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Philippines, 17 May 2024 |
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MORRIS EAST: LIFE AFTER BOXING By Emmanuel Rivera, RRT PhilBoxing.com Thu, 20 Dec 2018  Las Vegas, Nevada -- He was, and still is, the youngest Filipino to have won and lost the WBA world light-welterweight boxing championship. His meteoric rise and fall at age nineteen left us wondering what else he could have been. In this not-so-exclusive Philboxing.com interview at the Buffet@Asia in Las Vegas, a stone?s throw away from his base Mayweather Boxing Club, Morris East, with his newly-formed management team in tow, explains why he abruptly left the fight game and sheds light on his life after boxing. ?About 23 years ago, I decided to hang up my gloves; however, I still have the boxing fervor,? Morris reminisced, ?Boxing has already given me the opportunity to become a world champion which brought me to America where I finally met my father. That was enough for me (tama na yun).? I asked, ?You became the Philippine Games and Amusements Board?s 154-pound champion---it was another path to the world crown. Why didn?t you come back?? ?After I defended the Philippine light-middleweight belt against Robert Azumah in 1995, I wasn?t as motivated like before. The idea of another run for the world title crossed my mind. However, my subsequent managers and I were not compatible. Trust was lacking and training was deficient. Looking back, I didn?t know any better. I got out on a winning note.? I pressed, ?I remember your preparation for your first big fight against Pyung-Sub Kim of South Korea for the OPBF 140-pound title in his home turf. The detractors were your own countrymen.? ?My managers at the time Hermie Rivera and Vic Ancheta were with me while I was shadowboxing at the Rizal Memorial Stadium. A few onlookers chided me that there was no way I could beat a tough South Korean in Seoul.? ?Even the hardest, stalest bread could not stand up to hot steaming coffee? (Walang matigas na tinapay laban sa napakainit na kape),? East quipped and added, "The thought motivated me to get the title. KO 10, I think." I pressed further, ?Is that the philosophy (or metaphor) you apply in your current adventure as a trainer and manager?? ?We have a stable of fighters in the USA and in the Philippines that we train, manage and co-promote. I sometimes tell the ?Hot Java? story to encourage them. I think they get it,? Morris the trainer explains. ?I try to impart that to my business partners as well. The idea is to WIN, WIN, WIN in boxing and in life,? East the manager and aspiring promoter professed. Being a trainer at the Mayweather Boxing Club is an exclusive proposition that merits explanation. Said East, ?Mr. Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, the former light heavyweight world champion, encouraged me to be a full-time boxing trainer. He saw that the techniques I practice were scientific. I?ve worked briefly under his guidance which led me to train fighters like Chad ?Bad? Dawson, Nonito Donaire, Jr., Zab ?Super? Judah. I started out training amateurs and regular folks seeking self-defense moves and to get in shape.? ?The gym?s manager is also close to the Filipino boxing community. You know him as Mr. Cornelius Boza Edwards--- the same gent that fought Rolando Navarrete.? Morris excitedly explains his plans for managing and ultimately promoting fighters with the help of his All-Filipino business partners Godfrey Castro, Fabian Lindsay Ca?ete, Emmanuel Bagaoisan and Jeffrey Juqz. ?We formed the East Boxing Promotions in the Philippines, particularly Cebu and the Visayas, to discover and develop aspiring boxers. Amateurs and professionals alike are welcome. I hope that my story could influence them on what they can achieve. Our upcoming promotional ventures are what they call ?Pa-Boksing. Libre sa masa? (i.e.pro bono).? A mutual friend who was once a two-division champion once told me of Morris East?s benevolent side. East helped our dear friend who racked up three straight losses and then lost his wife and children. ?Let us keep him anonymous in this conversation, but yes he did stay with me when he was at his lowest. I?ve personally experienced being down and out too. At last check, we both managed to comeback from life?s knockdowns,? East intimated. Morris East?s boxing life and thereafter is an amalgam of the main characters Eddie Brown (fighter), Doc Carroll (trainer) in W.C. Heinz?s 1956 novel The Professional--a book my father treasured. The book?s narrator Frank Hughes poignantly observed? ?It is the fighter?s place. The dressing room and the gym and the ring are the fighter?s kingdom and in them the good fighter is supreme. He breathes and walks and talks in many places, but this is where he belongs, formed so right for this that he himself is not aware of it, and will never be until years after it is over and then it will come to disturb him that something has gone out of his life forever, not just the fights but something. The something is all of it.? 
Las Vegas Notes: Top Photo of East Boxing Promotions Team: (L-R) Godfrey Castro, Morris East, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad, Fabian Lindsay Canete, Emmanuel Bagaoisan. Bottom Photo (center): Courtesy of Mr. Nasser Khan of Las Vegas and the late Mr. Roque Yballa of Saratoga, California Click here to view a list of other articles written by Emmanuel Rivera, RRT.  |
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