Johnny Nava
PISSING PEOPLE OFF THAT REALLY KNOW YOU!
San Francisco, CA– The sport of boxing has been filled with guys who couldn’t fight much, did nothing in the amateurs, fought a slew of bums with losing records, and then were iced in their only “real” fight. Some of these “journeyman” fighters, and in this case it is not my intent to disparage journeyman fighters, would go on and become horrible trainers.
CLOWN WOULDN’T LEAVE ME ALONE FOR EXPOSING HIM!
One fighter turned trainer has been hurling crap at me both via email and in person ever since I exposed his incompetence as a trainer. After I illustrate how he ruined one of the best prospects both myself and promoter Don Chargin had ever seen, I’ll illustrate in my opinion what a human punching bag he was as a fighter, and because of such I think he has suffered negative residual effects for his being a punching bag that wore gloves.
JOHNNY NAVA RUINED A POTENTIALLY “GREAT” FIGHTER!
I’m talking about Johnny Nava, once the “Pride of Pacifica, CA,” now said to be a successful insurance agent in Northern California. His latest email fired at me riled me enough to fully explain how he put his once-beaten prospect in a title fight with a fighter that was not only leaps and bounds bigger and more experienced than his charge, Nava did so knowing that then top #3 ranked WBC 122 lb. contender Eddie Croft had severely injured an optic nerve in his left eye.
EDDIE HAD TITLE FIGHT WITH AN OLDER THAN DIRT ZARAGOZA
With a title fight with then 38-year old WBC 122 lb. king Daniel Zaragoza already “guaranteed” when promoter Don Chargin, representing Croft and Rafael Mendoza handling Zaragoza shook hands and agreed on the match. Instead, Nava, the chief second and main trainer of Croft allowed the late Gil Clancy to con him and Sal Colucci, as inept a manager as Nava was a fighter and trainer, to fight IBF 126 lb. king Tom Johnson for a $30,000 purse on CBS TV. A Hall of Fame trainer, Clancy was both the CBS matchmaker and on-air analyst.
INJURY TO OPTIC NERVE DIDN’T PREVENT NAVA FROM “SACRIFICING” FIGHTER
Croft had severely injured the eye nerve close to a month before the Johnson fight, thus he should have never been put in the ring that day with Johnson. Nava and Colucci kept the eye injury a secret and Croft did not spar for almost the last four weeks leading up to the fight with Johnson. Not only that, promoter Chargin, adamantly against Croft taking the Johnson fight, one in which nobody I was aware of thought he could win, knew that Eddie would lose his WBC ranking in the process.
CHARGIN CONCURRED IN RECENT RADIO APPEARANCE
I brought this up with Chargin a few months ago on the radio and he reiterated what a horrible decision Nava and Collucci made, and basically admitted that the pair ruined Croft’s chance of living up to his world class potential. Johnson won with scores of 120-108 & 119-109 twice on May 28, 1995. That equates to losing 12-zip and 11-1 in rounds. But wait, the great Johnny Nava and Sal Colucci were not done feeding Croft to the lions as they next allowed Eddie to fight Marco Antonio Barrera, then one of the hottest fighters, if not the hottest fighter in boxing at 38-0 with 28 KOs.
ALMOST CRIED BEFORE FIGHT AFTER DRESSING ROOM VISITS
I went to the separate trailers where Croft and Barrera were preparing to make that walk to the outdoor ring erected at Ceasars Palace for a main event that resulted with Riddick Bowe being a TKO 8 winner over Evander Holyfield. When I went to see Barrera, they were dancing and the boom box was blasting with Latin music. To say it was a jovial and confident trailer would be an understatement. When I ventured into Eddie’s trailer, it was so quiet, to steal a line from my former broadcast partner and Mike Tyson’s trainer Aaron Snowell, “You could hear a mouse piss on a wad of cotton in the corner of the room.”
REFUSED TO WATCH MY FRIEND BE SLAIN!
Having watched Croft develop into a world class fighter, and who was now reduced to nothing more than round steak for the Mexican lion Barrera, I was hurting. Before the fight started, I returned to the press room where Caesars Palace VP Debbie Munch asked why I wasn’t sitting in the great seat she had set me up in. I emotionally explained the situation to her and I plopped myself down in front of a television monitor. When the fight was over seven brutally one-sided rounds later, Debbie knew why I had refused to watch the fight as I was nearly in tears. After a three-year hiatus, Eddie would fight six more times. But at this point, Croft had been reduced to the boxing equivalent of “lunchmeat” for other fighters, with his only victory being a split nod over the 7-8 Frank Lizzaraga. After being throttled by Erik Morales in his last fight, Croft, essentially just a one-eyed fighter, is said to have gotten the $30,000 for the Morales fight back into the United States by stashing the cash in his underwear.
QUICK LOOK AT THE SLOW JOHNNY NAVA
Although I’m sure Johnny Nava will be embarrassed, if not ashamed for my undressing him as a trainer, he was a better fighter than teacher, and that ain’t saying much! A small guy, maybe 5’8, Nava with a nutritionalist and proper training should have been fighting at 147 or 154 lbs. and not 160. But his manager, the late Bill Rivette was as “old school” as they come and didn’t believe in the “jr.” divisions, thus he made fights for the small for a middleweight Nava at 160.
NAVA SHOULD HAVE QUIT AFTER FIRST FIGHT!
Debuting in 1981 and going 9-0 with 8 KOs, the only fighter Nava beat that wasn’t horse-meat was in his debut when he faced Daniel Aldo Gonzalez (52-3-4), a welterweight who had been knocked out in one round two years prior by the then 19-0 “Sugar Ray” Leonard. Nava had pulled off in the boxing game what Don McClean had done in the music world when his debut single, “American Pie” was an epic hit that topped the charts for months. Nava would have certainly saved himself dozens of stitches and some brain cells had he called it quits right then and there.
NAVA COULDN’T EVEN BEAT JOURNEYMEN, ONLY STIFFS!
He fought the 0-0 Jung-Wang Kee in Venezuela and retired the Korean after winning a 10 round decision. Now 11-0, Nava would never stop another opponent. He continued to feast on fistic refuse with records like 3-15, 3-16, 11-22, 0-8, 4-2, losing twice in succession to 20-16 James Waire. The only decent fighter Nava faced before being iced in his final fight was (16-1) Nicky Walker and that resulted in a majority draw. In his finale, Nava was beaten into retirement by Fred Hutchings (28-2), who would later get destroyed Thomas Hearns.
NEVER WANTED TO MAKE FUN OF NAVA
Before I finish what is tantamount to a “hit piece” with not a word of fiction needed or involved, Nava started this fight, and unlike the Hutchings fight it is one where he has been KO’d! When I last saw Nava about a year ago outside of a Brisbane, CA restaurant, he made some cracks that riled me to the point where I wanted to undress him verbally right then and there. But then I figured, why should I seeing he was almost a cartoon character of the guy I met in the late 1970s at Newman’s Gym in San Francisco. Seemingly having to study each word as he spoke, I felt bad. He walked away from me slower than his diction. That being said, I thought I would give him a pass, that was until he fired an offensive and inappropriate couple of paragraphs at me earlier this week, his second or third volley of verbiage in a year or so.
Pedro Fernandez