Laguna didn?t plod or charge aimlessly; Laguna glided, juked and jived his opponent offering a free shot and then immediately retracting the offer?
?Ismael was the sweetest kid I ever met,? said Ortiz, 38 years later. ?He was like a kid. But the son-of-a-bitch, once he stepped into the ring, he was different.?
It?s almost as if the chant, Tee-GRAY, Tee-GRAY, can still be heard from Panama City to deep in the throes of Chiriqui, a province in the interior portion of the country, when the legend enters the arena. To some he is merely Ismael, but most in Panama refer to him as Tigre, a nickname he was granted in a butcher shop where he drank the blood of cows after he skinned them. Having witnessed the powerful history of the Panama Canal, in this country composed of nine provinces and two Comercas (Indian territories) there is only one Ismael Laguna.
During the early 60?s and through to the late 70?s, fighters like Antonio ?Buche? Amaya, Medina, Jesus Santamaria, and earlier greats like Isidro Martinez all defined the typical Panamanian stylist. Although not one of these spirited pugilists would ever win a world title, Amaya would earn the nickname ?Campeon Sin Corona? due to the fact that he was robbed on two different occasions in title bouts with Hiroshi Kobayashi. Despite the suffocating provincialism, Martinez was tabbed as the ?most beautiful boxer he?d ever seen? by Laguna. Back then, people looked to Laguna to make up for the heartache suffered by those who came before him. While the other talented Colon natives tip-toed along boxing?s periphery it was with Laguna ? who would defeat Carlos Ortiz on April 10, 1965 for the first world title captured inside the country?s confines ? that boxing became permanently ingrained in the people?s mindsets.
?There were many places that in Maranon, not boxing gyms, but places where people were starting to box. In the yards of houses, people would set up rings and hold boxing matches,? said Nestor ?Plomo? Quinones, longtime trainer of Roberto Duran. ?They would set up rings outside these wooden houses and would set down wooden planks where the canvas would be, and then wrap round the ropes. Then, people would come and would stage boxing matches. It wasn?t a very big ring with many dimensions, but it was big enough to hold matches.?
While Laguna grew up fighting in Colon, Ortiz didn?t have boxing on his radar. Playing a form of ?Broadway Boxing? in the streets of Puerto Rico, there was a time when Ortiz never thought of the sport as more than a frivolous activity to pass the time.
?In Puerto Rico we used to fill up (Mustela) coffee bags and we used to put them on, tie them up and we used to fight with them, like I was Broadway boxing,? he said. ?We just fooled around and to have something to do, we invented things.?
Arriving in the sport through a New York Boys Club in 1947, Ortiz followed the pitter patter of the punching bag into an amateur career, and soon enough a burgeoning professional career. Ortiz?s formal introduction to the sport came in a sports bar watching Joe Louis and Jersey Joe Walcott with his father, but it wasn?t until the opportunity to actively participate that boxing became more than a show. Paying a penny a day to stay active in the Boys Club, Ortiz?s membership would pay dividends years later. Not one to get caught in the lure of the streets, Ortiz made the Club his new home.
?It was the most beautiful club I?d ever seen,? Ortiz recalled. ?It had a billiards room, everything you could want. The director took me upstairs to the basketball gym, I said, ?I am too little.? Then, I heard a noise from somewhere. I started paying attention. It was a kid upstairs punching the light bag. Boom, boom, and I said I got to see where that punch is coming from. We went upstairs and Archie Martella was there and I said I want to learn how to punch the bag, ?It was the most beautiful noise I?d ever heard.??
The noise turned from a curiosity to an obsession. It didn?t take Ortiz long before he won the world lightweight title in 1962 after a stint as the light welterweight champ. Now, he was on a plane to Panama with trainer Teddy Benton with the hope of defying this young, unknown Panamanian. Laguna was the one man who could strike, then split, leaving his opponent throwing listless offerings. This was the same man who they made wear white boxing gloves during training sessions, because no one could believe the damage he was doing in the ring.
And this type of style didn?t gibe with what Ortiz, or anyone, expected.
?I didn?t know anything about him,? said Ortiz from a restaurant on 21st Ave in Manhattan. ?When I signed for the fight, I knew that we were going to Panama and we were going to fight Ismael Laguna. He had fought all his fights in Panama, so I never saw him. It was a mystery. I didn?t know his style, but that?s the way it was in my fighting days, I didn?t care to see the guy. I used to go all over, when I stepped into the ring, that?s where I saw the fighter.?
Ortiz did run into Laguna in a gym to hype the fight. They would take photos together, maybe talk to some local journalists. It marked the one time that Ortiz received a frame of reference for the man he would be facing.
?We went to this gym in a beautiful hotel, and I said, ?This is nothing where I?m staying.? And I?m thinking that I?m the champion and I?m supposed to be the big shot. When I went to see him, he was at the Sheraton or something,? said Ortiz. ?When I see this kid he was moving around the kid, you couldn?t see him because he was moving so quickly. I was thinking, ?Oh God what did I get into?? But he was very skinny, and he wasn?t built like a fighter. He was fast and tall and he had everything.
?He was something that I did not expect to see. And I knew I was going to have a hard time. But I trained for the best, and I saw how he was. That was all I had to see. I wasn?t going to be surprised when I got into the ring.?
Both fighters were respectful, and kind, never saying a bad thing about one another in the pre-fight activities. While Laguna?s idol was Isidro Martinez, Ortiz didn?t have a man he looked up to. As he put it, ?I always wanted to be Carlos Ortiz. I never wanted to be anyone else.? One thing was clear: Laguna?s speed and movement concerned Ortiz. Laguna didn?t plod or charge aimlessly; he didn?t follow or chase; no Laguna glided, juked and jived his opponent offering a free shot and then immediately retracting the offer.
Early on, Ortiz was forced to adapt.
?I got a big surprise because he was better than what I thought,? recalled Ortiz. ?I had a big problem in front of me and the fight started and I started boxing him and looking for ways to counter his moves and do what I wanted him to do. And he wouldn?t do it. I was the aggressor and he was the aggressor and he would counter everything that I threw at him.?
Laguna was in the midst of becoming an overnight hero; somewhere a 15-year old Duran was watching in awe, thinking, ?I?m next.? From the first to the final round, Laguna cut off the ring, took chances that he accurately computed in his mind beforehand, and beat Ortiz to the punch.
?This was happening round after round, and it was a helluva fight,? said Ortiz. ?It was a fast fight and exciting, and every round I tried to dominate him at times. At times I kind of succeeded and at times he got the best of me. I was worried. Every round I came back and asked my trainers how I was doing. They just told me everything was going well and I was winning the fight. But I didn?t see it that way.?
Conversely, Laguna stayed true to his gameplan.
?Ortiz would hit and then hold me?. I?m not ever tired in there,? said Laguna years later watching the replay at a pizza place. ?My trainer told me I was winning and to keep pressing the action.
When the final bell sounded, Panama finally had its champion, and Laguna had taken the soul of Panama Brown, the missed opportunities of Antonio Amaya and Isidro Martinez, the sorrow of Sammy Medina, along with the hopes and dreams of every man or boy who?d ever stepped into a Colon Gym and threw a jab, and carried them into the ring that cool night.
?Ismael was the sweetest kid I ever met,? said Ortiz, 38 years later. ?He was like a kid. But the son-of-a-bitch, once he stepped into the ring, he was different.?
He was different. He still is. And somewhere in Panama I can almost hear the chants far in the distance: Teegray, Teegray?. Teegray. They never seem to end.
