I, for one, I am shocked and appalled that higher education officials in Texas, at least some of them, are shocked and appalled to think that drug dealers and other gangsters might cross the border to go see Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fight Irishman Andy Lee on June 16 at the Sun Bowl in El Paso. In fact, I haven’t been this shocked since a fight trainer named Billy Giles (Hector “Macho” Camacho and Paulie Malignaggi among his ex-pupils) stopped me as I was making my way to my press area seat at the Michael Dokes-Donovan “Razor” Ruddock heavyweight fight at Madison Square Garden in 1990. “Say hello to John Gotti,” the Harlem based trainer said to me. I stuck my hand out to shake the hand of the always Dapper Don and mumbled something about contacting the real life Godfather to pen a New York Post column about boxing only. Gotti and I never got that done but I was impressed by his custom made suit which looked to be a $10,000 model. Gangsters and boxing go together like peanuts, crackerjack and baseball games.
The first time Mike Tyson fought in Tokyo, there was a national scandal because so many “Yakuza” had prime ringside seats as Iron Mike pummeled Tony Tubbs. Their chopped off fingers evidently made the local mobsters easy to identify.
Back in the halycon days of Raging Bull Jake LaMotta, the Mob ran boxing. In fact, LaMotta actually threw a fight against Billy Fox when “the boys” so directed him to do so. There are some current day boxers who are managed by gangsters. And their initials are…HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL. As far as Young Chavez goes, he grew up in Culiacan, Sinaloa, a hotbed of drug cartel activity and his famous father once had a co-manager who was an infamous narcotrafficante. (Said cartel figure once showed up in Mexico City and threatened Don King’s life. That wasn’t so amazing or unusual except that this fellow did this to DK’s face. King engaged in a cursing contest with this ruffian and won the swearing battle on style points. This fellow later turned up somewhere near Tijuana dead of lead poisoning meaning too many bullets went into his body. When it comes to gangsters, trust me, DK knows the type going back to his Cleveland numbers racket days…) They say Chavez Jr.’s girlfriend is the wife of the son of some cartel VIP named Joaquin “Chapo” Guzman. There is said to be a $5 million reward out for Senor Guzman’s capture. That buys plenty of peanuts and crackerjacks. I say, so what? Gangsters and boxing is no problem as long as the former group is content to let the boxers handle the fighting inside the ring. Leave it to former Assistant US Attoney Bob Arum to leaven the situation with a bit of humor. During the weeklong drama about University of Texas officials at first refusing use of the Sun Bowl as the Lee-Chavez fight site and then relenting, Arum expressed no surprise that some fans would be nefarious types. “It sounds like the perfect place to arrest them,” Arum said. Octogenarian Arum was neither shocked nor appalled.
