Every year, Mark Heisler, who covers the NBA for the Los Angeles Times, pens an open letter to Donald Sterling, the beleaguered owner of the perennially woeful Los Angeles Clippers. In this annual column, he goes over the state of affairs of his sad-sack franchise and what might cure some of their ills.
Who knows what will happen to this Heisler staple, as it seems as though the Clips have now become LA’s best hoops squad and have set the foundation for a nice run. Maybe out of habit or tradition he will continue to make Sterling his public pen-pal.
This Saturday, while Jeff Lacy and Joe Calzaghe fight for super middleweight supremacy on Showtime and Miguel Cotto continues his rise on HBO, featherweight stalwart Juan Manuel Marquez will be facing Chris John for the WBA featherweight title at the Golden Gate Arena in Tenggarong City, Indonesia. It was just about two years ago that Marquez had come off-the-canvas three times to earn a dramatic draw against Manny Pacquiao in 2004.
Since then it’s been all downhill. He’s lost both his IBF and WBA belts, has become a forgotten man in the fertile landscape between 126-130 pounds and is generally an afterthought to most boxing fans.
The way Sterling had run the Clippers into the ground throughout much of his run as their owner, Marquez’s trainer/manager Nacho Beristain has seemingly done the same to Juan Manuel and his brother, Rafael, a bantamweight standout, in guiding their careers outside the ring.
So on behalf of myself, all Marquez fans, and most of all, Rich Marotta, who trumpeted his cause on the west coast in the late 1990’s like Max Kellerman did Zab Judah’s, I pen this plea to Mr. Beristain.
Dear Nacho Beristain:
You are a brilliant trainer, perhaps the best in the business. While many trumpet cornermen like Freddie Roach, Dan Birmingham and Emanuel Steward (and deservedly so) you don’t get nearly enough plaudits for your work with the Marquez boys, Daniel Zaragoza and Ricardo Lopez, among others. Perhaps it’s the language barrier which restricts you from conversing regularly with English speaking reporters that keeps you from getting your due as a trainer. But your talents as a teacher can not be denied in any language.
However (and this is a big however), while you may be the best cornerman in the sport, you might also be its worst manager. You don’t see Shelly Finkel training boxers, and based on recent results, you probably shouldn’t be managing boxers anymore.
I don’t know if you watch American football (I’m assuming you don’t) but I think it’s clearly evident to any observer that you need to take a cue from Paul Allen, the owner of the Seattle Seahawks, who relieved his coach, Mike Holmgren, of his duties as general manager of the team and just told him to concentrate on coaching his team on the field.
The result?
A near Super Bowl victory and the promise of a bright future. And all Holmgren will have to do is coach the players given to him. It’s all so simple.
Nacho (you don’t mind if I call you that, right?) I remember seeing your young, bright charge against Julio Gervacio at the Anaheim Pond on April 29th, 1996. It was one of the first fights I ever went to and it was evident that this guy was something special. He wasn’t even the main event that night – that distinction belonged to Nestor Garza, who was a promising prospect himself and eventually won the WBA 122-pound crown before fading from prominence quickly – but he stole the show in putting on an impressive display of counterpunching, stopping Gervacio in eight.
I was hooked.
This was a highly skilled craftsman, a master stylist with all the tools to succeed.
And being that you guys were promoted by Forum Boxing, I saw your rise up the rankings up close as you dispatched of guys like Freddy Cruz, Daryl Pinckney, Cedric Mingo, Alfred Kotey and Enrique Jupiter. Juan Manuel had done enough to earn the top rating in the WBO, whose champion was cash-cow Naseem Hamed, the darling of HBO by that time. Led by your number one supporter (no, not me, I’d be second) Rich Marotta, we all screamed bloody murder as the ‘Prince’ shamefully ducked your fighter with the help of the WBO while HBO acted like they didn’t know who he was.
You guys were forced to settle for an opportunity to win the WBA title against the awkward and reluctant Freddie Norwood in September of 1999. In a fight that I think you guys won, you lost a decision and Juan Manuel was dismissed as nothing more than a west coast creation by the non-believers.
But we knew better. You had the goods to work with and develop. With your teaching, Marquez would continue to improve, and as Forum Boxing went by the wayside, you signed him with Top Rank. Nacho, it seemed like a perfect fit, as they were a first-class organization that knew the Latin market and they could build attractions.
But before that, you turned down a chance to finally face Hamed in the summer of 2000 -citing a bad hand and a $400,000 payday that you deemed not suitable – and in your place, Augie Sanchez, of all people, proceeded to further expose Hamed as an HBO creation by bouncing him off the canvas like a basketball before getting stopped himself.
It seems that the caution and patience you teach your pupils is also mirrored in the decisions you make for them as their manager.
Eventually, under the auspices of Bob Arum’s company, your boxer would capture the IBF and WBA titles and earn recognition as one of the best prizefighters in the world. Unfortunately, the way you guys were overshadowed by Marco Antonio Barrera with the Forum, the same applied with Erik Morales at Top Rank. I felt for ya, Nacho. It seemed that perhaps Top Rank signed you guys up in some respects to keep your guy away from Morales.
But still, it was a successful run in many respects despite the underlying tension. At the same time Juan Manuel was gaining acclaim as a featherweight, Top Rank had moved Rafael to the top of the class in the bantamweight division. You can argue that you have shepherded the most successful brother duo in the history of boxing. You did it from the very beginning. You built these guys, made them what they were.
In 2004, you guys got that high-profile fight you had been yearning for against Pacquiao. In the aftermath of that thrilling draw, it seemed your charge had reached the next plateau that had been so elusive in the past. If there was ever a time a draw felt like a win, this was it.
After a rather dull title defense against Orlando Salido several months later, it looked like he was in line for a highly anticipated rematch with Pacquiao last spring. But while you were haggling over the $750,000 payday you would receive for that return bout, Arum would cut a deal for Morales to fight Pacquiao instead as you balked at the deal and insisted on twice that amount.
Nacho, this was managerial malpractice.
Morales and Pacquiao have since engaged in two classic (and lucrative) slugfests, with another huge windfall awaiting them in September.
You guys? Well, you took on Victor Polo in front of a near empty arena at the Mandalay Bay last May (on the undercard of the memorable first bout between Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo), but you still got a $300,000 paycheck for your man. But really, you lost out on a golden opportunity to get in the mix with the marquee names in the business. You believed you couldn’t take the Pacquiao rematch at that price. I think you couldn’t afford not to take it.
Since then, you have lost your belts as your relationship with Top Rank deteriorated to a point that they (or nobody else for that matter) didn’t even bother to bid on Juan Manuel’s purse bids, thus causing him to lose his titles.
Nacho, you have built a fighting machine, one that is universally respected and widely avoided. But your ‘managing’ (and I’ll use that term loosely) has made it easy on the folks who manage guys like Pacquiao, Morales and Barrera, because your own head-scratching decisions have made your fighter a non-entity.
He’s still one of the very best boxers in the game and a guy who will still get into Canastota. But in many respects, his career kinda reminds me of my all-time favorite football player, Eric Dickerson. Let me fill you in on who he is: this guy out of Sealy, Texas was the most graceful, elegant, and smooth runner I’ve ever seen. As a young lad who grew up in Southern California, I’d never miss a game on TV or listen to Bob Starr call his exploits on the radio. As big a Ram fan as I was, it was almost as important to me the amount of yards he had as it was the Rams winning.
Like Juan Manuel and his high guard and slanted stance (which you so ably instilled in him), Dickerson, with his goggles, neck roll, upright running style and distinct face-mask (which is now called the ‘Dickerson cage’), he had a special look to him.
It seemed as though he would be a lock to become the NFL’s all-time leading rusher by the time he was through playing.
I was such a big fan that I even bought his autobiography, ‘On the Run’ – it was written after his second complete season in the NFL – where he broke O.J. Simpson’s record with 2,105 rushing yards in a single season. Yeah, I was a fan alright, and I still have the book in near mint condition. I have most of your fighter’s bouts on tape as a tribute to him and have made sure that I wrote feature stories on your boxer for our website prior to his bouts. But right now, without a promoter, I don’t even know how to get in contact with Juan Manuel.
Dickerson made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and is one of the top five rushers all-time in the NFL. But like you guys, he had constant squabbles with management (over guess what?) which seemed to derail his true potential. He even had Ken Norton, of all people (I know you’ve heard of him, Nacho), as his agent for a short spell. But he always felt he was being shorted.
Nacho, you had Arum. Dickerson had Georgia Frontiere and John Shaw.
Hearing that you had negotiated yourself and Juan Manuel out of the Pacquiao rematch was akin to Dickerson getting traded on Halloween night in 1987 during my sophomore year at Montebello High. I can still remember where I was and what I was doing as ESPN ran a special news update with Jim Gray interviewing my favorite #29 on his way to Indianapolis. (Hey, it’s not like JFK’s assassination, but it was still pretty traumatic if you ask me.)
Nacho, both careers may have forever lost their chance at fulfilling their true greatness with those lost opportunities. Juan Manuel fighting in Indonesia is like seeing Dickerson in an Atlanta Falcons uniform.
What’s worse is that Arum, who’s still a businessman to the very end, was willing to make amends and buy this fight so that he could bring it to the States, get your fighter paid about the same amount as the Polo bout and give him the exposure he deserves.
But Nacho, why did you completely ignore Arum’s olive branches? Because the last I heard, your fighter’s purse for his weekend fight – which comes against a very solid guy in John on his turf – is around $30,000.
We’re begging you, on behalf of our readers like Kirk and Daryl (two of your biggest fans, who will go to any lengths to see you fight – and have), Marotta, the rest of his followers (if there are any left) and most of all, Juan Manuel himself, do the right thing.
Make amends with Arum, or reach out to a Gary Shaw, who has expressed great interest in working with both Marquez brothers, or any other promoter that is competent. But most of all, step down as their manager; they deserve as much. They’ve worked hard, been loyal to a fault, produced in the clutch and now that their primes are upon them, they deserve better than what they’ve been given by you as a manager.
As for their training?
Hey, they’ve already got one of the very best there ever was. Nothing should change in that regard.
Good luck this weekend, all of us will be checking the internet to see how you guys did.
Yours truly,
Steve Kim and the rest of Juan Manuel Marquez’s fans (especially Marotta, Daryl and Kirk).
