Classic American West Coast Boxing

[dagosd2000]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsdJ90w7hkw

Sweet Georgia Brown . Theme song of the Harlem Globetrotters

A SWEET TEAM

When I was a kid in Chicago I lived on a street named Harlem Avenue.I thought the Harlem Globetrotters lived on that street. The Harlem Globetrotters were cool. I dug the uniforms. They did fancy tricks with the basketball. And most important,they made you laugh.

There was a time before Blacks were allowed to play in the NBA,when the Globetrotters were the best pro team around. When the NBA realized that having a Globetrotter or two on your team might make make you better,some of them started to show up on NBA rosters. I think Sweetwater Clifton was the first. He played for the Knicks. My favorite was Goose Tatum.

By the late 50's the talent on the Harlem Globetrotters was getting thin. Black basketball players were becoming the foundation of the NBA. But I do remember watching a rookie Wilt Chamberlain play for the Globetrotters at Point Loma High School gymnasium in 1959. They played City College. Just like when I was a kid in Chicago, the Trotters made me laugh. They made me happy. Can't say that for the Lakers.

[dagosd2000]

[/quote]
Roger, We start dying the second we're born.... [/quote]


Frank
I think you need reach out for the Patron [/quote]
Yeah! I think that would help to make it through the day.... [/quote]


I think I'll join ya'

[dagosd2000]

Bobby Chacon

[Rick Farris]

Hey Frank, kind of reminds you of a guy named Keeny Teran, huh? A waste of talent.
But while they were here, we saw something special. We will always see them for what they were, and could have been.
They deserve that much, I believe that.


-Rick Farris

Rick, Keeny Teran's and Mando Ramos's careers were very much alike, yet differed, Mando became champ, where as Keeny never did, yet in the short time both were on top their star shined.

In their personal lifes they were very differed, Mando like to party hard, Keeny didn't, he just needed his fix to be right.

Mando & Keeny . . .

Frank, what you said about the difference between Keeny & Mando's drug habits, that Keeny just needed his fix to be right, and that Mando needed the party, is very insightful.
Thanks to you, this thread, Hap Navarro & Randy, I'm a lot more familiar with this special fighter than I would have been.
You have all been close to this man and his family. I have watched Keeny Teran grow up right on this thread, long after his death.
I know Mando, we all knew Mando, but to learn about Keeny Teran from his friends, promoter and family has opened up the man's life to me.

My only visual of Keeny boxing in a ring was a staged sparring match seen briefly in the movie The Ring.
He was so classic, the hands up, chin down, buried behind his shoulder. Pretty jab, feints, things that have been left to eras past.
And for moves, who was prettier than Mando Ramos in my era?
Had he given himself time to develop, I don't know of a lightweight of the time, except Roberto Duran, who'd have beaten him.

Duran, I believe, would have been the end of Mando Ramos title reign.
Mando held the title about a year after winning it the first time.
When he lost to Laguna, it was after a night of partying on Cocaine.
The Mando we saw sliced to ribbons at the L.A. Sports Arena by Ismael Laguna, had a lot of drugs in his blood system.
Cocaine pumps up the heart beat, which makes the blood flow freely, and Mando spilled a lot of plasma on the powder blue ring canvas that night.

That was a couple months before I turned pro. After I'd made my debut, Ramos would return to the ring a couple months later to take on Sugar Ramos in the "1970 Fight of the Year."
Again, Mando did a lot of bleeding, but his performance helped define the special quality of this Los Angeles post-Golden Era legend.
He had surgey to remove the scar tissue from his eyebrows and returned to the ring three months later to face Raul Rojas.
I opened the show and saw everything up close, however, since writing my original story on Mando, I would learn that I didn't know everything about the Mando that flattened Rojas.

One afternoon, Mando and I are watching one of his bouts with Frankie Crawford.
As we watch the fight, Ramos had a funny memory of something between he and Crawford the night before his bout with Rojas.
Crawford was scheduled to fight in the TV ten-round main event. Mando Muniz and I would be featured in prelims.

Ramos told me that the night before the fight, he's sitting in the living room of his Belmont Shores apartment. He's smoking a joint.
Theres a knock on the door, it's Frankie Crawford. When Crawford enters he smells the marijuana burning and asks Mando what he's doing?
Ramos tells him he likes to smoke a joint the night before a fight because it relaxes him.

At the time, Frankie Crawford was known to drink on occasion but wasn't into drugs. He told Mando "Your crazy!" and he left.
Mando told me that Crawford was disgusted, like he'd just found a turd in his lunch. Mando said it was funny watching Frankie's reaction.

The next night, Crawford wins his match and after showering goes ringside to watch Ramos & Rojas.
Mando was beautiful. he never boxed better, and he finished off Rojas by putting him to sleep with a picture perfect left hook to the chin.
Crawford was amazed Ramos could fight so well after seeing him stoned the night before.

After the fight, Mando tells me Frankie meets him in the dressing room. He pulls Mando aside and whispers into his ear . . .
"Do you know where I can get some of that Marijuana?"


-Rick Farris

[Rick Farris]

delete

[kikibalt]

I remember Keeny Teran coming up tp me one night at the Olympic, Tony is fighting, had been winning by ko after ko.

"Frank, is Tony winning by ko tonight?'.
"Don't know, why?"
"Because I have some money on him by ko?
After the fight I see Keeny
"Well?"
"I won" say Keeny

[kikibalt]

De La Mora remains unbeaten
September 7, 2009 by Felipe Leon

With a festive crowd numbering over 1,000, Loyes Promotions presented “Casta de Campeones (Champion’s Fury)”, their second fight night in as many months, at Tijuana, Mexico’s Municipal Auditorium. After the assembled audience enjoyed the triumphant victory of the Mexican National soccer team over Costa Rica by a score of 3-0 on a large screen, they settled down and enjoyed nine bouts which featured up-and-coming local talent.

In the main event, crowd favorite David De La Mora (18-0, 12 KOs) remained unbeaten, but only after surviving an early knockdown at the hands of, arguably, the toughest challenge of his career in Luis “Chapito” Valdez (12-4-1, 5 KOS) of Los Mochis, Mex.

In the first, De La Mora established his quicker hands early on as he baited his time and then unleashed a flurry of quick punches that landed on his opponent with bad intentions. “Chapito” proved no slouch, as he was not afraid to exchange leather with “Morita” even though the bombs were coming in hard and often. His strategy proved to be fruitful as Valdez landed a looping over hand right near the end of the round to drop De La Mora in the neutral corner. De La Mora looked more embarrassed than hurt since he had to pull himself up in front of his home crowd to easily beat the count.

Both fighters started the second tentatively as they had tasted each other’s fire power in the first. As De La Mora was taking on the role of the aggressor to make up for the lost point in the first, Valdez was trying to time “Morita” and catch him as he was coming in with a straight right hand that proved successful a couple of times in the round. The round soon took a pattern of both fighters circling around the center of the ring and suddenly unleashing 3-4 punch combinations, usually at the same time which whipped the pro-”Morita” crowd into a frenzy.

De La Mora who fights out of the CREA Gym, began to develop a small mouse under his left eye as he kept up the pressure on Valdez. De La Mora seemed to get more confident as the seconds ticked away in the round as he began to turn his punches better and with more power. Valdez was not to be undone as he kept right up with De La Mora releasing his own set combos in quick, short spurts.

Early in the fourth, De La Mora scored with a right hook that dropped Valdez to his knees. As he began to get to his feet, he complained of a rabbit punch to referee Juan Jose Ramirez but the official continued with his count. Valdez beat it, but appeared upset, deciding to take it out on De La Mora as he trapped his opponent against the neutral corner to unleash a flurry of punches. De La Mora reacted in kind but with much straighter punches that got there quicker. De La Mora began to damage Valdez.

The action continued in the fifth as both began to throw and land big punches as they took turns getting trapped in a neutral corner. De La Mora suffered from a cut over his right eye that was difficult to determine if it was from a cut or a butt. Sensing that he was beginning to be worse for wear with the mouse growing under his left eye and the cut over his right, De La Mora turned up the heat in the sixth and promptly dropped Valdez again with a straight right hand. Valdez beat the count but only to go down again from a left hook to the body. This time, Valdez was not able to beat the count.

Official time was 1:09 of the sixth round.

[Rick Farris]

Frank . . .

In the mid-60's, I remember a kid who fought in the Jr. Golden Gloves.
I forget what club he fought for, or who he fought, but his last name was Teran . . . Chato Teran.

Any relation to Keeny?


-Rick Farris

[kikibalt]

Frank . . .

In the mid-60's, I remember a kid who fought in the Jr. Golden Gloves.
I forget what club he fought for, or who he fought, but his last name was Teran . . . Chato Teran.

Any relation to Keeny?


-Rick Farris

Rick, I don't remember Chato Teran, I also don't remember Keeny having relatives fighting in the Jr. when I was running to Jr. GG's.

[dagosd2000]

Lucia Rijker

[Rick Farris]

Lucia Rijker

That's good. She's an interesting subject. I don't know if I mailed you Lucia's punching power clip, but if I didn't, let me know.
I like her, and I'm glad she's the first girl boxer to be voted into the WBHOF.
The old timers don't like the idea, but today ain't the old times. She is a real fighter.
I nominated her, but the voters put her second in overall votes out of 26 candidates in the "boxer" catagory.

I'm going to tell her to drop in and checkout our site, and see her Roger Esty image.


-Rick Farris

[dagosd2000]

Lucia Rijker

That's good. She's an interesting subject. I don't know if I mailed you Lucia's punching power clip, but if I didn't, let me know.
I like her, and I'm glad she's the first girl boxer to be voted into the WBHOF.
The old timers don't like the idea, but today ain't the old times. She is a real fighter.
I nominated her, but the voters put her second in overall votes out of 26 candidates in the "boxer" catagory.

I'm going to tell her to drop in and checkout our site, and see her Roger Esty image.


-Rick Farris

Thanks Rick. Yes I got the clip of her punching power. She seems like a good gal unless you get her upset.

[dagosd2000]

BTW. This weekend wasn't a total wash when it came to me selling my art. I sold a painting of Pancho Villa to a fella' who contacted me from Chula Vista near where I work. I met the guy a while back in TJ in my sister in law's husbands bar.The painting was hanging up in the bar. I sold the painting for 500,but will split it with my sister in law's husband.

It's always when you least expect it when something breaks.

[kikibalt]

Tony Baltazar & Lucia Rijker

[Randyman]

In 1980 Connie and I with my brother Mando and his than wife Terry rode down the Pacific Coast Highway and over the Bixby Bridge in our Harleys



Robinson Jeffers' Big Sur
( Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times )

A time-exposure photo shows traffic on Pacific Coast Highway going over the historic Bixby Bridge in Big Sur.

What a coincidence, I took these photos of the Bixby Bridge this past Saturday. I also took a couple of photos of the Big Creek Bridge, which is south of Bixby Bridge.



Bixby Bridge, Big Sur


Bixby Bridge, Big Sur


Jeri at the Bixby Bridge, Big Sur


Big Creek Bridge at Big Sur


Big Creek Bridge

Randy

[Randyman]

I just got back a couple of hours ago. Looks like lots of good stuff posted here. I'm just too beat to read it today. I'll post some more photos tomorrow. Jeri and I had a great time.

Randy

[dagosd2000]

In 1980 Connie and I with my brother Mando and his than wife Terry rode down the Pacific Coast Highway and over the Bixby Bridge in our Harleys



Robinson Jeffers' Big Sur
( Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times )

A time-exposure photo shows traffic on Pacific Coast Highway going over the historic Bixby Bridge in Big Sur.

What a coincidence, I took these photos of the Bixby Bridge this past Saturday. I also took a couple of photos of the Big Creek Bridge, which is south of Bixby Bridge.



Bixby Bridge, Big Sur


Bixby Bridge, Big Sur


Jeri at the Bixby Bridge, Big Sur


Big Creek Bridge at Big Sur


Big Creek Bridge

Randy

Looks like you had a well deserved break.

[Randyman]

Update From Louie Burke:

I just got into Monterrey, Mexico and settled in, in what will be another busy week with David Rodriguez, but what a great Saturday night for team Trout! Before I get into reviewing Austin’s fight. I’d like to apologize of not keeping everyone up to speed on what was going on with Austin.

First of all, on the way from the Panama airport to the hotel I left my lap top in the shuttle van and didn’t recover my lap top til the evening before the fights; I felt pretty damn lucky I was able to recover it. The hotel did provide a computer room but it was difficult to get on a computer, the wait was a long time and our schedule so hectic I wasn’t left with much time to wait in line. Again, sorry for leaving everyone hanging.

The fight with Tapia was a tough one, he’s a huge 154 pounder with a sledge hammer right. He was much faster, stronger and bigger than what he looked like in the previous fights we had seen on video. He comes from he same camp as 122 lb world champion Celestino Cabellero, which has a great team of trainers and some word class boxers.

Tapia came towards Austin for the first four rounds but after catching a few of Austin’s straight lefts, Tapia, started running and moving more, and he stopped trying to press the fight. I had Austin winning 3 of the first five rounds but they were close. Tapia, even though from Colombia, he lives and trains in Panama, so I wasn’t sure which way the rounds were going.

Once Tapia stopped moving forward we had to change up our game plane from counter-punching to cutting the ring off. This seemed to work better for Austin and he was able to get in control of the fight and won the next five rounds. His hand speed and punching in bunches gave him the edge, but because Austin stepped up his aggressiveness, he did get hit more than he usually does. As the fight progressed Austin was able to close the distance between him and Tapia, working him with combinations against the ropes.

Going into the 11th and final round, yes, you read right, 11 rounds, I’d never heard of that either. Something new the WBA is doing for non world titles. Because the first five rounds were close, and even thought I felt Austin won the majority of them, I felt we needed a strong finish. Despite trying to finish strong, I had Austin losing the last round, Tapia landed some big right hands, never hurting Austin but definitely giving him the round.

After the fight, I felt Austin clearly won all but 3 rounds, but I new there were some close ones and didn’t expect go be given anything close in Tapias adopted country. Even though I couldn’t hear the scores I new the first score announced was from the Panamanian judge who called the fight a draw, and the other two judges gave the fight to Austin, like I said I never heard the scores, but I did hear Austin’s name called out as the winner, giving him his second belt, the WBA Latino title to go along with his WBA Continetnal of Americas belt and giving him a number 3 ranking in the organization and possibly a shot at the world title in the near future.

The whole trip proved to be exciting, not only because Austin’s victory, but for the first time he met his Panamanian cousin Eugene, who explained to Austin his Panamanian lineage. Austin found out he’s cousins to the great Panamanian baseball player Rod Carew!

We also made some great friends that assisted in the corner. One was Rigoberto Garibaldi, "Gotti" as he’s known by his friends. He was a god send. He’s the son of world famous boxing trainer Hector Rocha, from New York, who happens to be good friends and neighbors with Austin’s Grandparents who live in Brooklyn. Gotti’s dad ask him to take care of us and he did, chauffeuring us around, getting my lap top back and letting us use his gym to train at, along with assisting us in the corner, a million thanks to a great person.

We also had Randy " Moose" Gomez assisting us in the corner. Moose is the bail bonds man that had to accompany Austin to Panama for his pending charges. Moose learned how to give water to a fighter, rinse a mouthpiece and grease Austin up. He did a great job and might have a future as a ring second, he also helped a ton and was great support.

Also in the corner was Otis "Big O" Johnson, Austin’s grandfather. This is the second trip he’s been on with us, Canada being the first. He’s a super guy and has a heart as big as he. Thanks Otis.


The victory, and the trip in general was an emotional one and very rewarding. Austin wants to send his supporters a personal thanks, and god bless all of you!

[Randyman]

In 1980 Connie and I with my brother Mando and his than wife Terry rode down the Pacific Coast Highway and over the Bixby Bridge in our Harleys



Robinson Jeffers' Big Sur
( Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times )

A time-exposure photo shows traffic on Pacific Coast Highway going over the historic Bixby Bridge in Big Sur.

What a coincidence, I took these photos of the Bixby Bridge this past Saturday. I also took a couple of photos of the Big Creek Bridge, which is south of Bixby Bridge.



Bixby Bridge, Big Sur


Bixby Bridge, Big Sur


Jeri at the Bixby Bridge, Big Sur


Big Creek Bridge at Big Sur


Big Creek Bridge

Randy

Looks like you had a well deserved break.

Yes but now I have to rest from my break. I feel like Dorothy "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home". Truer words were never said.

Randy

[raylawpc]

Tony Baltazar & Lucia Rijker

Thanks for posting this picture. Now I just have to figure out how to photoshop my face over Tony's . . .

(All kidding aside, she's a great fighter -- not "girl" fighter, a "fighter" period. I'd love to meet her someday. I admire her a great deal.)

[Rick Farris]

Tony Baltazar & Lucia Rijker

Thanks for posting this picture. Now I just have to figure out how to photoshop my face over Tony's . . .

(All kidding aside, she's a great fighter -- not "girl" fighter, a "fighter" period. I'd love to meet her someday. I admire her a great deal.)

Well Tom, I know her, she'll be at the banquet on the 24th, she's real cool and will want to meet our group.
If you really want to meet her, this is your chance and it will be real personable.
IMHO, Lucia Rijker will have the best intro and give the best speech. She's a good person and a total pro. She'll steal the show from an inductee standpoint.

October 24th, LAX Marriott Hotel, all your buddies will be there, and the great Lucia Rijker, all of us waiting for you to show up.
I know that Southern California has little offer a man of the Mid West, but Tom, we are going to be here this year for sure. Next year????
We'll be here THIS year. Lucia will want to meet you, THIS year.

If you can't make, we'll understand.
But will Lucia understand?


-Rick Farris

[raylawpc]

Tony Baltazar & Lucia Rijker

Thanks for posting this picture. Now I just have to figure out how to photoshop my face over Tony's . . .

(All kidding aside, she's a great fighter -- not "girl" fighter, a "fighter" period. I'd love to meet her someday. I admire her a great deal.)

Well Tom, I know her, she'll be at the banquet on the 24th, she's real cool and will want to meet our group.
If you really want to meet her, this is your chance and it will be real personable.
IMHO, Lucia Rijker will have the best intro and give the best speech. She's a good person and a total pro. She'll steal the show from an inductee standpoint.

October 24th, LAX Marriott Hotel, all your buddies will be there, and the great Lucia Rijker, all of us waiting for you to show up.
I know that Southern California has little offer a man of the Mid West, but Tom, we are going to be here this year for sure. Next year????
We'll be here THIS year. Lucia will want to meet you, THIS year.

If you can't make, we'll understand.
But will Lucia understand?


-Rick Farris

The better question is: "Will my wife understand when I tell her I'm going to LA to meet Lucia Rijker and, hopefully, have Frank snap a picture of her cozying up next me, her head on my shoulder and her hand gently resting on my chest?"

[Rick Farris]

The better question is: "Will my wife understand when I tell her I'm going to LA to meet Lucia Rijker and, hopefully, have Frank snap a picture of her cozying up next me, hehead on my shoulder and her hand gently resting on my chest?" :
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Tom, I learned long ago that it's not always a good idea to show them EVERY photo.

[Rick Farris]

Believe it or not . . .

As I finish up the WBHOF corrected "Role Call" for the annual banquet program, I reviewed every single inductee of the past.
I was surprised to see a name missing . . . Tommy Hearns.
A six-time world champ in a tough era, a guy who fought everybody and beat most.
I thought his name was misplaced, like dozens of other past inductees. However, he has been totally ignored by the WBHOF.
President Armando Muniz wasn't surprised, and he didn't think it was important until I made an issue.
We inducted Greg Haugen last year, did he make a bigger mark than Tommy Hearns? What about Joey Barnum? He's also in.

The new Roll Call will be listed in alphabetical order. This will prevent future re-inductions or forgotten inductees. They must just maintain it, whoever they are?

I have this list of hundreds of names. Boxers, managers & trainers, doctors, writers, historians, promoters, matchmakers, referees, broadcasters, etc.
It's complete, but I'll run it past a few true expert/historians for reference.

It wasn't a bad excercise for me. It forced me to put my focus on who has been inducted into the WBHOF, and their place in boxing history.
It opened my eyes to just how bad the caretakers of boxing legend and history are doing their job.

Time for somebody to start over and do it right.


-Rick Farris

[raylawpc]

Son in Fight of Alexis Arguello's Life

More than eight weeks have passed since boxing legend Alexis Arguello allegedly shot himself in the chest with a 9mm pistol. It was a suicide, declared Nicaraguan government officials, and they closed the case almost as quickly as they shut his casket.

But in an exclusive interview with FanHouse, Alexis Arguello, Jr., the son of the Hall of Fame great, says he plans to fight the government's findings and prove that his father was the victim of foul play.

"This was not a suicide. My dad had been through so much in his life, but he did not kill himself," the younger Arguello says. "My dad had been through three failed marriages, alcoholism, crack, the worst things someone could go through. But he would not do this."


******

Arguello, 57, was found dead July 1 in his home just outside of Managua, where he was the mayor. His life had been filled with adventures and paradox: he was a triple crown champion and one of the world's most acclaimed boxers in the 1970s and 1980s; he was a soldier, a freedom fighter for the Contras who dodged bullets from the Sandinista National Liberation Front, before later running for public office on the Sandinista ticket; he was a loving father and grandfather, a womanizer, a millionaire born into abject poverty who blew his fortune and nearly went bankrupt, a drug addict who was forever writing checks to charity and using his celebrity platform to crusade against injustices in his homeland and in Miami, his adopted city. He was El Caballero del Ring -- "The Gentleman of the Ring" -- incapable of belittling an opponent. Outside the ropes, Nicaragua's most acclaimed athlete never quit battling demons.

But take his own life by shoving the barrel of a gun against his heart -- the same gun he told his family was always jamming, and as far as they know, he never bothered to fix? Arguello Jr., a 37-year-old producer for CBS College Sports Network and the oldest of the boxing champ's seven children, was at his home in New York when he received a call from Carla, his father's latest wife.

"She said, 'Your dad shot himself in the chest.' She said she found him. I told her, 'Don't touch my dad. Don't do any autopsies,' " he says. "When I got to Nicaragua a couple days later, my dad's body had already been processed. He was already in his tuxedo, he was already in a coffin, he was already placed at a wake at the National Palace of Culture. He was already being viewed by the people.

"In reality, what I should have done is ask for privacy and brought him into a room and taken his shirt off to see if there were more bullet holes or marks. But during that time I wasn't thinking."

The son remembers noticing a cut on the bridge of his father's nose. Carla told him "it happened when dad fell forward." Arguello Jr. -- "A.J." to his father and family -- shakes his head. "How could someone fall forward if they shoot themselves in the chest? Wouldn't it propel you backward?" he asks. "No one with answers was available to talk to us. Not the doctors who supposedly did the autopsy, not the police commissioner, not the investigators.

"I put some rosary beads in the coffin and that was the last time I saw him. I guess they expected my questions would go with my dad into the ground."

Dora, his sister, is still in Nicaragua, and the family fears for her safety, so Arguello Jr. must tiptoe around some of the uncertainties regarding their father's death, and the circumstances that preceded it. Dora was an employee in the mayoral office, but hasn't returned to work since her father died.

Media reports from Nicaragua are vague, noting only that Dr. Zacarias Duarte, Director of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, declared Arguello committed suicide by shooting himself. When did investigators have access to the Arguello house? Who cleaned up after Carla supposedly discovered her husband hunched forward? What did the lieutenant to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega tell Arguello when he visited the mayor's house a few hours before Arguello was found dead? Barely six months after winning an election tainted by allegations of fraud, had Arguello's power stretched beyond the designs of the Sandinista government? Was he being manipulated by nefarious, feuding political forces, some who feared Arguello's celebrity status, others who hoped he'd one day run for president?

"If the pieces fall into place like we think they will, we might never be able to return to Nicaragua," says the son, born in Managua and raised in Miami. "I'll do whatever I need to do to prove my dad didn't commit suicide. Like dad used to always say, 'Tough times don't last but tough guys do.' " He reaches for a napkin and dabs at his eyes. Once they know that Dora is safe, the family plans to hire lawyers who can help them exhume Arguello's body and, hopefully, solve the mysteries surrounding his death. A spokesman for Dr. Duarte would not comment.

The weekend before Arguello died, he attended ceremonies in Puerto Rico. There was the naming of a boxing academy in Arguello's honor, and a tribute honoring Roberto Clemente, Puerto Rico's Hall of Fame baseball player who perished in an airplane crash while trying to deliver relief aid to victims of a horrendous earthquake in Nicaragua in 1972. Arguello Jr. spoke to his father three days before he died, after he returned from the festivities.

While he was in Puerto Rico, Managua's city council, dominated by the Sandinistas, voted to "restructure" the mayoral office, thus diluting Arguello's powers. If he was worried or dismayed about these developments, Arguello did not say so during that last telephone conversation with his son.

"He was in great spirits, like always," Arguello Jr. says. "There wasn't the slightest hint of worry in his voice. If he were upset about something, he would tell me. He was always working to help the poor people of Nicaragua, that was his main objective. He was so proud to be honored with Clemente.

"I spoke to people who were with him in Puerto Rico to see if they sensed anything. They all said he was joking and in a good mood. No one believes he killed himself, no one. If he were going to do it, he would've called me and said, 'Look I'm thinking of doing this.' He never hid his emotions, he always spoke his mind. That's why the government didn't like him."


******

Sports Illustrated ran a fabulous profile of Arguello in 1985, when the boxer was on the verge of making a comeback. There is an anecdote that describes Arguello, fighting off the black dog of depression, sitting on a boat with his son A.J., then 12, and "staring down the black shaft of a loaded automatic pistol."

The story continues:

A.J. sat across from him, crying, begging him not to do it. Arguello cried too, saying that he must. There was no other sound except the ocean lapping at the boat, on which was painted THE CHAMP.

Arguello ached from the contradiction of his life, the way it lurched between opposites. Could it be that the distance between opposites was-nothing? So much seemed incomprehensible. No cause was pure, no motive clean, no external thing could be trusted. Everything a man needed to believe in in order to feel secure, life could rub his face again and again until he understood its opposite might also be true.

No resolution is possible in this life, a voice suggested. No, he cried-as long as he held this gun to his head, one resolution was possible.

"Don't do it, Dad!" pleaded A.J.

"That never happened," the son says now. "When that article came out, my mother and I looked at each other and were like, 'What? That never happened.' My dad is one of those people who maybe exaggerated a little to tell the story. He was a little lost during those years. But I know that never happened on the boat. "

Obituaries and media tributes cite the SI anecdote as an example of Arguello's troubled mind. Supposedly, he left a suicide note -- a single page, typed, unsigned letter brought forth by government officials to prove Arguello shot himself. The son scoffs at the note's tone and veracity.

"There were so many inconsistencies in it. It wasn't his voice," says Arguello Jr. "It says, I'm tired of politics, I've been cheated and lied to and used. It says he went back to drugs, that he did drugs the Monday or Tuesday before he supposedly killed himself. But in Nicaragua, once they did the autopsy, there was no drugs or alcohol found in the body.

"He passed on a Tuesday, I got to Nicaragua on Thursday. When I arrived I listened on the radio to the police giving a press conference about the ballistics, the autopsy report and their conclusions. In one day they had all that?"

Arguello Jr. and his siblings joined the thousands of mourners jamming the streets to honor the boxer during Friday's services. The man who was born and learned to fight in Managua's tough barrio was heralded by supporters as an athletic hero and political leader, the procession of his coffin to Sandinista-chosen burial grounds taking on a chaotic furor. He was an idol to the Nicaraguan people, a symbolic puppet to certain politicians.

At the journey's end, officials draped the red and black Sandinista flag over Arguello's coffin. Arguello Jr. pushed aside the flag, replacing it with the country's blue and white colors. Furious, he turned to the officials ringing his father's box and told them, "My dad is not going to be seen with this flag. He was a Nicaraguan first. He is going to be seen with the blue and white. This is not an event to stage political views. This has nothing to do with you guys and your views."

The government could not wait to usher Arguello's children out of the country. The son returned to his hotel, to discover his flight to the U.S. had been moved up from Monday to Saturday. Before he left, he wanted a memento that belonged to his father, preferably the belt Arguello had dedicated to his oldest son after beating lightweight champion Jim Watt in a fight that made Arguello only the sixth boxer to win world titles in three divisions. The son says Carla, his father's 31-year-old wife, made him wait for 90 minutes outside the gates of the mayor's house. Carla did not return phone calls from FanHouse.

"When she finally let us in, she opened up a closet and said, 'Take any suit or shirt or shoes you want.' Are you kidding me? You expect me to walk out with a pair of shoes?" Arguello Jr. says. "The last words I told her as I walked out of my father's house were, 'God sees everything and god knows everything. You will be punished someday.' "

He blots his eyes again, then purses his lips as if to halt more details from pouring forth. A.J. fought 15 amateur fights, winning 14 by knockouts. He says he was a decent body puncher with power in both hands, just like his dad. "But he sat me down and said, 'A.J., I support you, but I fought so you didn't have to.' That was the end of my boxing days," says the son, a smile chasing away the tears.


******

The memories of his father's transcendent career and wild escapades are as clear as the baubles on Arguello's championship belts. A sinewy 5 feet 10 inches, Arguello was known around the globe as El Flaco Explosivo, the Explosive Thin Man. With a brutal left jab and an elusive overhand right, Arguello knocked out Ray Mancini in 1981, a delicious prelude to his first fight with Aaron Pryor in front of more than 23,000 fans packed into Miami's Orange Bowl. Arguello stepped up in weight class, with the hopes he'd become the only man ever to win a fourth division title.

One of the sport's most legendary slugfests ended in the 14th round, with Pryor knocking out Arguello with a flurry of blows to the head. Arguello was left unconscious for several minutes, a doctor poking his eyelids. "Fight of the Decade," declared Ring Magazine. As he did with most of his father's fights, Arguello Jr. sat near the ropes, viewing every blow up close.

"After the fight, my dad told me he was sorry. I was like, 'Why?' " recalls the son. "He felt horrible. He wanted so desperately to win the title for the people."

Later, it was revealed that Pryor's trainer, Panama Lewis, gave his boxer a water bottle after round 13, prompting speculation that the black container was filled with illegal, unsanctioned material. The Florida State Boxing Commission failed to administer a post-fight urine test; while Pryor told Arguello there wasn't anything "suspicious" in the bottle, it was eventually discovered that Lewis broke apart antihistamine pills and poured the medicine into the water, giving Pryor greater lung capacity in the later rounds of a fight.

"I spoke to my dad about that years later. I pressed him about why he didn't ever make a big deal about it or go to the commission and have them test things," Arguello Jr. says. "He told me he wanted to win the championship fair and square. He wanted to win it in the ring. That shows a lot about who he was. He was by the books, everything had to be done the right way."

One day in 1983, A.J. accompanied his father to an Army-Navy surplus store in Miami. Arguello had decided to leave his mansion and yacht and wife and four children in South Florida and join the war against the Sandinistas in the hills of Nicaragua, after the Sandinista government seized his property and bank account. "He went into the store and bought fatigues and all these things he needed to be a soldier," Arguello Jr. says. "I didn't really think he was going to be on the front lines but he actually was. He shot some guns and he got shot at and he saw some people die. It was real war.

"He was only gone three weeks. I don't think my mom was going to let him stay too long."

In '92, Arguello regained some of the property that had been taken from him, and he returned to Nicaragua to start another of his many lives. "He was picking up the pieces," says his son. "That's when he battled his addictions. He had some bad times and dark days. It was something he had to go through because he didn't really know what to do with his life. I think that's where he came into experimenting with drugs and alcohol. The fighter that he is, he was able to fight back and pretty much reinvent himself. It's part of the cycle he goes through."

The final year of his life was as tumultuous as those that came before it. In the midst of his mayoral campaign last November, Arguello was hospitalized for undisclosed reasons. Since his death, the Nicaraguan media has speculated Arguello was felled by another bout of depression, but his son insists the real cause is far less mysterious. "My dad had a minor stroke, chest pains," he says.

Arguello won the mayoralty of the country's largest city with 51.3 percent of the vote, amidst allegations of voter fraud and illegal methods of intimidation employed by Sandinista supporters attempting to manipulate the election. It has since been reported that Arguello, in his short time as mayor, was accused of misappropriating 180 million cordobas (approximately $9 million) from public works projects and misusing municipal funds for personal travel.

"There were never reports of that before he passed," Arguello Jr. says. "To be honest, I think that's something they made up to help further the idea he committed suicide. I once told my dad his political career would end in two ways: You'll be president or you'll end up dead."

As a Los Angeles Times reporter writing from Nicaragua noted, the blighted, corrupt city of Managua is, "Cursed because recent mayors have had a tendency to drop dead, or drop into jail or, at best, drop off the political map." The city's new mayor was appointed July 2, barely 24 hours after Arguello died and one day before his funeral.

Arguello won 65 of his 90 bouts by knockout, took another 17 decisions and lost eight. There is a proven link between brain damage and depression, but Arguello Jr. doesn't believe the connection applies to his father. "Luckily he was in great shape. He never showed any signs of deterioration in his brain due to punches he accumulated and absorbed over the years. Nothing. No slurred speech, nothing," he says.

"He was finally wearing glasses but he was 57 years old. It's unbelievable the shape he was in but besides the cuts you'd see on his eyebrows and maybe his flat nose you could never tell he was a boxer. I don't know if he was lucky or if it's his defensive skills but he never took that much punishment, besides the Pryor fights."


******

On the night of Dec. 23, 1972, Alexis Arguello had a premonition. A.J. was a baby, about to go to sleep in his room of the family's small house in Managua. "Just by chance, he decided I should sleep with him and my mom instead," says the son. Just after midnight, a massive earthquake decimated the city, killing approximately 5,000, injuring 20,000 and leaving more than 250,000 homeless.

"My crib was crushed. My parents' room was the only one left standing," he says. "There must be a reason I survived that night."

"No," Alexis Arguello Jr. says again, "My father did not kill himself. He was just starting to become the father we all wanted." The son's eyes shine with clarity and resolve, as he prepares for the fight ahead.