BoxRec

My dad - fed up that his eldest son was getting his head knocked off every day because of the fact he was called Carlos, lived in Wigan, had a big Afro, went to school in 'colourful' Peruvian llama wool jumpers or all of the things combined. Brought all the things he learnt off the Catholic fathers who ran the world famous Lowe House boxing club and instilled them to me in the back garden of our house - the left jab and the right cross were favourites of his as was the short left hook. It took awhile as an eight year old to get the hang of it but once I did - there was no stopping me!

Fast forward to my teenager years as a boxing mad kid. I loved Frank Bruno - he was my hero! No-one came near big Frank as to being the most perfect specimen alive, big, strong, had a big KO punch and a bigger 'ho ho ho' laugh. He was everything a hero should be.

I counted down the days to his world title fight with Tim Witherspoon - there was not one chance Witherspoon stood in my youthful wisdom. My dad thought different whose own childhood hopes were dashed with Bruce Woodcock having his jaw broke and nearly going blind against Tami Mauriello in New York. My dad never rated Bruno but in 1993 - was willing him to win with the rest of us when he started out like a beast against Lennox Lewis and was gutted when Lennox found the punches to end the fight. My dad loved John Conteh, Barry McGuigan and Herbie Hide but lost interest in the fight games as the 1990s wound down. The last time I saw him excitied about a fight was Benn vs McClellan.



As a kid I would talk boxing with all my mates at school. Marveled at the chuptazh of Hector Camacho when he came to the UK to promote his fight with Terry Marsh and betted all my dinner monies against more patriotic scholars that Camacho would destroy Marsh. I would buy the 'Ring' Magazine and read up on all the worldwide fight reports at the back of the magazine and wonder about fighters such as Barrington Cambridge, Craig Bodzianowski, Sakkie Horn and Pat Leglise. Kept awake about how maybe the world light flyweight unification battle would come up against Koreas world champions in Jung Koo Chang, (WBC) Myung Woo Yuh, (WBA) and Hi Sup Shin (IBF) who held the titles in 1989.



I always wondered if Pinoy Sugar Baby Face Rojas ever got his world light flyweight (or is could have been strawweight) title shot as according to the ring - he was IBF no1 contender for 2 years.



I am pretty sure if there would have been boxrec around as a kid - I would never have been as mature and as valued as our own Alex Paterson - I would have spammed the British and Irish forums with Bruno and Najib Daho posts ad nauseum if the internet had been around in 1986.

Around that time I was playing Football Management games by post.

Oh the joy of waiting for the post to see if Kingsbay United (in their Peru kit) had beaten Johnnies United.

Boxing was important to me, became a playground staple with the arrival of Tyson and Hagler who became watch words for hard or difficult.

Though never stuck like....

"Sir this maths homework is Rocky Balboa".

DavidPayne wrote:Around that time I was playing Football Management games by post.

Oh the joy of waiting for the post to see if Kingsbay United (in their Peru kit) had beaten Johnnies United.

Boxing was important to me, became a playground staple with the arrival of Tyson and Hagler who became watch words for hard or difficult.

Though never stuck like....

"Sir this maths homework is Rocky Balboa".

I know they had a boxing game by post in the 'Ring' magazine but never bothered and I don't know why - I would have loved that! Played a football managment game amongst my mates at school where we would pick five players (1 goalie, 2 defenders, 1 midfielder and 1 striker) and depending on if they scored that saturday - would be implemented into our fixtures - My team? Dynamo Tigers - Glenn Cockerill and Johnny Metgod were in my team if I remember and QPRs Alan McDonald. They didn't have a kit but if they did - it would have been all red with a big gold sickle and hammer as a badge!

Tyson captured the imagination of everyone in our school and on our estate - it must be over 90% of British males who over 35 who stayed up at least till 4am to watch Tyson knock shite out of someone at least the once.

NB: Listening to the Thompson Twins 'Lay Your Hands on Me' (UK version)

Just beautiful...

Lenny wrote:Just beautiful...

Thank you Lenny...

I remember the night Lloyd Honeygan lost the world title (and his unbeaten record) to Jorge Vaca in disappointing fashion and that night was listening to the Alan Beswick show on Red Rose radio of Preston (now Rock FM) at 10pm - many people were calling in to say how unfair it was for Lloyd to lose his title in the manner that he did - Beswick was arguing about who cares and that boxing is barbaric so I called the show...

It was my turn to be on air and Beswick said in his unique way 'How do Carlos from Wigan - you want to talk about the boxing tonight'

'Alan! Boxing is not barbaric, apartheid in South Africa is you fat cun..'

'Go away you silly child' Chided Beswick as I was booted publicly off air. All my mates gave me crap about that the next day at school as they all listened to Beswick also.

Carlos-Wigan wrote:

Lenny wrote:Just beautiful...

Thank you Lenny...

I remember the night Lloyd Honeygan lost the world title (and his unbeaten record) to Jorge Vaca in disappointing fashion and that night was listening to the Alan Beswick show on Red Rose radio of Preston (now Rock FM) at 10pm - many people were calling in to say how unfair it was for Lloyd to lose his title in the manner that he did - Beswick was arguing about who cares and that boxing is barbaric so I called the show...

It was my turn to be on air and Beswick said in his unique way 'How do Carlos from Wigan - you want to talk about the boxing tonight'

'Alan! Boxing is not barbaric, apartheid in South Africa is you fat cun..'

'Go away you silly child' Chided Beswick as I was booted publicly off air. All my mates gave me crap about that the next day at school as they all listened to Beswick also.

Brilliant. You are a legend Carlos

Deserter wrote:

Carlos-Wigan wrote:

Lenny wrote:Just beautiful...

Thank you Lenny...

I remember the night Lloyd Honeygan lost the world title (and his unbeaten record) to Jorge Vaca in disappointing fashion and that night was listening to the Alan Beswick show on Red Rose radio of Preston (now Rock FM) at 10pm - many people were calling in to say how unfair it was for Lloyd to lose his title in the manner that he did - Beswick was arguing about who cares and that boxing is barbaric so I called the show...

It was my turn to be on air and Beswick said in his unique way 'How do Carlos from Wigan - you want to talk about the boxing tonight'

'Alan! Boxing is not barbaric, apartheid in South Africa is you fat cun..'

'Go away you silly child' Chided Beswick as I was booted publicly off air. All my mates gave me crap about that the next day at school as they all listened to Beswick also.

Brilliant. You are a legend Carlos

Jason - I was around 14-15 and my voice hadn't broke so I hadn't got the authorative manner in which to argue my point in an adult manner - it had to be a quick 'seek and destroy' mission with maximum damnage but little did I know there is around a minute delay so I had no chance of my views being aired - another thing too - I had to go and make the call at the foul, urine soaked phone box down the street - I remember it it being a cold, dark night.

Sugar Baby Rojas (right) loses his world title to Gilberto Roman in Miami. Rojas was, shall we say, a feisty fellow and has clearly just flouted the rules in this shot. Roman was no angel himself, and tested positive for cannabis afterwards.

bennie wrote:


Sugar Baby Rojas (right) loses his world title to Gilberto Roman in Miami. Rojas was, shall we say, a feisty fellow and has clearly just flouted the rules in this shot. Roman was no angel himself, and tested positive for cannabis afterwards.

My memory is going Bennie because the guy I was thinking about is this guy - Pretty Boy Lucas!


http://boxrec.com/list_bouts.php?human_ ... &cat=boxer

And I mixed his name up with Sugar Baby Rojas! Typical old codgers! trick Everytime I studied the IBF world ratings - he was no1 contender for the title for like two years - and in the end he never bloody won it! I am now really disapointed cos I loved his name!

Gilberto Roman was another boxer taken to soon, died in1990 in a car crash.
Sugar Baby Rojas looks as if he still has some moves,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sULmXDmWKKE

I remember alot of those fights involving these guys were on the undercard of the big name fights back in the day.

Carlos....you'll find Sugar on facebook...yep, you will.

This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of the tragic death of Merthyr's Johnny Owen in his brave attempt to wrest the WBC bantamweight title from Mexico's Lupe Pintor in Los Angeles on September 19, 1980. In 2002, Pintor made his way to Merthyr to unveil a statue of Johnny, with the fighter's parents, and Mike Tyson visited the memorial last year and appeared genuinely moved.