CALL HIM FAMOUS

Carlos "Famoso" Hernandez is a certified champion in the hearts of Salvadorians everywhere - with or without a world title to his credit.

On 1 February, Hernandez aims to cement their faith in him by defeating "Diamond" David Santos when the two meet at Mandalay Bay, Las Vegas, for the vacant IBF super featherweight title in the co-main event of Top Rank's dynamite card to be headlined by featherweights Juan Manuel Marquez and Manuel Medina.

"I am so focused, so ready, I am so pumped!" Hernandez told Boxing Monthly during a visit to his base camp, the La Brea Boxing Academy in the heart of old Hollywood.

This stretch of Los Angeles is known as the Miracle Mile for good reason. Eighty-one-year old trainer Amilcar Brusa puts his handful of fighters through rigorous training for each and every fight. He alternately hugs Hernandez, then pushes him to the limit and beyond in the next breath. Hernandez, however, is a willing participant in the arduous programme.

Argentine-born Brusa, who took the legendary Carlos Monzon to the world middleweight championship, has long maintained that Hernandez, whose record stands at 37-3-1, 23 KOs, would be his next world champion.

"He has all the qualities a fighter needs to become champion," Brusa said. "He works very, very hard. He is willing to learn new things and above all, he is willing to listen. I always tell Carlos that a fighter who does what he wants, is doomed to failure."

Brusa is so tough on those living under his roof that only the strong survive. The trainer, however, is tougher on himself. He rises at 4 am every day, wakes his fighters upstairs, turns on the gym lights, weighs everybody, sends them running, makes everybody breakfast, weighs them again upon return from running, feeds everybody then sends the fighters back to bed.

He then goes down to the gym training the morning crew who arrive by 7 am. When his charges upstairs awaken, they come down and train and then he breaks for lunch. Each day, Brusa trots down the street, purchases a good bottle of red wine that he drinks with lunch. Only those fighters not getting ready for a fight are permitted wine. He makes an unbelievable salad for those who want to partake, then he naps for one hour.

Brusa is back in the gym by 2 pm for the "late shift". When the doors to the gym close in the evening, he cleans and tidies, makes dinner, checks on his fighters upstairs, retires to his room at 10pm to start things over the next day. Phew.

So exacting is the old master, however, that Carlos Hernandez's wife Veronica, a very important part of his training regime, is always threatening to send him to live with Brusa.

"If Carlos tells me he wants to eat something he shouldn't or he acts a bit feisty, I threaten him with Brusa and he calms down immediately," Veronica said.

When we went to visit Hernandez, WBA super fly champion, the dynamic Rosendo Alvarez, began his first day of training in the gym for his scheduled January rubber match with Bebis Mendoza.

Nicaraguan-born Alvarez made a bee-line for Hernandez telling him how proud and excited he is that "Famoso" is soon going to be even more, well, famoso. He offered any help he could because Nicaragua and El Salvador are neighbouring countries. One country's victory is another country's pride in Central America.

Further conversation revealed Alvarez knows Hernandez's godfather in El Salvador. Now Hernandez is practically family.

"I read about you in the paper all the time in Nicaragua," said Alvarez. "You're a hero to everybody over there."

Hernandez feels the weight of responsibility of public expectation - especially in the Latin countries. It makes him even more determined to work harder. He is confident he will prevail.

"El Salvador has never had a world champion in any sport," said Hernandez. "I am going to be the first world champion the country has ever had. I receive so much love and support from Salvadorians everywhere. Now if only El Salvador was a state in the U.S., we would sell out Mandalay Bay!"

Hernandez and his wife, Veronica are very excited about the second world title shot the fighter has had in 12 months. He lost a very hard-fought won fight decision last year to super feather champ Floyd Mayweather Jr.

It was the first fight for which he and Brusa worked together and the partnership keeps getting better and better.

"We are like fine wine," said Brusa.

"If that had been the second or third fight Brusa and I had worked together on, I would have beaten Mayweather," Hernandez said.

Veronica concurs. "I felt all the cards were stacked against Carlos in the Mayweather fight. This fight with Santos is very even. This is two professional fighters, each going for a title they have worked hard to earn the right to fight for. That's a great fight right there."

Hernandez's more gorgeous half is very involved in her husband's career. Think Teresa and Johnny Tapia meets Vogue.

"The cards are on our side this time, this a much more even fight," said Veronica. "We are only in phase one of the training and Carlos is already in tremendous shape."

Veronica, a psychologist, funnels all her hard-earned knowledge into preparing her husband mentally as well as physically for his bouts. She has meticulously worked out the training regime for the next nine weeks. She and Brusa have it all planned, including diet, supplements and the type of training Hernandez will do in each phase of the schedule.

"Yeah, I want Fernando Vargas's nutritionist," Hernandez joked.

Veronica even configured a pilgrimage she and her husband "just had to make" in his third week of training. They flew to El Salvador for five days for the Central America Games.

"It is the Olympic Games for Central America," said Veronica. "Thirty one countries competed, including Puerto Rico. Cuba was going to participate, but pulled out at the last minute. We were quite disappointed actually. We were hoping to discover a couple of Cuban fighters and bring them back here!"

The couple feel they had to attend because Hernandez was invited to hold the Olympic-style torch.

"This was a deep, deep honour," said Veronica. "This was important to Carlos to be there for all those athletes. Salvadorians are the second biggest Hispanic minority in the U.S. after Mexicans, so Carlos wants to participate as much as possible. He wanted so badly to do this."

"I never got to go to the Olympics myself so this was the next best thing, lighting the torch with three other athletes. It was an unforgettable moment. I feel somehow it was a very good, positive sign for my own career. It was very motivating for me."

Not that Famoso, as practically everybody calls Hernandez, got to relax whilst in El Salvador.

Veronica worked out a light training regime for her husband whilst they were in El Salvador, including running on the beach and some gym work.

There were other matters to handle too: like lots and lots of PR. El Salvador is gripped by Famoso Fever and the President of the country and Vice President, to whom the couple is close, showed them the 60,000 seat stadium where they hope he will hold his first world title defence next year.

"Oh my God," said Hernandez of all this expectation. "I better do more squats!"

"I can't even think about this," said Veronica, clapping her hands to her ears. "We have a fight to think about. One glance at her husband and he knows: Time for mitts.

Brusa, the sport's toughest technician didn't worry about this brief camp detour because he knew Veronica would make sure her husband followed The Plan. He trusts and admires Veronica so much he has asked her many times to be a part of the corner, but Veronica prefers to remain outside the ring.

"We are a team," she said. "Except he's in the ring and I work the outside of it. Everything we do must work as a whole and it does.

"This is a very big opportunity for us. We are so happy in our lives right now and this is just icing on the cake to have this fight."

It's well-known in boxing circles that promoter Bob Arum prefers his Mexican fighters to the rest of his tribe. "He feels they are the ones who sell tickets," said Veronica. "I think things have been especially hard for Carlos in boxing because he isn't Mexican.

"I wish people could know that we get Mexican fans coming up to us all the time who tell Carlos they love him, even though he is not Mexican. They tell him they love him because they love to watch him fight."

Veronica laments they have not had the opportunity to fight in California since they signed with Top Rank.

"We would love to show Top Rank that he can sell tickets here. Well, our fight is in Las Vegas but I have a feeling people will go there to see this fight. Hopefully the Salvadorian community here will go. There are 800,000 of them in California alone. We have the support of a whole country. Some of them will go for sure!"

Now in the middle part of his training regime, he has begun sparring with the likes or Artyom Simoyan, Yoni Vargas and a rotating roster of other fighters. Brusa uses sparring sparingly. Three times a week, four rounds - four very hard rounds - only for each fighter in training.

"Punches are not candies. Punches are not marshmallows. They go in but they don't come out," he said. "I would rather see the four hard rounds, then see them do other things for resistance."

Indeed, Brusa has some very creative bag exercises his charges actually like. He keeps meticulous notebooks on each fighter that he scribbles exact notes on running, weight, how they appeared in the gym, mood, diet etc. He refers to his notes constantly, building a training arc which he relies on to help modify things if need be.

Team Hernandez remains very respectful of Santos. No trash talk here, folks.

"I watched his fights with Luis Lizarraga and Steve Forbes," said Brusa, handing out a piece of candy to the little daughter of one of the fighters, then locking his stash in a cupboard (he's serious about every morsel of food that goes into his fighters' mouths).

"Santos is a very good boxer. Santos has few flaws. He has a very good style, and an interesting shell-like defence. However, I can say without a doubt of being wrong that Famoso is better."

Hernandez himself felt Steve Forbes beat Santos convincingly and feels bad that he is getting the opportunity to fight for the title because Forbes lost his title due to his failure to make weight five months ago.

"At the time I wanted to tell him he had my support. I met Steve in Las Vegas and we're friendly. He's a good guy.

"As a fighter, I know how tough it is, the struggle to make weight. In all the confusion of who was going to be mandatory challenger to the vacant title, who was going to be number two, I am happy to fight Santos.

"One minute, Forbes was dropped all the way down the ranks, then he was put back to number one. Santos and I are number two and three. I am just very happy to have a chance for the title shot. I'd happily give Forbes a chance to fight me for it when I win it."

If he wins, according to the IBF, he will have to fight Forbes. Then in a sort of super feather box-off, the IBF champ will face the WBC champion, Mayweather.

Bring it on, says Team Famoso. Just bring it on.