By Norm Frauenheim-
PHOENIX – Going the distance is more than another cliché for Ray Beltran. It’s life. He’s fought 12 rounds for a title. He’s endured another 12 against feared Terence Crawford. He’s gone 12 and wound up with nothing more than frustration at feeling as though he had been robbed. Within the ropes, there’s always been one more. Bouts start. Bouts end.
Outside those ropes, however, there’s one fight that continues. Beltran is winning that one, too. His U.S. immigration process is further along than it has ever been. His manager, Steven Feder, said Beltran has qualified for his work permit and his travel permit. He’s waiting to receive those documents.
His application includes an important addition for an outstanding accomplishment, the World Boxing Organization’s lightweight title. Now, he’s waiting on a date for an interview with an immigration official, probably in Phoenix where he’ll defend that title Saturday night against Puerto Rican challenger Jose Pedraza at Gila River Arena in suburban Glendale in an ESPN-televised bout.
After the expected interview, Feder says he’s one step from acquiring a green card, a legal title that represents some security in a thoroughly unpredictable world. The long, winding labyrinth through process and bureaucracy appears to be as close to finished as it can be. But don’t tell that to Beltran. For him, it’s an ongoing quest and still a powerful source of motivation.
“I won’t feel like I’m fully free until I’m fully legal,’’ Beltran said Wednesday in 100-degree temperatures at Michael Carbajal’s 9th Street Gym.
Beltran’s first defense of a title he won in February is about a lot of things, of course. At one level, it’s about home. He arrived in Phoenix from his native Mexico in the late 1990s, but left to live in Detroit with late Hall of Fame trainer Emanuel Steward and then to Los Angeles for a long gig as Manny Pacquiao’s primary sparring partner. But he liked life in the desert, even summer those temperatures that had everyone searching futilely for a breeze Wednesday. The heat and the city suit him. He wears a logo with the town’s symbol, a mythic bird, on his shorts and T-shirts.
The message is clear: Phoenix is where Beltran (35-7-1 21 KOs) intends to make a stand for himself and his family against the skilled Pedraza (24-1, 12 KOs). Along the way, he could get a shot at a good payday. Beat Pedraza and it looks as if he might get a career-high check against Vasiliy Lomachenko, Crawford’s main challenger in the pound-for-pound debate.
But turning that dream into reality is still a fight for the 37-year-old, who found himself back in the gym where he sparred with Carbajal before Carbajal finished his Hall of Fame career with an 11th-round stoppage of Jorge Arce in 1999.
Beltran made a vacant title his own in his last outing against Paulus Moses in Reno by going that familiar distance despite an injury to his left hand. The bout was difficult, yet the motivation was never absent. Beltran could hear it from his cornermen, who shouted ‘’Green card, Green card” in the later rounds. A victory over Pedraza, he says, will put him that much closer to a legal title worth more than an acronym-sponsored belt ever could.
“It’s there, right there, but I still have to fight for that green card,’’ said Beltran, who says his next step is to acquire citizenship. “Winning Saturday would be like some insurance on what I’ve been fighting for, fighting for a long time.’’
