By Bart Barry-
We were in Carson, Calif., to celebrate Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez for the joy he brought us through a spectacular career predictably obscured in the United States by his tiny stature while properly celebrated in his homeland of Nicaragua, homeland of Alexis Arguello.
Santa Monica is not like Los Angeles, though it is such a joyful place, with its gaudy pier and mix of wealth and homelessness, so unlike my decades’ old and enduring dislike of Los Angeles, it made me reconsider entirely my thoughts of Los Angeles as shallow and stubborn, sunken in envy or frugality or unseemly selfseriousness.
Wisaksil “Srisaket Sor Rungvisai” Wangek, the Thai superfly imposter who stole Chocolatito’s belt in March after prepping for his match with the world’s greatest prizefighter by whupping three consecutive debutants in the second half of 2016, rounding off gently a year of five tussles with opponents whose aggregate record, 15-24 (9 KOs, 19 KOs-by), hardly fitted him for confrontation with Gonzalez (46-0, 38 KOs), actually was no imposter at all and actually didn’t steal from Gonzalez in March but rather took.
Access to prizefights remains this job’s only compensation, which makes 2016’s tack of writing a weekly column and getting credentialed for no fights simply daft, and if the end of 2017 doesn’t see a proper remedy or resolution to make 2018 better still, it reminds this much: There be no better form of compensation for writing about boxing than access to boxing and no better way to rekindle interest either.
Chocolatito got butted oftenly by Sor Rungvisai in their first match and complained about it, too, uncharacteristically, and some of us incorrectly saw it as an abiding fixation on sportsmanship, while more of us saw his complaining as tactical, and only a few of us – including, obviously, Sor Rungvisai – saw it correctly for what it was: an anxious concession to fragility.
It’s not often I converse the duration of a threehour flight with a rowmate but September’s mate was deeply attractive and comfortable, and she said something about Santa Monica reminiscent of something similar a rowmate said on a Peruvian train bound for Ollantaytambo in August: “The best places in the world to visit have a hippie-ish vibe.”
The Friday weighin was too far from LAX to justify what plane-to-gate-to-shuttle-to-rentalcar-to-freeway-to-brakelights stuttershuffle it required of someone flying from Texas on a latemorning fare, and a recollection of that selfsame stuttershuffle unrewardingly performed for Vazquez-Marquez 3’s weighin, nine years before, kept me from eyewitnessing Gonzalez’s unblinkered staredown with the unblinking Sor Rungvisai.
There’s another compensation for this job, come to think of it – the appreciation of one’s peers.
The ugliness and downtime of 2016, with its plethora of PBC matches worse than mere downtime (as Samuel Johnson once said of sailing, “being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned”, so were PBC broadcasts like downtime with a chance of feeling guilty for not watching), afforded, however, a chance to revisit and visit happily dozens of Chocolatito matches that didn’t happen on American airwaves but entertained beautifully on YouTube uploads from Managua, while writing howsoever many parts of an unplanned “Chocolatito City” series whose title borrowed gratefully if inexplicably from Big Daddy Kane’s 1993 medley (which itself borrows a punchline from Muhammad Ali, the man on whom Kane modeled his career).
I remember most fondly about the logistics of September’s trip upgrading my rental to a ridiculous Dodge Challenger, obnoxious American muscle made in the climactic throes of obnoxious American muscle, a car whose Sport mode made the car seemingly no quicker – as any quicker than default mode mightn’t be street legal – but significantly louder, and driving that car, with its surprisingly excellent handling and shockingly good fuel efficiency, all the way from Carson to Malibu to see the sunrise at El Matador State Beach, still marks the wisest thing I’ve yet done on a fight morning, in 12 years of trying.
We were there to see Chocolatito avenge his record’s first blemish, yes, but we were also there for the opportunity of it, if we were honest: it would be wondrous to be ringside for a great card that culminated with a prime Chocolatito wrecking the Thai interloper Sor Rungvisai, but it would be more essential still to be present for a reduced Chocolatito’s mainevent finale in the United States on HBO.
Cliff Rold, a writer I’d not met but whose knowledge I admire, happened over during the undercard and we affirmed for each other our belief Chocolatito’d prevail while addressing the possibility that if we were sure he’d prevail both of us mightn’t’ve made the trip crosscountry to see it – “I hope I’m wrong,” I think I said about the possibility of Sor Rungvisai simply having Chocolatito’s number, “but if I were sure I’m wrong, I’d probably not be here.”
Chocolatito, the gorgeous dervish who enchanted aficionados with his style and craft, a volume puncher with power, a boxer whose defense was his activity and footwork, carried his balance and power upwards to 112 pounds from 104 1/2, what he weighed the day before winning his first title at minimumweight, with what ease and grace only genius reliably shows.
So pleasant and layered were the sensations of Santa Monica I began googling from the pier “hippiest places in each state” and found, in a happy accident, Texas’ consensus choice is San Marcos, not Austin, both nearer San Antonio and more accessible.
What happened in Sor Rungvisai-Gonzalez 2, instantly, as I remember it, was Sor Rungvisai’s every punch moving Chocolatito, especially the ones Chocolatito blocked – the universal sign of a physical mismatch regardless of what the Friday weighin scale opined.
What I didn’t know when I began covering matches from ringside, when I foolishly interpreted my pressrow position as a commentary on my merits as a writer, when I thought credentialing reflected something different from clickcounts or a seat in auxiliary meant you were inadequate as a craftsman, I know now: Enjoy any seat removed from a power outlet – you experience the same fights without the artificial stress of a deadline.
Bart Barry can be reached via Twitter @bartbarry
