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June 1999
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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IS THE RAGE ALIVE?
After 16 years, can newly-released Tony Ayala harness and control his past fury in his present comeback? STEVE FARHOOD visits him. |
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AS IS: released Ayala meets the press with former wife Lisa
(soon to remarry) and psychologist Brian Raditz
- Get Big Pic On a spring evening in Philadelphia that is no different from the one before it, Tony
Ayala Jr has the Front Street Gym to himself. The heavy-metal guitar of AC-DC is peeling
the fight posters off the walls, and "El Torito" is shadowboxing in front of an
oversized mirror. Sixteen years ago, the mirror might've stared back as if the reflection were
about to challenge Ayala to a fistfight on the street. Leaning against the ring is a
writer who hasn't seen Ayala since 20 November 1982, the night the champion-to-be
secured a No. 1 ranking at junior middleweight by destroying Argentine veteran Carlos
Herrera. That night was also six weeks before Ayala was arrested for aggravated sexual
assault, which is legalese for raping a 30-year-old schoolteacher at knife-point. He spent
the next 16 years in prison, where that No. 1 ranking didn't mean very much. "I know we've spent our time in drastically different ways," the writer,
42, says to Ayala. "But we have one thing in common: We both have a lot less
hair." Ayala, now 36, smiles, knowing he can't dispute the point. Indeed, his
hairline is receding, and he's built thickly, scaling almost 30 pounds over his
fighting weight. The last time around, he was a pudgy teenager whose one-punch power
belied his physique. That Tony Ayala Jr was a man-child who had seen too much and
understood none of it. The latest version is a hardened man whose life has been
illuminated by some ultra-bright back-lighting. As Ayala dips and weaves, firing abbreviated left hooks, he moves under a flyer
advertising Trinidad-Campas, Leija-Ruelas, and Coggi-Randall. How many champs and
chumps have come and gone in 16 years? How many would Ayala have pounded into la-la-land? "Davey Moore I would've blasted out in three, four rounds," he says of
the fighter he would've met for the WBA title. "I punk-slapped him in the gym a
couple of times. Duran, if he went the distance with me, I would've given him the
fight. The only one I gave a 50-50 shot to was Marvin Hagler." The ratings have changed: Moore is dead; Duran continues to box as if determined to
embarrass himself; and Hagler is an actor in Italy. Ayala's next fight will probably
come against an opponent he's never heard of. The road back seems a long one, unless
you consider the road he's already travelled. Even for a model prisoner like Ayala, life on the outside required some difficult
adjustments. For instance, he was concerned that on his first night of freedom, he would
abruptly wake up at three a.m. and mistake his once and future wife Lisa for an inmate who
had crawled into his bed. Would he instinctively try to harm her? In fact, upon his release on 20 April, Ayala was surrounded by nothing but welcoming
faces. In addition to Lisa, there was his father, Tony Sr, and Dr Brian Raditz, the
clinical psychologist under whose care he came to terms with the demons of his life.
Perhaps just as importantly, when Ayala shadowboxes in front of the mirror, he still sees
the face of a fighter. That gives him a purpose. "At this stage," he said, "I'm 36 years old and I don't have
any money to my name. I'm betting everything on a comeback. A lot of people question
whether I'll have the rage, whether the beast is asleep. In this gym, the beast is
alive." "I envision Tony being better than he was," said Raditz, who opened his house
to Ayala and will manage him. (Tony Sr will serve as trainer.) "He's not a
beat-up 36-year-old, and he's healthier than when he went in." Ayala boxed in prison ("I wasn't in shape," he recalled, "but I
sent a few guys to the infirmary"), but only briefly. "Boxing brought up a lot
of unfinished business from the past," he said. "It made things more
complicated. It reawoke issues and brought them to the surface. In prison, I didn't
need to deal with what could've been." Despite the severity of his sentence (15-30 years, largely because of Ayala's
juvenile record of a sexual attack when he was 14), Ayala was in denial. Moore and Duran
might've been easy, but he still wasn't prepared to face himself. He was a
confused 19-year-old who had turned to drinking and drugs for escape. "Normal for me," he said, "was getting up in the morning, running four,
five, six miles, eating breakfast, and then meeting my connection to score some heroin.
Then I'd hang out, go lose 10 pounds in the gym, and go score again. I'd repeat
this daily until 10 days before a fight. Then I'd go through withdrawal while I was
still training. I was miserable as hell. And if the fight was in San Antonio [his hometown
in Texas], I'd be back at the same routine within two hours." When he landed in his cell at Trenton (New Jersey) State Prison, Ayala contemplated
suicide. "I began to have an internal battle with God," he said. "God was
the biggest prankster of all. He had exposed me to so much, only to take it all away from
me. I couldn't live with the fact that I had committed the kind of crime I had. "My struggling must've been obvious because I was advised by another prisoner
to see a Dr Brian Raditz. I said: ‘Who the fuck is Dr Brian Raditz?' But I did
go see him, and it was probably the best decision I ever made." It was meant for Ayala and Raditz to hook up. About 18 months before they met, Raditz
was in Mexico, vacationing with some friends. One of them picked up a boxing magazine that
featured Ayala on the cover. "Why don't you call this guy?" the friend
said. "He sounds like a guy you should work with." Raditz's response:
"I can't call him. He probably doesn't think he has problems, and
he'll tell me to go fuck myself." Two months after his incarceration, Ayala and Raditz had their first session.
"When he walked into my office," recalled Raditz, "I said: 'Hi, Tony.
I've been expecting you for 11/2 years.' We kind of hit it off because we had
the same sense of humour in the beginning, and also because of our relationships with our
fathers. Tony's best friend and idol is his father, and the same with me. We talked
about the experiences we put ourselves through because we wanted to please them. We talked
a lot about physical pain and the emotion that goes with it, playing ball with broken
limbs, getting in the ring with broken hands." Ayala and Raditz met four or five times a week, sometimes for 45 minutes, sometimes for
three hours. "His problems were very significant, but he was willing to work so
hard," said Raditz. The psychologist kept digging, a pressure fighter delivering round after round of
bodypunches in hopes of getting his opponent to drop his guard. "One day I kept pushing him and it got a little heated," Raditz said. "I
said to him: 'You're gonna tell me what hurts so bad.' And all of a sudden
his eyes welled up, his shoulders dropped, and he released all of it." Ayala had been horribly ashamed of his secret: From the age of nine to 11, he had been
sexually molested by a male family friend. He never told his macho-driven father for fear
of being thought weak, perhaps even homosexual. Why hadn't he fought back? After all,
wasn't this a boy who was tough enough at age 14 to have sparred with Pipino Cuevas? "That was how he had learned to view things," Raditz explained. "At that
age, he had no insight. And he couldn't separate what happened in the ring from what
happened outside." "Back then," said Ayala, "if someone looked at my wife in a certain
manner, I viewed it as a challenge to my manhood and I dealt with it my way, which was to
get physical, get violent. And I dealt with women the same way." Ayala's confession released the weight of Texas off his shoulders. But that was
only the first part of his rehabilitation. Why had it happened? And how was he to view it? "He had to clean it up and fix it, as opposed to just release it," said
Raditz. "He's learned to see it as an unpleasant experience. He understands he
was victimised." The sessions with Raditz lasted 41/2 years, and shortly after, Ayala became a peer
counsellor. His freedom, however, will never be complete. "I still carry the cross of victimising two women," he said. "But I
won't be self-destructive about it." As a result, his comeback must be placed in
perspective. In reference to the New Jersey schoolteacher, he told the New York Post:
"If she wants to hurt me, I understand. I violated her body. I did a terrible,
terrible thing. Nobody has to remind me of what I did. I thought about contacting her to
apologise. But that would be violating her again to lessen my own guilt. That would be
selfish. But if she sent word, I'd quit training camp. I'd cancel a fight. I
don't care if it's [Oscar] De La Hoya. I'd tell him [to get lost].
She's more important than he is." Watching Ayala play-fight with Lorenzo, the
seven-year-old son of his friend Junior, whom he met in prison, it was difficult to
envision the fighter revealing his violent side anywhere but in the ring. Still, there was
one question I had to ask Raditz: How could he be sure that Ayala was rehabilitated for
the long haul, that he wouldn't hurt someone again? The answer was decidedly unclinical. "I would say the two most important people in
my life are my children," he said. "My daughter is 14 and my son is 11. If you
think for a moment that I'd put them in any form of jeopardy, you're crazy. Tony
is their godfather. I didn't have to have him live here, you know." Raditz, 45, who managed former lightweight contender Tracy Spann and once fought
himself (14-0 as an amateur, 2-0 as a professional super middleweight), left the prison
system 12 years ago. He now runs a private practice and serves as an administrator at The
Center For Spine And Pain Management in Philadelphia. He will attend the second wedding of
Ayala and Lisa in mid-May, and then turn the fighter over to Tony Sr in San Antonio, where
Torito will begin serious training. Ayala's first comeback fight is tentatively
scheduled for the end of July. "His first couple of fights, he'll probably be at 165 [pounds], something
like that," Raditz said. "Ultimately, we're looking to fight at junior
middleweight. We'll start him out with a couple of fights and see how he handles
himself. We'll see his instincts and reflexes. I have a feel for how someone's
coming along, and I think he looks great. When his father saw him in the gym, he looked at
me and said: 'My God, he hasn't lost anything!'" Realistically, the odds are heavily against Ayala making it all the way. But that
hasn't stopped a number of promoters from seeking his services. At best, he's a
murderous hooker who will excite fans with his passion for punchouts. At worst, he's
a compelling story of rejection and redemption. "George Foreman did it," Ayala said. "There's not a guarantee I can
accomplish what he accomplished, but I'm taking a shot. I'm going for a dream.
What's the success rate? I don't know. But at least in 25 years I can say I
didn't punk out. "I'm living a dream. I'm having a ball since I got out. I have a woman
I'm going to spend the rest of my life with, a loving family . . . If this isn't
happiness, maybe having an orgasm is happiness. I'm quite blessed. The boxing, I see
it as gravy." As Ayala hit the bags in the Front Street Gym on that unremarkable spring evening, an
electronic timer told him when to work and when to rest. That might seem a bit regimented
for someone who has spent his entire adult life in prison, but something else emphasised
his new-found freedom more than his words, his walk, or his smile: There was a clock high
on the wall, and he never looked up. Not even once. |
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