OF DREAMS, FISTS, SWEAT AND LEATHER: AMATEUR BOXING

By Juan Montoya
This is where dreams start.

It's in upstairs gyms in innumerable sweat-drenched workouts with other amateur boxers all dreaming of one day standing with their right arms lifted over their heads in a prize fight in Las Vegas.

It's in one-minute sparring rounds with kids your size and weight testing your ability to beat them to  the punch and going to your corner where your manager give you instructions you forget as soon as the other guy starts flailing away and you can only flail back.

Then, amidst the ducking and flying punches you connect, not once, but twice, maybe three times and you can feel the other guy giving and now you can actually hear your corner shouting at you to finish him off.

"Hook, upper, hook!," you hear through the noise and the vortex of fists and flying leather.

Many dreams begin here, in the barrio. At Tony's Garcia Body Shop just off Southmost on Burton Road, boxing coach Alfredo Silva has seen those dreams come true, and also dissipate as some of his fighters climb up the amateur ranks, and others have their dreams battered back to reality as they walk off the ring.

Today, he will see his dream at some kind of immortality walk into the ring at the Mercedes Livestock Yards when his son Dionne Brandon Rubalcava, 15, laces up his gloves for his second amateur match against a 119-pound bantam weight opponent yet to be named.

Brandon started training only last November after months of working out with the other boxers and never taking the next step of climbing into the ring to fight.

"He is the last person I ever expected to want to box," said Avila, whose Puro Cachos Bax team trains at the gym atop the Garcia body shop. "On Saturday it will be his second amateur fight. He won his first one in Corpus Christi during the Heart of Champions tourney April 6."

Avila says he was surprised that his son fought off the Corpus Christi fighter to a third-round knock out, including a second-round eight-count.

"I once saw an interview with the parents of Sean O'Brady and they said that when he was growing up he never showed any inclination to fight. I'm not comparing Brandon to O'Brady, but it was the same with him."

One can tell he is his son's biggest fan.

"When he gets hit in the ring, I want to jump in the ring, but I know I would probably throw off my  back in the first punch."

"I couldn't hear them," Brandon said. "I can only hear my dad in the corner."

Still clean-faced and unscarred, his strategy after countless sparring matches and first amateur fights?

"I throw the first punch and don't wait for them," he said.

Like Brandon, the Puro Cachos Bax team includes amateur fighters Yordy Arreola, 15, and Eric Gutierrez, 13. They will also be fighting in Mercedes tonight chasing their dream.

Win or lose in Mercedes today, they will pack their equipment and their dreams and prepare for the next matches at the Laredo Junior Olympic Regional Tournament in Laredo April 26-28.

But its not only their aspirations that they take with them. They also take the hopes of their team sponsors that include the likes of local attorney Mario Davila, Dr. Azim Zamir, Servando and Daniel Solis from Sunrise Cafe, Ana Avila, Gaspar Hernandez, of Win Sports and manager of the Golden Corral. Mike Hernandez, whose brother George is an aficionado and worked out there, donated the $7,000 worth of boxing equipment to support the club.

"It's a whole community effort, " Avila said. "They are supporting all these kids fulfill their dreams."