HOLLYWOOD – It’s a quiet day for Brian Viloria, who is less than 72 hours before the biggest fight of his life. His face is hard and deep with focus. He hasn’t eaten solid food in almost 24 hours because he needs to lose another pound before he weighs in for Saturday night’s WBC junior flyweight (108 pounds) championship bout against Eric Ortiz at Staples Center.
He works out for an hour with his trainer, Hall of Famer Freddie Roach, at the Wild Card Boxing Club. There’s nothing more Roach will teach him before the fight.
But there’s a challenge he must face, and it’s harder than any punch Ortiz can throw.
Two months ago, Viloria nearly killed a man in the ring. This is his first fight since.
“Thank God he is OK,” Viloria says. “If it had gone the other way, I don’t know if I could’ve continued in the sport.”
He thinks back to May 28 at Staples Center, a fight against journeyman Ruben Contreras. When the bout was over, Contreras slipped into a coma.
“We all know what the risks are when we step into the ring,” Viloria continues. “It’s always in the back of your head, and you try to prepare yourself if something like that ever happens. But when it happens, it puts everything into question as to why you’re in the sport.”
Viloria, 24, a Studio City resident, has formed a relationship with Contreras in the months since their bout. He prayed for Contreras and reached out to his family. And he struggled to make sense of it all.
A few weeks after the fight, Viloria signed to fight Ortiz on the “Million Dollar Lady” Lucia Rijker-Christy Martin card July 29 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Viloria tried to block out the doubts as he trained for the bout. Four days before the fight, Rijker suffered an Achilles’ tendon injury, and the card was canceled.
“You know, I kind of think of that as a blessing in disguise,” Viloria says. “Because now (Contreras) is OK.”
Contreras came home last month from Rancho Los Amigos rehabilitation center in Downey, but he will never fight again. He and his wife were invited by Viloria to attend Saturday’s fight.
They accepted.
Roach, who has trained Viloria since 2000 – right after Viloria competed in the Sydney Olympics – said he was worried how Viloria would respond after the Contreras fight.
Former lightweight champion Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini went into a deep depression after South Korean Duk Koo Kim died five days after their 1982 fight.
Gabriel Ruelas, a super featherweight champion from Sylmar, was never the same after Jimmy Garcia died 14 days after they fought in 1995. Ruelas, once one of the sport’s top young fighters, lost five of his final 13 bouts.
“Brian is a sensitive kid, so I was a bit worried at first, but it’s one of those things that, unfortunately, happens in boxing,” said Roach, also an accomplished fighter. “It’s part of the sport, and we all know that. We all assume that risk as fighters. It could happen to us as well as anybody.”
It wasn’t supposed to happen to Viloria.
For the past 10 years, he’s been a “Golden Boy” in the sport, groomed to be a champion. At 14,he was a junior national champion. The governor of Hawaii, his home state, asked him to dinner.
He graduated high school in three years with a nearly 4.0 grade-point average and a SAT score that would make an Ivy Leaguer proud. He earned a four-year full scholarship to box at the University of Northern Michigan but needed only three years to finish his degree in broadcast journalism. He graduated with a 3.8 GPA.
“Brian doesn’t need to be a boxer,” said his father, Ben, wholives with him when he’s training for a fight. “But he loves it so much.”
Viloria won a world amateur championship, made the Olympic team at 18 and was coveted by the sport’s top promoters when he turned professional in 2000.
Every fight is carefully selected and planned to advance his career. He has won all 17 of his professional bouts, 11 by TKO, and become a celebrity at home in Hawaii and in the Philippines, the country of his parents’ birth.
In 2002, he was invited to dine at the White House when Philippines President Gloria Arroyo made a state visit.
When he’s done with boxing, Viloria says he wants to be a movie director. In his spare time, he shoots digital videos.
“He’s a cut above,” said Gary Gittelsohn, who has managed Viloria since he turned pro. “I’ve never met anyone quite like him in the boxing business. … He’s intelligent, sensitive, a phenomenal athlete.
“When I first met him at the (1999) World Championships in Houston, I knew he was going to be special. Not a lot of professional scouts look at amateurs in the lower-weight divisions, because there’s not a lot of money there. But when I saw him fight, I thought, ‘If there’s going to be a fighter who captured the public’s attention the way (former world light flyweight champion) Michael Carbajal did, it would be a guy like Brian.’ “
If Viloria wins Saturday, his next opponent could be WBC flyweight (112 pounds) champion Jorge Arce. It would be one of the best lower-weight-class fights in years.
He must first get past Ortiz, a good fighter – but Viloria’s time, he believes, is now.
“Everything I’ve been working for is coming now into this one fight,” he says. “Fighting for a world title is what I’ve been working for my whole life.
“I’ve been through a lot leading up to this fight. You prepareyourself, and it all just comes down to one fight.”
And, most important, Contreras will be ringside, watching.
Ramona Shelburne, (818) 713-3617
