Promising Prospect: Karim Mayfield

By Mario Ortega Jr.

W: 5 L:0 D:1 Daly City, California Light Middleweight

Every star fighter has a motivator, a compelling reason that they chose the fistic art as their profession. Some fighters are born into the sport. Their father, or their uncle, or someone early in their life took them to the gym with them, and passed on some of their ability through genetics. Some fighters may excel as an athlete in other sports and eventually find their way to boxing. Then there are some fighters who are just born to fight. They know it at an early age, they can fight. One such fighter is Daly City, California’s rising star, Karim “Hard Hitta” Mayfield.

As a youth growing up in the Fillmore section of San Francisco, Mayfield found out he could fight in the streets. Before boxing ever entered into the equation, Mayfield had a reputation in the neighborhood as a street fighter who could handle himself no matter the size of his foe. “I kind of had a mouth when I was younger. In the streets there’s not any weight classes, if you are big enough to talk it, you better be big enough to walk it,” reflects Mayfield, who stands 5’7”. “I was always big enough to talk it, even though I was shorter than the guys I fought, I had to back it up. I grew up in a bad neighborhood. There was like seven projects around projects. [There were] a lot of hood guys looking to get stripes or make a name for themselves. So I had to back it up.” When Mayfield backed up his talk, he did it with his fists. Some things about the street have changed. “When I was coming up we weren’t using guns. This generation now is using guns. So we were like the last of the hands, last of the street fighters,” says Mayfield.

There are many good street fighters who never become anything more. Mayfield would hone his natural fighting ability inside the walls of the Straight Forward Club, a boxing gym created to be a deterrent for at-risk youths from the trappings of the street life. Ben Bautista is the executive director and head coach of the program. Before ever meeting Karim, he had heard the legend of his street fights. “I always heard that he had the ability to fight real well,” says Bautista. “He had a lot of friends in the Western Addition, a.k.a the Fillmore, who attended the school where I had the boxing gym. His friends would always tell me about him. I was hearing how he would beat a lot of people in the streets. I was telling his friends they should bring him into the gym. One day he popped his head in and I asked him when he was going to come back.”

Mayfield would come back.

When Mayfield returned he wanted to get right to the fighting aspect of the sweet science. “I went to check out the gym, and first they wanted me to work on the bag and teach me how to jab. But naturally coming from the streets I wanted to spar,” he recounts. “So I sparred a kid that had been boxing for like a year already, and I did real well. That was motivation for me that this guy had been boxing for a year and learning, and I come in straight off the streets and put hands on him.” Bautista was not in the gym that first day, but the coach that was, Johnny Mason, told him of that initial sparring session. “Mason told me that Karim sparred the guy he was working with, and that Karim was a beast. That boy packs a punch. He said he wouldn’t change a thing, because he had a lot of natural fighting abilities,” recalls Bautista. “He already had a lot of the innate characteristics before he came into the gym. From that first sparring match he fell in like with the game. You have to fall in like with boxing before you can fall in love with it,” says Bautista.

Along the way, Mayfield also developed a strong relationship with Bautista, who is currently his lead trainer. When he started out at the Straight Forward Club, Mayfield worked mainly with Johnny Mason, a former fighter. In the beginning Bautista served more as an advisor and big brother figure, which he does for all of the kids in the program, than as a boxing trainer. “Karim and I maintained a relationship with one another. I was in the corner, but I wasn’t training him per se. I was more or less his mentor or advisor. For some reason things didn’t work out with the other guys in the program so I started working with him. From then on we started working as a trainer and a fighter, while still being a mentor, big brother and advisor,” recalls Bautista. In addition to his personal relationship with Bautista, Mayfield feels confident that he is the right trainer for him. “I was with another trainer and then I was in between trainers, and [my trainer] had me fighting like a skinny fighter. I’m bulky and thick, and with what I knew about boxing I knew it wasn’t right. I got with Ben and it’s been working ever since.”

Mayfield would go on to have an accomplished amateur career, but it was not without its disappointments. Despite having only about twenty amateur fights by the time Olympic Trials came around for 2004, Mayfield attempted to beat out the top American amateurs to make the team. “I won down here, then I won in Fresno and I was on the U.S. Championship team,” Mayfield recalls. “I went all the way to Colorado. It was like seven days of fighting. I lost to a kid named Greg Hatley. He had like at least 120 fights.” At the end of the semi-final bout with Hatley, the score was tied 19-19. The tiebreaker went to Hatley on punches thrown, 60-56. Not only was Mayfield fighting much more experienced fighters, he also ended up fighting out of his weight class. “I came in at 153. It used to be 154, but that was around the time they changed it to 152,” Mayfield remembers. “So I was a pound over, and it was wrong, but they told me I only had like 20 minutes to lose that pound.” Mayfield decided to compete anyway and enter the 165-pound weight class. Every time he weighed in, the officials thought for sure he was in the wrong place and weighing in for the wrong division. Being an Olympic year, the 165-pound weight class was filled with much larger men draining themselves to give them the best chance possible to win. “That’s when everyone’s grinding. That’s when everyone comes back that hasn’t been boxing, just to get that ticket, that golden ticket. The other guys were getting on the scales naked to make weight, and were 6’2”. I was disappointed I didn’t make it to the Olympics. I was disappointed, even though I only had like 20 some odd fights, I wanted to make it and represent the States,” reflects Mayfield.

While disappointed he did not make the Olympic team, Mayfield was inspired by his strong showing. Competing at the highest level against much larger opponents made him a favorite to win the 75th Annual San Francisco Golden Gloves in 2006. That was a special year for the tournament that originated in 1931. The tournament was televised nationally by Comcast, which meant a great deal more exposure than the amateur fighters had seen in years prior. In the main event at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, Mayfield would meet Santos Soto, of San Francisco, a fighter who he was 1-1 against. At the time Soto was the tenth-ranked amateur welterweight in the United States, and his father, Santos Soto Sr., was the executive director of the tournament. From the outside looking in it may have looked as if Mayfield had the decked stacked against him again, but this time he would not be denied. “I did my thing, I won spectacularly,” recalls Mayfield. With that win, Mayfield decided there was nothing left for him in the amateurs and decided to turn professional.

For his pro debut in June of 2006, Mayfield landed an undercard slot on a Robert Guerrero-headlined card at the Oakland Arena, a stone’s throw from his own backyard. “My man [publicist] Mario Serrano had hooked it up so that I was in camp with Guerrero. So I was in Los Angeles for a while training with top pros. When I came to the city I had my folks, but I thought I was going to fight somewhere else. So to be fighting on that card, that was something else,” says Mayfield. To top things off, the featured bouts on the card were televised by Showtime. So Mayfield would be performing in front of television big wigs, something that did not affect him. “I had just come from the Golden Gloves and that was big, so I wasn’t star struck or nervous,” Mayfield reflects. Mayfield would go on to score a devastating first-round knockout of Chris Mickle, much to the delight of his hometown fans who had come out in mass to support him.

For his third bout, Mayfield would be matched with tough Jorge Padilla, of Mexico City, Mexico, at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, California. At the time Padilla was a veteran of twelve professional bouts, had only lost to contenders or solid prospects, and had already knocked off one previously unbeaten fighter. The bout would end in a technical draw after two rounds when Padilla was cut from an accidental headbutt. Like for most fighters, Mayfield would like to eventually have the opportunity to reverse that lone blemish on his record. “I definitely want a rematch with Padilla. I was just warming up, then we got the headbutt. I’m definitely looking for a rematch, to erase that draw,” says Mayfield.

For his fifth bout, Mayfield went on the road to Los Angeles, California to fight unbeaten Alejo Sepulveda, a Roger Mayweather-trained prospect. “I took that at the last minute literally,” recalls Mayfield. “I had another opponent, and the opponent pulled out the day of the weigh-in. They were like, ‘well we have another kid for you to fight.’ Don’t just say you have another kid. Who comes walking in with this kid, but Roger Mayweather. I ended up taking the fight, and knocking him out. It’s all a gamble in this game. I gambled and came out victorious.”

Mayfield has unfortunately become accustomed to opponents pulling out. “I should have had like four fights since October. I’ve had about four fights offered. I guess they asked me first, and when they mentioned my name they didn’t want the fight. I started telling promoters to ask them first. I get excited about fights and then the other guy says he’s not ready for it,” says the frustrated Mayfield.

Unable to secure fights with the normal run of journeymen that most fighters fight in the early stages of their career, Mayfield took on another unbeaten fighter in his sixth bout. Again it would appear that he has his back against the wall going in. He would be matched with a Don King-promoted prospect, Rahman Yusubov, on a Don King-promoted card in Illinois. “I was skeptical going in, fighting one of Don King’s fighters. I knew he had to be somebody, but I couldn’t find out anything about him,” recalls Mayfield. “I knew he was undefeated and he looked tough, which he is.” Admittedly it would be Mayfield’s toughest test to date. “It was tough because I dropped him three times and he kept getting up like the Terminator. I really hit him with some shots that should have stopped him. He got up, literally like bounced up. It was mentally tough for me, that he took some flush shots and got up,” says Mayfield. Finally, in the second round, he would catch Yusubov with a right hand that he would not get up from. “I came out victorious, so that was a good look for me.” Even when the odds seem to be against him, Mayfield is confident in his skills, and has not thought twice about taking tough fights. “In this game you can’t really worry about that . If you do too much looking out, a guy people call a bum will end up beating you. Some people take a lesser fighter and then end up getting beat by him and end up worse,” says Mayfield.

Up next for Mayfield is yet another unbeaten competitor, Francisco Santana, who he meets March 20th at the HP Pavilion in San Jose. Santana, 8-0 (4 KOs), has fought in San Jose four times previously, and Mayfield has seen him in action. “I’ve seen him fight before, he’s a nice fighter. He has a nice left hook, he doesn’t jab too much. He keeps coming, he looks like a good fighter, he had a pretty decent amateur career,” Mayfield says of his opponent. “He has to be somebody for Goossen to have picked him up, unless he’s just some friend of the family. He seems to be pretty good, so it’s definitely a test for me.” Craig Goossen, Boxing Coordinator for Goossen Tutor Promotions, is excited about the fight his company has put together, “It’s very rare that we have two real prospects fight in the venue where they’ve been brought up.”

Adding additional incentive to this bout, it is going to be televised across the country on Fox Sports Network’s Best Damn Sports Show Period. The platform will provide Mayfield the opportunity for the most exposure he has seen in his career, which makes it that much more important that he perform well. The challenge his something Mayfield and his camp relish. “This is going to put me on a different plateau, a different level. There are a lot of guys that are undefeated, but you have to be crowd pleasing. I don’t strive to be crowd pleasing, but my style is crowd pleasing. I definitely feel that the fans will love me,” says Mayfield. His trainer Ben Bautista sees the upcoming bout as Mayfield’s coming out party. “I appreciate Francisco Santana and Goossen for giving him the opportunity to fight him, because this gives Karim the opportunity to show the world what he’s made of. To show the world that he is a true champion in the making. That he has the ability to be on top. There’s something about Karim, he’s cut from a different cloth. This kid is something else,” proclaims Bautista. “He has now become a more complete fighter. Karim has elevated his game to a whole other level. Come March 20th you are going to see what he is made of.”

One aspect of the upcoming match that gives Mayfield confidence is the glaring difference in the quality of opponents he has faced in comparison to the pro ledger of Santana. While Mayfield has been rolling over unbeaten prospects and veteran tough guys, Santana has yet to face a fighter with a winning record. “He’s got like four knockouts. Ok, so he knocked these guys out, but who are these guys. These guys look like they are literally putting their chin out there. It’s definitely a boost. If I have any type of fear, that means he has to be shitting on himself,” says Mayfield.

Karim Mayfield may be the fighter to put San Francisco boxing back on the map. The once boxing mad city has not had a mainstream boxing star in quite some time. In recent years professional boxing has been promoted less and less in the San Francisco Bay Area, something that Mayfield hopes can change. “The Bay Area has a big franchise of sports. You would think that means that there are a lot of sports fans and a lot of support. You would think they would be promoting the fighters at the sports events and in the sports arenas,” Mayfield analyzes. “Somebody hasn’t taken that step to make the fights happen. You have the Goossens doing it in San Jose, but you still have San Francisco, Oakland and other parts of the Bay Area where you can promote. You would think somebody would capitalize on that, but no one has yet.” Trainer Ben Bautista feels that Mayfield will be the next great boxer to come out of San Francisco. “San Francisco hasn’t seen a pro like Karim since Pat Lawlor’s heyday,” says Bautista. Lawlor was a popular pro based in San Francsico who ran his record to 18-1, including wins over aging Wilfred Benitez and Roberto Duran, before failing in an attempt to take the WBO Light Middleweight title from John David Jackson in San Francisco in 1992. “Pat is my boy, but you haven’t seen a welterweight in San Francisco like Karim Mayfield. When he became pro, it was evident he was going to knock those boys out. When he turned pro, what amazed me most, was how he changed his lifestyle, he changed his work ethics. When he turned professional, he became a professional. He treated it like a job. He started taking professional boxing the way it’s supposed to be. He was working harder than I ever seen him before,” says Bautista.

While he may just be days away from becoming a star in the sport of boxing, Mayfield has many other things going for him outside of the ring. He is married to his wife of two years, Shanda, and together they have three children, Ayahni, Aniyah and Kokiyi. Mayfield credits much of his success to the support of his family. “My wife does a whole lot. She’s definitely my better half. She helps me as much as she can to try to keep the stress away from me during these times. To look after my children, make sure I eat healthy, she does a whole lot. She’s a great help to me,” says Mayfield. While any wife would have some apprehension about her husband competing in the ring, she has complete confidence in Mayfield’s abilities. “I’m sure she’s nervous, but she believes in my skills. She knows my skills, because if I was getting beat up she would tell me I need to get a new career. She keeps it real with me. She doesn’t have to worry about anything like that.”

In addition to his boxing career and his family life, Mayfield has additional outlets for his creativity. “Boxing isn’t my only avenue. I design clothes, I rap. I’m just an overall entrepreneur,” says Mayfield. While he is involved in many different activities, boxing is definitely Mayfield’s primary career focus right now. “I would definitely like to make this happen. I’m not looking forward to being a legend, but if I do then so be it. I’m not looking to be a multi-millionaire, but I definitely want some money in the bank. I definitely want to be undisputed world champion. I’m not like some people trying to be a legend, then boxing don’t work, and that’s all they know, and then where do they go. I’m not in that predicament because I feel I can do other things outside of boxing, if I chose to hang my gloves up.”

One aspect of the business that has seemed to puzzle Mayfield, is why a major promoter has not made him apart of their promotional stable. “I expected that someone would have picked me up by now. There’s these guys ducking people, these guys who appear to be the top prospects, but they haven’t fought anybody. It’s going to come along. I’m going to have the money chase me, rather than me chase the money. The promoters will chase me, rather than me chase the promoters,” says Mayfield. Things could change if he has a spectacular performance on March 20th, but Mayfield has another plan if they do not. His brother LaRon Mayfield has experience in another sort of promoting, with his music label Mo’ Betta Entertainment, and may step in to support his fighting brother if the big name promoters of the sport do not.

Including all his in-ring accomplishments, what seems to impress trainer Ben Bautista most is how Mayfield has turned out a person. “More than a professional boxer, he became a positive example and a role model to a lot of youngsters that are in the program. There are a lot of kids that want to be Karim in the gym, in the community. He’s become successful in boxing. He has inspired a lot of youngsters to use boxing to deal with anger,” says Bautista of his star pupil. No matter where Karim goes from here in boxing, he has accomplished the goals his trainer has set out for him. “The mission of my program, the Straight Forward Club, is to prevent youth and young adults from gang violence, substance abuse and incarceration. I feel like I accomplished that mission with Karim. The program that provided an alternative to the streets, through boxing, helped him save his life from the streets. To me that is a great accomplishment”

Mario Ortega Jr. can be reached at ortega15rds@lycos.com