5:45 AM ? I wake-up, drag myself to the computer, log onto my e-mail and find a message from Boxing Confidential writer John Chavez. The main theme of his email is, ?Ricardo, write something for the website, you do not write anymore.?
4:45 PM ? A few message are littering my voice mail. Upon checking them, one is from Mr. Chavez. Again, saying, ?Ricardo, write something.?
7:33 PM ? Winding down now, I log on to the Internet and surf the web. Of course, Chavez is on the instant message program egging me, insulting me in an attempt to, ?write something!?
I never knew that John loved my writing so damn much. While our maniacal man from San Fran’ can crank out three or four articles a day from his ?job?, I actually work. Add in the responsibilities of a family and my time is tight. At the end of any given night I feel like a restless zombie going through the motions.
Not the ideal manner in which to scribe an article for Boxing Confidential.
As I write this (7:58 PM), my eyes are heavy with sleep and sporting some really neat dark colored bags under them. Recently a co-worker asked me if I had been punched in the eye, I wish. ?
?Sorry Mr. Joe Schmo,? I say, ?these are not battle scars from a fight, their the battle scars of life.?
My daughter, three years old, is running around the living room doing wild kicks and screaming, ?Pink Power Ranger! Pink Power Ranger!,? at the top of her lungs. Meanwhile my wife is studying for an upcoming exam. The kitchen is full of dirty pots and pans and I am so tired, that I really don’t care. Maybe if a rat climbed over the kitchenware, I might then become concerned and wash the dishes.
Though exhausted, there is a shimmer of hope off in the distant weekend for some uncontrolled fun. A four hour drive away from Los Angeles, California is a shining diamond in the sandy heat of Nevada. Filled with tourists pissing away their barely above minimum wage salaries in slot machines, Las Vegas is my escape.
Friday night I will drop my child off at my mothers and disappear. I will turn in my shirt, tie, and slacks for t-shirt, jeans, and sneaker. I will be covering one of the most highly anticipated rematches in recent boxing history for one of the oddest websites in boxing history.
Stumbling into Vegas around 12:00 pm, having trekked in a dirty Chevy Trailblazer along with wife and evil twin sister. Leg weary and with sore back, from driving, everything will be okay the minute I step into the cool air conditioned world of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. The smell of cigarettes and sound of slot machines make everything okay.
From there on out, who knows where the adventure will take me. Maybe I corner some long forgotten boxer for a quick interview to be later broadcast on Boxing Confidential Radio. Quite possibly, I will shot all sorts of random video footage that won’t make it to the website. I have tape after tape of footage and interviews that I never got around to editing and putting on the site. If fans of Man of the Street are lucky, Chavez and I could pump out one of those segments. But I cannot promise anything, a weekend in Vegas has a life of its own.
Funny thing is, the event I am covering, Marco Antonio Barrera’s quest for revenge against Manny Pacquiao, will ultimately remind me that Las Vegas is a nothing but a mirage of mindless fun that postpones the responsibilities back at home.
I am 32 years old and have followed Barrera from the early days to now, his final fight. When I first start watching his fight, I was a young punk, 21 years old. The world was my oyster and nobody could tell me different, kind of like Barrera at the time.
Back in those days, the Baby Faced Assasian, was an offensive Juggernaut. His style consisted of forward movement and left hooks to the body. To hell with boxing, side to side movement, or any other refined technical mastery. Marco was sure that his offense would equal or better any thing his opponent could bring to the ring.
Of course things changed, they always do.
Barrera faced reality. He suffered loses, he bounced back, he switched up his style, he lost again, he bounced back. Now, he faces his fiercest challenge, with the disadvantage of age against a man who is the ultimate human representation of energy.
When Barrera locks horns with Pacquiao on Saturday night, it will be a celebration of a decade of life for me. Ten years where I followed one of the most exciting and versatile fighters of the era and struggled with the my own ups and downs.
Win lose or draw, Marco will take my mind of the troubles and reality of life for a few moments, like he always has. For that, win, loss, or draw, I say, ?Viva Barrera! Y Gracias!?
