Eventually, it would become overwhelming. But not then. Not at the end of 1995. Besides, there was no time to slow down or reflect. And no reason to get smug. Ahead lay a legend.
XIV
THE BIGGEST BRA I EVER SAW
In the old days, many boxing matches took place in small clubs far from the bright lights, the smoke-filled arenas packed with shouting, beer-drinking fans who looked as if they’d gladly peel off their shirts and jump into the ring themselves at the first insult.
It wasn’t an environment that appealed to women and few came out.
That has all changed today and I like to think I’ve had something to do with that. Promoters and television executives tell me I draw more females than any fighter in history. I certainly can’t argue with the fact that they pack the sites where I fight, fill up the pay-per-view orders, and mob my press conferences and public appearances.
Think about it. If you can take the old fight crowd and nearly double it, you are going to have unprecedented numbers. I have been lucky enough to be able to do that and I will be forever grateful to my female fans for making it possible.
I first began to realize the phenomenon I was generating at Las Vegas’s Caesars Palace in the days leading up to the Ruelas fight. It seemed I had reached a new level of fame that week. It was the first time female fans started coming at me in waves. All ages—from grandmas to mothers to young girls—gathered wherever I went, cheering me on, fighting to get close enough to touch me or get an autograph. I had a female fan club from Mexico all hold up signs wishing me luck. I couldn’t walk through the casino because the crowds were so big.
I didn’t mind. Those female fans actually relaxed me. Reading newspaper stories or watching TV sportscasts about one of my upcoming fights makes me nervous. Having females surround me, screaming and hugging me and grabbing me was fun. It brought a smile to my face, relieving the tension generated by the fight. I would come down to the lobby just to draw the crowd around me.
While it has been flattering to get such attention, there was one time when it was almost embarrassing. That was during the nationwide tour I undertook with Julio César Chávez to publicize our 1996 fight.
One of the stops was El Paso, Texas. We pulled up to our hotel in the early afternoon for a press conference after a short limo ride from the airport. As we got close to our destination, I saw that a crowd had gathered. Good, that meant people were aware we were in town and, hopefully, were aware of our fight.
But it quickly became obvious that this mob was not your typical fight crowd. For one thing, it was nearly all female. For another, it looked like they were waiting for a rock star rather than a fighter.
It got so wild that some of the screaming, hysterical girls jumped on the front window of our limo and shattered it.
Apparently, the women in El Paso feel a special attachment to me. When I fought Patrick Charpentier there in 1998, the reaction among the female population was just amazing.
It began the moment I arrived in town, my private jet pulling inside a hangar. When I emerged, there were literally thousands of female fans being held back only by a metal fence. Some of them were holding up signs saying they loved me or wanted to have my baby. Then the bras and the panties started flying over the fence.
Finally, sailing over the barrier came this large white object, looking like a parachute, floating slowly down. It turned out to be a bra, the biggest I’ve ever seen in my life.
There was a press conference that week that drew one of the biggest mobs I’ve ever seen, mostly women. They threatened to overrun my security guys, straining to reach me, some of them squeezing and grabbing as I went by.
It was all pretty cool.
The night before the fight, I was sitting in my suite, watching the local news. They went live to the lobby of my hotel, where a local reporter was interviewing one of my trainers, Gil Clancy. When he was asked how I was enjoying the hysteria among local female fans, I saw Gil get that little twinkle in his eyes as he said, “You know what’s really odd? Oscar is really into heavy women.”
Next thing I knew, the attendant at the front desk called to tell me there was a herd of women in the lobby wanting my room number, all of them slightly overweight.
It wasn’t like that just on the road. One night back home, I went out to a nightclub with my usual entourage of about thirty people. That’s back when I turned twenty-one. I would have bodyguards, someone to make sure we had the VIP area all to ourselves, and another person to make sure there were girls waiting for us to dance and drink with.
This particular night, it was really crazy, a huge crowd, everyone trying to get to me. A fire inspector showed up because the club was filled way beyond capacity.
We decided to leave, but in order to do so, we had to get from the VIP section to the front door, which was no more than a few yards.
Not so simple.
Four of my bodyguards had to pick me up and hold me over their heads as they walked to the front door. People tore my shirt off. My shoes were pulled from my feet.
We made it out of there, but it was certainly an interesting experience.
Nobody was smiling, though, when I ran into a different kind of fan, a stalker.
I learned about her in a really weird way when I went up to Big Bear to train for a fight.
When I got to my place, I noticed a box at the front door on the other side of the locked gate. It had no name on it, no return address. Inside was a teddy bear, a little figurine of a boxer, and a pair of my underwear, all items from inside the cabin.
Plus, there was a letter. It read, Oscar, I want to apologize to you. I am sorry. I came to your house and, it so happened, the door was open.
Not true.
The letter went on to say, Now I am returning these items to you because, after I took them, I felt guilty. Once here, I decided to stay a couple of days in your cabin, hoping you would stop by. I was just waiting for you.
I later learned it was a woman who had broken into my house, stayed there two days, and probably slept in my bed. That was creepy.
We reported it to the police, but they never did catch the person. I was freaking out.
It wasn’t only females who could cross the line from supportive to obsessive. Two nights before my fight against Ruelas, I had finished my training and decided to take a stroll down to the Forum shops with my entourage and several bodyguards, all moonlighters from their LAPD jobs.
Along with the usual well-wishers, and the occasional Ruelas fan who yelled out that I was going to get my ass kicked, I spotted, on the outer edge of the crowd, this weird-looking guy, wearing a heavy jacket even though it was May in the desert, sweating heavily, his face shiny, his eyes furtively looking to his left and his right as if he was about to do something unsavory.
I alerted one of my security guards to keep an eye on this guy. As I signed autographs and took pictures, I saw the guy was edging closer and closer.
All of a sudden he was right in front of me, sticking out his hand to shake mine. What was I going to do? I responded by sticking my hand out. With both his hands, he grabbed my outstretched arm, getting me in an iron grip, his face grimacing from the effort. I tried to pull back, but he wouldn’t let go, squeezing ever tighter.
Finally, the security guys interceded, tackling him and wrenching me free. As they led him away, the guy yelled back over his shoulder, “You’re going to lose! You suck!”
It was strange. Maybe he wanted to break my hand before the fight. Fortunately, I never found out.
XV
CHÁVEZ: THE MYTH AND THE MAN
The first time I saw Julio César Chávez in action, I was in awe. Just a kid, I gained access to the inner sanctum of a bar thanks to my father, who snuck me in. That alone left me in awe.
The occasion was a closed-circuit telecast of a Chávez fight. There he was, on the screen, the man whose name was spoken in hushed tones in our house and the homes of so many of my uncles and aunts. Mexico’s greatest fi
ghter, Chávez was a throw-back to the days when the number of matches a fighter had might reach three digits and the number of years he was in the ring might exceed two decades. Chávez qualified on both counts. He fought for twenty-three years and finished with 107 wins and two draws in his 115 fights, including an astounding eighty-six knockouts.
Chávez looked untouchable to me up there on the screen that day, like he wasn’t a real person. It was as if you could only see him on TV, a mythical hero rather than flesh and blood.
He became flesh and blood for me one incredible night when I was seventeen. Training at the Resurrection Gym, I hadn’t even noticed the stranger wander in until I heard my name.
“Oscar De La Hoya,” he yelled out. “I’m looking for an Oscar De La Hoya.”
He was also looking for Shane Mosley and Pepe Reilly.
We couldn’t believe it when we heard that this guy worked for Chávez. What could he possibly want with us?
Scheduled to fight Meldrick Taylor in Las Vegas, Chávez, who was in L.A., was looking for sparring partners. He wanted a few promising young amateurs who had speed and could throw a lot of punches. His people were given our names.
Our attitude was, “Hell yeah, let’s do it.”
With my trainer, Robert Alcazar, I went to an address that turned out to be a restaurant where a ring had been installed upstairs. The place was crowded and noisy with mariachis roaming the downstairs restaurant area.
Pepe, Shane, and I waited in a back room to be summoned. You might think a teenager would be intimidated about getting into the ring with a legend, but I was excited.
Pepe was called up first. When he came back down, Shane and I bubbled over with questions. What was it like? How did he treat you? What did his punches feel like?
All Pepe said was that it was fun.
Shane went next, and finally, my turn came.
Pepe and Shane had both worn twelve-ounce gloves. As I prepared to go up, one of Chávez’s assistant trainers stopped me. “Nope,” he said, “hold on. First, you have to put these on.”
They were eighteen-ounce gloves, so big they were like pillows, so much padding they could do no harm.
“We heard stuff about you,” the trainer told me.
I put the gloves on, went upstairs, got in the ring, and when the bell rang, I didn’t hold back. I threw hard punches, fast combinations, and was landing many of them. It was getting serious, at least from my point of view.
I could hear a murmur from the people in the room. I had wanted to make an impression, and apparently, I was doing so.
I had certainly gotten Chávez’s attention. All of a sudden he loaded up on a right hand, connected, and I went down to one knee.
I bounced right up, ready for more. After sparring for two rounds, we were told that was it.
As Robert and I started to leave, the assistant trainer came over and told me, “Julio wants you to come to this address tonight. He wants to talk to you. You alone, not the other two sparring partners.”
That was awesome. Julio César Chávez wanted to see me. Only me.
Still, I didn’t tell a lot of people what had happened because I was embarrassed he had dropped me. I know it was Julio César Chávez, but it was still embarrassing.
Robert and I went to the address, I formally met Chávez, we shook hands, and he said, “You hit me with some good punches. You’re a great fighter.”
To hear that from him…whoa, that was a real confidence booster.
Yet, six years later, when we were ready to face each other for real, I still had trouble picturing myself in the ring with this larger-than-life figure. When we posed for pictures, face-to-face, after our double tune-up at Caesars Palace in February of 1996, it was almost like I was merely getting the opportunity to take a picture with my hero, a photo I could show my friends.
It was a scary photo. Julio’s face looked like a battleground, the front line for his fights.
And those were just the documented battles in the ring. A heavy drinker and pursuer of the good life, Chávez, a brawler at war with the world, enjoyed folk-hero status among his countrymen. They loved the warrior image. They reveled in his macho style. This wasn’t a man who expended a lot of energy studying opponents or discussing strategy. He would simply come forward at the opening bell, absorb the best shots his opponents could deliver, and then proceed to dismantle that opponent’s body and will, landing his trademark shots to the ribs and kidneys, shots that could cause legs to shake and resolve to wilt.
For many Mexican and Mexican-American fight fans, this was what the sport was all about.
I wanted to fight him because it was my job and, I felt, my destiny. But there was a part of me that wondered how I could possibly fight my hero, a part of me that questioned whether I was worthy. After all, this was a fighter every Mexican national and Mexican-American looked up to.
My doubts were nothing compared to the doubts and derision I received from Hispanic fans in the period leading up to the fight.
“Chávez is the real champion,” they would tell me. “He looks like a fighter. Look at you. You’ve never been cut up. Look at your nose. It doesn’t have any bumps in it. Look at your smile and those perfect teeth. You’re the Golden Boy.”
They just weren’t impressed with my finesse, with my boxing skills, with my fast hands and quick feet, with my ability to inflict damage while avoiding the inevitable counterpunches. They didn’t appreciate the fact that, for me, the sweet science was indeed a science.
They didn’t even care about my unbeaten record.
They wanted blood and guts. They wanted a hero who looked as if he had been in a fight. Maybe even lost a few.
They wanted Chávez.
So when we signed to fight, Chávez, while certainly not the choice of the Las Vegas oddsmakers, became the sentimental favorite.
Never mind the fact that, at thirty-three, Chávez was living off his reputation, the hard living and brawling having taken a large measure of vitality out of his body. He looked as if he’d been through almost a hundred previous matches.
I, on the other hand, was twenty-three, had perfected my trade, and was entering my prime, undefeated in twenty-one professional fights.
It didn’t help my image to be stuck with the nickname Chicken De La Hoya. It had been given to me by a New York writer, Michael Katz, because Bob Arum had matched me up early in my career with unranked fighters.
The nickname I was branded with was unfair. Ever hear of Tunney Hunsaker, Herb Siler, Tony Sperti, or Jimmy Robinson? Probably not unless you are a Muhammad Ali trivia fanatic. Those were Ali’s first four professional opponents, fighters designed to ease him into the professional ranks.
No matter how much glory or gold amateurs collect before receiving their first check as a prizefighter, no matter how much time they spend in the gym or how many rounds they spar, they need on-the-job training as professionals.
So it had been with Ali. And so it was with me.
By the time I fought Chávez, I was ready, but his fans refused to deal with the harsh reality. They envisioned a memorable upset, the old veteran drawing on reserves from his storied past to hold off boxing’s emerging attraction, striking down this New Age upstart who dared to challenge a legend.
In order to hype this crossroads event, a nationwide tour was launched, twenty-three cities in twelve days.
It began in disappointing fashion for me at the Olympic Auditorium. The fans, the majority of them Mexican-American, booed me and cheered Chávez.
Chávez grinned and said he’d never be booed in his hometown.
I could only grit my teeth, confident that as the fight progressed, the boos would fade along with Chávez.
At one stop on the tour, Chávez faded away completely, disappearing in a limo after a press conference while the rest of us headed for the airport and our private jets, bound for the next city.
We couldn’t depart without him, so we waited on the nearly deserted tarmac until, finally, in t
he distance, we noticed a cloud of dust kicking up and, blasting through it, a limo moving toward us at high speed.
As the car pulled up, Chávez emerged from the backseat, surrounded by local young ladies he had picked up along the way.
Throughout the tour, he would appear in his fur coat surrounded by a band of followers who acted like servants in Emperor Julio’s kingdom. He had one guy whose job, it seemed, was to comb his hair, another to tie his shoelaces.
It was disillusioning for me to see who Chávez really was and how he acted.
From a boxing standpoint, however, it was illuminating. What I saw was an emperor ripe to be overthrown. Any doubts about that should have been dispelled after a telling scene in San Antonio during the tour.
It was dawn, the first rays of light hitting the placid water along the Riverwalk. I was already up and heading out of my hotel to do roadwork, sweatsuit on, shadowboxing as I made my way out of the lobby and onto the street.
It was then that I came face-to-face with a figure stepping unsteadily out of a limousine.
It was Julio César Chávez returning from a night on the road.
I smiled.
Even in that dim light, I could see the outcome ahead.
So could a lot of Chávez fans and they didn’t like what they saw. So some of them tried to influence the outcome. Back in Southern California at my Big Bear training site, I began to get threats. Through the mail, on the phone, Chávez supporters would warn me of the consequences of defeating the pride of Mexico.
“You cannot beat our champion,” they would say. “And if you do, you will regret it.”
Faced with these warnings, more sinister and voluminous in number than any I had previously received, I hired three additional bodyguards. I felt that a threat by Mexican officials to sue me if I tried to wear their flag on my trunks was just another part of a concerted effort to distract me, to make sure I would not be completely focused when I entered the ring.
American Son Page 11
