

  It was really unfair to accuse Mendoza of undermining Robert. Mendoza merely suggested Rivero as someone who could help Robert out, not take his place.

  Rivero’s approach was going to be twofold. He was going to work on my defense and my mind. Nicknamed The Professor, Rivero was equal parts trainer, educator, and philosopher. He felt an increased awareness about the world outside of boxing would make me not only a more well-rounded person, but a better boxer as well, more deft in handling the mental aspect of my sport. The Professor wanted me to read Shakespeare, study religion, and become well versed about a variety of topics. He always had a book in his hands and he always wanted to put one in my hands as well.

  Robert was infuriated. In the past, he had been able to question the credentials of any prospective trainer, shooting down his theories on boxing. But Shakespeare? What could Robert say about that?

  He tried. Robert would blast The Professor again and again to my father and me, saying, “We don’t need this. Look what is happening to us.”

  It wasn’t as if he was talking behind The Professor’s back. He and The Professor had been in each other’s face since the day The Professor arrived.

  I didn’t like it. Instead of positive vibes, Robert was now bringing negative feelings into camp. It was distracting and disheartening. I would have a good day training and sparring, excitement coursing through my body. Then here would come Robert with a long face, telling me, “You didn’t look good today. You are getting hit a lot in sparring. What are you doing? Your style is changing.”

  My style was changing because I was learning new things. Finally.

  Robert was in denial and he was bringing me down with him. The last thing a fighter needs in camp, especially when he’s feeling good about himself, is to have his trainer tear down those feelings.

  “Look,” I told Robert, “he’s teaching me. He’s probably teaching you. I know you don’t want to accept it, but this is the way it’s going to be.”

  For the first time Robert could see he wasn’t going to poison my mind about The Professor. It was either get with the program or get out.

  Robert got with the program.

  Seeing the bright lights of my first blockbuster fight on the horizon, a match against Ruelas, Robert wasn’t about to step back into the shadows.

  I was stepping onto a world stage for the first time since Barcelona. It was overwhelming in the beginning, but I would eventually come to feel as comfortable and confident on that stage as I did in my own gym.

  While Rafael and I took radically different routes from Southern California to the outdoor ring at Las Vegas’s Caesars Palace for our monumental 1995 showdown, we both arrived with credentials impressive enough to excite the boxing world.

  There had been no gold medal for Rafael on his journey, only bags of candy. He and his brother, Gabriel, were going door-to-door as teens, selling sweets to help support their family, when they knocked on the entrance to the rudimentary Ten Goose Gym in North Hollywood, built on an old Wiffle-ball field.

  Fascinated by what they saw inside, the Ruelas brothers put down their candy, picked up boxing gloves, and, under the tutelage of trainer Joe Goossen, launched careers that would result in world championships for each of them.

  The hype for our fight was unbelievable. There were huge spreads in the newspapers, large chunks of airtime on television, banners and posters everywhere I turned, a media mob everywhere I went, and huge crowds straining to get to me.

  I was certainly no stranger to the spotlight, but the glare from this fight was blinding. Being in the center of it all, I didn’t know how to act. People were telling me what to say when the cameras were on, which seemed to be all the time. They were telling me how to dress: “Be professional.” And how to look: “Mean, but always with a smile.” There was so much going on that the whole week was a blur to me.

  The fight was staged outdoors in what was normally the Caesars parking lot. I wore a hood in those days when I came out of my dressing room. When I pulled back the hood as I marched into the neon night, I froze. In front of me was the ring, above me were cameras beaming down from the metal structures surrounding me, on all sides was a crowd that seemed to go all the way to the Vegas strip in the distance, and beyond that were the glaring lights of a city I felt like I owned that night.

  Wow, I said to myself, this is big.

  The little kid flying down the streets of East L.A. on his skateboard had made it to the biggest playground of all.

  Rafael was 43–1 with thirty-four knockouts and had the IBF lightweight title when we faced each other.

  We had also fought in our amateur days, leaving me impressed with his power, aggressiveness, toughness, and determination. Rafael’s strong point was his left hook, his weakness his balance. My plan was to stay on my toes, keep moving, avoid that left, and move in occasionally to bump him. That would throw Rafael off balance, which usually caused him to drop his hands.

  That’s exactly what happened. It doesn’t always work that way. Sometimes you study a fighter, devise a plan based on his tendencies, and he fools you, doing none of the things you expected. Rafael came on just as advertised. In the second round, I moved in close, pushed him off, and sure enough, he dropped his hands. I threw an uppercut that missed by inches, then came back with a left hand that didn’t miss anything. It smashed into Rafael’s face and flattened him.

  Somehow, someway, he dragged himself to his feet, tough to the end, but I came on with a barrage of punches that caused referee Richard Steele to end the fight in that second round.

  For me, it was almost an out-of-body experience. I was in such great shape and the strategy had worked so perfectly that I felt as if I was just floating around the ring, my feet not even touching the canvas. And the next thing I knew, Ruelas was lying on that canvas and that huge crowd was lifting me to the heavens.

  My next match was against another L.A.-area fighter, Genaro Hernandez. In order to face me, Hernandez was giving up the 130-pound title he had successfully defended seven times.

  As the Golden Boy, I guess I was finally an attractive opponent. Back when I was a teenager and Genaro was already a pro, I had to chase him around just to get him to spar with me. One time he told me he would meet me on a Saturday morning at the Resurrection Gym. Robert and I waited and waited, but Genaro never showed up. We went over to his gym, where we found him already sparring with someone else. I accused him of running from me, but Genaro denied it.

  If anybody was going to run when we met at Las Vegas’s Caesars
Palace, it should have been me after I suffered spasms in my left shoulder in the second round that left me unable to throw my trusty jab. In the corner, I told Robert what had happened, but all he did was rub my shoulder harder.

  Facing Genaro wasn’t easy under the best of circumstances. He’s a good technician.

  As the rounds went on, my shoulder got worse. I could still throw the left hook, but only with considerable pain. At the start of the sixth round, I decided to go for it before my shoulder gave out completely. I landed a devastating uppercut on Genaro’s nose, the blow striking so deeply that I could feel bone in his nose with my knuckles through my glove.

  Genaro couldn’t go on, the nose broken in over twenty places.

  I had become big in L.A. and Vegas, no denying that, but I was shocked to find the same crowds, the same adulation, awaiting me on the other side of the country when I went to New York for a match against Jesse James Leija in December of 1995. I wasn’t even sure I’d be recognized when I got there. How wrong I was. I was mobbed on the streets of Manhattan.

  Wow, people know me, I thought, and they’re not even Mexican.

  Of course that might have been because I had become a regular on HBO, and my face was plastered across the pages of New York’s newspapers and beamed down on the asphalt canyons of the city from gigantic billboards.

  During that trip, Bob Arum took me to Barneys, a famous New York clothing store, and bought me a new wardrobe totaling $30,000.

  Leija and I, two Mexican-American fighters, sold out Madison Square Garden. I stopped him in the second round.

  My conquest of New York was complete. More fame, more fortune, more women, a life of limos and private jets.

  Was it hard to adjust after my humble beginnings? For me, it seemed like a natural progression. It wasn’t as if I had become an overnight success. I had been getting special treatment since I had won that first fight at the age of six. The quarters and half dollars my uncles had given me had mushroomed into millions. And everything else seemed to follow.