SUGAR RAMOS

A true story

(c) Elio Ruiz, 2004-08

Ultiminio Ramos Zequeira told us his story while seated in the living room of his humble Mexican home, surrounded by a black and white photographic background. He came to the world in the year 1941 in a neighborhood in the city of Matanzas, at the north end of the Cuban island. There, at barely eleven years old, he began learning the art of boxing while his father made money betting on the fights. At fifteen, after several years of intense training under the supervision of his master "Kid Rapidez," Ramos jumped to the professional arena in the old Sports Palace of Havana through his father, a man whose desire to managing a champion of the world was so strong that he had fathered thirty-two children with two women. Only with the last one of them "Ultiminio" (Ultimate) would he realize his dream. However, the radical political split of Cuban society would turn the dream into a nightmare.

On his way to conquer the island's national title, the young Ramos caused the death of one of his opponents, the well-known and very young "Tigre Blanco" (White Tiger), victim of Ramos's killer right punch. The incident made him doubt whether to continue with his aim of becoming national champ. To his great surprise, the deceased young boxer's own mother encouraged him to continue his career and to conquer the championship, as Ramos eventually did. At the ceremony he dedicated the belt to "Tigre Blanco," to a thunderous applause from the crowd gathered in Havana's Sports Palace. His manager then would take him on a Latin American tour in 1959, just about when Castro's Revolution would change Cuba forever.

He fought in Venezuela, Panama, Puerto Rico and Mexico; this last country welcoming him as one of its own. His skillful dancing of Cuban music made him very popular amongst ladies in the land of the Aztecs. He decided to stay there while the political scene in his native land was sorted out. Ramos never imagined that it would be a permanent absence, although his father warned him early that he should never return to Cuba if he wanted to become great among greats in the sweet science. The elder Ramos distrusted the new rules of game in Havana.

The night of his debut in Mexico City the judge's decision went against Ramos, a shameless act, taking the victory away from him. To his own surprise, the public emphatically disagreed with the verdict and proceeded to set fire to the arena "Mexico." After this great show of sympathy, ferocious loyalty and support by the Mexican fans, the new "Sugar" realized that he had found a new homeland from which he could continue his career and his way to glory. The government who took power in Cuba had definitively decided to ban professional boxing.

Under the supervision of "Kid Rapidez" (also trainer to four future Cuban world champions*), and the management of Cuco Conde; on his way to winning the world championship, Sugar Ramos would have to fight a fearsome fighter from Ohio, featherweight Champion of the World Davey Moore * * , or "Little Giant" as the sport's media called him in the United States. In Mexico nobody could ever beat him. At home, he was undefeated. Responding to the Cuban boxer challenge, Moore said to the press, "If Sugar Ramos wants to take the championship away from me; of course he'll have to kill me first."

Exactly a year before, Cuban Boxer Benny Kid Paret was killed by the hands of Emile Griffith at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Nobody wrote a poem lamenting his murder, but about the fight, Norman Mailer wrote a note:

"Paret died on his feet. As he took those eighteen punches something happened to everyone who was in psychic range of the event. Some part of his death reached out to us. One felt it hover in the air. He was still standing in the ropes, trapped as he had been before, he gave some little half-smile of regret, as if he were saying, "I didn't know I was going to die just yet," and then, his head leaning back but still erect, his death came to breathe about him. He began to pass away. As he passed, so his limbs descended beneath him, and he sank slowly to the floor. He went down more slowly than any fighter had ever gone down, he went down like a large ship which turns on end and slides second by second into its grave. As he went down, the sound of Griffith's punches echoed in the mind like a heavy ax in the distance chopping into a wet log".

Complex and dangerous times came down following the Missile Crisis that put the world at the edge of nuclear war and Cuba as the eye of a historical hurricane. Sugar Ramos didn't understand the expectations created around the fight with Davie Moore, only because he was born in Cuba. For him, it was as simple as making good on the promise that he had made to his father when he was only a nine year old boy: become a World Champion.

Finally the fight was scheduled for March 23, 1963 (just one year after the fatal Paret-Griffith fight at MSG), on the baseball field at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles, California. The odds were for the African-American boxer ten to one. The Afro-Cuban would fight for his native city "Matanzas" and the name was printed on one of his pant's legs. Ironically "Matanzas" means slaughter in Spanish.

Songwriter Phil Ochs narrated the situation developed this way:

“It was out to California young Davey Moore did go,

to meet with Sugar Ramos and trade him blow for blow

He left his home in Springfield, his wife and children five;

the spring was fast approaching, it was good to be alive.

His wife, she begged and pleaded, "You have to leave this game.

Is it worth the bloodshed and is it worth the pain?"

But Davey could not hear above the cheering crowd

He was a champion, and champions are proud.

Hang his gloves upon the wall, shine his trophies bright clear,

Another man will fall before we dry our tears

For the fighters must destroy as the poets must sing,

as the hungry crowd must gather for the blood upon the ring”.

Sugar Ramos remembers today the feeling he had gotten that something bad was about to happen days before the fight when a heavy rain began to fall and didn't stop in Los Angeles. For a moment, even his coach entertained the idea of postponing the match arranged to take place under the stars. But like the saying goes, there's always calm before the storm. Finally the rain stopped, and the bell sounded for the first of fifteen rounds, televised coast to coast.

"A savage war was developing" that night, wrote the Los Angeles sport columnist Melvin Durslag. Starting from the ninth round, Sugar Ramos took control of the fight and in the tenth, Davey Moore was knocked out. The audience was stunned.

After his defeat, while he stood in the dressing room, Davey Moore collapsed into a coma due to cerebral injuries ***. Some people talked about a Cuban revenge. But no, it was only a weird, mysterious coincidence!

The bout and the aftermath were certainly the biggest sporting events news of the year to the point that the Vatican was forced to release a statement against professional boxing; it also inspired Bob Dylan to write a song titled "Who Killed Davey Moore?"

Who killed Davey Moore,

Why an' what's the reason for?

"Not I," says the referee,

"Don't point your finger at me.

I could've stopped it in the eighth

An' maybe kept him from his fate,

But the crowd would've booed, I'm sure,

At not getting' their money's worth.

It's too bad he had to go,

But there was a pressure on me too, you know.

It wasn't me that made him fall.

No, you can't blame me at all."

Devastated by the news broadcasted about the severity of Moore's condition, Sugar Ramos went to Los Angeles Memorial Hospital to visit the ex-champ. He arrived just in time to witness the courageous gladiator's last breath; he was so overcome with grief that he cried as if he had just lost one of his own brothers. Once again in Ramos's career, the victim's mother went to him and consoled and encouraged him to continue with honor, his boxing career. Sugar Ramos declared to the press: "I want to be a Champion of the World, but not at this price."

Two weeks later Sugar Ramos returned to Mexico City where the people give him a treatment reserved only for true national heroes. Multitudes waited for him at the airport with mariachis. The crowd took control and carried him to the Palacio Nacional, where a grateful President Lopez Mateo greeted him. He became a huge celebrity in Mexico capable of filling stadiums and bullfight plazas. It was the beginning of his glory days.

Like a dandy, he hired the services of a valet who became his inseparable companion. The valet was a hunchbacked man that according to myth would bring good luck. Because of his shape people began calling him "The Pigeon". If any contender refused to come to Mexico to fight him, Sugar Ramos looked for them anywhere escorted by his curious valet. Eventually they went to Japan, where the champion had a bad dream. He dreamt of a double funeral, into which he and his trainer were both present like astonished witnesses. There was something certainly very strange about the funeral. When the supposed family members opened the coffins, there were no bodies inside; instead there was money, a lot of money in gold coins. Sugar Ramos woke up and told the nightmare to his master who shared a room with him. "Kid Rapidez" calmed him down and told him: a dream is only a dream, my son, something like watching a movie. He advised him to relax and go back to sleep.

The following day he would defend the title against a difficult boxer known for his karate skills. His trainer and second on the corner for this fight and for many more was the legendary Angelo Dundee, former trainer of Mohamed Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard and others. Sugar Ramos was not able to clear his mind all day, before and after the fight. It was the only time that he remembers not calling his father before a fight.

"When we arrived to the place where the bout against Seki would be taking place", recalled Angelo Dundee, "they already had set up the ring but there weren't seats anywhere. I asked somebody about when they were going to bring the chairs and the man told me that in Japan the fans preferred the floor to sitting in chairs. When Ramos knocks out Seki, I turned toward Cuco Conde and told him: indeed Japanese prefers the floor". ****

On his way back to Mexico he called Cuba, as he always did when returning from one of his fights, to tell his father that once again he had successfully defended the title. He was shocked with news, which stopped his breath: his father and his grandfather had both died on the same day of that awful funeral nightmare in Osaka, Japan. Hearing the news was like the end of his world. He could not stop crying, alone surrounded by strangers, and then he realizes that his tears wouldn't stop falling, like the rain in Los Angeles before his fight with Davey Moore. Due to the political climate in his native Cuba he could not attend the funeral of his relatives and as he states: "With my father's death I lost the desire for fighting, I lost the willpower."

In one year and half he flew all around the world, even fighting in Africa before Mohamed Ali did it. The people of Ghana welcomed him at the airport as one of their own. However, other Ghanaians put a spell upon him so that he would lose before the local fighter. Mario "The Pigeon", opportunely informed, responded carrying a large crucifix as they left the dressing room heading for the ring. It seems that this act of faith was not enough to stop the spell of the African witchdoctors. It was a tough fight. Sugar Ramos won on a split decision. He almost lost it. For an instant, the African fighter put him on his knees. But Sugar Ramos composed himself and was able to finish and win the fight in the tenth round before an emotionally electrified audience.

Troubles go alongside fame. Certainly, the bed could be another dangerous ring. "In a boxer´s life there are occasions that one woman is a problem. There are boxers that know a lot of women and then get a big deal of problems. Ultiminio is a good kid that gets working out good and behaves professional but he doesn't give up to be a young man, strong, handsome, a celeb champion and for that, believe me, always there are women around", remarked his manager****.

The first defeat came down by the Vicente Saldivar´s left hand, a Mexican fighter who snatched away the title of the featherweight division. Then, Sugar Ramos upgraded category to the light welterweight, alternating victories and defeats in the ring as well as in business. One of these was a funeral parlor that carried his name as his own name had become a sort of trademark of death.

He lasted in boxing a few more years by dancing in the ring, until he met the unavoidable and ultimate defeat that awaits all gladiators. A young hungry fighter arrived and took the Champion's belt before the eyes of the world. His name was Carlos Ortiz, a legendary Puerto Rican Champion.

After retiring from sports he dedicated himself to his other love, music. Even today he can be found singing ballads, rumbas and even rap, in some clubs in Mexico City. Some people recall him as "the killer boxer". He still carries the infamous record of two opponents killed in his career; he still cries for both.

In 1998, executives of the boxing business remembered Sugar Ramos by inducting him to the Los Angeles Boxing Hall of Fame. In 2001 the city of Miami honored his nomination to Canastota's Hall of Fame in New York by placing his name among the greats of the old sweet science.

Mr. Ramos showed us a video of those moments, in which he appears as happy as a well cared-for and beloved child; the video was shot by his Mexican son, who bears his name and would perhaps like to become a professional fighter.

In the parade through the streets of Canastota, New York, where he cruises on a convertible like the other World Champions inducted on the same day, enthusiastic fans greet him wherever he goes. They request his autograph. During the procession Sugar Ramos gives them candies that he takes out of a paper bag. "Damn, man, glory is really beautiful", he told us.

He never went back to Cuba, a country where its own citizens must ask for a visa to visit it; he never saw the sons that were left behind after he left. One of them, who also happen to carry his name, became an amateur Champion in the Island and currently is a trainer. Neither has Sugar Ramos met any of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. The Cuban regime doesn't forget his resonant success as an independent professional boxer, and his personal way to be a Negro. Nor does the accusing finger of Bob Dylan, although he doesn't mention him.

“Who killed Davey Moore

Why an' what's the reason for?

"Not me," says the man whose fists

Laid him low in a cloud of mist,

Who came here from Cuba's door

Where boxing ain't allowed no more.

"I hit him, yes, it's true,

But that's what I am paid to do.

Don't say 'murder,' don't say 'kill.'

It was destiny, it was God's will."

Holding back the tears, hitting repeatedly his fist on the palm of the other hand, Sugar Ramos concluded with a bitter gesture: "What are we going to do boy, that's the way the world turns".

FOOTNOTES:

* They were Luís Manuel Rodríguez, Ultiminio "Sugar" Ramos, José "Mantequilla" Nápoles and José Legrá. This last one was crowned World Champion as Spaniard.

* * There were two African-American boxers and Champions of the world with the same name, Davey Moore. Both died before the age of thirty. The Davey Moore we refer to in our story was a native of Lexington, Kentucky who then lived in Springfield, Ohio. He died in a hospital in Los Angeles, 1963 as a consequence of the fight against Sugar Ramos at Dodger Stadium. The other Davey Moore made his career in the eighties and was a native of New York. He died tragically in 1988 run over by his own car. Another mysterious coincidence. Source: Wikipedia.

*** "Neurologists determined the injury could not have been caused by a punch. Viewing a videotape of the fight, they focused on Moore's fall against the bottom rope late in the 10th round. In what a doctor called a ¨million-to-one¨ accident, the rope had struck Moore like an expert's karate blow". San Fransisco Chronicle, Friday, July 27, 2001.

**** Cited by Enrique Encinosa: "Azúcar y Chocolate, historia del boxeo cubano", ("Sugar and Chocolate, history of Cuban boxing").

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1szz9IXj_7c