THE ONLY BOXER I EVER AVOIDED!
San Francisco, CA– It was 1984, I was on a three year undefeated run in Golden Glove competition. Having just won my third straight championship, this after dusting off the younger but more experienced Dennis Crabtree at the Concord (now Sleep Train) Pavilion in Concord, CA, I was of the opinion that my body needed some time off. Then came a call from the late Otis Grimble, then a Sacramento Policeman who was alleged to be involved with some missing amateur boxing monies and LBC President of the U.S. Amateur Boxing Federation (who later committed suicide) called to offer me a fight with Zack Padilla. Far more experienced than I, Zack hadn’t lost in ions and was on a tear. After watching films of him, I realized that not only would I be unable to out box him, more importantly I couldn’t out punch him either. Not that he hit harder than my left cross from the southpaw stance, a punch that had knocked down five straight opponents, three for the count, it was his incredible chin and the fact that Zack could throw more than 100 punches a round. In case you didn’t know it, the amateur ranks put more emphasis on the number of shots thrown, rather than the quality of the punches.
WAS COERCED INTO PADILLA FIGHT BY OTIS
After accepting the fight, I studied more Betamax tapes of Padilla and soon realized that even if I had three hands, I probably couldn’t beat this guy. Quite simply, undefeated run of three years or not, my beating Zack Padilla would have taken his being struck by lightning during the fight. The late Richard Duran, my amateur teammate who passed away last week, Richard told me that even though Zack seemed unbeatable, that I should take the fight with him and let the dice roll. At 17, Richard had never faced or seen a fighter of Padilla’s stature, thus backing away from anybody was not in his vernacular. On the flip side, Duran’s late trainer Don Conley, agreed with me that fighting Padilla was not a wise move.
WAS IN REASONABLE SHAPE WITH MORE THAN TWO WEEKS TO GO
Having trained hard for over three weeks, in the process breaking Felix “The Jaw Breaker” Gonzalez’ jaw, cracking Abel Santana’s ribs with a single left hook, both professionals with more than a handful of fights, it appeared to the rail-birds that I was more than ready to fight. While doing stomach exercises at the now defunct Newman’s Gym on Leavenworth St., which was located in the seediest part of San Francisco, the doubts continued to occupy my thought process. CBS’s Channel 5 came down and filmed the rib breaking with 14 ounce gloves that I laid on the late Abel Santana. As it turned out, I had never looked better. Simply put, I was fighting better technically than ever before.
ALWAYS DID MY SOUL-SEARCHING WHILE RUNNING
In the gym, I rarely thought about the upcoming fights. It was during the roadwork, monitored by my late mother Carole Ramirez, all the while chain smoking, she had me running five miles in the early AM and two straight miles uphill late at night before throwing a jumprope at me with the mindset that if I didn’t do ten minutes on the rope, she threatened to make me walk home which was better than five miles away. Needless to say, on all but one occasion the chain smoker who would die in 2006 as a result of her Nicotine addiction, won out.
MOM LEFT ONE TIME FROM MILES FROM HOME!
The only time I refused to jump rope after running the almost two miles straight up the steep hill that is Westborough Blvd. and the 3/4 mile sprint along Skyline Blvd. really pissed mom off. Not a bluff artist, she drove away after a heated argument. Knowing I wasn’t walking the five miles home, I figured I’d take a cab and pay him when I got home. One problem, I had no money on me to call a taxi and the Arab that ran the 7-11 on Manor Drive & Skyline Blvd., the prick that he was, wouldn’t let me use his phone or even call a cab for me. Having sworn off women for the five weeks I trained for a fight, I called my then girlfriend Maria Ramirez collect from a pay phone and told her to come and get me. Needless to say the self imposed celibacy didn’t sit well with the then Miss Ramirez, who at first refused and hung up. When her sister Annette answered the phone on my second collect call, she at first told the operator that they were refusing to take the call.
CALLING COLLECT WAS ALL I COULD DO
Finally, Maria got on the phone and after some pleading (begging) she came and got my sweaty ass. It was during the 30-minute wait for Maria to arrive that I decided I wasn’t going to fight Zack Padilla. I didn’t care what anybody said, I was pulling out about 16 days before the scheduled main event set for Fresno, CA. Not only was I lacking confidence, I didn’t have the motivation to train hard, thus the argument with mom over jumping rope, while it was not planned, was indeed timely. I just didn’t have it in me, as this was a workout I had breezed through for months, make that years prior. When Maria finally showed up, a beautiful woman still to this day, she was looking oh so provocative. Maria told me she was going dancing with her trampy girlfriend (see skank) Bernadette after she dropped me off. Needless to say, we instead went to the Hot Tubs, a private resort that then cost about $20 an hour for two people. Needless to say, the intended five weeks of celibacy went by the wayside as we rocked and rolled for hours.
LOVING GIRLFRIENDS DON’T WANT YOU FIGHTING
Telling Maria I wasn’t going to fight Padilla, to her this was music to both her ears and her sensuality. Explaining this to my trainer Chris Gomez, and of course my mother, after she had invested three weeks of running me day and night, this was not such an easy thing to do. Instead of doing so, I pulled a chicken *hit move and put on eight pounds in 36 hours. With a hospital like scale in the house, mom thought I was pulling her leg on the weight issue to the point that after conferring with Chris, had me strip down to nothing to be weighed. The next day while I was at work, my two trainers discussed my unprecedented weight gain so close to a fight. They both realized that my heart wasn’t in the fight and to the chagrin of my girlfriend’s mother, spent the next ten or so nights with the now Maria Franco.
MOM DID A “360″ AFTER WATCHING ZACK BREAK RECORD ON ESPN
As it turned out, Zack continued his domination of every amateur jr. welterweight in the Western United States, this before turning professional. After losing a fight early on, Padilla went on to win the WBO 140 lb. professional title, and in the process broke a record for punches thrown in a 12-round fight on ESPN. I recorded the fight and would a couple of days later show it to both my mother and Maria, whom I had dated for some ten years. Zack’s performance was so impressive that after the fight was over, mom, who never really got over me backing out of the Padilla fight, came to her senses and said, “You know not fighting that guy was probably the smartest move you ever made in boxing.” It boiled down to this, I was one bad dude, never lost a street fight in which I wasn’t sucker punched and or rat packed by more than one guy, and became a bit of a Bernal Heights and Mission District legend. But even alleged legends have common sense and I knew deep down inside that I couldn’t have beaten Padilla with a baseball bat.
SHANE SHOULD LOOK AT PAC LIKE I VIEWED ZACK
After going 22-1-1, 13 KOs and four WBO title fights, Zack retired after being injured in a sparring session with Shane Mosley, who fights Manny Pacquiao this weekend. Even though he’s making a reported $5 million, Shane is more than likely thinking about Manny Pacquiao in the same manner I thought of Zack Padilla. Only problem is, Shane needs the money and will take the expected ass whipping, something my common sense prevented me from doing so with Zack Padilla.
Pedro Fernandez