Eli Karon ekaron@media.ucla.edu
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By Eli Karon
ekaron@media.ucla.edu
Entering the Wild Card Boxing Club on Vine Street in Hollywood
is like walking into a wall of blood, sweat, tears and
dreams. The club is owned and run by 42-year-old Freddie
Roach, an ex-fighter who retired at the tender age of 27.
Roach knows a thing or two about fighting. Growing up in the
projects of Boston, he literally fought his way out of the
neighborhood.
“My dad was a fighter, so it was part of growing up in my
family,” Roach said. “I started when I was 6 years old,
so it was a part of life. I had a ring in my backyard instead
of a swing set.”
Roach opened his gym six years ago, and it has quickly become
one of the most distinguished and effective gyms in the greater
L.A. area. His arms are tattooed and he wears glasses over his
gray eyes, hiding thick scars and thicker scar tissue. His sandy
blond hair pokes out of his baseball cap as he talks placidly about
his childhood, seemingly at peace with his life.
OSCAR ALVAREZ/Daily Bruin Eli Karon receives
training from Macka Foley at Hollywood’s
Wild Card Boxing Club.
Roach allowed me to train at his gym with one of his trainers, a
hysterical character by the name of Macka Foley. While the training
was minimal, the stories Foley told were priceless.
Wild Card Boxing Club is the same gym where former world
champion boxers Michael Moorer, Johnny Tapia and James Toney train.
So what was a 5-foot-7 stick from Santa Cruz doing in this place?
My only explanation is that my editors hate me.
A few minutes after I walked into the gym, Foley taped my
hands. In the process of doing so, he mumbled something about
the ability to tell if a fighter is good based on his hand wrap. He
then started me off by having me jump rope for about six minutes.
Six minutes of jumping rope is not easy. In fact, I was sweating
like Butterbean doing a Richard Simmons routine.
The workout was about one-eighth of what Foley’s fighters
do – and it left me with sore calves, newfound respect and a
T-shirt so wet it could have won any contest this side of
Cancun.
The experience continued when speaking with Roach and Foley
about their boxing careers. Roach told me in his monotone voice
about the beginning and end of his professional career. “I
retired when I was 27, but I turned pro when I was 17,” Roach
said. “I had a 10-year career.”
Over the course of his career, Roach fought in 150 amateur
fights, compiling a record of 141-9. He battled through 54 pro
fights and competed in the 1976 Olympic trials. He has faced three
world champions, including the legendary Hector Camacho. Though he
never won the title, Roach came close. He earned small-time money
by today’s standards while suffering the consequences of
boxing.
“You know, you get a broken nose, a broken rib, stuff like
that,” Roach said.
Then he said something that betrays his calm demeanor and his
monotone voice.
“I ended up with Parkinson’s disease from too much
trauma,” Roach said. “But you know, that may have
happened without boxing. You never can tell, so I’m not going
to blame anything. I mean, I picked the sport; nobody held a gun to
my head.”
Roach leads a much different life now than he did 20 years ago.
Instead of enduring daily workouts and jabs to the face, he endures
daily treatments for his disease by taking oral medication.
“It’s a pain in the ass, but what are you going to
do?” Roach asked.
He can be called a radical and is just as fierce a competitor
today as he was when he was beating his opponents
unconscious. Throughout the course of our discussion, he said
some heavyweights are lazy, called Roy Jones, Jr. cowardly and even
went so far as to say, “I was okay, I tried hard.”
I wouldn’t step into the ring with him today, because he
would undoubtedly beat my ass. This is pretty stupid because I
stepped into the ring with Foley, a hulking man with wise eyes and
a large head of closely shaved hair. With a daughter at Princeton
and a life in the ring, the man has stories to last a lifetime.
Foley’s boxing resume reads like a hybrid of dark comedy
and serious fiction. In a matter-of-fact voice, he tells me that
his boxing career began in 1965 at the age of 14. He turned pro at
17, had three amateur fights, joined the Marine Corps and went to
Vietnam. In Vietnam he got shot in the head, was discharged and
started boxing again. He had 65 more fights after getting shot in
the head, everywhere from South America to Europe.
“I was like a journeyman,” Foley
said. “Have gloves, will travel. I wasn’t always
in the best of shape, but I made a living. That’s all
I’ve done all my life – be in the fight game. I’ve
never had a job, never done anything but boxing.”
Foley’s first fight was a six-round bout, and he fought
for a whopping $60. Granted, this was his lowest payday, but
the man is no Evander Holyfield. The most he ever made for a
fight was $2,500.
“I never really trained that hard,” Foley said.
“I’m kind of a nut, but I love the
game. There’s no money in boxing. You don’t get in
boxing for the money, you get in for the passion, you get in for
the love.”
Foley responds to questions with bluntness those years of travel
and being treated like a side of frozen beef in Rocky has
created.
“People ask, “˜How come you’re not
married?’ Who the fuck would marry a guy like me?”
Foley said. “I’m not going to support them.”
His daughter doesn’t fight, though she enjoys watching
Foley train his boxers. He wants her to be a doctor so she can
treat his dementia. After she’s done with his dementia, she
can start in on my ruined calf muscles.
Boxing is not easy. In fact, it is quite possibly one of
the most grueling physical activities in which you can participate.
Wild Card Boxing Club provides workouts for anyone with a pulse,
from UCLA students to world champions.
As long as you’re training in the gym, you’re
probably fine, but Roach did give this warning about the dangers of
a career in the sport of boxing: “If you’re not 100
percent into the sport, go do something else. It’s
dangerous. People get killed in this sport.”