Bamboozled Read online

  Not being aware that Benny earned his living in the Orient, enjoying the undefeated title of full contact Karate champion, neither Joey nor the U.S. had developed a full appreciation of his fighting style. Joey felt that even if he could not beat Urquidez, he would learn from the experience.

  That evening, Joey says he went out, stealing the stereo out of every car he found, borrowed $100 from Shondra, and walked into the Jet Center the next day with a bag full of stereos. He dropped it at the feet of Benny in the office, who was on the phone. Benny peeked in the bag, smiled, and pulled a cash roll from his pocket, “Let’s do this thing.”

  The dojo’s radio was blasting Marvin Gaye as Benny bowed and they touched gloves. As Joey began to box, he found Benny behind him. As he turned, Benny swept his front foot, sending him flying. As Joey caught air, Benny hit him with a spinning back kick to the chin. Joey says he remembers hearing the bones break as his jaw dropped. Joey woke up in the hospital with his jaw wired shut; Benny was sitting across from him. Joey wrote on his medical chart, “How did I go down? Did I go down with style? P.S: You have a light bulb out on the ceiling fixture!” Benny and Bobby couldn’t stop laughing.

  For the next three years, the Urquidez brothers and Bobby Chacon played a big role in Joey’s life; molding him to think and behave more like a pro fighter, but Joey remained arrogant and had a hard time with defeat. Joey began to use his cocaine habit as a way to diffuse the pain while fighting.

  While Shondra’s belly got bigger, Joey trained at the dojo. He claims he trained with fighters that would later become legends: Superfoot Bill Wallace, Ed Parker, and Chuck Norris. By the summer of 1976, Joey began teaching a beginners class for kids 7-14. He toured the country with Benny’s “LA Stars.”

  The Urquidez brothers were innovative in their incorporation of boxing from the waist up and Kempo from the waist down. The dance it created was known as Akata. This combination put their strategy decades ahead of other fighters, and it left them undefeated.

  Later that year, Benny and his family created “full contact Karate to the knockout” after getting disqualified from tournaments for hitting too hard. A 16-year-old Joey helped with the first full contact Karate match.

  Benny’s sister, Lilly, made history by going to Japan and becoming the first woman to be given a belt as the world’s full contact women’s champ.

  Joey claims that when he entered a disco with Manny Urquidez that the band would introduce them between songs, informing the crowd of their next fight.

  One night, after a day of working out, Boxer came by the dojo as Joey and Manny were getting ready for a weekend. They planned to go to Sunset and invited Boxer along for drinks and ended up eating burritos in East LA at Manuel’s. They were greeted with the three fated words that precede trouble, “Where you from?”

  Joey says he tried to explain that they had fights coming up and did not want any problems. The men asked again, “Where you from?” as they stepped closer. Joey claims that Boxer said, “Fuck this shit,” and pulled out a gun—shooting them both dead. Manny jumped in his car, and Joey ran to LA General Hospital, sitting in the bathroom; waiting. He called Benny, and as Joey stepped into Benny’s car, Benny said, “I don’t want to know shit.” Boxer was charged with first degree murder. Joey did not see him again for 20 years, but wrote him often.

  2

  Joey started making good money in 1976, fighting full contact and teaching doctors and lawyers how to protect themselves, plus working in his brother Luigi’s pizza shop. He claims to also have been running numbers for the bar next door.

  One day Joey received a call from his mother, who ordered him to bring his daughter by the house. Joey hadn’t seen his parents the previous year, but as he sat in the yard with his father, watching a young Sugar Ray Leonard on Wide World of Sports, his father bouncing Vida on his knee, his mother came outside, saying Joey had a phone call.

  It was from an official of the Amateur Athletic Union (AAU). Joey looked at his father and went inside to tell Mr. Tony Cerda, chairman of the boxing department, that he weighed 146 pounds. Cerda asked, “Want to fight for the nationals this coming weekend in Anaheim?” But Joey’s father, sitting next to him, told Cerda that Joey was still a juvenile.

  His father went back outside. Opening another beer and slowly shaking his head, his father tried to tell Joey that the fight was a setup. “They want you to fight for the nationals on television for a spot on the 1980 Olympic team?” It dawned on Joey that his father might think that he was not good enough. “They will use you and then toss you away.” Joey demanded his mother bring the baby outside and they left as his father called after them, “Run! That’s all you do.” Joey smiled and walked away, proclaiming. “At least I try and did not sell out my race and even my name!” Joey did not see his father again for 20 years.

  After hanging up the phone, Benny came to the mat where Joey was shadow boxing. He inspected the scar over Joey’s eye from receiving a head butt. Joey told Benny that Cerda called and asked if he could take the fight. Benny called his wife, Sara, and told her, Call the students and their parents. They have a road trip next week for Joey’s fight.

  Preferring to shadow box and move side to side, rather than train, Joey listened to music and visualized the fight in his mind. Benny told him, “Turn around and look at those people that believe in you.” It was one of Benny’s classic inspirational moments. Benny had told Joey that during the winter nationals he had tried to find fighters to beat Joey. “You need to be taken down a peg or two…The problem is, you beat them all!” According to Joey, Benny expected him to win the Olympics in a couple years and turn pro.

  Benny’s own popularity was soaring at the time. So when they arrived at the event center, Benny kept everyone at arms length, to be professional. They headed to the dressing room where it was a different scene than Joey was used to—kids dressed in silk robes with their names stitched on the back. Benny informed Joey that he was fighting Tony Cerda Jr., the event director’s son, a southpaw fighter (leads with his right hand), who hits hard. The fight appeared to be designed for the son to make the Nationals and a spot on the 1980 Olympic team.

  The referee came to Joey’s corner, checked his mouth piece and cup, and directed him to the middle of the ring. He then stated, “In the red corner, fighting out of Pomona, California, the two-time Golden Glove Champ, three time AAU Champ, and heading for the 1980 Olympic team—Tony Cerda, Jr. In the blue corner, fighting out of the Urquidez Brother’s Gym, in Los Angeles, California Junior Golden Glove Champ— Joey Torres.” Returning to the corner, Benny stuck in Joey’s mouthpiece and slapped him. Joey looked up, slapped his gloves, and heard, “Seconds out. Ding, ding!”

  Tony stepped back and got up on his toes, hitting with five punches that Joey did not block or return. For the first round, he tattooed with lefts and rights that had Joey’s head snapping back, and then to the left with rushing hooks. Joey claims they did not hurt and the kid had a weak punch. In reality, it was probably the effects of the cocaine. In the second round, Joey says he felt the flow, got up on his toes, and pounded his gloves together. Cerda hit Joey’s face with his right glove. Then Joey slid under the returned right, slipped to the left, and caught Cerda’s liver and kidney with a hook as he felt the wind go out of him. Joey stood up to throw his right, but Cerda was not there; his arms were around Joey’s waist as he slid to the canvas, and the referee entered on seven, eight, nine. Benny lifted Joey’s arms as the bell tolled and Joey heard “…and the new, Amateur Athletic Union Welterweight Champion—Joey Torres.”

  Joey says he looked into the audience and saw Tony Cerda Senior in shock. The caravan of students and friends were going crazy, rubbing it in on the locals. They went out to Denny’s and then Joey and Manny took off to party.

  At 15 years old, Joey admits his ego was out of control. He felt he could do no wrong and had no one to answer to. He would later speak to Mike Tyson about this, who pointed to himself and said, smiling, “That’s why I
’m broke.” As an amateur, Joey was not allowed to make money from boxing or accept money from sponsors.

  Joey spent the end of 1976 in Stockton, California, training with the light-heavyweight Alvaro Yaqui Lopez, who invited him to take his game to another level by training with Thai kickboxers. After Joey won the regionals and was making strides for the Nationals, the managers were on him as he entered the Jet Center, knowing he’d be big money once he won a major. With so few people looking out for the best interest of young fighers, it’s no wonder that so many develop big egos and get into serious trouble.

  Joey was fighting with the LA Stars, traveling, waking up in hotel rooms, not knowing what city he was in.

  Joey claims that while he watched Bobby Chacon getting his title shot, he noticed a kid about his age sit next to him. The smiling kid supposedly extended his hand and said in broken English that he was a fan of Joey’s, and his name was José Ramirez-Cardenas de Mexico.

  Joey says Ramirez claimed to be a manager and named fighters that Joey had never heard of. Ramirez saw Carlos and reached over to shake his hand, but Carlos ignored him. Ramirez supposedly went back to watching the fight and expressing an interest in managing Joey.

  According to Joey, their arrangement was that after the Olympics, they could turn professional, and Ramirez would pay Joey’s living expenses until they “made” it. Carlos Palomino, years later, describes the situation as “When [you’re a kid and] someone says to you, ‘Stick with me, I’ll make you a world champion,’ you tend to believe that.”

  Joey says Ramirez offered him fights in Mexico and “tough man” fights, and that they could keep it a secret. Joey says that as Ramirez got up to leave, he was handed a business card and some fifty dollar bills that “smiled up at him.”

  Joey began to add cocaine to his nasal spray to numb the pain of the blows. With this formula, he was a fairly unstoppable warrior, but it didn’t stop after his fights. As a sixteen year old, he began going out to clubs and doing coke at all hours and not sleeping for days.

  At this point in a boxer’s career—where they are a serious amateur—all of their time must go into training to compete and move up into the professional world, but without any way to pay their living. They are stuck in a moral and financial impasse. They can either be wealthy to begin with or are forced to find a way to make a living in addition to forty hours of training each week. Joey told his friend that he made a living as a boxer but investigators revealed that he worked at his brother’s pizza shop. If he had other sources of income, as he claims, it’s unclear.

  3

  In the spring of 1977 Shondra and their daughter Vida moved back to Santo Domingo without Joey, and he never heard from either one again, but Joey met a new girl in the doctor’s office while getting a B-12 shot. Her name was Dolly, and her family liked him. Her dad loved fighting, so Joey invited him to his next event in San Diego.

  His opponent was very tall, so as Benny yelled, “body!” Joey took to his opponents’ body with punches and kicks until he was crumpled on the floor and the referee raised Joey’s hand. At that time his record was 18-0, with 14 KO’s in full contact Karate, and 48-14 with 28 KO’s in the AAU.

  Joey claims that Ramirez approached him after the fight and handed him a card for the Beverly Hills Hotel, saying “Party tonight.”

  Later that week, Benny pulled Joey aside and informed him that it was time to get his own place to live. Joey moved into the Cecil Hotel on Main St. in downtown LA. His routine included buying a bowl of rice from Johnny’s shrimp boat, across the street from the world famous Main Street Gym, where managers would buy and trade boxers. By noon, Joey had his hands taped and would be hearing out managers in the gym. They started noticing Joey after he won the AAU fight the previous year. They offered cars, apartments, and money.

  Joey focused on sparring with professional champs while they were getting ready for their title defenses. Fighters from around the world came to the Main Street Gym in the 70s: Duran, Mardrano, Arguello, Ali, and Lopez.

  Joey claims Ramirez had paid his rent for a couple months at the Cecil, so he had the time to be present on 18th St. for all “street activities” or as he puts it, to “be gangster.”

  While Joey was suited to life in the ring, most of his problems occurred outside of it. One day, on his way to visit his mom, who had offered a surprise, Joey sat on the back of the bus. He says he was wearing his blue AAU jacket with his name and record stitched on the front, daydreaming of how far he’d come and thinking he had a chance of being on the 1980 Olympic team.

  He says he awoke to three men getting on the bus loudly at the Vine stop. It was typical of every thug in LA to walk to the back of the bus and that’s where this trio was headed when they locked eyes on him. The lead guy was almost on him as one of them was throwing fists in the air and pointing to him, demanding, “Where you from?”

  In one second, Joey had to punk out and say, “Nowhere,” or claim his residence and gang, but declining a fight wasn’t how Joey was wired. As soon as he claimed his territory, one of the men grabbed the chrome balance bars on the bus and leapt in the air, kicking Joey in the side of the head with such force that his head shattered through the window.

  Joey says he started to pass out but managed to reach for the buck knife in his belt while ducking the next kick, then planted the blade deep into his attacker’s stomach. Joey stepped over the body, advancing towards his buddies, as they appeared to contemplate whether to fight or run. Joey jumped off the bus on Vine and was arrested a few blocks away.

  Joey sat in the police station while the cops waited to see if the stab victim would survive or not.

  That evening, after providing a fake name and age to the cops, the call came that the guy would live and Joey would be charged with attempted murder for lacerating his liver. Bail was set and Joey says Ramirez sent his sister to bail him out. Later that week, Joey was arrested at the gym when someone told the cops his real name and identity as a minor. He spent the next few months in juvenile hall and says he thought about Shondra and Vida. Seventeen years old and living fast, Joey made a deal and was sentenced to 18 months in Camp Glenn Rocky, north of LA, where he had been sent before as a runaway.

  In a few weeks he had adjusted to his new surroundings. Joey ran in the morning and lifted weights in the evening. His mother visited with Dolly and her daughter Blanca, but then he remembered he had never learned what his mother’s surprise was. Bouncing Blanca on his knee, Joey’s mother rubbed Dolly’s belly and told him, “You’re gonna be a daddy, Son.” Joey looked at Dolly, who smiled and shook her head up and down. His mother grabbed Blanca and gave them an hour alone. Afterward, they laughed, and began writing everyday. She visited every weekend.

  In hindsight, Joey claims he grew up a lot during that winter of 1977. Dolly had gotten in contact with his other daughter and made him sell his car and send her money. Joey remained in good shape, excited to return to the ring. He planned to be released to Dolly, as she was an adult.

  But first Joey was called to the warden’s office for a special visit. Walking into the office, he saw his mom sitting, eyes swollen from crying. Dolly’s father stepped between them to hug Joey. He told Joey, crying, that Dolly and Blanca were gone. They had been electrocuted in the bathtub by short-circuited christmas lights.

  Joey was released early on a rainy January morning in 1978. He visited the graves of Dolly, Blanca, and his unborn. While Joey developed a lot of frustration towards the people in his life, he had lacked the requisite amount of time to have a falling out with Dolly, so he continues to remember her well.

  Joey began gaining weight and eventually expanded out of his weight class, losing his chance of going to the Olympics. He cites the loss of his loved ones as the reason, but admits he continued to use cocaine in the youth authority.

  Benny told him that there was something big coming in a few months and he was leaving for Japan to finalize the deal. Japanese fighters were challenging the LA Stars and Ameri
ca’s best to a full contact, no holds barred fight and invited Joey. This was to be his second to last fight and losing seven pounds, the newly-147-pound Joey agreed.

  In the meantime, Joey says Ramirez asked him to drive into Lancaster to recruit some youngsters for the Golden Gloves tournament. Joey says Ramirez was pissed off the entire drive—talking about how Joey screwed him over by screwing up his body. Joe claims Ramirez had setup deals that he had been counting on Joey for. Joey said they could still arrange some fights in Mexico, explaining that he was going to be 18 in a few months and wanted a major full contact fight.

  At the venue in Lancaster, Joey says he was cornered by the local TV crew, asking why he was not in the Nationals and if he quit boxing. Out of the corner of his eye, Joey saw his brother Luigi talking to a biker and pointing at him as Ramirez is laughing, counting bills, and handing them to the bartender. From the background, Luigi is giving Joey the left, right, signal. Then the biker was on top of him and Joey says he gave him numerous uppercuts while the biker tried to headbutt him. As the biker went on one knee, Joey says he grabbed the man’s hair and put a knee to his nose, wondering if they’d add this fight to his record.

  Joey says that Luigi was 5’4”, 300 lbs, with a cigar forever planted in his mouth that was bigger than his head. His style was straight out of a 40s gangster movie. In public school, Joey says he was visited by the FBI and shown pictures of his brother Luigi with Jimmy Ratianno, Frank Sica, Bill Bonnano, and Mr. Gambino.