Classic American West Coast Boxing

[kikibalt]

Don Fraser

[Rick Farris]

Unkown


The guy with the hat is a beer drinker, I think he drank a 12 pack in the morning

Frank . . . Before we left, the beer drinker came over and introduced himself to me.
He handed me four business cards and told me he was a film producer, and he would like for me to read a script he had written about an Indian.
I asked him, "Why?"
He seemed surprised by the question, now we were both confused.
We shook hands, he turned around, and went back for another cerveza.

-Rick

[dagosd2000]

DANCE STUDIO

Wall mirrors on the front. The dancers straggle in. Girls from all over. Some have their own studios in their parts of the world. They dance in the part of town called the Macarena.The old section is very beautifull.It's like living in a museum,but it's a neighborhood. People are very satisfied living there. They know what they have. Nothing new is ever built there. The studio is called "En Danza." The girls change into their dance skirts and stretch out in front of the wall mirrors.

Miguel walks in. He's smiling .His long hair and dark complection makes him appear that he's a gypsy,but he's really from Venezuela. His wife Esperanza is a gypsy. So is her father and brother. Generations of Flamenco in Sevilla.

After stretching ,Miguel starts working on a choreagraphy. It's very rigorous,but the spirit is always there.Ther'e a guitarist keeping ryhthm for the girls.Miguel sings as they dance. The girls are close to each other. From all corners of the world. Japan,Norway,Argentina,Russia,Dubais,and Amanda,my grand daughter from America. She's the only American. She's nine and she's dancing with grown women. Some are professinals. But like I said the girls are like sisters.

Miguel speaks to them in Spanish. The Macarena is over 500 years old. There's a wall around the Macarena built by the Moors when they ruled that part of Spain. It's over a thousand years old.

The girls dance 5 hours a day. Classes are one hour each. Techniques,Bata De Cola,Sevillanas,Choreagraphy. The girls are tired . They rub lotion on their feet . They all smoke except Amanda. After resting,they all go out to the Tapas bars. They eat ,drink,and dance. Amanda drinks coca cola,but can dance all night long.

Tomorrow morning they'll return to the dance studio. Everything will happen again. It's their life.



Amanda and her teacher Miguel Vargas

[dagosd2000]

The studio



EN DANZA

[Rick Farris]

DANCE STUDIO

Wall mirrors on the front. The dancers straggle in. Girls from all over. Some have their own studios in their parts of the world. They dance in the part of town called the Macarena.The old section is very beautifull.It's like living in a museum,but it's a neighborhood. People are very satisfied living there. They know what they have. Nothing new is ever built there. The studio is called "En Danza." The girls change into their dance skirts and stretch out in front of the wall mirrors.

Miguel walks in. He's smiling .His long hair and dark complection makes him appear that he's a gypsy,but he's really from Venezuela. His wife Esperanza is a gypsy. So is her father and brother. Generations of Flamenco in Sevilla.

After stretching ,Miguel starts working on a choreagraphy. It's very rigorous,but the spirit is always there.Ther'e a guitarist keeping ryhthm for the girls.Miguel sings as they dance. The girls are close to each other. From all corners of the world. Japan,Norway,Argentina,Russia,Dubais,and Amanda,my grand daughter from America. She's the only American. She's nine and she's dancing with grown women. Some are professinals. But like I said the girls are like sisters.

Miguel speaks to them in Spanish. The Macarena is over 500 years old. There's a wall around the Macarena built by the Moors when they ruled that part of Spain. It's over a thousand years old.

The girls dance 5 hours a day. Classes are one hour each. Techniques,Bata De Cola,Sevillanas,Choreagraphy. The girls are tired . They rub lotion on their feet . They all smoke except Amanda. After resting,they all go out to the Tapas bars. They eat ,drink,and dance. Amanda drinks coca cola,but can dance all night long.

Tomorrow morning they'll return to the dance studio. Everything will happen again. It's their life.



Amanda and her teacher Miguel Vargas

Monica and I are fans of Amanda. I'm serious. You're a grandfather helping his grandchildren to realize their dreams. Big dreams, and they're in the game. I know all about Grandad's that give kids a boost. Great investment!

-Rick

[dagosd2000]

DANCE STUDIO

Wall mirrors on the front. The dancers straggle in. Girls from all over. Some have their own studios in their parts of the world. They dance in the part of town called the Macarena.The old section is very beautifull.It's like living in a museum,but it's a neighborhood. People are very satisfied living there. They know what they have. Nothing new is ever built there. The studio is called "En Danza." The girls change into their dance skirts and stretch out in front of the wall mirrors.

Miguel walks in. He's smiling .His long hair and dark complection makes him appear that he's a gypsy,but he's really from Venezuela. His wife Esperanza is a gypsy. So is her father and brother. Generations of Flamenco in Sevilla.

After stretching ,Miguel starts working on a choreagraphy. It's very rigorous,but the spirit is always there.Ther'e a guitarist keeping ryhthm for the girls.Miguel sings as they dance. The girls are close to each other. From all corners of the world. Japan,Norway,Argentina,Russia,Dubais,and Amanda,my grand daughter from America. She's the only American. She's nine and she's dancing with grown women. Some are professinals. But like I said the girls are like sisters.

Miguel speaks to them in Spanish. The Macarena is over 500 years old. There's a wall around the Macarena built by the Moors when they ruled that part of Spain. It's over a thousand years old.

The girls dance 5 hours a day. Classes are one hour each. Techniques,Bata De Cola,Sevillanas,Choreagraphy. The girls are tired . They rub lotion on their feet . They all smoke except Amanda. After resting,they all go out to the Tapas bars. They eat ,drink,and dance. Amanda drinks coca cola,but can dance all night long.

Tomorrow morning they'll return to the dance studio. Everything will happen again. It's their life.



Amanda and her teacher Miguel Vargas

Monica and I are fans of Amanda. I'm serious. You're a grandfather helping his grandchildren to realize their dreams. Big dreams, and they're in the game. I know all about Grandad's that give kids a boost. Great investment!

-Rick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm2jiFdGdGU
For you and Moni

[Rick Farris]

DANCE STUDIO

Wall mirrors on the front. The dancers straggle in. Girls from all over. Some have their own studios in their parts of the world. They dance in the part of town called the Macarena.The old section is very beautifull.It's like living in a museum,but it's a neighborhood. People are very satisfied living there. They know what they have. Nothing new is ever built there. The studio is called "En Danza." The girls change into their dance skirts and stretch out in front of the wall mirrors.

Miguel walks in. He's smiling .His long hair and dark complection makes him appear that he's a gypsy,but he's really from Venezuela. His wife Esperanza is a gypsy. So is her father and brother. Generations of Flamenco in Sevilla.

After stretching ,Miguel starts working on a choreagraphy. It's very rigorous,but the spirit is always there.Ther'e a guitarist keeping ryhthm for the girls.Miguel sings as they dance. The girls are close to each other. From all corners of the world. Japan,Norway,Argentina,Russia,Dubais,and Amanda,my grand daughter from America. She's the only American. She's nine and she's dancing with grown women. Some are professinals. But like I said the girls are like sisters.

Miguel speaks to them in Spanish. The Macarena is over 500 years old. There's a wall around the Macarena built by the Moors when they ruled that part of Spain. It's over a thousand years old.

The girls dance 5 hours a day. Classes are one hour each. Techniques,Bata De Cola,Sevillanas,Choreagraphy. The girls are tired . They rub lotion on their feet . They all smoke except Amanda. After resting,they all go out to the Tapas bars. They eat ,drink,and dance. Amanda drinks coca cola,but can dance all night long.

Tomorrow morning they'll return to the dance studio. Everything will happen again. It's their life.



Amanda and her teacher Miguel Vargas

Monica and I are fans of Amanda. I'm serious. You're a grandfather helping his grandchildren to realize their dreams. Big dreams, and they're in the game. I know all about Grandad's that give kids a boost. Great investment!

-Rick

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cm2jiFdGdGU
For you and Moni

Obregado!

-Rick & Monica

[bennie]

Thanks for the photos, Frankie.

[kikibalt]

Thanks for the photos, Frankie.

Thanks, Bennie, have more to post.....

[kikibalt]

Unkown


The guy with the hat is a beer drinker, I think he drank a 12 pack in the morning

Frank . . . Before we left, the beer drinker came over and introduced himself to me.
He handed me four business cards and told me he was a film producer, and he would like for me to read a script he had written about an Indian.
I asked him, "Why?"
He seemed surprised by the question, now we were both confused.
We shook hands, he turned around, and went back for another cerveza.

-Rick

Rick, I think the beer drinker seen you as a chance to get his life story made into a movie...

[Expug]

"The broad will ruin the dumb bastid!"

-Mel Epstein

"THE PUG WILL RUIN THE BROAD."

Ok.Ok. Messing around with the softer sex ain't no good to build up your conditioning,but I'm going to speak up for the women on this one.

For starters the only females that really enjoyed watching their men in the squared circle were the Quarry girls to my recollection. Most of the time the wives and girlfriends worry. Worry about other women throwing themselves at their big strong men,or having to see their guys take physical punishment. Often later these faithfull dames wind up being loving and dedicated caretakers.

Joe Louis would be gone for days with the likes of Lana Turner,Sonia Henie,and Lena Horne. Nothing wrong with that from a guy's perspective? Boys will be boys.

How about my gooma,the Rock? Had a greater appetite for the broads than his mother's spaghetti.

How about Ali bringing his girlfriend to Manila when he fought Frazier? More than one Thrilla' for that frisky fighter.

Jumping the fence for the testosterone laden pugilists is one thing. How about the times they practiced combinations on their mates. Sugar Ray's kids witnessed their mother,Edna Mae,on the recieving end of numerous punches from their dad. His rival Jake The Bull practiced his swings on Vicky more than a few times.

What I'm saying is look at the other side. Maybe one of these abused wives should post a story for us.

However,she probably would be afraid to do so.

You huys ever here the story of Light Heavy Ray Elson bringing his girlfriend into the shower in his dressing room right after his fight with Victor Galindez?
Another fighter on the card came up to Paddy Flood , Elsons trainer, and told him"Hey Ray Elson has got a broad in the shower with him".
Paddy Flood who was a character told him"hell, thats ok, he earned it".

[kikibalt]

Stacy White

[kikibalt]

Danny Valdez, Danny fought Davey Moore for the FW title.

[bennie]

Elson was due to fight Galindez for the title that night but the WBA would not sanction it. I remember Elson had a great perm.

[scartissue]

Elson was actually due to fight Galindez for the title that night but the WBA would not sanction it. I remember Elson had a great perm.

Man, Victor Galindez was my all-time favorite light heavy. He was such a bad ass and I loved it. I still remember watching the fight with Elson with a buddy of mine with Cosell commentating. He kept mentioning through the fight that Elson was once a body-builder or weight-lifter and that he "once bench-pressed 60 lbs." My buddy and I just looked at each other and said simultaneously with a frown, "60 lbs.? That ain't s**t!" Reading later about Elson, the correct number was 360 lbs. It was laughable how not only did Cosell not get it right but didn't have the sense to question the number in front of him. Like a friggin' news reader.

Scartissue

[kikibalt]

On my way to our GSBA gathering yesterday I stopped at Juanito's to buy some
tamales, standing in front of Juanito I shot this photo looking east, it shows Floral Dr.
in the heart of East Los Angeles, the overpass in the back ground is the Long Beach
Freeway (710)

[bennie]

Elson was actually due to fight Galindez for the title that night but the WBA would not sanction it. I remember Elson had a great perm.

Man, Victor Galindez was my all-time favorite light heavy. He was such a bad ass and I loved it. I still remember watching the fight with Elson with a buddy of mine with Cosell commentating. He kept mentioning through the fight that Elson was once a body-builder or weight-lifter and that he "once bench-pressed 60 lbs." My buddy and I just looked at each other and said simultaneously with a frown, "60 lbs.? That ain't s**t!" Reading later about Elson, the correct number was 360 lbs. It was laughable how not only did Cosell not get it right but didn't have the sense to question the number in front of him. Like a friggin' news reader.

Scartissue

Galindez was an animal, one of my favourites too, Dan. He racked up the defences while Conteh was moaning about his management. Galindez once labelled Conteh a chicken to his face, just prior to Conteh's defence against Yaqui Lopez in Denmark. Galindez was introduced into the ring and walked up to Conteh and said it. Conteh tapped his head.

[kikibalt]

While in E.L.A, and since I was early for our gathering I made another stop, this time at the East Los Angeles Community Youth Center A.K.A Cleveland House, it was just opening for the day, btw back in the early 1960's I lived just down the street from Cleveland House, my boys used to go there...

[bennie]

While in E.L.A, and since I was early for our gathering I made another stop,
this time at the East Los Angeles Community Youth Center A.K.A Cleveland House,
it was just opening for the day, btw back in the early 1960's I lived just down the
street from Cleveland House, my boy used to go there...

NICE training ring.

[kikibalt]

Sunset Blvd, Hollywood,Ca.


Looking west from the Dumes Motel just east from the Hollywood
Freeway (101)

[kikibalt]

With the Farris's, Bill & Rick.

[kikibalt]

Antonio Margarito had Eye Surgery

By Ryan Burton : According to Antonio Margarito’s manager Sergio Diaz, Margarito had eye surgery a few weeks sbefore his show down against Shane Mosley. When asked why it couldn’t wait, Diaz said, “he had a problem with his eye and he had to have the surgery to fight. His retina could have become detached if he fought without the surgery.”

Diaz stressed again that he didn’t want to take anything from Mosley. When asked about the growing controversy that Margarito was caught with an illegal hardening substance on his hand wraps before the fight and was forced to put on clean wraps, Diaz said, “It got blown out of proportion. They checked Tony’s hands. He had one hand wrapped and he was wrapping the other. They said his other hand was wrapped too high. Tony didn’t want that to be an issue so he had me cut the wrap off his other hand and he wrapped them both to their satisfaction on the spot.” When informed that some rumors had Margarito getting caught with plaster or another foreign substance in his wraps, Diaz flatly denied it. “No. No way. They were just wrapped too high for their liking.”

Also during Margarito’s training two weeks before, MyBoxingFans was at the gym when the ”Tijuana TornaDo” hurt his back which a chiropractor was called in for.

As much as I like Antonio Margarito, I am not trying to give you excuses as to why he lost but to prove a point. Maybe that’s the reason he didn’t fight like he did against Miguel Cotto. The whole hand wrap issue, assuming he did use some type of plaster, don’t you think it will make your glove a lot heavier? This so called plaster or liquid gel is not going to increase your speed or increase the number of punches you throw, instead it will mean that Margarito would have thrown a lot less punches because of the weight of the gloves. It’s a plaster, not steroids. Other than that, Mosley looked great and he deserves the win.

[Rick Farris]

Danny Valdez, Danny fought Davey Moore for the FW title.

I enjoyed meeting Danny Valdez after all of these years. I knew quite a bit of his ring history, but Frank taught me about his youth, how and where he started out, lots of great personal things that really let you in on what the man is about. After retiring from boxing, Danny went into the same business I did, and worked for years for ABC-TV.

As Frank had told me, Danny was a twin. Born in 1940, at the age of three, he and his brother actually appeared in the Disney movie, "The Lion King". The ex-featherweight title challenger and long time California Featherweigt champ had fought a lot of great fighters. In addition to challenging Davey Moore for the featherweight title in '62, he fought Sugar Ramos, had a couple wars with Gil Cadilli, and two more wars with my all-time featherweight favorite, Dwight Hawkins. The Hawk would hand Valdez his first pro loss back in the late 50's, in a fight that could have gone either way. A couple months later, they fought again on even grounds with Danny get the nod. Danny told me he never fought a tougher fighter than Dwight Hawkins, and Danny Valdez fought everybody and anybody at 126 lbs.

I was happy to see a lot of old friends and make a few new ones yesterday. Frank pretty much described what the GSBA luncheons are like in a previous post. A few of us old foggies, Don kinda guiding things, a few old babes keeping things going. Good group, good people. I wasn't sure what kind of talk I should give. When I'm around fighters, I know who's who and it's important to me to to let them know that I remember who they are and what they did. As far as my talk was concerned, it was a little difficult to address the group because the crowd is all around the room and I was facing only about half a dozen of the group. Doesn't matter, I had a chance to speak with most individually and seeing our buddy Frank is always a special time for me. Thanks for coming amigo, and sharing pics with the guys.

I told a few people about Roger, and about his great painting of the boxing gloves which will likely serve as the cover of the 2009 WBHOF banquet program. One day, there will be a WBHOF Museum, and hopefully a few or Roger's originals will find a home there.

-Rick Farris

[Rick Farris]

Lowen and Navarro's . . . "Dreams I Left Behind"

As I was writing about the events of yesterday, I put on this CD and played one of my favorite recordings. It seemd appropriate. By the way, the "Navarro" of Lowen & Navarro, is Dan Navarro, son of our pal Hap.

-Rick Farris

[kikibalt]

Danny Valdez, Danny fought Davey Moore for the FW title.

I enjoyed meeting Danny Valdez after all of these years. I knew quite a bit of his ring history, but Frank taught me about his youth, how and where he started out, lots of great personal things that really let you in on what the man is about. After retiring from boxing, Danny went into the same business I did, and worked for years for ABC-TV.

As Frank had told me, Danny was a twin. Born in 1940, at the age of three, he and his brother actually appeared in the Disney movie, "The Lion King". The ex-featherweight title challenger and long time California Featherweigt champ had fought a lot of great fighters. In addition to challenging Davey Moore for the featherweight title in '62, he fought Sugar Ramos, had a couple wars with Gil Cadilli, and two more wars with my all-time featherweight favorite, Dwight Hawkins. The Hawk would hand Valdez his first pro loss back in the late 50's, in a fight that could have gone either way. A couple months later, they fought again on even grounds with Danny get the nod. Danny told me he never fought a tougher fighter than Dwight Hawkins, and Danny Valdez fought everybody and anybody at 126 lbs.

I was happy to see a lot of old friends and make a few new ones yesterday. Frank pretty much described what the GSBA luncheons are like in a previous post. A few of us old foggies, Don kinda guiding things, a few old babes keeping things going. Good group, good people. I wasn't sure what kind of talk I should give. When I'm around fighters, I know who's who and it's important to me to to let them know that I remember who they are and what they did. As far as my talk was concerned, it was a little difficult to address the group because the crowd is all around the room and I was facing only about half a dozen of the group. Doesn't matter, I had a chance to speak with most individually and seeing our buddy Frank is always a special time for me. Thanks for coming amigo, and sharing pics with the guys.

I told a few people about Roger, and about his great painting of the boxing gloves which will likely serve as the cover of the 2009 WBHOF banquet program. One day, there will be a WBHOF Museum, and hopefully a few or Roger's originals will find a home there.

-Rick Farris

Rick and Danny Valdez