Barangay Dance Company came to the ball, and with the rhythm of their feet, and they gave us something more to think about.
Their performance was one of the memorable moments of the September 3 welcome reception for Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle at the Filipino American Center of the San Francisco Public Library.
Nearly 200 people braved the rain, traffic and the usual excitement in and around the streets of San Francisco that evening. Inside, boxing people mingled with historians, artists, martial artists, dancers, families and friends. Conversations seemed to begin as quickly as introductions could be made. For an exhibition about fighters, it was quite an opening salvo.
And Barangay fit naturally into it.
Before their presentation, the company had considered whether Silat or another martial arts-based dance might better suit a conversation about boxing. But they understood that our discussion was not simply about punches. Their artistic team were exploring Filipino dance styles that highlight graceful footwork, and they chose Chalichog, a traditional dance associated with the Kalinga people of the Cordillera region of Northern Luzon.
Then the gongs sounded.
Men and women moved together as the beat gathered around them. The dancers stepped and shifted with the rhythm, their cries and calls joining the sound of the gongs. Soon, rhythm and sound filled the venue. You did not have to know the dance to feel it. For those few minutes, the Filipino American Center was not simply a room inside the San Francisco Public Library. Something distinctly Filipino had taken possession of the space.
And naturally, our eyes went to their feet.
Watching them move, one could recognize something familiar to anyone who has spent years watching great fighters. The feet establish position before the hands can accomplish anything. Weight shifts. Direction changes. Balance is maintained. There are pauses, bursts of movement and subtle adjustments.
Above all, there is rhythm.
A dancer is not a boxer, of course, and dance is not fighting. But movement has a vocabulary of its own. That evening, Barangay demonstrated something that would have been difficult to explain with words alone.
It raised a larger question…How much of a people’s history can be carried in the way they move?
The thought reaches far back. In the ancient Greek world, from the age associated with Homer, history, values and collective memory traveled through poetry, song and oral recitation before much of that knowledge eventually found permanence in the written word. Stories survived because people remembered them, performed them and passed them forward.
Filipinos also passed knowledge from one generation to another, but some of that memory lived in rhythm, music, dance and movement. Across an archipelago of many peoples and languages, perhaps a step could be more than a step. Movement could teach balance, timing, coordination and awareness. Dance could entertain, celebrate and educate while carrying something older forward.
Was movement sometimes also about survival? Could martial knowledge have occasionally been preserved—or even disguised—within dance, ceremony or play?
What we do know is simpler…knowledge does not always have to be written down to survive. Sometimes it is remembered by the body.
And that brings us back to boxing.
For more than a century, Filipino fighters have distinguished themselves by qualities beyond punching power: speed, timing, balance, angles, coordination and rhythm. Long before Manny Pacquiao, Filipino boxers crossed the Pacific and demonstrated those qualities in American rings. Pancho Villa became the first Filipino and Asian world boxing champion in 1923. Small Montana, Little Dado, Ceferino Garcia, Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, Luisito Espinosa, Pacquiao and many others followed.
There is no single explanation for that remarkable success. But the relationship between Filipino martial arts, traditional dance, rhythm and boxing footwork deserves exploration.
Look at Filipino martial arts. In Arnis, Eskrima, Kali and other traditions, our eyes naturally follow the hands and weapons, but the feet make much of the movement possible. Angles are created. Distance is controlled. Position creates opportunity. Rhythm is established, interrupted and recovered.
A good boxer understands those things, too.
That does not prove a straight historical line from Filipino folk dance to martial arts and then to boxing. Perhaps the connection is more subtle—and more interesting. These traditions may be different expressions of something deeply familiar: people communicating knowledge through movement.
Barangay themselves put it beautifully afterward, writing about the “shared history of survival and resilience within the craft and the people who carry it forward.”
Founded in 1987, Barangay Dance Company has spent nearly four decades carrying Philippine culture forward through folk dance and music. Its history includes appearances at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, Pistahan at Yerba Buena Gardens, the Fil-Am Friendship Festival, and schools, parishes, cultural centers and community celebrations throughout California and Nevada.
But a résumé of performances tells only part of their story.
Barangay keeps tradition alive by putting it back into human bodies—gongs sounding, feet moving, voices calling, one generation teaching and another watching, learning and eventually joining.
That is where their work unexpectedly meets ours.
The Philippine Boxing Hall of Fame preserves photographs, books, gloves, newspaper clippings, programs and artifacts. Barangay preserves movement, rhythm, music and dance. One preserves objects; another preserves motion.
Both preserve memory.
Perhaps our paths were destined to cross at the feet.
That rainy September evening brought nearly 200 people together. Barangay gave us another reason to keep the conversation going.
Sometimes history survives in books. Sometimes in photographs, gloves and artifacts.
And sometimes, long after the gongs have gone silent, history is still moving through the feet. 🇵🇭🥊
According to their Facebook page, Barangay Dance Company, since its inception in 1987, Barangay has actively represented the Filipino American community at numerous events including multicultural festivals such as the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and Asian-American Tradewinds Series; community events like the Pistahan at the Yerba Buena Gardens in San Francisco, Kababayan Festival at Marine World in Vallejo, Fil-Am Friendship Festival in Daly City, KTSF’s Asian Heritage Celebration at Great America in Santa Clara, and Samahan Festival in Tanforan, San Bruno: and in schools, parishes, centers, and private functions throughout California and Nevada.
A Note From Barangay Dance Company
Barangay Dance Company is a San Francisco-based Filipinx folk dance organization, established in August 1987 by the company’s late Founder and Artistic Director, Bonifacio Valera, Jr. Barangay Dance Company’s mission is to preserve the rich Filipino cultural heritage through the arts of Philippine folk dance and music. Through presenting, outreach, and research, Barangay endeavors to promote awareness, understanding and appreciation of Filipino culture and arts.
Barangay Dance Company offers FREE open rehearsals, and beginner-friendly Summer Workshops for those who are looking for an introduction to Philippine folk dance. For bookings, performances, or to join Barangay Dance Company, please reach out at barangaysf1987@gmail.com.
Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle remains on exhibition at the Filipino American Center, Third Floor, San Francisco Public Library Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, through January 14, 2027.
Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle remains on exhibition at the Filipino American Center, Third Floor, San Francisco Public Library Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, through January 14, 2027.
Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle (Poster courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library)
There is something fitting about bringing the story of the early Filipino boxers back to San Francisco, where so much of that history was made more than a century ago.
Young Filipino fighters began appearing in the city’s boxing clubs, gymnasiums and arenas. Many arrived anonymously. Only a few would become world champions. They fought at places whose names belong to another San Francisco now—Dreamland Rink, National Hall, the San Francisco Civic Auditorium and, later, Newman’s Gym. They crossed the Pacific carrying their ability, courage and ambition, and in the prize ring helped establish a Filipino boxing tradition that would eventually be recognized around the world.
Today, many of them have returned to San Francisco in tangible form.
Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle, presented by the Filipino American Center at the San Francisco Public Library (100 Larkin Street), Friends of the SFPL and the SFPL Exhibits Team, and co-curated with the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame, brings together historic photographs, original paintings, rare books, magazines, boxing gloves, vintage equipment and artifacts to tell the story of the fighters who helped establish the Philippines as one of boxing’s great nations.
The exhibition is housed at the Filipino American Center on the Third Floor of the San Francisco Public Library Main Library—a particularly meaningful home for a story connecting the Philippines, Filipino America and San Francisco.
The exhibition represents years of collecting, research and preservation. But this is not simply a private collection placed inside a library. It is a shared exhibition, shaped through collaboration with the San Francisco Public Library and made accessible to anyone who walks through its doors.
The title Little Brown Dolls No More reaches back to an expression once used by American sportswriters to describe Filipino boxers. The words could sound affectionate on the surface, but they also reflected the patronizing language of another time.
The fighters eventually supplied their own answer.
They fought.
Long before Manny Pacquiao became an international superstar, Filipino boxers were crossing the Pacific and establishing reputations in American rings. San Francisco became one of the important places where that remarkable story unfolded.
Eustaquio “Eddie” Duarte fought at San Francisco’s Dreamland Rink in 1910. Macario Villon and other pioneers followed. By the 1920s, Filipino fighters were becoming contenders in American boxing, with men such as Pete Sarmiento and Pablo Dano carrying the reputation of Philippine fighters into arenas throughout California and across the country.
Then came Francisco Guilledo—the diminutive fighter the world remembers as Pancho Villa.
In 1923, Villa defeated Jimmy Wilde to become world flyweight champion, the first Filipino and Asian world boxing champion. His story would also become permanently connected to Northern California. His final fight took place at Oaks Ball Park in Emeryville on July 4, 1925. He died ten days later at only 23 years old.
Small Montana, Little Dado, Ceferino Garcia and others continued the championship tradition. Decades later came Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, Luisito “Earthquake” Espinosa and ultimately Manny Pacquiao. Yet the exhibition deliberately turns the clock backward, toward the men who helped create the foundation.
Years of research have gone into recovering the stories of the Filipino fighters who helped shape those formative years. Some became world champions. Others were contenders, pioneers and journeymen whose names gradually faded from memory. Throughout the exhibition, their faces and stories emerge through photographs, paintings, periodicals, books and artifacts—each offering another glimpse into the remarkable generation that established the Filipino presence in the prize ring.
Their collective story provides the historical backbone of the exhibition.
Around them are the things that make their world tangible.
Among the most striking pieces are works by renowned painter of champions Rodolfo “Jun” Aquino, better known as “The Artist With a Punch,” and Brian Bonbon of Inksider Tattoo Studio in Lapu-Lapu City.
Their work restores color, personality and presence to fighters we often know only through faded photographs and old newspaper pages. The paintings stand alongside the historical images, each offering another way of seeing the men behind the records.
A dedicated case showcases the tools of their trade.
Historic boxing gloves and vintage equipment bring us even closer. These were not created as museum pieces. Gloves were laced onto hands. Headgear absorbed punches. Training equipment belonged to working gyms and working fighters. Today they survive as reminders of the physical world these boxers inhabited and of how much the sport has changed over the past century.
One of the smallest objects in the exhibition may also be one of the easiest to miss—and one of the most fascinating. Amid the larger paintings, photographs, gloves and equipment, the mouthpiece is a modest object. Look for it. It is a must-see—a small piece of equipment made for one of the biggest fights boxing has ever staged.
On display is a mouthpiece created for Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao by Dr. Ed de la Vega, DDS for the 2015 “Fight of the Century” against Floyd Mayweather Jr. The long-awaited bout, held at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas on May 2, 2015, brought together the two defining fighters of their generation in one of the most anticipated boxing events in history. Amid the larger paintings, photographs, gloves and equipment, the mouthpiece is a modest object.
Among the oldest treasures are original volumes of Pierce Egan’s Boxiana and Sporting Anecdotes, the great chronicles of the English prize ring published more than two centuries ago. Egan recorded the fighters, personalities, language and culture of bare-knuckle boxing long before the modern gloved era. To see those books alongside the gloves, photographs, paintings and equipment of Filipino fighters is to see different generations of boxing history gathered in one place.
The magazines and periodicals are veritable timestamps of a bygone era, when print was king. Before television, the internet and social media, it was newspapers and sporting publications that carried these fighters into homes, barber shops, gyms and neighborhoods.
Their names once filled the sports pages, and their photographs gave readers a face to remember, even if they never had the chance to see them fight. Today, these aging pages do more than document boxing history. They bring us back to a time when the printed word and a single photograph could turn a fighter into a familiar name—and preserve his story for generations to come.
And San Francisco itself is part of that story.
The city was never merely a backdrop. Filipino fighters trained here, fought here and became part of its sporting life. Dreamland, Civic Auditorium, the Olympic Club and Newman’s Gym are part of that history because of the fighters, trainers, managers, writers, photographers and fans who passed through them.
That connection continued into the modern era. Luisito “Earthquake” Espinosa became closely associated with the Bay Area, and in 2001 Manny Pacquiao fought Agapito Sanchez at San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, linking a new generation of Philippine boxing with a city where Filipino fighters had already been throwing punches for nearly a century.
Remembering.
History has a way of reducing fighters to numbers—victories, defeats, draws, knockouts and championships. The objects in this exhibition help us see beyond the record. A photograph gives us a face. A painting gives us another interpretation of that face. An old pair of gloves brings us closer to the ring. A magazine shows us how a fighter was seen in his own time. And books written two centuries ago remind us that these men became part of a boxing tradition much older than themselves.
Together, they tell a story that no single object could tell alone.
That is what makes the partnership behind Little Brown Dolls No More so meaningful. Years were spent finding and preserving these pieces and, just as importantly, the stories attached to them. SFPL has provided the public space where that history can now be encountered, studied and enjoyed by everyone.
And there could hardly be a more fitting place than the Filipino American Center.
Perhaps a longtime boxing fan will recognize a forgotten fighter, a Filipino American family will discover a name they have never heard before, someone who knows little about boxing will first be drawn to a painting, an old pair of gloves, Pacquiao’s mouthpiece or a two-hundred-year-old volume of Boxiana and then become curious about the people and history surrounding it. That curiosity is part of what we hope for.
More than a century after Filipino fighters first stepped into San Francisco rings, a piece of their history has come home—their photographs, paintings, gloves, books and equipment, each carrying a story that deserves to be remembered.
Little Brown Dolls No More: The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle remains on exhibition at the Filipino American Center, Third Floor, San Francisco Public Library Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, through January 14, 2027.
The Trinidad Family, March 23, 2024, Gala of Champions, Manila Grand Opera Hotel
Philippine sports journalism lost one of its giants with the passing of Ricardo “Recah” Trinidad. To me, however, Recah was more than a great reporter. Through his words, his friendship with my father, Hermie Rivera, and the example he set, he became one of my surrogate fathers and role models.
He taught generations of writers that the best stories did not need embellishment—only truth, observation, heart, and the courage to write them well.
His beloved son, Manolo “Chino” Trinidad, preceded him in death. He leaves behind his wife, Fe, and an extraordinary body of work and many unforgettable stories.
An exceptional journalist skillfully allows stories to unfold with ease and rich detail. While many aim to reach this level of proficiency, Recah Trinidad has elevated the art and craft to a pinnacle of precision.
Ricardo Trinidad was born on June 9, 1943, in Mandaluyong, Philippines, and has had a long and storied career in journalism. His travels and adventures, particularly in sports, provided rich material for his writings in prominent broadsheets such as the Daily Express, Tempo, Champ, Sports Flash, We Forum, Malaya, and the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Through his hard-hitting column, “Bare Eye,” readers vicariously experienced the triumphs and tribulations of athletes in the four sports Filipinos excel in—boxing, basketball, billiards, bowling and everything in between.Through his compelling reportage, we were plunged into the heart of the action. He documented the rise and fall of global sports icons such as Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Muhammad Ali, along with our own revered legends like Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, Rolando Navarrete, Erbito Salavarria, Dodie Boy Peñalosa, Morris East, Robert Jaworski, Efren “Bata” Reyes, Paeng Nepomuceno, Bong Coo and the list can go on.
Trinidad was ringside when Luisito Espinosa knocked out the Thai hero Khaokor Galaxy in Bangkok on October 18, 1989, and when Lindol lost the crown by knockout against Israel Contreras on October 19, 1991, at the Araneta Coliseum.
About 10 years ago, he published his novel, a self-revelation of sorts, about the Ilog Pasig called “Tales From My Lost River”.
Recah Trinidad’s Book about Ilog Pasig called “Tales From My Lost River”
In 2006, he penned an incisive book about the greatest boxer of his era, Emmanuel Pacquiao, Sr., titled “Pacific Storm: Dispatches on Pacquiao of the Philippines”.
If there were gold medals for writers, Recah would undoubtedly deserve many. He covered numerous Olympic Games dating back to the 1972 Munich Games to his last one at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, captivating fans and readers with insider scoops and thrilling play-by-play.
A family that reports together stays together, so they say: In the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima, Japan, his wife Fe and son Manolo joined him as part of the broadcast team.
A product of the University of Santo Tomas, he received a special citation from the Philippine Sports Association in 2016 for his unparalleled contribution to Philippine sports as a sports writer and columnist. Known for his economy of words, Trinidad was also revered by fans who appreciated unfiltered social commentary. He was honored with the Don Carlos Palanca Award in 1978 for his poetry, and has set the bar high for aspiring reporters.
At the Thrilla in Manila in 1975, held at the old Manila Hilton, he witnessed a press box banter between The Greatest and the emcee named Hermie Rivera.
To quote, “There was never a dull moment with him, but the famous broadcaster and boxing expert Hermie Rivera was once stunned into silence when Muhammad Ali turned to him onstage and quipped, ‘Hey, you’re not as dumb as you look.’”
That is just one story from his vault that warms the heart. After learning of my father’s passing, Trinidad wrote in his column, “Boxing was so close to his heart that when he chaperoned the clean-cut Socrates Batoto to a world title challenge in Caracas, Venezuela, correspondents ganged up on the frayed-browed Rivera at the airport for an interview. They mistook the peppery manager for the Filipino title challenger himself. Hermie did not find that very funny. He gave a memorable interview just the same.”
His son, the renowned reporter Manolo “Chino” Trinidad, considers him not only as his greatest mentor but also as someone who has set an example of what a writer should be—meticulous, fair, and incisive.
“Dad has always had my back covered. ‘Tis time I got his.”With Philippine literary giants Nick Joaquin (L) and Erwin Castillo (R)The Trinidads with Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol
The late Smokin’ Joe Cantada once likened the Bare Eye columnist to Clint Eastwood— a master storyteller.
(L-R) Recah Trinidad and his friend Hermie Rivera in San Francisco, California (Circa 1989?)
The equally late Hermie Rivera wanted his friend Mr. Trinidad to have this 1-2 punch: “Recah is the Filipino Ernest Hemingway.”
Source: Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota) • Tue, Aug 10, 1926 • Page 15 (Public Domain)
RUNYON SAYS:
Another Filipino Boxer.
His Name Is Johnny Hill.
Suggests Those Old Days.
Who Was the Real Father?
Probably a Deserter.
By
DAMON RUNYON
Original Copyright, 1926, International Features Service. Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota) • Tue, Aug 10, 1926 • Page 15 (Public Domain)
Mr. Frank Churchill, that dour, silent man from the Philippines, who imported the late Pancho Villa to these shores, as the first Filipino boxer of any note, has brought over another Filipino, said to be one of the best men the islanders have yet produced.
His name is Johnny Hill, which would indicate that his family tree branches off into that remote era when my venerable friend, Mr. W. Oswald McGeehan, the New York sports writer, and other gentlemen, now warped and grizzled with the years, pursued the agile Aguinaldo.
Johnny Hill is a featherweight and has shown some ability in his appearances in this country. Mr. Churchill dourly informed me one evening that he thinks he has another champion, another Villa, in Hill. Mr. Churchill will spend the balance of his days seeking another Villa.
There are many Filipino boxers In this country now, Pete Sarmiento, Johnny Datto, Young Nationalista, Young Dencio, and others, but none of them approach Villa in the matter of ability. Clever Sencio, another of Mr. Churchill’s importations, who died after a battle with Buddy Taylor, was, in my opinion, the best of those after Villa.
In pursuing the Manly Art of Scrambling Ears, the Filipino displays one strong characteristic. He is game. This has ever been something of a surprise to Mr. W. R. Oswald McGeehan, and other former members of the old eighth army corps, for in the days when they chased the nimble Aguinaldo from bough to bough, they held the courage of the Filipino in scant esteem.
The American soldier of ’98 didn’t think his little brown brother had much heart for fighting, because he was generally on the gallop. This may have been due to the fact that the Filipino was outnumbered and outrifled. The history of those gallus days of the empire down yonder in the islands, will tell of many striking instances of individual courage on the part of the Filipinos.
And among the numerous ringmen from the distant islands that I have viewed in the past yew years, I never saw more than two or three that struck me as a bit over-cautious, Pancho Villa was certainly not one of these. He had tremendous courage.
There has long been something of
an argument as to who started the Filipinos to boxing, especially since Mr.
Churchill’s friends claimed that somewhat dubious distinction for him. I believe it is generally agreed that the islanders first took it up in ’98 or 99, and there is little doubt that it was going on among them to a certain extent before Mr. Churchill’s time.
It is certain, however, that the dour Mr. Churchill turned out the first Filipino champion, and you can make what you please of that.
The first authentic record of boxing among the Filipinos was presented to me some time ago in a letter from a former brother-in-arms of Mr. W. Oswald McGeehan, which I printed in this column.
It told of the finding of boxing gloves in the barracks of the Filipino insurgents in the town of San Mateo, in the Maraquina valley, which was taken by the American troops after an engagement in which General Lawton was killed.
Moreover, the Filipino prisoners mentioned boxing bouts behind their lines, and said that they had been in troduced to the game by a Negro soldier who had deserted from the 24th.
I have more recently received an
another letter from Mr. Fred M. Short, of 603 East 135th street, New York, who served with the 21st infantry in the Philippines and who is inclined to agree with the theory that the story is correct.
His regiment was relieved at the water works, on the Marquina road, a fond memory to the boys of ’98-’99 by the Twenty-fourth after taking part in a cleanup of San Mateo.
No garrison was left in the town, and the insurgents later moved back in.
One of them subsequently killed Lawton.
Mr. Short says there were several instances of desertion recorded in the Twenty-fourth about that time, the deserters going over to the rebels at San Mateo, and he thinks it reasonably certain that one of them laced the first boxing gloves on a Filipino.
In any event, I think it must be admitted that the dour Mr. Churchill was the first to make anything of the enterprise in those distant parts, and that is probably about all he cares about.
Source: Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota) • Tue, Aug 10, 1926 • Page 15 (Public Domain)
Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization. Pages 174-176. New York, February 24, 1900. (Public Domain)
by WILLIAM DINWIDDIE
This Website’s Author’s Notes:
The Battle of San Mateo will forever be entwined with discovery of Sol Levinson boxing gloves left by a renegade African-American Soldier from the 24th Infantry who was teaching the local Filipinos of the Manly Art of boxing
We republished the entire article from Harper’s Weekly to establish timelines on the history of how boxing travelled from America to the Philippines.
Source: Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization, Pages 174-176 New York, February 24, 1900 by WILLIAM DINWIDDIE (Public Domain)
Sad as it may seem, General Lawton went to his death a disappointed man. He was ambitious, as are all military men, to be recognized and rewarded by his country for meritorious service. He wanted, above all things, to be made a brigadier in the regular service while he was actively campaigning in the field, and not made one by the favorite shelving process of putting an officer up at grade and then retiring him. General Otis knew that the President was ready to nominate him for his merited honor, but he kept silent, and let the greatest general who has been evolved in this campaign pass out of his presence, at his palatial home, into the sullen rain of night, to death, without uttering that word which would have meant so much to him.
Loyal to the centre of his great heart to every man who had gained his esteem, and to every man to whom he was subordinated in official life, he little understood the machinations and petty intrigues of other men in their struggle to win recognition by subtle dexterity of speech; by holding this commander back and showing that one forward for political purposes, or the concealment of truth for fear it might injure an administration. In his honest mind, conditions confronting the army and the country were subjects to be frankly discussed, that the people might know the true inwardness of the new national problem we are attempting to unravel, so that from their comprehensive understanding there might emanate a definite, vigorous national policy. To him military men professionally were merely parts of a great machine for the preservation of the dignity and integrity of his country. He critically analyzed the ability of men to rise to the needs of an immediate situation, and demanded they should see far into the future, else he cast them out as flawed machinery, unsuited for the work in hand. His moral uprightness resented the governmental tendency to appoint unsuitable men to military positions and to give promotions to those with the most political friends. Either a man was capable or he was a failure. That he was a cultured society man, that his father was or had been a man of marked prominence, that he was a man who controlled so many votes in the Committee on Military Affairs, or that he had in past times been a brilliant fighter, formed no part in his mental equation. To be accepted he must be the man who could do the right thing promptly, at the right time, and with energy, be his father a blacksmith or a statesman.
Such was the mental attitude of the man who sat in the beautiful rooms of his tropical home, within sight and hearing of the swiftly moving waters of the Pasig River, on the night of December 18, 1899. Around him in the great room studded with massive gold-framed mirrors, with walls hung in handsome draperies, and from whose polished floors the softened light of crystal chandeliers was reflected back over tinted foliage plants and handsome carved furniture, were his devoted wife, Mrs. Colonel Liscum, Major Rogers of his staff, who accompanied him on his expedition, and myself.
He was dressed for the field, and his massive figure, in rough campaign clothes, seemed to stand out the bolder amid these luxurious surroundings. He was not very talkative, but sat absorbed and silently thinking, unheeding the play of small talk around him. The rain beat down monotonously, with now and then a gust of wind which drove it rattling against the closed blinds. He roused himself to listen to the elements, and then became again lost in thought.
“General,” I asked, “is the insurrection over?” He turned, instantly interested, and replied: “Why, you know more about the situation than I do! You must remember that I have been away two months, out of touch with the events, on as hand a campaign as an army ever made. The insurgent army is dispersed and broken up in the territory that I have passed through and we will keep it running if our troops are not withdrawn. What do you think about it?”
I answered: “At the Palace, they are confident that the end is very near. One newspaper man at least has committed himself unequivocally by the statement that all organized resistance is over. I have not been willing to go so far and I should like very much to hear your judgment.” “You know,” I continued, “it would be quite a diplomatic stroke if I might quote you as saying the insurrection is over.”
Source: Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization, Pages 174-176 New York, February 24, 1900 by WILLIAM DINWIDDIE (Public Domain)
I may state, parenthetically, that my relations with the general through the Cuban and Philippine campaigns had become of such nature that he was always willing to talk more or less confidentially. He sat and studied for a moment, and then replied: “I would like to say that and when I can do so honestly I will. I want to think over the situation for a few days. The fact is I do not know yet whether this insurrection is over or just begun.” He leaned toward me and earnestly added: “This organized resistance business has been a bubble. There has never been a moment when we could not have chased the insurgents all over the island if we went after them. When General Young reached Taguig and telegraphed me, ‘The bubble is pricked.’ I knew that the backbone of the insurrection was broken. The same thing could have been done last spring when I went to San Isidro.” He broke out suddenly with: “Why call the insurrection over if it requires an army of sixty-five thousand to preserve the peace? They have not surrendered.”
The conversation drifted into other channels, and the majore told some of Mr. Dooley’s stories in inimitable brogue, delighting the general immensely. The general twitted and teased his wife and Mrs. Liscum, and I came in for a share of the railery for having “cold feet ” and deserting his last expedition.
I asked him if he had heard anything about his appointment as brigadier in the regular army. “Not a word,” he replied. “I do not believe they intend to make me one now. My friends have asked the President to make me a brigadier and retire me, but I do not want them to do that. If the President believes I deserve it, he will give it to me; otherwise he will let some other fellow have it. You see, I am ‘a soldier’ and not a politician, and it may be that I do not know how to please them. The President has always, however, expressed great confidence in me. They have got me cowed, Dinwiddie. I am afraid to talk, for fear of saying the wrong thing, and I don’t talk, some newspaper man prints an interview with me anyway.”
It may be said that General Lawton always consistently refused to be interviewed for publication, and his statement, which was carefully qualified, that a hundred thousand men would ultimately be needed in the Philippines afterwards caused him much worry, because he was set upon by General Otis, and somewhat by the department, for making incautious utterances.
It neared the hour of twelve, and Captain Stewart had come; booted and spurred, he clanked up the marble staircase, dripping with rain, to report that the cavalry escort was in the street. The general appealed to him, as he had done to all of us during the evening, asking if he did not believe it would stop raining. General Otis in the early evening had suggested that the movement be called off on account of the weather, but with General Lawton a plan conceived was a plan to be executed without being delayed by a few hours of bad weather, and he requested that he be permitted to carry the operation through to a finish, to which General Otis acquiesced.
A few moments before the general turned on the crisis in the Transvaal. His eyes brightened, and looking towards his wife, he exclaimed: “I’ll go down there when I get through with this. They know how to fight, and that’s what I like.” His wife answered, “No, you will not, dear. You’re going home with me to Southern California to raise oranges. That is good enough for us.” He stood watching her for an instant and spoke as if repeating after her, “Yes, that’s good enough for us.”
I had asked the general if he thought it would be well for me to go with him, and he answered, “No, I think not. There probably will be no fighting; at most just a skirmish. I am going up with the troops garrison San Mateo, and will come right back. General Otis has not accepted my plans for a campaign on the south yet.” It was that little skirmish that lost our country a hero.
The general passed out of his house into a blackness of night, which was broken only here and there by ghastly white patches from the fluttering arc light. The streets ran deep in water, and the heavy towering clouds poured down their moisture in a steady drizzle. His tall form on horseback led the cavalcade; on his head was his famous white helmet, and his frame was encompassed by a long yellow slicker. Behind him were his aides, Sewell and Breckenridge and Major Rogers. Behind them came Stewart with Troop I of the Fourth Cavalry, which had acted as the general’s personal body guard on many a hand weary march.
The fight force of the expedition was to leave the pumping station of Manila’s water works, four miles out of the city at midnight, and proceed up the right bank of the stream, past the town of Mariquina (which we have taken a few odd times and relinquished), until opposite San Mateo, where the insurgents have lived in undisputed possession since our defeat ten months ago. The troops were two squadrons–one mounted and one dismounted– of the Eleventh Cavalry, under Colonel Locket; two battalions of the twenty-ninth Infantry, under Colonel Sargeant; and one battalion of the Twenty seventh, unjer Major Bryam.
General Lawton went out of the city by way of La Loma Church where so many Filipinos lay dead after the desperate conflict of last February. A pail of darkness had fallen over the party as they left the scattering lights of the city behind. No sound was heard except the sodden thud of the horses’ feet in the narrow muddy road and the champ of bits as the animals fretfully tossed their heads. Now and again some trooper muttered a curse as the mud splashed to this cheek, and he wiped it away with a swish of his water-tricked hand. Farther and farther they pulled the brims of their battered campaign hats over their eyes to protect their faces and necks from the driving rain. The moon came up behind the heavy clouds, and men who could not before been seen became black silhouettes against a heavy gray sky. The great white dome of the church hung seemingly suspended above the black earth like a huge ball.
At half past two, King, his most trusted personal aide, and Fuller, ordinance officer, who had been sent ahead to instruct the troops, joined the general’s party. It may not be amiss to say that Captain King has been with the general since the beginning of the Cuban campaign. His relations have been of the most confidential nature. He has received the approval of the general over and over again for the conspicuous gallantry in the field, where he has been with him in every engagement, and lastly it was his arms that Lawton died.
Hour after hour they rode, each one seeming longer than the preceding, as the men shifted their frail ponchos in vain endeavors to shed the water, and and only became wetter and more chilled. Just before the light of morning grayed the melancholy sky, their ears caught the oozy splashing of marching men ahead of them. It was the rear column of the troops from the water-works plunging doggedly toward San Mateo.
At half past six the light of day began to come, and the weary force found themselves at the crest of the great bluff escarpment, six hundred yards from the silent town, and separated therefrom by a river. Not a moment did General Lawton lose in putting the troops into motion to surround and attack the village. Colonel Locket, with the Eleventh Cavalry, was ordered to move to the left above the town, ford the river, and attack on the north. His mounted troops were to move several miles before fording, so as to cut off the retreat of the enemy in that direction; while the dismounted men were to cross at the first available opportunity, and take the insurgent trenches, which lined the riverbank, in reverse. The Twenty-ninth infantry, under Colonel Sargent, were to move down to the right, attract the enemy’s attention, and engage them; but the right wing of his deployed line was to ford the river and execute a flank movement to the south of the village. Major Byram, with the Twenty-seventh, was to fill the centre of the line, and re-enforce if necessary.
The execution of this movement was no easy task. The troops were in a narrow trail sixty feet above the small alluvial flood-plain, and down to this lower level led merely a slippery, mud bound foot-path. To their left in this bottomland stretched a great cane-field. In their front and to the right were rice fields flooded knee-deep in water. The view of the town was quite open in the centre, but on each side great bamboo fringes raised their fantastic feathery shaft, and afterwards proved of great protection to our men, as they lay within two hundred yards of the enemy, under a galling fire.
The cavalry, in single file, slipped and floundred down the path,and plunged northward through the rice fields. The foot troops had barely began to move into this path, one man slipping, and bowling down half a dozen ahead of him, when ragged rattling reports of small-arms began, and the insurgents could be seen piling into trenches pell-mell, all dressed in white clothes.
As the Twenty-ninth moved across the open rice-field, the fire steadily grew louder, seemingly all Mausers, and the bullets swept high, to bury themselves in the slide of the bluff, or to go even higher, surging into the country beyond.
Below San Mateo the river divided to flow around a tiny densely ventured island, and from the rear of this protection the troops moved as hastily as men can move with their legs pulling from sticky mud and water like suction pumps.
General Lawton and his aides came straight across the rice field toward the now clearly visible trenches. He gave orders now to one and then another of his aides, which they sped off to execute apparently not noticing the bullets that hissed closely by the little party. He watched the trenches through his field glasses, and remarked on the construction of one trench, where it ran abutting against a stone building, surrounded by a heavy wall,
Some one remarked, as the fire grew hotter, “General, I believe they’re shooting at you.” He laughed slightly, more a grim smile than anything else, and replied “Don’t launch, and keep moving.” Suddenly young Breckenridge jumped into the air, whirled around a time or two, and exclaimed, “General, they’ve got me’ and then fell down. The general was instantly at his side, and with the aid of King, Fuller ,and Rogers carried him to the left into a little gulch, where they were partially screened from the fire. “Find a surgeon!” the general commanded, and Fuller ran toward the Eleventh Cavalry to find one but failed. King saw a surgeon to the right and came back, bringing Dr. Beardsley of the Eleventh Cavalry with him. As the doctor examined the wounded man, General Lawton stepped out into the rice field to watch the progress of his troops, and was joined by Lieutenant Fuller a moment afterwards, who remarked, as he came up, “General, Breckenridge is not mortally hurt.” The general looked at him calmly, as a bullet passed by their faces, and replied: “Oh, I knew that. When a man is mortally hit it knocks him down, and his face becomes ashy pale and drawn around the nose, and then black ring come under his eyes.”
The bullets got closer and closer, and the general finally said, as they spitefully dug into the ground or sent jets of water into the air: “I am afraid this is not a good place for a general. I always like to be on the firing-line when I can be the least bit of good, but to-day I am going to let somebody else do it.”
He turned away into the bushes, and followed the path toward the top fo the bluff, leaving his aides to execute his final orders. How far he went to the rear no one knows.
King and Fuller were hurrying back from opposite directions to bring him information concerning the location of the forces when, to their surprise they saw him calmly walking over the open rice-field alone, lifting his glasses from time to time as some object of interest caught his unassisted eye.
He towered above the landscape, giant that he was, with his yellow slicker trailing to his feet like a gown. The sater streamed from his white helmet in the steady downpour of the rain.
Suddenly, when they were within twenty feet of him, he brushed his hand before his left breast, as if stung by an insect, turned his head slightly, and spat a clot of blood; the single exclamation, “God!’ came from his lips.
King, the man who idolized this brave soldier, sprang forward with a cry touched with agony, exclaiming, “General, are you hurt?” he answered, in a natural voice, “I’m hit.” King questioned back,”Where?” and the general replied, “Through the lungs.” These were the last words this wonderful man uttered–a man who was the dominating spirit, though not the highest in rank, of the army of the Philippines. He swayed backward and forward, clinching his nails into the palms of his hands in one mighty effort to stand on his feet, and then fell into King’s and Fuller’s arms– into the arms of men who in their loyalty and devotion would have sacrificed their own lives gladly to save the other.
Dr. Beardsley had seen the tragedy from where he was binding Breckenridge’s ugly wounds in arm and rib, and rushed to the general’s side. Slowly, he turned his head with tightly clenched teeth, fighting for life; his mouth burst open, and from it gushed the fountain of life’s blood in one great stream. Backward he sank tighter in the arms of his aides. Lawton, the commander of men, was dead, through his heart throbbed on for some three minutes, emptying with every pulsation the arteries his gigantic frame of the blood which gave him health and force and mentality. The hour was a few minutes of nine o’clock, the nineteenth day of December, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety-nine.
A mighty cheer rose from the throats of the American troops as Colonel Sargent’s men broke from cover on the little island they had gained, and charged through the waters of the swollen stream straight on the town. If they had but known the commanding general lay dead behind them, that cry would have changed to a fierce shout for vengeance.
The fight was over. It cost us one major-general’s life and thirteen wounded men and officers. While it was only a skirmish, it took two and a half hours to execute the flanking movement and capture the town. The insurgents lost half a dozen killed, and the cavalry captured a few prisoners.
General Lawton’s body was carried across the swollen stream into San Mateo with great difficulty, and two couriers started to Manila with the news. All the afternoon they foundered through the mud and water and struggled against the wind and pelting rain. Night came on prematurely, and in the darkness they felt their way Manila-ward, foot by foot, making detours around each native village, where lights of candles crept through the crevices in the tightly barred houses. At eight o’clock on the 19th General Otis knew that Lawton was dead. Messengers were sent scurrying over the city to notify the remaining members of Lawton’s staff of his death; and Colonel Edwards, the trusted adjutant-general, with a sore and aching heart, bore the dreadful tidings to the little woman who waited for her soldier husband’s return, and dreamed betweentimes of the happy days to come, when together they would raise oranges in the balmy air of southern California.
Colonel Hayes, with four troops of the Fourth Cavalry, was ordered to move by daylight on the 20th from Psay barracks, below Manila, to Marquina, and protect the general’s body on its way to the city.
The incessant rain had swollen the streams to such an extent that fears were felt by those at San Mateo that they would not be able to send the boy in, but instant preparations were begun. No transportation had gone with the command, and not a mouthful of food had the troops had for twenty-four hours, except that which they foraged from the empty houses of the town. A covered two-wheeled quilez was found, and its oil-cloth top and stanchions were broken off for General Lawton’s hearse. His body, lying on a stretcher, swathed in looted sheeting and army blankets, was strapped into position over the wheels, and following behind this crude vehicle came a string of wounded in other two-wheeled conveyances drawn by captured prisoners, all guarded by Stewart’s band of sorrowing men.
A short distance below San Mateo a rushing stream blocked progress, and as no easy ford was discovered, the body was unlashed and taken over in a narrow teetering canoe. The carts were floated over, one by one, and the funeral march again began. No resistance was met with at Mariquina, though it was necessary to advance on the town cautiously, thus losing much time. It was night when the pumping-station was reached, and as the river was a foaming, raging torrent, it was necessary to await daylight before attempting the perilous crossing.
It was here on the morning of the 20th that Colonel Hayes met the returning party, but hours were spent in getting the funeral cortege over the river, and not until half past three did the closely curtained ambulance draw through the gates of the Manila home and give back to the wife all that remained of Major-General Henry W. Lawton.
Outside the gate stood the general’s twelve-year-old son–a delicate little chap who has accompanied his father on expedition after expedition, but was left behind this time on account of the weather. The boy worshiped the father, as the father did the son. After a hard day’s work, when the general had not had a moment’s rest and in his least communicative mood, his boy would turn the tide of feeling, and from within the doors of his headquarters room the staff would hear the general laughing as the youngster told, with enthusiasm of youth, some happening of the day. Poor little chap! He stood, pale as death, staring up the long white road, waiting for that procession. He made but one remark–”I can’t bear to see him come home”; and every soldier around him choked something down in his throat and furtively put his hand to his eyes. One sight of the solemn with a single ambulance between, and the boy, so much a man, was a child wrecked with grief.
Source: Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization, Pages 174-176 New York, February 24, 1900 by WILLIAM DINWIDDIE (Public Domain)
They have deposited his earthly remains in the secluded little chapel of Paco cemetery, and over the roof the great boughs of mimosa-trees slowly rustle in the air, and below at the door a sentry’s even footsteps pace to and fro. We are, with military honors, guarding the body whose soul had fled.
The nation will take him back to his own fair country; they will bury him with high pomp and ceremony on the rolling hill-sides of Arlington, overlooking the nation’s capital, and great guns will bellow with hollow sounds the last salute to the hero; but, after all, how paltry a nation’s grief compared to that of a woman who looks forward only to reunion in heaven, though she breathes: “It cannot be true. It seems as if Henry must come home to me once more.”
Source: Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization, Pages 174-176 New York, February 24, 1900 by WILLIAM DINWIDDIE (Public Domain)Source: Harper’s Weekly. A Journal of Civilization, Pages 174-176 New York, February 24, 1900 by WILLIAM DINWIDDIE (Public Domain)
The Evening News (Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) • Fri, Oct 9, 1925 • Page 16 (Public Domain)
Runyon Says
Churchill is in Error.
On Boxing in Manila.
Gloves of San Mateo.
Negro Soldier Pioneer.
——
By Damon Runyon
——
Not long ago I read a statement
by Mr. Frank Churchill, who was
manager of the late Pancho Villa, flyweight champion of the world, confessing that he—Churchill— adjusted the first pair of boxing gloves to the hands of a Filipino.
It is of no great consequence, to be sure, but to relieve Mr. Churchill’s conscience of any sense of guilt, and to clear the record, I wish to state that I can produce evidence which completely absolves him. In other words, he is in error if he thinks he was the first to plant the germs of The Manly Art of Scrambling Ears among the Filipinos.
——
I have no doubt that this news will remove a load from Mr. Churchill’s mind. He has probably gone along for years feeling conscience stricken whenever he encountered a squashed bugle, or nose, on the Escolta, which is the main street of Manila, or observed the citizens of the town walking hard on their heels.
But I see in Mr. Churchill only an
accessory to the crime to which he is pleading guilt after many years.
It was not his hands that laced the first pair of gloves on the dukes of a little born brother to William H. Taft-not
by quite a spell. It was the black hands of a soldier of the old 24th Infantry.
——
Let me go back some twenty-six years, and before the arrival in the Philippines of Mr. Churchill. Let me go back to the morning of November 18, 1899, and and to the mist shrouded rice paddies around the little town of San Mateo on the
Island of Luxon, with the troopers of the Eleventh Cavalry sliding through the haze.
There was a leathery looking man in command of the cavalrymen that morning, his long legs dangling almost to the ground on either side of a shaggy little pony, and a big white helmet on his head that made him a conspicuous figure.
The man was General Lawton, one of the famous Indian fighters of the American Army, and as great a soldier as ever wore shoe leather. He was leading the cavalrymen to an assault on San Mateo against the Filipino insurgents, and he fell in that fight.
——
The cavalrymen went on and took the town of San Mateo, and they found among the possessions abandoned by the fleeing insurrectos, a set of boxing gloves made by the late Sol Levinson, of San
Francisco, whose gloves came to be in San Mateo, and some of the Filipino prisoners explained that they had been brought in by a renegade soldier from the negro 24th Infantry, and that he had been schooling the Filipinos in their use.
They told of bouts beneath the
palm trees, the followers of Emilio Aguinaldo, with the negro directing and coaching, and there is no doubt in my mind that this was the very first sowing of the seed that eventually produced a Filipino world’s champion.
——
As to what became of the negro soldier, I do not know. He did not fall in the fight for San Mateo, of that I am quite sure.
Perhaps he is a peaceful, and somewhat grizzled dweller, of a remote bario on Luzon, raising rice, and kicking a plodding carabao to market, little wrecking of the damage he has wrought to Filipino ears and nose since that time twenty-six years ago.
But there is no doubt that Mr. Frank Churchill can be held responsible for the development of the first Filipino boxers of any real ability, as well as for the Philippines’ first and only world’s champion.
——
I think he reached the Philippines some time after the fabulous “Days of the Empire,” which period was immediately after the fall of Manila. Baseball, cock-fighting and racing flourished among the Filipinos, but there was no boxing except among the American soldiers. Mr. Churchill became one of the leading promoters of Manila and presently began
developing the natives as boxers.
——
Pancho Villa was already a good fighter when Mr. Churchill first brought him to America, with several other Filipino boxers, and a good drawing card In Manila, but Mr. Churchill took very small purses for him at the outset here, just to get him started.
He realized that Villa’s reputation at home meant nothing here, and he was always confident that Villa was great fighter. Subsequent events proved Mr. Churchill was quite right.
Personally, I think Villa was the greatest fighter of his inches, The Manly Art of Scrambling Ears has seen in a long time.
I note that Mr. Churchill has imported another Filipino flyweight that he says he thinks is as good a fighter as Villa. I doubt that. I doubt that Mr. Churchill will ever have another fighter that he will think is as good as Villa.
The Villas come along at rare intervals, and few men are fortunate enough to get two of them. Villa, in addition to his fighting ability, could draw more money than most of the champions of other divisions.
He had an amazing personality and color in the ring. He was flashy, spectacular. And he could fight— how he could fight! He classes in Pugilistic history with Jimmy Barry, Jimmy Wilde, Johnny Coulon, and the other great little men of the game.
There is a small and tragic club in boxing history — so exclusive that only four men have ever belonged to it…Stanley Ketchel; Francisco Tingson Guilledo; Masao Ohba; and Salvador Sánchez.
These four men never lived to see their titles stripped, their belts passed on, or their reigns officially ended.
In the strange arithmetic of boxing history, they remain champions forever. Four men. Four nations. Four stories that ended way too soon — each one a reminder that the most brutal thing about the fight game is sometimes not what happens inside the ring.
Ketchel and his fight against the Galveston Giant in Colma (Photo: Charles Percy Dana of San Francisco (Dana Photos Studios) own the Jack Johnson versus Stanley Ketchel fight photo (now in the public domain)
October 16, 1909. Colma, California — just south of San Francisco, where the city had pushed prizefighting out of its limits and into the makeshift arenas nearby. Thousands came.
They always came when Ketchel fought.
That afternoon, he was stepping up…way up. Jack Johnson was the heavyweight champion of the world; Ketchel was the middleweight king.
Nearly forty pounds separated them. Nobody gave the smaller man a chance. Ketchel didn’t care. He came forward the way he always had — head down, coiled, whipping hands , pressure from the first bell. He was looking for one shot. Just one. And then…he found it. A right hand sent Jack Johnson to the canvas; the crowd fell silent. For a moment, nobody moved.
Johnson, of course, got up. One should not wake the Galveston Giant. And then it was over. One right hand from the champion of the world…and Ketchel was done. The floor came up to meet Stanley Ketchel and he didn’t rise.
The fight became legend before the arena had even emptied. But Ketchel’s story…the rest of it…was heading somewhere nobody saw coming.
Stanley Ketchel, circa 1908: Courtesy of the San Francisco History Center at the San Francisco Public Library, History Center. Public Domain
A year later, on October 15, 1910, Stanley Ketchel was dead. He was twenty-four years old.
He had gone to stay at a ranch near Conway, Missouri — a quiet arrangement that ended at the breakfast table. A ranch hand named Walter Dipley shot him in the back with a rifle. What happened next said everything about the kind of man Ketchel was: mortally wounded, he still rose from the floor, lunged at his attacker, and nearly choked the life out of him before his body finally gave out.
He died still holding the middleweight championship of the world. No one had beaten it out of him. No one ever could.
Pancho Villa (From the Collection of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame)
Pancho Villa’s rise through boxing’s flyweight ranks was something to behold. Small in stature but relentless, he fought with speed, stamina, and a fearless aggression that wore opponents down and wore crowds out — in the best possible way. His whirlwind style overwhelmed fighters accustomed to slower pacing, and within months he was defeating top contenders across the United States.
On June 18, 1923, Villa captured the world flyweight championship from Jimmy Wilde at the Polo Grounds in New York — becoming the first Filipino, and the first Asian, to win a world title in boxing.
But it’s another fight that tells you everything about the Filipino man.
(L-R) Jimmy Mclarnin, referee Bobby Johnson, and Pancho Villa– Oaks Ball Park, Emeryville, California, July 4, 1925 (Public Domain)
When Villa climbed into the ring on July 4, 1925, to face rising Canadian star Jimmy McLarnin, he was already sick — sepsis from badly infected teeth. Doctors told him to postpone. Reasonable people agreed. Villa refused.
If you’ve ever known someone like Pancho Villa — someone who felt the love of a crowd not as applause but as obligation — you already understand why. These were his people. They had come to see him fight. That was reason enough.
So he fought.
Most ringside observers gave the unofficial nod to the champion. But the lone judge — who also served as referee, a man named Bobby Johnson — awarded the decision to McLarnin…younger, faster, and fresher than the man across the ring from him.
History would be kind to McLarnin. He went on to become a Hall of Famer, a welterweight great they called the Baby Faced Assassin — one of the genuinely special ones. But that day, Villa had done something McLarnin never had to do. He showed up broken and gave everything he had left anyway.
The bout was non-title, and the flyweight championship remained Villa’s. It would remain his forever.
Ten days later, Pancho Villa was on an operating table at Saint Mary’s Hospital in San Francisco. The sepsis that should have kept him from the ring had finally won — doing what no opponent ever could.
He was twenty-three years old.
Like Stanley Ketchel before him, Villa never lost his title in the ring. What no opponent could take, a rotten tooth and a fighter’s stubborn devotion to his people ultimately did.
Across Generations
Many decades later, the fraternity gained two more members.
Masao Ohba was small, quiet, and ring savvy. In the ring he was something special — calm, sharp, devastating. Japan had their star . He won the WBA flyweight title in 1970 and kept right on winning; each fight adding another layer to a career that felt like it was only just getting started.
He too was just twenty-three. The best years were supposed to be ahead of him. In January 1973, he got into his Corvette before the sun came up and drove into Tokyo. Nobody knows exactly what happened next…only that somewhere along an elevated expressway, the car crashed into a concrete pillar, bursting into flames.
Ohba was gone from this world too soon. No final bout, no last stand — just a young man who never came home from a drive. The championship stayed with him. It had nowhere else to go. Nine years later, another brilliant fighter joined the brotherhood of sorrow.
Nine years later, another brilliant fighter joined the brotherhood of sorrow.
Mexico’s featherweight king Salvador Sánchez had already beaten champions like Wilfredo Gómez and Azumah Nelson, and seemed destined to dominate his division for years to come.
On August 12, 1982, he too died in an automobile accident. He was involved in a crash near Querétaro, Mexico, while driving his Porsche 928 during training camp preparations.
He was twenty-three years old…still WBC Featherweight champion, and the greatest fighter, according to legendary boxer Roy Jones, Jr.
Champions of Eternity
In boxing, every champion eventually hears the bell that ends his reign.
Except these four:
Ketchel.
Villa.
Ohba.
Sánchez…
…four champions separated by decades and continents. One murdered on a ranch…one lost on an operating table in San Francisco…two taken in sudden, senseless motor vehicle accidents.
Their titles were never surrendered inside the ropes. They remain founding members of the most heart wrenching — and most exclusive — fraternity the sport has ever known.
Sources, acknowledgements and recommended readings
All photos and references in this article are properly attributed and comply with the U.S. Fair Use Doctrine
Photo collage of Pancho Villa and Stanley Ketchel are in the public domain and photos of Masao Ohba and Salvador Sanchez are from publicly shared collections (Gratitude to the owners of the images)…Stanley Ketchel, Pancho Villa, Salvador Sanchez, Masao Ohba and the Strange Brotherhood of Champions Who Never Lost Their Crowns
Charles Percy Dana of San Francisco (Dana Photos Studios) own the Jack Johnson versus Stanley Ketchel fight photo (now in the public domain)
The Ring Article: Boxing’s Mosquito Fleet, by William “Bill” Miller (The Ring, JUNE, Vol. XI, No. 5)
Special thanks to Christina Moretta (Photo Curator, Acting Manager) and Lisa Palella (Library Technical Assistant II) at the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library for the kind help and technical assistance
THEY were called “little brown dolls,” but how they could fight!
Twenty-two world champions enshrined in the record books since the early ’20s attest to the ability, speed, courage and flash of Filipino fighters, who campaigned mainly in the lower weight classes.
If there was a boxing resurgence in the Islands today plus another steady stream of small ringmen to the States the problems of American matchmakers and promoters would diminish.
Filipino fans still heatedly debate the relative merits of Pancho Villa, Ceferino Garcia, Flash Elorde and Ben Villaflor, who twice held the junior lightweight championship, as to who was the best to come out of the Philippines.
But, there are plenty more names to go around.
The old timers swear by Villa, the first-ever Filipino to win a world title, by a shocking knockout -no less- of incomparable flyweight champion Jimmy Wilde of England, the Mighty Atom, in Madison Square Garden in 1923.
Necessary credentials
Garcia, who held the middleweight crown in a career that spanned 1927-1944; Elorde, a junior-lightweight champion and twice an unsuccessful challenger for the lightweight title; and more recently Villaflor, have the necessary credentials and adherents who loudly clarion their merits to be number one.
It all began with Frank Churchill, an American who migrated to Manila after World War 1 and struck it rich. What Churchill discovered was not gold but “little brown dolls,” Filipino fighters who were the Islands’ greatest sports heroes.
Churchill, a US Customs House clerk turned pugilistic entrepreneur, exported the virtually unknown, untapped vein of talent to, first, Honolulu and then the United States and American fans eagerly paid to enjoy their quick moves, ringmanship and courage.
If there was one minus factor in the imported performers it was a lack of punch, but it mattered not to the rabid fans who appreciated their boxing skills, speed and grit.
Knowledgeable
The Filipino fight fan is knowledgeable, behaves ideally, understands what he sees and at the same time will not hesitate to slow clap or boo a renowned fighter’s poor performance and demand he not be permitted to appear again.
California – particularly the San Francisco Bay Area – became the land of opportunity for the (mostly) flyweights and bantamweights.
San Jose, Stockton, Bakersfield, Watsonville, Oakland, Sacramento, San Francisco and Modesto became second homes for the itinerant warriors, who fought as often as once a week, usually against Mexicans, another group of impoverished immigrants.
Opportunistic promoters were eager to utilize the little men who attracted big crowds of Filipino farm laborers from the California Valley and Delta towns. Saturday night concluded a week of labor in the fields and what better recreation and release than to swarm to the local arena to cheer on a fellow countryman.
World began to hear
Soon championship opportunities followed for the most adept. The world began to hear about Villa, Small Montana, Little Dado, Pete Sarmiento, Clever Sencio, Elino Flores, Little Pancho, Dencio and Speed Cabanela and Ceferino Garcia, among others. Later, Leo Espinosa and Flashy Sebastian came into prominence.
The ill-fated Villa (Francisco Guilledo) called the second best fly-weight of all time (after Wilde) by Ring Magazine authority Nat Fleischer, died in San Francisco in 1925 from an ulcerated tooth 10 days after losing a non-title match in Oakland to Jimmy McLarnin. He had 105 registered bouts and a record of 88-9-5 and only 22 knockouts with three no-contests. His knockout of Wilde put the Philippines on the boxing map.
Elorde, the hero of the modern day Filipino fan, came to San Francisco in 1956 after decisioning world featherweight champion Sandy Saddler in a non-title 10 in Marila. They were rematched in the San Francisco Cow Palace for the title and after Elorde had piled up an early lead he became the target of Saddler’s elbows and ugly tactics on a damaged eye and finally was a TKO victim in the late rounds.
Elorde’s reign
He went on to capture the world 130-pound title, was twice repulsed by Carlos Ortiz for the world lightweight crown on 14th-round stoppages. Gabriel Elorde, who died in 1985 in Manila, fought 11 times in Northern California and three times in New York City, finished with a record of 88-25-2 with 34 knockouts from 1951 through 1971.
He won the 140-pound title from Harold Gomes in Quezon City by seventh round KO and repeated with a first round KO in San Francisco in the rematch in 1960 and successfully defended 10 times.
A “big man” by Filipino standards, was 160-pounder Garcia (95-26-9 with 65 KO’s) who won his title from Fred Apostoli in New York in 1939. During a career that spanned 1927-1944. Ceferino — noted for his so-called bolo punch later adopted by Cuban Kid Gavilan — defended his title successfully against Henry Armstrong in Los Angeles in 1940 with a highly disputed draw that prevented Armstrong from becoming the holder of four world titles. Garcia died in San Diego in 1981 at age 75.
Ben Villaflor (35-4-6, 20 KO’s) decisioned Alfred Marcano in 1972 and after losing the title to Kuniaki Shibata regained it seven months later and overall successfully defended it six times.
Small Montana (Benjamin Gan) from Negros, campaigned from 1931 to 1941, moved permanently to Northern California and became a merchant seaman after retiring from the ring. In 1935 Montana beat Midget Wolgast for the New York version of the world flyweight title and lost it to Benny Lynch in London two years later. His 111 total bouts include 79 wins, 22 losses and 10 draws with 10 knockouts.
Little Dado (Eleuterio Zapanta) fought 36 times in Northern California in an 11-year career, beating Small Montana in 1938 for the California-recognized world flyweight title and finished with a 51-7-11, 2 no contest record, including 20 knockouts.
Recent champions
The most recent champions from the Philippines have been Morris East (15-3-0, 10 KO’s) junior-welterweight, who at the age of 20 was the youngest Filipino to win a world championship; and Manny Melchor, light-flyweight. East, son of a US Navy serviceman and a Filipino mother, knocked out Akinobu Hiranaka in the 11th round in Tokyo in 1992, but lost to Juan Coggi in Argentina in his first defense, January 1993.
Luisito Espinosa surprisingly knocked out Kaokor Galaxy of Thailand in one round in 1989 in Bangkok to win the WBA 118-pound title and had two successful defenses before losing the title to Israel Contreras of Venezuela in 1992.
Other world champions from the Islands include Roberto Cruz. Pedro Adigue, Rene Barrientos, Bernabe Villacampo, Erbito Salavarria, Villaflor, Rolando Navarette, Frank Cedeñe, Dodie Peñalosa, Eric Chavez, Tacy Macalos, Bobby Berna, Rolando Pascua and Rolando Bohol.
Title challengers, but not champions, include Dommy Ursua, Johnny Sato, Fel Clemente, Socrates Batoto, Danny Kid, Arnel Arrozal, Pretty Boy Lucas, Fernando Lumacad, Johnny Jamito, Tirso del Rosario, Aniceto Vargas and Rod Sequenian.
Filipino fighters can fight!
Don’t be misled by the ’20s description of “little brown dolls.”
Greatest boxing spectacle
With such a rich boxing heritage, it is surprising that the amateur program in the Philippines has not kept pace with the professionals. One silver (featherweight Anthony Villanueva in Tokyo in 1964) and two bronze are the only Olympic medal winners from the Philippines. Dado Marino and Jesus Salud, who won world titles as residents of Honolulu, were born in the Philippines but migrated at an early age.
Give the Filipino fan a fight worthy of attendance and he will show up despite his lack of allegiance to either boxer. The greatest boxing spectacle ever in the Philippines was the 1975 “Thrilla in Manila,” between two Americans, heavyweight champion Muhammad Ali and challenger Joe Frazier. Araneta Coliseum, designed for 20,000 spectators, was filled to overflowing with 10,000 more standees.
The Authors
Hermie Rivera, a radio announcer and television sports commentator in Manila, managed world champions Luisito Espinosa and Morris East.
Jack Fiske was the boxing columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle for 40 years.
An exceptional journalist skillfully allows stories to unfold with ease and rich detail. While many aim to reach this level of proficiency, Recah Trinidad has elevated the art and craft to a pinnacle of precision.
Ricardo Trinidad was born on June 9, 1943, in Mandaluyong, Philippines, and has had a long and storied career in journalism. His travels and adventures, particularly in sports, provided rich material for his writings in prominent broadsheets such as the Daily Express, Tempo, Champ, Sports Flash, We Forum, Malaya, and the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Through his hard-hitting column, “Bare Eye,” readers vicariously experienced the triumphs and tribulations of athletes in the four sports Filipinos excel in—boxing, basketball, billiards, bowling and everything in between.
Through his compelling reportage, we were plunged into the heart of the action. He documented the rise and fall of global sports icons such as Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Muhammad Ali, along with our own revered legends like Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, Rolando Navarrete, Erbito Salavarria, Dodie Boy Peñalosa, Morris East, Robert Jaworski, Efren “Bata” Reyes, Paeng Nepomuceno, Bong Coo and the list can go on.
Trinidad was ringside when Luisito Espinosa knocked out the Thai hero Khaokor Galaxy in Bangkok on October 18, 1989, and when Lindol lost the crown by knockout against Israel Contreras on October 19, 1991, at the Araneta Coliseum.
About 10 years ago, he published his novel, a self-revelation of sorts, about the Ilog Pasig called “Tales From My Lost River”.
In 2006, he penned an incisive book about the greatest boxer of his era, Emmanuel Pacquiao, Sr., titled “Pacific Storm: Dispatches on Pacquiao of the Philippines”.
If there were gold medals for writers, Recah would undoubtedly deserve many. He covered numerous Olympic Games dating back to the 1972 Munich Games to his last one at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, captivating fans and readers with insider scoops and thrilling play-by-play.
A family that reports together stays together, so they say: In the 1994 Asian Games in Hiroshima, Japan, his wife Fe and son Manolo joined him as part of the broadcast team.
A product of the University of Santo Tomas, he received a special citation from the Philippine Sports Association in 2016 for his unparalleled contribution to Philippine sports as a sports writer and columnist. Known for his economy of words, Trinidad was also revered by fans who appreciated unfiltered social commentary. He was honored with the Don Carlos Palanca Award in 1978 for his poetry, and has set the bar high for aspiring reporters.
At the Thrilla in Manila in 1975, held at the old Manila Hilton, he witnessed a press box banter between The Greatest and the emcee named Hermie Rivera.
To quote, “There was never a dull moment with him, but the famous broadcaster and boxing expert Hermie Rivera was once stunned into silence when Muhammad Ali turned to him onstage and quipped, ‘Hey, you’re not as dumb as you look.’”
That is just one story from his vault that warms the heart. After learning of my father’s passing, Trinidad wrote in his column, “Boxing was so close to his heart that when he chaperoned the clean-cut Socrates Batoto to a world title challenge in Caracas, Venezuela, correspondents ganged up on the frayed-browed Rivera at the airport for an interview. They mistook the peppery manager for the Filipino title challenger himself. Hermie did not find that very funny. He gave a memorable interview just the same.”
His son, the renowned reporter Manolo “Chino” Trinidad, considers him not only as his greatest mentor but also as someone who has set an example of what a writer should be—meticulous, fair, and incisive.
“Dad has always had my back covered. ‘Tis time I got his.”
With Philippine literary giants Nick Joaquin (L) and Erwin Castillo (R)(L-R)Former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte, Recah Trinidad Chino TrinidadWith Manny Piñol
The late Smokin’ Joe Cantada once likened the Bare Eye columnist to Clint Eastwood— a master storyteller.
The equally late Hermie Rivera took it a notch higher and wanted his friend Mr. Trinidad to have this powerful 1-2 punch: “Recah is the Filipino Ernest Hemingway.”
(L-R) Recah Trinidad and his friend Hermie Rivera in San Francisco, California (Circa 1989?).
The Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame honors Mr. Recah Trinidad for his tremendous contributions to Philippine boxing history.
Aquil, as his friends and family fondly called him, grew up in General Santos City (formerly Dadiangas) in the southern island of Mindanao. Blessed with an innate desire to fight injustice, he pursued a curriculum focusing on what constitutes good government. He received his political science degree from Mindanao State University in March 1990. His inquisitive nature, knack for writing and talent for reportage has taken him to unprecedented heights in the world of journalism by advocating for press freedom and justice for the oppressed. He cut his professional teeth in journalism as a radio reporter and news writer for DXCP Radio Station (1986-1994) while attending college. Along the way, he was a correspondent and reporter for Sapol News Bulletin, General Santos City (2010-21), The Mindanao Bulletin (2007-21), Philippine Daily Inquirer (1996-2021), Agence France-Presse (2013-2015), The Brunei Times (2011-12), The Edge, Davao (2009-10), SunStar Super Balita, Davao (2005-06), SunStar, GenSan (1998-2004), GenSanToday as city editor and columnist (1995-96).
A glaring omission from his curriculum vitae are his duties as Media Relations Chief Officer for the Office of the Senate of Senator Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao, most likely by design due to his humble nature.
He was a consummate professional and a meticulous reporter diving deep just to get to the bottom of the story be it murder, mayhem, political assassinations or illegal logging; the juicier the subject matter was the better, according to him. He penned incisive articles like his coverage on Senator Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao and the proposed development of a Philippine Boxing and Combat Sports Commission (PBSC) designed to help every aspiring Filipino athlete in boxing and martial arts or MMA.
The Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame honors Mr. Aquiles Zonio for his tremendous contributions to Philippine boxing history.
It started with a canceled tattoo appointment. April 2020. Like many during the early days of the pandemic, my son and I found ourselves stranded somewhere we never expected—Mactan Island. Specifically, Lapu-Lapu City in Cebu.
The world had hit pause. Flights were grounded. Plans faded. Life became checkpoints, curfews, and quiet routines. Our boxing-themed Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao tour? It didn’t even get past the Visayas.
So there we were. Grant and I. Floating through the stillness. Taking each day as it came… caught in the space between rest and unease.
One slow afternoon (there were plenty), we streamed an episode of Xiao Time. Professor Michael Charles Chua spoke about Filipino tattoo traditions—how they weren’t just for style, but for storytelling. Marks of valor. Identity made visible.
“Dad, do you think I should get a tattoo?” Grant asked.
“Sure,” I agreed though with the tone of a non-believer of wearable art , “but for me, no thanks.”
We had another artist lined up, but he couldn’t get through. Lockdown rules were strict. Barangay Tanods kept close watch—and rightly so. ECQ, GCQ, or the surreptitiously hidden BBQ, varying degrees of quarantine that seemed like cruel jokes. Then a friend told us about a local artist named Brian Bonbon, Owner of Inksider Tattoo, just nearby.
Our hotel, JPark, strictly didn’t allow visitors. As luck would have it, the family of Mr. and Mrs. Christian and Jean Chavez Balbuena, who lived close by, welcomed us into their home. That’s where we met Brian.
He came quietly. No big entrance. No sales pitch. Just a soft hello and the steady energy of someone ready to create.
From the start, it was clear—this guy could work. His hands were steady. His focus never wavered. No flash. No chatter. Just calm, sure movements.
Every tattoo he gave Grant became more than just ink. They were timestamps. A way to hold on to that strange stretch of time.
Before we left Cebu, I took Brian to lunch. I asked something I’d been meaning to.
“Have you ever tried painting?” I inquired.
He paused. “Sir, I haven’t. I just draw or tattoo.”
“Well,” I said, “I think you can. I suggest treating the canvas like skin. Try painting a boxer the same way you ink people.”
He nodded. That was it. But I noticed the sparkle in his eyes. This was a welcomed challenge.
Nearly a year passed. Then one afternoon—no warning, no buildup—a message appeared. And there it was. His first painting. Raw. Unpolished. Alive. And he didn’t stop. He painted a few more boxing greats.
(L-R) Brian Bonbon and his art idol Jun Aquino
By March 23, 2024, we stood at the Gala of Champions, inside the Manila Grand Opera Hotel. His art hung beside vintage fight photos and works by seasoned veterans.
“How’d you figure this out?” I asked.
“You gave me the idea,” he said. “I just watched some videos on YouTube and and tried my best.”
(L-R) Mr. Inksider with Luisito “Lindol” Espinosa in front of his paintings
That’s Brian. Humble. Quiet. Steady. Focused. He won’t say much—but his work does.
Today, he’s married. A father. Still tattooing. Still painting. Still helping people tell their stories.
One piece honors Whang-od, the legendary mambabatok. Another—‘Warriors of Mactan’—blends the face of Lapulapu with Manny Pacquiao. It’s a bold mix. But if you’re from Mactan, the Land of Pinoy Warriors, it makes sense.
Looking back, I’m grateful we got stuck in Cebu. We didn’t mean to stay long. And we didn’t plan to meet Brian. Life is indeed full of surprises.
To Brian Bonbon, thank you for trusting your hands and your heart. Through your art, you carry the stories of the Philippines’ greatest boxers forward.
Daghang salamat, Mr. Inksider.
Author’s Notes:
If you’re ever in Lapu-Lapu City, look for Inksider Tattoo Shop. You might just walk in for a tattoo and leave with something even more meaningful.
On March 22, 2024—on the eve of the Gala of Champions—I met Antonio Lopez Aldeguer in person for the first time.
We sat quietly in the Ambassador Suite at the Manila Grand Opera Hotel. The celebration was still a day away, but already it felt sacred. Not an interview. Not even a formal meeting. Just a conversation in the key of reverence—spoken to a man whose name carries weight, and to someone unseen.
My father. I believe he was there that afternoon, just outside the frame. Watching. Nodding. Proud.
Sir ALA isn’t one for cameras. But that day, with Ronald Sardes and Rommel Lope behind the lens, and the late Chino Trinidad editing with a gentle hand, something else emerged. Not an interview. A communion. A quiet inheritance.
He spoke of Bacolod, of sparring with newsboys for five centavos a round. Of learning from his father, a former amateur boxer. Of being inspired by his uncle—the original Tony Aldeguer—once the Oriental Welterweight Champion.
No bravado. Just gratitude.
From grassroots gyms in Visayas and Mindanao to co-promotions with Golden Boy, Sir ALA lifted Filipino boxing from its knees. Donnie Nietes. Milan Melindo. AJ Banal. So many. And still, he deflected praise.
“Luisito Espinosa,” he said. “That’s the man you should be honoring.”
They embraced—two champions of very different kinds. One in the ring. One behind the scenes.
Then Jun Aquino arrived, carrying a full-blown painting of Gabriel “Flash” Elorde—vivid and reverent. Sir ALA marveled at Jun’s talent, especially upon learning he had been painting since the age of six. And as I watched them side by side—the artist and the promoter—I thought to myself: “Jun built with brushstrokes. But Sir ALA—he built with belief.”
He spoke of Flash again—how he first followed him as a high school sports reporter. “He was more than a fighter,” he said. “Everyone liked him, even his opponents. He was a gentleman.”
He remembered Lope “Papa” Sarreal, too. “When Flash retired, both he and Papa stayed at my house. Not as guests, but as family.”
Then I handed him an old image of the Flash. He paused, eyes narrowing with recognition. “I used to keep one just like this on the headboard in my bedroom when I was a young man,” he said, “Gone are the breed of the likes of Hermie Rivera and of Recah Trinidad. Now, Chino… and you. You must carry this forward.”
(L-R) One Aspiring Writer, Edito “Ala” Villamor, and Antonio Lopez Aldeguer
When our talk wound down, he asked where the Olympic Stadium once stood. We stepped outside the hotel and looked across the street. I pointed past the intersection of Calle Doroteo Jose and Avenida Rizal.
The stadium was long gone—claimed by war, calamity, and time. A high-rise stood there now. But between shadows, memory lingered. Sir ALA stood silently, hands behind his back.
“This was our Madison Square Garden,” I said. “Pancho Villa. Dencio Cabanela. Ceferino Garcia. This was their throne.”
Back inside the Ambassador Suite—transformed that day into an intimate gallery—we hosted a quiet exhibit: a day of reminiscence through mementos. Sol Levinson’s weathered gloves. The Thrilla in Manila tribute wall.
Sir ALA stood in stillness. Then he whispered, almost to himself:
“What you have here are not just artifacts. These are memories that cannot be bought.”
He spoke not of championships or acclaim, but of the people who mattered most. Of his wife, Lou—his partner for over 55 years. Of the family they had raised with quiet strength.
“I’m proud of my sons,” he said, the words settling like truth. “And now, our grandchildren… they’re growing into their own. If I’ve built anything lasting, it’s them. That’s the kind of legacy I hope to leave behind.”
That weekend, as he received the very first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame, his family stood beside him. His wife, with quiet strength. His grandson and two granddaughters, full of pride. It was a moment of recognition not only for a career in boxing—but for a life lived with dignity, generosity, and grace. A family moment, framed by history.
As the evening closed, I glanced at the chair where he had sat. I understood then—this wasn’t just a meeting. It was an invitation. A tradition not just to honor, but to carry forward.
“You’ve done something special,” he said before leaving. “Something Herculean.”
Then he added, almost as a promise: “When the time is ripe again—Cebu, 2026.”
So call him a promoter. A mentor. A man of vision. But to me—and to my father—Sir ALA will always be something more.
He is the man in our corner.
Though the video remains quietly in the archives, these still photographs are shared not for posterity, but as a gesture of quiet gratitude—for the rare and humbling honor of having shared the frame, however briefly, with one of my childhood heroes.
And I look forward to once again having a seat at his table.
A century and a year have passed since Francisco Guilledo — remembered throughout the world as Pancho Villa — died in San Francisco at only twenty-three years of age.
Time has carried away nearly everyone who knew him personally.
The newspapermen who chronicled his rise are gone.
The old trainers and fighters who watched him work in the gym are gone.
Even many of the buildings connected to his life have disappeared into the long reshaping of the city.
The two men who first taught me about Pancho Villa are gone now too — my father, Hermie Rivera, and his friend Jack Fiske of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Much of what first drew me toward this history came through their stories, their conversations, and the reverence they carried for the old fighters who once moved through San Francisco’s forgotten boxing world.
Perhaps that was another reason my recent visit to St. Ignatius Church felt so personal.
It also happened to coincide with what has long been observed as Pancho Villa’s birthday. For generations, August 1 has been remembered as the birth date of the first Filipino and Asian world boxing champion, and like countless admirers before me, I paused to honor his memory on today.
During the course of my research, however, I encountered several surviving records created during Villa’s lifetime—including his 1922 passport application, the San Francisco Coroner’s inquest, and his California death certificate—which preserve differing details about his early life and identity.
Such differences are not uncommon when researching Philippine history from the early twentieth century. Wars, incomplete civil registration, natural disasters, and the passage of time have left many family histories with unanswered questions.
Rather than diminishing the occasion, those discoveries only deepened my admiration for the remarkable young Filipino whose life—and legacy—proved even more compelling than the legend itself.
History does not always provide every answer. In the absence of a verified birth record, some questions may remain unresolved. There is little to be gained from revisiting long-settled family matters when the surviving evidence cannot settle every question with certainty.
Today, for me, it was not simply about remembering Pancho Villa.
In some quiet way, it also felt like remembering my father and Mr. Fiske.
Perhaps “visit” is not quite the right word.
It felt more like a pilgrimage.
I carried with me an old newspaper clipping announcing Villa’s funeral in San Francisco before his remains were returned to the Philippines.
The paper itself was fragile with age, the print softened by time. But the meaning remained intact.
Somewhere within that church, mourners had once gathered around the memory of a young Filipino champion whose life had ended far too quickly and far too far from home.
St. Ignatius stands far from the old noise of boxing in San Francisco. A distance away from Market Street and the crowded downtown hotels, the church rests near the western hills surrounding the University of San Francisco, where the city slows beneath drifting fog and long quiet streets lined with trees and old homes.
The atmosphere there feels contemplative, almost removed from the hurried rhythm that once defined the fight world below.
The church was completely empty when I entered.
That was what struck me first.
No footsteps echoed through the sanctuary. No voices interrupted the stillness. Afternoon light filtered softly through stained glass windows high above, casting muted colors across the pews and stone floor.
The great arches seemed to rise endlessly overhead, carrying with them a kind of silence modern life rarely allows anymore.
I lingered there quietly for some time, letting the silence of the sanctuary settle around me.
In another era, the church had once been filled with mourners grieving the loss of Pancho Villa. Filipino laborers, newspapermen, trainers, fighters, and countrymen had gathered beneath those same arches in July of 1925 to attend the Funeral Mass before Villa’s body began its final voyage home across the Pacific.
But this summer afternoon, there was only silent reminiscence.
And somehow, that stillness made the moment even more moving.
The older I become, the more I realize that history is often carried not through grand ceremonies, but through quiet acts of remembrance that nobody else sees.
Sometimes it is simply returning to a place and refusing to let memory disappear.
That was what brought me there.
Not merely Pancho Villa the champion.
On July 14, 1925, San Francisco held Francisco Tingson Guilledo for the last time…not as a fighter passing through, but as a man whose journey ended there, far from home. He had come to America on the S.S. Wenatchee years earlier as another Filipino boxer trying his luck. Like many who crossed the Pacific in those years, he believed his blazing fists and dazzling footwork might be enough…and he was more than enough. In the end, he would leave America in a casket, the world crown still on his brow, the champion’s belt on his waist.
Before the world knew him as Pancho Villa, and before boxing records affixed the name Francisco Guilledo, he was Francisco Tingson. His name changed but the man remained constant as he crossed oceans and entered prize rings.
People who knew him didn’t talk much about bravado. He trained quietly and spoke plainly. In the ring, he fought the same way he lived— fast, furious and self-assured.
By the summer of 1925, he was afflicted with a badly infected tooth. His jaw was swollen, and breathing and eating had become difficult. His fever came and went. His manager, Frank Churchill, and his trainer, Whitey Ekwert, urged him to pull out of the fight scheduled across the Bay against Jimmy McLarnin.
He refused. He did not want to disappoint his fans and friends.
(L-R) Jimmy McLarnin versus Pancho Villa, referee Bobby Johnson, July 4, 1925, Oaks Ball Park, Emeryville, California (Photo courtesy of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame)
On the Fourth of July in 1925, Francisco Guilledo fought Jimmy McLarnin at the Oaks Ball Park in Emeryville. He fought despite a raging blood infection. He guarded the injured side of his jaw, and fought on.
Ringside reporters wrote that he dictated the action, boxed smartly, and seemingly did enough for the win. After the fight, the decision went against him, but he didn’t argue nor protest. He simply smiled and walked away.
Ten days elapsed and he died at Saint Mary’s Hospital on July 14, 1925. He was just 23 going on 24 years old. The infection that began in his jaw spread through his body. He did not succumb from the punches he took in the ring, but from the raging sepsis inside.
Funeral services were held at Saint Ignatius Church in San Francisco. In this holy place, The First Filipino World Boxing Champion Francisco Guilledo was honored before his long trip home. Ten Filipino members of the Catholic community served as pallbearers, fellow immigrants bound together by respect and shared experience in a foreign land. After the service, his casket was taken to the Embarcadero where the ship that would sail him through the Pacific was waiting. Friends and countrymen gathered. Hats came off. Conversations faded.
The ship President Harrison made a stop in Honolulu. Catholic rites were observed once more, then it headed towards the longing embrace of Manila.
Photo: The mortal remains of Francisco Tingson Guilledo being received at Pier 7 in Manila (Public domain, artist and date unknown.Circa 1925)
Francisco Tingson Guilledo—the diminutive Filipino man behind the legend who became a giant as the first Filipino and Asian to become world champion in any sport.
Modern boxing culture has a tendency to relegate old fighters into mythology.
Championships become shorthand for humanity.
Grainy photographs become symbols rather than evidence of real lives once lived. But standing inside St. Ignatius, it became impossible for me to think only about titles and accomplishments.
Instead, I found myself thinking about youth, distance, and what it must have meant for a twenty-three-year-old Filipino, thousands of miles from home, to carry the hopes of an entire people during an era when Filipinos abroad often faced prejudice and humiliation simply for existing.
Pancho Villa changed that, at least in part.
Inside the ring, Americans who may never have respected Filipinos before suddenly found themselves standing in admiration of one.
Villa forced audiences to recognize brilliance, courage, discipline, and dignity in a young man they could no longer dismiss.
Somewhere across farms, canneries, labor camps, and crowded neighborhoods, Filipinos saw one of their own rise to the very top of the sporting world.
In the end, none of those triumphs could protect him from what came during the summer of 1925.
The fight against Jimmy McLarnin in Emeryville. The infected teeth. The fever. The illness he tried to ignore. Friends later recalled Villa attempting to maintain his usual warmth despite the pain. He played the ukulele, entertained visitors, and smiled through suffering.
Then came the telegram from Manila informing him that his wife, Gliceria, had given birth to their son.
History would remember him forever as Pancho Villa, the world champion, but inside that quiet church I found myself grieving something else entirely — the ordinary life he never had the chance to live.
He remains forever young.
As I sat quietly beneath the towering arches of St. Ignatius, I realized perhaps that was why I had come there after all.
Not simply to mourn a legend, but to honor a human being whose memory still carries meaning a century and a year later.
For a brief moment, the distance between 1925 and 2026 no longer seemed quite so large.
Only me this day… and somewhere within the peaceful environment, the spirit of Francisco Tingson Guilledo.
There are places that continue carrying memory long after the world outside has forgotten. St. Ignatius became one of those places for me.
It was the dawn of a typical summer day in the city named after the greatest hero “Made in the Philippines” – Lapulapu.
The tropical breeze seemed to be in concert with the waves waxing, waning, rippling and inviting anyone awake to go for a swim. One can almost feel the calm before the battle fought on these shores over four hundred ninety-nine years ago. One wonders, if the fight was held today, will the combatants be required to don face masks, face shields, PPE’s and hand sanitizers to achieve their goals? Will it be live on Pay-per-View, public television PTV or social media? In the age of Covid-19, there are more questions than answers, more bad jokes than good jests.
Break of dawn at Mactan (JPark Island Resort, April 27, 2020)
The entire archipelago, particularly Cebu province, has been alternately on ECQ, GCQ & MECQ—community quarantines of varying degrees of lockdown. Only essential travels are permitted with required quarantine passes and everyone is subject to search and seizure at checkpoints; this to contain the spread of Covid-19 and its culprit—the virus SARS-CoV-2.
The annual celebration and re-enactment of Kadaugan sa Mactan, Victory in Mactan, usually broadcasted via television, radio and social media has been cancelled and the usual celebrations were scaled down to a somber wreath laying ceremony.
Today, it has been almost a month since the staff at JPark Island Resort welcomed my party of two. Despite everyone’s hospitality, our daily sense of life and leisure were interspersed with regret and doubt. What drove me into taking a 21-day vacation in an island one can easily read about in a travel magazine and a country my family visited twice in thirty-seven years? It seems foolish of me to complain what with my villa suite and private pool while millions here and abroad are scraping by—no work, no pay was the recurring and depressing theme in the news.
Ferdinand Magellan’s Cross (near Sugbo Plaza, Cebu City)Battle of Mactan Official Painting (Liberty Shrine, Lapu-Lapu City)
It is with hope that, as a collective whole in the face of this Covid-19 pandemic, (just like the Ryan Cayabyab song) we heal as one. A solemn prayer is offered for the combatants of the “Fight of the Last Five Centuries” – led by Lapulapu and the Oponganon warriors defeating the mighty Spanish Armada de Moluca led by Portuguese Captain General Ferdinand Magellan.
Retracing the steps in my three-hour tour (plus four months) in Cebu and the Isle of Mactan reminds me of the graciousness of the locals. Cebu deserves a spot on everyone’s bucket list.
The dream started out as a Luz-Vi-Minda adventure, i.e. seven days each in the main islands of Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao with a boxing twist. It was supposed to be a time to connect with fellow Pinoy scribes and aficionados of boxing in their element. There was Philboxing.com and PinoyGreats.com editor-in-chief Mr. Dong Secuya who received my son Grant and I at the Mactan International Airport on March 13, 2020.
“Welcome to Cebu. I thought you were going to cancel your visit,” he said as we were checking in at the Radisson Blue in the Mabolo district and intoned,” The President has ordered a lockdown of the entire country. Your flight was one of the last ones inbound.”
Port of Cebu (a view from the 10th floor of the Radisson Blu)
Plan A morphed into B, C and D, rather quickly. Gone in my itinerary was, in order, Davao, Samal Island, Sarangani, Baguio, Manila and the Gabriel “Flash” Elorde awards night we were to attend. Cebu at the 10th floor hotel room at the Radisson Blu was home base for the next 30 days. The Port of Cebu was quite possibly the first meeting point between Rajah Humabon and Ferdinand Magellan.
There must have been Divine intervention at play, for we met friends who shared our doubt and uncertainty caused by the burgeoning pandemic. Like them, we were going to be survivors, no matter what.
Sinulog Prayer Ladies who sang for our departed (Magellan’s Cross Monument and the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño de Cebu, March 18, 2020)Ferdinand Magellan Memorial (Fernando Magallanes) at the Liberty Shrine, Mactan
On April 1st, after a month in the historic downtown Cebu City, I accepted the suggestion and kind invitation of the Obon family (PCol. Limuel and Diane) by way of the Meneses tribe (Marco of Dagupan, Pamela of Davao, Marty and Dana) to change venues.
“You and your son Grant will like Mactan. We do not know how long the lockdown would last. We’ve made arrangements for you to be in a wonderful place,” they said with care and concern.
When someone who knows the terrain offers an option that might save your vacation, if not your life, one should take it. So, to Mactan we went.
Tops Lookout, Cebu City (Mandaue City and Mactan in the background)
“If you’ve never been you must go and meet Lapulapu in Mactan at least once in your lifetime,” my late father once said noting that it was all work and no play for this respiratory therapist. “Find the time. And while you’re there, appreciate and enjoy the hospitality of the Visayan people. In their blood flows the DNA of the greatest fighter the world has ever known, the master of hurling the fire-hardened spear the Visayans call BANGKAW—the most likely weapon that vanquished the Spanish invaders.”
That plus a copy of Antonio Pigafetta’s book, and perhaps my need for some soul-searching led me to this magical place once known as Mattan, Mactan, Opon and now Lapu-Lapu City.
Most (if not all) businesses, libraries, museums and tourism offices were closed but I need not search far and wide to learn of the famous battle and the protagonists of the Battle of Mactan. I have read Mr. Pigafetta’s diary time and again and all I needed was my imagination to ignite my own
Kadaugan sa Mactan (Victory at Mactan).
Antonio Pigafetta’s Report of the first voyage around the world… Relazione del primo viaggio intorno al mondo (1524-1525) is the main first account source of the first world circumnavigation. His work has shown the world of the generosity of the Visayans by welcoming and helping feed an emaciated motley crew of the Armada de Moluca as they arrived at the shores of Homonhon, Limasawa and Cebu. Through Pigafetta’s writings, the Visayan language was introduced to the world.
We can read about a place like Mactan, take photos of statues of past heroes, but nothing compares to meeting their descendants in the place their courage was made known. The time my son and I had in Cebu, particularly Cebu City, has enriched my viewpoint that Lapulapu’s blood is indeed in our genetic profile. It is up to us to harness the innate courage and fearlessness we are wired for.
Brian Bonbon, tattoo artist and budding painter of Lapu-Lapu City, fervently believes we are all descendants of Lapulapu. His maiden voyage in painting is a rendition of 104-year-old Filipina Whang-od Oggay of the Kalinga tattooing style in the tradition of the Pintados. His unfinished painting called Warriors of Mactan depicts our hero Lapulapu resembling another modern-day hero and humanitarian named Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao.
Warriors of Mactan, Then Unfinished (Brian Bonbon, April 27, 2021)
For many, like Rudy Teodosio, Lapulapu is the first Filipino.
For fellow NBA scribe Tom Macasaet Lapulapu embodies the traits we are known for—courage, strength and resilience.
The Oponganon victory against the mighty Armada de Armada de Moluca on April 27, 1521 led by Captain General Ferdinand Magellan on these very shores has inspired subsequent Filipino heroes who sacrificed their lives for love of God, country and fellow man against forces they’ve never seen, heard of nor felt beforehand.
We, as Filipinos, should not forget the contributions of Dr. Jose Rizal who drew inspiration from Lapulapu as he wrote his novels Noli mi Tangere and El Filibusterismo—literature that galvanized the psyche of a nation and catalyzed the Philippine Revolution against the Spaniards.
The list of Filipino heroes is not long enough. We will always have the memories of Andres Bonifacio, Apolinario Mabini, Marcelo H. del Pilar, Emilio Aguinaldo, Sultan Dipatuan Kudarat, Juan Luna, Antonio Luna, Melchora Aquino and Gabriela Silang.
Frontliners: Painting by Jun Aquino, Enshrinee, West Coast Boxing Hall of Fame
It is only fair to give credit to our modern-day heroes we collectively call Frontliners—nurses, physicians, respiratory therapists, dentists, radiology technicians, CNA’s, LPN’s, LVN’s, laboratory technicians and scientists, phlebotomists, Covid-19 tracers, janitors, garbage collectors, sanitation workers, hotel and restaurant personnel, service industry workers and the armed forces here in the Philippines and abroad risking their likes daily to care for and protect the sick.
(L-R) Grant Rivera and Edito “Ala” Villamor holding Francisco Guilledo’s Album (ALA BOXING GYM)
Datu Lapulapu’s countenance as depicted on his statue at Liberty Shrine is now etched in my mind’s eye forever. I will tell my children and grandchildren of the fearless Filipino warrior who was the first to fight for our land and forever be on the lookout with his sword to defend and shield to protect our people.
Historians will forever debate his place in the pantheon of Dakilang Filipino but his resolve will always remain unquestioned.
Lapulapu’s indomitable spirit lives on in the gracious hearts and resilient minds of the Oponganons, Visayans, Cebuanos and all Filipino friends my son Grant and I had the honor of meeting during our short stay in Lapu-Lapu City.
Daghang Salamat!
— One Aspiring Writer
Disclaimer:
This Memorial Article has been previously published on PhilBoxing.com:
La Carlota is located just five miles east of Mount Kanlaon , the most active volcano in the central Philippines, and it has never let the city forget it. The mountain has buried La Carlota in ash more than once — most recently in December 2024, and again in May 2025 — and in its long history it has just as often given the city something rarer: little brown men who could take a beating and make a great mark in the fight game.
Between 1923 and 1941, La Carlota produced three of the finest boxers the Philippines has ever sent into the world…Pancho Villa, Small Montana, and Little Dado. Three men, one small sugar town, eighteen years. It is hard to call that a coincidence. Whatever Kanlaon put into the soil and water of that corner of Negros Occidental, it seems to have gone into them too.
The Filipino “Pancho Villa”
Francisco Tingson Guilledo was born in La Carlota on August 1, 1901, and started life herding goats and shining shoes, not training for greatness. He grew into a fighter barely over five feet tall, never weighing more than 114 pounds, but he carried himself like a much bigger man. Under the eye of American trainer Rufe Turner at Manila’s Olympic Stadium, he sharpened a cross-armed defense, fast scientific footwork, and a double left hook that ended fights before opponents understood what had happened. He swept the Philippine and Oriental flyweight and bantamweight titles before he ever left the islands.
In 1922 he sailed for the United States and gave American crowds something they had not seen before. He knocked out Johnny Buff for the American flyweight title that September, and on June 18, 1923, he beat reigning world flyweight champion Jimmy Wilde by seventh-round knockout at the Polo Grounds in New York — becoming the first Filipino, and the first Asian, to win a world boxing title. He finished his career with 79 wins, 25 by knockout, against only 5 losses and 4 draws, with 20 no-decision bouts along the way. He was never once knocked out.
He fought his last fight on July 4, 1925, against Jimmy McLarnin at Oaks Ball Park in Emeryville, California, a bout many ringside men believed he had won. Ten days later, he was dead — a dental infection that turned septic, taking him at twenty-three. The squared circle had given Pancho Villa everything, and then it took him before he ever had the chance to come home.
“Small Montana”
The Little Mountain
Benjamin Ledesma Gan, grew up working as a blacksmith and carrying a photograph of Pancho Villa in his wallet — proof, perhaps, that what Guilledo started in La Carlota did not end with him. At eighteen, sportswriter William “Bill” Miller and the men who ran Olympic Stadium gave him a new name: Small Montana, a nod to the size of what he might become.
He fought differently than Villa had — speed, angles, and defense over knockout power, standing 5’4” and rarely above 112 pounds. He beat Midget Wolgast twice in 1935 to take the American flyweight title and earned recognition from the New York State Athletic Commission as flyweight champion of the world. He lost the title to Benny Lynch in a brutal fifteen rounds in 1937, but kept fighting at the highest level for years afterward, trading punches with fellow Filipinos Little Dado, Little Pancho, and Speedy Dado, and beating world-class men like Manuel Ortiz and Tony Marino. He retired with 83 career wins, 13 by knockout.
When the fighting in the ring was done, Montana enlisted in the United States Army, serving with the 340th Infantry Division’s First Battalion at Camp McCoy as the unit bugler — beloved, by most accounts, for taps, and somewhat less so for reveille.
“Little Dado”
The Final Flame of La Carlota’s Golden Trio
Eleuterio Togonon Zapanta, the last of the three and the one La Carlota called Little Dado, was small even by flyweight standards, but he hit like a heavier man and moved faster than fighters twice his size. Between 1938 and 1943, The Ring magazine ranked him among the top five flyweights in the world, and in 1939 — with the world flyweight title vacant — they placed him at number one.
He fought his way to recognition as a dual champion in California, holding both the flyweight and bantamweight titles at once, and he once set his sights on a featherweight crown as well — chasing what would have made him only the second fighter in history, after Henry Armstrong, to hold three world titles in three weight classes at the same time. He never reached it. He did not need to. Three sons of one small town, three championships, in less than two decades, was already more than most places see in a hundred years.
The Mountain Still Speaks
Pancho Villa, Small Montana, and Little Dado were never just boxers. They were evidence of what that corner of Negros Occidental could produce when hardship met stubbornness — proof that a hard life at the foot of Kanlaon did not have to end in defeat. Whatever moved through that ground seemed to move through their blood too: a restlessness, a refusal to stay down, a hunger that carried each of them clear across the Pacific and brought them home again as champions.
Kanlaon has not settled since. It buried La Carlota and its neighboring towns in ash in December 2024, and again in May 2025, and the tremors still have not fully stopped. The same unpredictable force that once tested these three men is testing the people who came after them now. Roofs sag under the weight of it. Fields sit uncertain. Families wait to see whether the ground will hold, or whether they will need to start over the way it has asked of them before.
We tell their story because they earned their place in this book regardless of what is happening on Negros Occidental today; their courage does not need a current crisis to justify the telling.
But it would be its own kind of dishonesty to treat the volcano as nothing more than a backdrop. It raised these men, and it is testing their descendants in the same breath. If anything in these pages moved you, let that feeling travel a little further than the page, toward the people still living in its shadow now.
In the early 1900s, and into the years between the world wars, thousands of young Filipino men enlisted in the United States Navy. Many sought work. Others seeked a way out. Most were assigned to steward and mess duties— cooking, cleaning, serving.
It was quiet, repetitive work, often thankless, but they did it with discipline, honor and pride. In between duties, these sailors trained on deck and in makeshift rings below.
They boxed under the stars and against the odds— no crowds, no contracts, and always with heart.
By all accounts, they were the heart and soul of the American Armada.
One of the most respected was Cirilo Cacho, known in the ring as Young Dencio, a cook aboard the U.S.S. Mayflower.
Young Dencio served on the presidential yacht of President Warren G. Harding, who once called him “a great little fighter.”
Dencio weighed barely 100 pounds and often fought much larger men. He beat Pedro Troncoso in Panama City to take the South American flyweight crown. Troncoso was the flyweight version of heavyweight Luis Ángel Firpo, who once fought Jack Dempsey. Dencio outpointed him cleanly.
In a Navy boxing pool of over 86,000 men, Young Dencio won it all— taking the all-Navy flyweight title at Madison Square Garden.
To do it, he had to beat the best from both coasts…Irish Ciriaco of the Atlantic Fleet, Tony Pozzi of the Pacific, and finally, fellow Filipino Jose Javier, the reigning American Navy champ.
Other Filipino fighters succeeded across the fleets. Flyweights like Jose Javier had won the flyweight crown in 1921, and Manuel Soriano had made the finals just a year earlier. Kid Alzona, of the USS Arctic, Kid Evaco and Tiny Bantita(?)— Filipino-Americans one and all fought for pride, honor and identity in a world that barely noticed them.
Eugenio A. Apol, alias Sailor Alkie (Alky) Akol and his fellow sailors fought underground, unrecorded, mostly unrewarded. But they earned something of significance— honor and respect. The ring gave them something much more than the ship did…a name…a voice…and a space where rank didn’t matter— only courage.
They were Disciples of the Sweet Science, cooks, deck hands, mechanics, coal heavers and boilermakers. They knew fire, grease, and long hours.
After mess duty, they’d shadowbox alone and, at times, they’d step into a bout with nothing but a pair of gloves and a sense of purpose.
Yes, they could use a frying pan, a hammer, or a shovel, but they also knew how to fight…and how they fought!
The Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, once the San Francisco Civic, stands tall at 99 Grove Street—a quiet giant nestled in the city’s civic core. Time has worn its walls, but the building still breathes. For those who know and remember, it remains one of the last sacred spaces in American boxing.
Etched in one of its front walls is this:
ERECTED AND PRESENTED TO-THE CITY OF SAN FRANCISCO -BY THE PANAMA- PACIFIC INTERNATIONAL EXPOSITION~ ANNO DOMINI MCMXIV
For us non-Latin speakers, it said “In the Year of Our Lord 1914.”
Perhaps, it is the oldest surviving venue in the country (and the world, last checked) that still opens its doors to boxing, indoor sport, and spectacle.
It’s a place where champions once bled and legends were born. Filipino fighters, especially, lit up the ring here—not just with fists, but with fire.
The last of the greatest Filipino boxers before WW 2 fought at The Civic.
Caption: The above excellent action shot of the Little Dado-Little Pancho fight for the world’s flyweight title in San Francisco, shows Pancho landing a right cross on the champ’s chin. (Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (Honolulu, Hawaii) • Mon, Jul 1, 1940 • Page 10
On June 17, 1940, Eleuterio Togonon Zapanta- aka Little Dado- and Eulogio Villaruel Tingson- aka Little Pancho- two Filipino tough guys from Negros Occidental in the Philippines, stood across from each other for the fifth time in this very auditorium.
Dado walked in as world flyweight champion (California State Version). Pancho had beaten him before—three times, to be exact. But this wasn’t just a rematch. It was the match. Filipino and American flags waved from every corner of the building. The crowd buzzed with something more than sport. This was identity. This was pride.
Dado stayed calm, rolled through Pancho’s fast start, and did just enough to keep his belt. The referee called it a draw. The papers split on who won. The crowd argued, but no one left disappointed. Dado kept his title. Pancho kept his honor. Both kept the crowd.
Decades later, on November 10, 2001, the Civic came alive again. Manny Pacquiao stepped into the same ring where Dado and Pancho once danced. He faced Agapito Sanchez. It was a gritty, frustrating fight that ended in a technical draw. But for those watching, something was unmistakable—another Filipino had arrived, and the lineage was intact.
I was present that night, not yet a writer, but already a believer. With me were two of my oldest friends— Rudy Teodosio and Tom Macasaet— fellow respiratory therapists and fans of the fight game. We knew what we were seeing, even if we couldn’t yet put words to it. A torch was being passed.
That evening, I had the chance to meet WBC President Jose Sulaiman and San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. Both spoke of Luisito Espinosa with great respect— the kind that doesn’t get handed out lightly. But what stays with me most is what happened in the locker room. Luisito, quiet and gracious, introduced me to Mr. Pacquiao. No crowd, no ceremony. Just a handshake. A nod. A moment.
Later, I told my father, Hermie Rivera, and his friend Jack Fiske what it had meant.
My father then said something I’ve always kept: “There will come a time when you find yourself where Philippine boxing began… and you will see the deep reason the stories of the great Filipino fighters need to be remembered and retold.”
Back in March 2024, I stood at the old site of the Olympic Stadium in Santa Cruz, Manila. Avenida Rizal, once the city’s pulse, now moved to a different rhythm. The stadium was gone, paved over, absorbed into the chaos of progress. But if you listened closely, the echoes were still there— rising from the sidewalk like a ghostly bell before the first round.
I thought of the Sabado (Saturday) nights it must’ve hosted. Kid Dencio, Pancho Villa, Speedy Dado. The fans. The roar.The gamblers’ prayers.
Not long after, I stood again at 99 Grove Street. This time, with Mr. Dong Secuya. As we walked the streets of San Francisco nearing the fabled arena, Mr. Secuya paused, then said something profound: “Market Street must have been like (San Francisco’s) Avenida Rizal.”
He was right.
Both streets were once arteries of their cities. Both carried fight posters, vendors, noise, and anticipation.
Avenida Rizal had the Olympic Stadium. Market Street had the Civic Auditorium. You could almost feel the spirits greeting each other across the Pacific.
Mr. Secuya, the founder of the greatest boxing website called PhilBoxing.com, was remembering, honoring, and drawing a line between places that mattered to people like us— those who understood boxing not just as sport, but as a shared memory. A form of prayer. A kind of truth.
That afternoon felt full circle.
I understood then that I wasn’t just chasing stories. I was standing on sacred ground, in both cities. Places where our fighters had fought not only for titles, but for dignity and the right to be seen.
The Civic Auditorium wasn’t just home to Filipino champions. It was a proving ground for boxing’s elite.
As early as September 13, 1918, future kingpin of boxing Jack Dempsey bowed at The Civic to William “Phat Boy” Meehan in the first of two his early losses before he became heavyweight champion.
Willie Meehan versus Fred Fulton, SF Civic Auditorium, November 16, 1918, Photo by G.W. Blum. From the collection of J.J. Taussig “Moose” (Public Domain)
November 16, 1918. Civic Auditorium, San Francisco. Four rounds. Willie Meehan and Fred Fulton, heavyweights, settling it the only way heavyweights know how.
Fulton took it by decision. He owned the last three rounds, that long left working Meehan’s face like a carpenter works wood — methodical, punishing, relentless. By the final bell, Meehan was nearly gone. Another ten seconds and it would have been a different story. It was Meehan’s first loss since he beat Jack Dempsey.
Charley Burley beat Oakland Billy Smith here in the mid-1940s. Eddie Booker fought Holman Williams in this very ring in 1944.
Sugar Ray Robinson defended his middleweight title here in 1952 with a 15-round decision over Hawaiian-born and SF native Carl Bobo Olson. Bobo Olson defeated Norman Hayes here in 1952.
The San Francisco Civic Auditorium at 99 Grove Street in the Civic Center— now called Bill Graham— still stands, still hosts, and still shines.
And perhaps— or just maybe— it inspired Frank Churchill when he built the Olympic Stadium in Manila back in 1919. Churchill, after all, visited San Francisco often. He knew Solomon Levinson, the legendary boxing glove maker whose name reverberated in both cities.
I like to think the Civic helped shape that dream in Manila. That it offered a blueprint for what boxing could be— grand, public, electric. We do know Levinsons’ boxing gloves most likely did. Now, both boxing arenas live on in memory. One still stands. One does not. But the stories— they remain.
As I continue along this path— part witness, part student of the ring— I carry with me those quiet moments: a handshake with Manny, a chuckle with Tom Macasaet, Rudy Teodosio and Luisito “Louie” Espinosa…a pause beside Mr. Dong Secuya, and my father’s voice resonating still. The roar that once rose from the Civic. The silence where the Olympic Stadium once stood. These are more than memories. These are the stories I’ve been shaped by— and feel called to honor.
Sources, acknowledgements and recommended readings:
Little Dado versus Little Pancho Caption: The above excellent action shot of the Little Dado-Little Pancho fight for the world’s flyweight title in San Francisco, shows Pancho landing a right cross on the champ’s chin. (Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (Honolulu, Hawaii) • Mon, Jul 1, 1940 • Page 10
Photos courtesy of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame
All photos and references in this article are properly attributed and comply with the U.S. Fair Use Doctrine.
It has been one hundred and one years since Pancho Villa fought the final bout of his extraordinary career.
And this week, I finally made my way to the site where Villa fought his last round against Jimmy McLarnin.
Today, there is no grandstand…no squared circle…nor cheering crowd.
There is only a bronze plaque quietly marking the former site of the historic Oaks Ball Park.
As America prepares to celebrate its 250th anniversary this Fourth of July, I found myself thinking not only about American Independence Day, but about a young Filipino who became part of America’s story and the birth of the United States of America back in 1925.
Most baseball fans remember Oaks Ball Park as the longtime home of the Oakland Oaks of the Pacific Coast League.
Before the Oakland Athletics arrived and left across the bay and long before professional sports like the San Francisco Forty-niners and Giants transformed the Bay Area, this was one of California’s great sporting venues.
On July 4, 1925, baseball gave way to boxing— the King of Sports.
A ring was installed on the baseball field, and more than 13,000 spectators gathered to watch the world’s flyweight champion, Francisco “Pancho Villa” Guilledo, defend his belt and reputation against future hall-of-famer nineteen-year-old Jimmy McLarnin of Ireland by way of Canada.
Nearly 5,000 Filipinos were reportedly in attendance, making the afternoon more than a prizefight. It became a celebration of Filipino pride featuring one of their own standing atop the boxing world.
The symbolism was remarkable, considering only twenty-seven years had passed since the United States acquired the Philippines following the Spanish-American War.
Historically, thousands of Filipinos had crossed the Pacific seeking opportunity, particularly in California.
On America’s Independence Day, their greatest sporting hero stood in the center of an American ballpark wearing the crown of world champion.
Unknown to much of the public, Villa entered the ring seriously ill. A severe infection caused by an ulcerated wisdom tooth had spread through his body.
His physician, dentist and his camp urged him not to fight, and promoter Tommy Simpson knew firsthand his champion’s face was badly swollen.
Villa refused to disappoint the fans who had traveled from far and wide to see him in action and insisted that the contest go on.
History has long debated whether that decision cost him his life.
It almost certainly did.
Ten days after his last stand, Francisco Guilledo died on July 14, 1925 due to a raging sepsis of the throat cavity, later diagnosed as Ludwig’s Angina which claimed the life of boxing’s first Filipino and Asian world champion at just twenty-three years old.
The official decision favored the young McLarnin, who would become one of boxing’s immortals, though the outcome has been debated by ringside reporters and aficionados.
What endured was Villa’s courage and unwavering sense of responsibility.
He kept his promise to appear, even when every voice around him urged otherwise. It was, in his heart, the least he could do so his fellow Filipino American immigrants— farmers, factotums, sailors, soldiers and all-around workers— would not be disappointed with a postponement.
Legendary writer Damon Runyon perhaps said it best after Villa’s death, writing that fighters like him “come along at rare intervals.”
Championships are eventually won and lost. Legends are remembered for something greater.
Standing before the plaque this week, I placed beside it two photographs— one of Francisco Guilledo (The Filipino Pancho Villa) the other of Jimmy McLarnin (The Belfast Spider)— and the commemorative medal of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame.
The bronze plaque commemorates baseball, but the hallowed ground remembers boxing. For a moment, as I touched the tombstone-like memorial, history came alive in my mind’s eye.
Somewhere beneath the trees and across the pavement, thousands once rose to their feet and screamed to the high heavens as a Filipino champion fought for the last time.
Most people who pass this marker today have no idea that one of the greatest athletes in Philippine history competed here.
Today, a multi-billion-dollar movie studio looms large on its grounds, surrounded by an imposing arch complete with high-tech security fencing.
Few realize the gated facility owned by Pixar Studios was sacred ground in the history of Filipino boxing.
Memory survives only if we, boxing fans, continue retelling such stories.
As America celebrates its 250th birthday, it is worth remembering that its sporting heritage belongs not only to baseball, football and boxing champions, but also to the loyal fans of sportsdom…the Pinoy immigrants whose achievements became part of the Philippine and American history.
Francisco Tingson Guilledo has become a perpetual Filipino-American folk hero, but on one Fourth of July, inside an American ballpark, he became part of America’s story as well.
Oaks Ball Park is long gone…but the memory of our first Filipino world champion in any sport, Pancho Villa, remains.
Source: Oakland Tribune, July 5, 1925 (Public Domain)
Pancho Villa versus Jimmy McLarnin on the Fourth of July 1925
July 4, 2026
Emeryville, California— He was up against formidable foes: a raging sepsis from an ulcerated tooth, a 19-year-old diamond-in-the-rough named Jimmy McLarnin, a sole referee acting as judge, and a hostile American crowd who never forgave the “little brown doll” for once wearing the fight game’s American flyweight crown.
To Francisco Guilledo, the world’s flyweight champion—the first from the Philippines and Asia—it was business as usual. It was an uncharacteristically cool night in the low sixties, perfect weather for outdoor boxing, on the Fourth of July in 1925, at the Emeryville baseball park near San Francisco, the cauldron of boxing in the 1910s-1930s. The 13,000 in attendance shelled out $31,000 for an afternoon of hotdogs, drinks, and an old-fashioned scrap—the prime bull against the young matador.
Villa did not want to disappoint the 5,000 strong Filipinos in attendance, so the Filipino whirlwind did not cancel the fight and went against medical advice from his dentist, doctor, and team. He kept his word and fought against all odds.
It was, by all accounts, a nondescript fight devoid of the fireworks Pancho Villa was known to ignite. The Filipino world champion may have lost the close fight, but a majority of ringside reporters gave Villa the nod.
At the very least, a draw was in order.
But leave it to the lone judge, who happened to be the American referee, Bobby Johnson.
The headlines and stories the next day were unforgiving.
“Outclassed By 19-Year-Old Belfast Boxer: Jimmy McLarnin Shows Ring Generalship That Makes Champion Look Bad,” blared one,
“Flyweight Champ Failed to Live Up to Expectations.”
“VILLA CLAIMS ILLNESS: Villa Showed Up As a Poor Title Holder…Old-timers claim they never saw a champion look so bad in a ring,” said another.
(Photo of Pancho Villa, 1925: Courtesy of the San Francisco Public Library, History Center)
Such is the blood sport of boxing.
Little did they know that Francisco Guilledo was fighting a raging storm from within, a septic infection in his bloodstream caused by a rotten wisdom tooth. But for the brave Filipino, the disease was just an inconvenience.
There was talk of the fight being canceled, but the athletic commission tried to placate the public. Anyone with any financial interest wanted the fight to go on.
“Betting is illegal and the (California) State Athletic Commission does not recognize it, so there can be no announcement from the ring of bets being called off,” declared the commissioner.
Promoter Tommy Simpson admitted that he had been previously informed that Villa had an ulcerated tooth and had been advised to call off the fight. Tommy hurried to San Francisco to verify and noticed Pancho’s face was badly swollen. “You are not going to call off the fight, are you?” the promoter asked the little Filipino.
“No, no, I fight, I fight for you Mr. Simpson. You go home and sell many tickets. I be there tomorrow to fight,” replied Villa.
In the end, the gamest little brown doll proved he was a man of his word. He went against medical advice from his dentist and doctor and fought in a bout we fight fans collectively have regretted— one he wanted for his public— for the past ninety-nine years.
Nearly ten decades of hindsight have taught us, though we occasionally forget, about the bravest little Filipino through the eyes, ears, and accounts of those who saw him fight: the sportswriters and the main characters of the fight game— managers, trainers, seconds, and hangers-on.
The great writer Damon Runyon may have said it best: “The Villas come along at rare intervals…Villa, in addition to his fighting ability, could draw more money than most of the champions of other divisions. He had an amazing personality and color in the ring. He was flashy, spectacular. And he could fight…how he could fight! He classes in pugilistic history with Jimmy Barry, Jimmy Wilde, Johnny Coulon, and the other great little men of the game,” wrote Damon Runyon (The Evening News, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, Fri, Oct 9, 1925).
Attached, please find a blow-by-blow account from the Oakland Tribune written on July 5, 1925—long before the advent of television, radio, and the internet—when print media was queen and boxing was the king of sports.
ROUND 1–Both boys parried in the center of the ring. McLarnin jabbed with his left. Villa swung right and left and they clinched. They broke in the middle of the ring. Neither seemed anxious to take the offensive. Villa swung left to jaw and McLarnin jabbed left to the face. They continued to parry and Villa swung left to middle. McLarnin jabbed left to Villa’s jaw and followed with two lefts to the head. McLarnin blocked a left to the body. Villa swung right and left without injury to McLarnin’s body, and the Irish lad countered with a left to the jaw. McLarnin sent three lefts to Villa’s face. McLarnin was gaining confidence and Villa showed his respect for his opponent’s reputation. They were jabbing rights and lefts at the gong.
ROUND TWO—They parried in the middle ring and Villa took left to jaw and another left to body. McLarnin was holding his right in reserve and using it for protection. Villa swung wildly with left to face while McLarnin dodged. Villa put over two lefts to McLarnin’s body and followed with fast rights and lefts to face without hurting McLarnin. Jimmy got left to the body and another to Villa’s face. McLarnin swung to Villa’s jaw, and they clinched. They parried in the mid-ring and Villa put over left to jaw and took two in return to the same location. Villa chased Jimmy into a clinch. Villa swung left but was stopped with another left. The crowd was beginning to boo the champion. Villa swung wild with right and left, Jimmy got two lefts to body, and they were apart in mid-ring at the bell.
ROUND THREE— They opened on the defensive and Villa crouched into a left to the head. Villa missed right to jaw and put left to head following two rights to body. McLarnin swung two lefts to Villa’s chin. Both boys were on the defensive. Jimmy jabbed three fast lefts to Villa’s chin. He followed with another while the champion was motioning to him to come on in. The crowd booed Villa’s gestures. They tangled with rights and lefts and Villa swung left to body and took left to chin. They clinched and, on the break, Jimmy poked twice to Villa’s nose. Villa swung three rights and lefts to Jimmy and took a left on the head. Villa swung left to body, and they were parrying as the bell sounded. The crowd gave Villa the razzberry for trying to get McLarnin to lead the fight. “You’re the champion, do something,” was the ringside chorus.
ROUND FOUR— They stepped away from each other in mid-ring and Villa swung left wildly to jaw. Jimmy jabbed two lefts to face, and Villa attempted left to body which Jimmy blocked. Jimmy swung left to jaw and backed Villa into a neutral corner. Jimmy jabbed two lefts to chin and followed with another. Villa swung into a clinch. Jimmy jabbed another left and backed away two rights and lefts. Jimmy had Villa missing on almost every blow. Villa swung left to Jimmy’s chin and McLarnin put over two in return. Villa swung right and left, which met Jimmy on the chin, but the Irish lad got away from their full force. Villa swung left to chin and missed two more. Jimmy jabbed fiercely with rights and lefts. They were in a clinch at the bell.
ROUND FIVE—Villa crouched low and delivered left to body, taking one on chin. They tangled with rights and lefts into a clinch. Both boys continued respectful of the other. Villa crouching and walking in with uppercuts to chin and body which Jimmy generally blocked. They mixed with rights and lefts to chin and broke with Villa missing lefts. Villa back-slapped Jimmy with his left and the referee warned him. Villa landed two heavy rights to McLarnin’s body, but Jimmy stood his ground and battled Villa back on his heels. Villa mixed with right and left swings. Jimmy jabbed a meek left to head and took left to chin. They sparred and were apart when the round ended.
ROUND SIX—Villa walked in with his low crouching style and missed fast right and left. The Irish boy blocked left to jaw. Jimmy put over straight left to jaw and took right on the shoulder. McLarnin continued to make Villa miss. Jimmy jabbed left to face and the champion walked into a clinch. Jimmy swung right and left while Villa covered. Jimmy jabbed Villa’s face three times with left and Villa missed right. They milled against the ropes with forceful swings, both boys displaying good defense. Jimmy backed Villa across the ring with four lefts and Villa almost fell when he drove wild right to body. Villa landed stiff right on Jimmy’s head and followed with another to body. They were sparring in midring as the round ended.
ROUND SEVEN— They parried in the mid-ring and Villa appeared fearful of leading the fight. They clinched without blows. Villa swung more wild lefts and Jimmy stood his ground. Jimmy jabbed left to jaw and Villa tried some in-fighting without effect. Villa crouched low and tried an uppercut which Jimmy blocked. Villa swung left to body. Jimmy jabbed two lefts to face and held Villa away. Villa walked in without hitting and Jimmy jabbed him twice and dodged another right to head. Villa opened up and backed Jimmy around the ring. Jimmy forced the champion to the ropes with clinches. Jimmy jabbed three lefts to chin and made Villa miss repeatedly. Jimmy swung left to the jaw as the bell sounded. McLarnin appeared gaining confidence and had the champion worried. Villa’s mouth was bleeding.
ROUND EIGHT— “Make ‘em fight” was the yell. Villa had a left blocked and Jimmy swung wild but followed with two lefts and rights to Villa’s chin. Jimmy jabbed lefts. The champion swung left wildly. Jimmy put over two lefts at close range and peppered Villa with three lefts on the chin. Jimmy was doing most of the leading. Villa swung wild left. Jimmy hit Villa with three left jabs and swung one low. He was warned. Jimmy put over third right to jaw and put Villa on his heels. Villa attempted a right uppercut and backed away, blocking three lefts. Villa swung left to jaw and took another left. In return, Villa put right to chin at the bell.
ROUND NINE— They met in the middle of the ring and Jimmy jabbed two lefts. Jimmy dodged a wild right. Jimmy chased Villa into a neutral corner and Villa clinched. They backed to mid-ring and Villa jabbed to head. McLarnin rocked Villa with right to chin. Jimmy jabbed two more lefts and swung more right to Villa’s jaw. Jimmy continued peppering Villa with lefts and the champion walked in with vigorous rights and lefts to the head. Villa brought blood with lefts to Jimmy’s mouth. Villa swung two more wild lefts and Jimmy had to flee from Villa’s vigorous assault. Villa was opening up and chased Jimmy around the ring with rights and lefts. Villa swung left to the jaw and took two in return. Jimmy blocked left to head. Villa swung another right wildly to the jaw and they were apart at the bell.
ROUND TEN— They shook hands in mid-ring and Jimmy jabbed a left to head. McLarnin swung left and Villa countered with fast right at close range. Both stood closed and swung wildly. Villa swung hard right to Jimmy’s body and Jimmy swung fast left to the chin. Jimmy missed right to head. Jimmy put over two left jabs to jaw and took several hard lefts on the body. Villa swung right to Jimmy’s jaw. Jimmy led with three lefts to the face. Villa was leading the fight but Jimmy continued to stand his ground. Villa swung two lefts to head. They mixed in hard attack in mid-ring, the blows flying fast from behind. Jimmy swung left to chin and Villa walked in with low body punches.
Referee Bobby Johnson awarded the decision to McLarnin.
Acknowledgements
Our gratitude goes to Lisa Palella and Christina Moretta and the wonderful staff at the SFPL San Francisco History Center for their kind assistance
Attached photos of Francisco Guilledo are in the public domain and courtesy of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and are re-reprinted for non-commercial use
The main reference for this article was published by the Oakland Tribune, June 5, 1925, Sunday, Page 26 (Oakland, California) and is in the public domain. It is re-published here and is compliance with the United States Fair Use Doctrine
There’s an old American expression: “Get out of Dodge.”
Yesterday afternoon, I did the opposite…not that I wanted to get into any kind of trouble.
I’d spent the earlier part of the day at the Filipino American Center inside San Francisco’s Main Library, ducking the summer heat and chasing a few boxing ghosts. Old fighters’ stories still pull me in that way.
By the time I stepped back outside, I realized another story was waiting just down the block.
Between Hyde and Larkin on Turk Street, there’s a narrow passage called Dodge Alley.
Easy to miss if you’re not looking for it.
But on the second Thursday of every month, it becomes something else. Music spills out. Neighbors pull up chairs. Visitors and residents start talking like old friends.
For a few hours, it’s a small working model of what community can be when people collaborate to build it.
Alex Spoto told me about the event last week, and I took up his invitation. He’s the Program Director at the Tenderloin Museum, a transplant from Tampa who landed in San Francisco and now works alongside Executive Director Katie Conry.
Together they tell the story of one of the city’s most misread neighborhoods— through engaging exhibits, walking tours, and events like this one, showing a Tenderloin shaped by more than its struggles.
History, culture, resilience, people. Dodge Alley is that mission, live and in color.
That afternoon the music came from Changüí, a Cuban group that turned the alley into an open-air party within minutes.
People smiled, swayed to the Latin beat, and visitors stayed a while.
For a few hours, the hustle and bustle of the city seemed far away.
Then the singers of Changüí Sonico launched into “Guantanamera.”
Cuba’s gifts to the world extend well beyond music. The island nation is known for its culture, tobacco, and a boxing tradition that has produced generations of champions.
One of them, Guillermo Rigondeaux, would eventually cross paths with Filipino star John Riel Casimero years later. This afternoon, however, it was not boxing that carried Cuba into the Tenderloin. It was a song.
It hit me immediately— my late father used to sing that song around the house when I was a kid. For years, I’d had it mistaken as Brazilian.
Brazilians mainly speak Portuguese; “Guantanamera” is Cuban through and through.
I stand corrected.
That afternoon, strangers from different backgrounds gathered, listening to the heartwarming tune from the Caribbean, sharing the same patch of pavement.
Music did what it does best— unite.
Next month’s act is The Sampaguitas—a name that stopped me in my tracks.
The sampaguita is the national flower of the Philippines, known for being beautiful, humble, and tough. I’m curious to hear what a trio with that name sounds like.
A few steps from the alley sits the Cadillac Hotel, home to the Tenderloin Museum and once the site of Newman’s Gym. I couldn’t let that pass without a thought.
The museum is expanding into that old gym space now, holding onto a piece of the neighborhood’s history. For decades, Newman’s Gym took in fighters, trainers, and dreamers of every stripe.
Standing there, just steps from where the ring used to be, I thought about the Filipino fighters who passed through San Francisco in the early twentieth century— Pancho Villa, Elino Flores, Pete Sarmiento, and plenty of others whose names didn’t make it into the record books.
I could picture them feeling at home around here. Not because the alley looked the same back then, but because the vibe hasn’t changed.
The Tenderloin has always been a landing spot. A place where new arrivals found work, friendship, and a foothold. A place where cultures intermingled and, somehow, made the city better for it.
Tony Bennett sang that he left his heart in San Francisco. Most people picture cable cars or the Golden Gate Bridge when they hear that line.
But the city’s heart shows up in smaller places too—an old boxing gym about to start a new chapter, a museum holding onto memory, a Cuban song drifting through a Tenderloin alley.
And on the second Thursday of every month, you’ll find it between Hyde and Larkin on Turk Street.
Bill Newman (Photo courtesy of the San Francisco History Center)
Some boxing men become either famous or legendary. A select few become institutions.
Billy Newman belonged to that last and rarest category.
Long before boxing found its modern homes in casinos, convention centers, and television studios, it lived in neighborhood gyms.
The gym was where fighters learned to punch, but more importantly, where they learned discipline, respect, and perseverance. It was where champions were built long before anyone knew their names.
For generations of San Francisco fighters, that place was Newman’s Gym.
Located on Leavenworth Street, Newman’s Gym became one of the city’s most enduring boxing landmarks. Champions trained there. Contenders passed through its doors. So did dreamers, troubled youngsters, old fighters with fading memories, and ordinary people who simply loved the fight game.
At the center of it all stood Billy Newman.
When Newman passed away in March 1984 at the age of eighty-one, boxing lost one of its most beloved caretakers. Yet his legacy was never measured in championship belts, promotional contracts, or financial success. His true accomplishment was creating a place where people felt they belonged.
Billy Newman Nurtured Champs and Chumps By Stephanie Salter (Source: San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle / March 4, 1984. Fair Use)
The heartwarming obituary written by Stephanie Salter of the San Francisco Examiner captured that truth beautifully. Through the recollections of those who knew him best, a portrait emerges of a man who devoted his life to helping others while asking very little in return.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, on February 21, 1903, Newman came from humble beginnings. He lost both of his parents while still a young man, but he carried their memory with him throughout his life. Friends recalled that he kept photographs of his parents nearby and regularly lit votive candles beside a portrait of his mother.
Before becoming one of boxing’s most respected figures, Newman earned his living as a bricklayer and construction foreman. He boxed professionally during the 1920s and 1930s while working hard to support himself. One of the most striking photographs preserved at the gym showed him standing high above New York during the construction of the Empire State Building, a reminder of the courage and determination that defined his generation.
Eventually, a journey west brought him to California.
According to longtime associate Jon Lucero, Newman liked to say he fell in love with a palm tree and bought the house standing in front of it. Whether entirely true or slightly embellished, the story perfectly reflected the warmth and humor remembered by those who knew him.
His partnership with Joe Herman became one of the most important relationships in San Francisco boxing. Together they managed fighters, promoted events, and eventually took over Paddy Ryan’s Gym at 312 Leavenworth Street in 1942. Over time, the facility would become known simply and affectionately as Newman’s Gym.
What Newman is remembered for is not any single fighter. It is the decades he spent keeping the doors open.
Champions and beginners walked through the same entrance and received identical treatment, which is to say nobody received special treatment. You worked, or you found somewhere else not to work.
If a fighter needed gear, Newman found a way. If someone was short on money, he covered it. He never made a thing of it.
The name stuck because Billy Newman was everywhere.
He was not merely the owner.
He was the spirit of the place.
Stories about his generosity became part of local boxing folklore. If a fighter could not afford equipment, Newman found a way to help. If a boxer needed a loan, he often provided one. If a promising prospect lacked the means to continue training, Newman quietly covered expenses and never sought recognition.
(L-R) William “Billy” Newman and Muhammad Ali (Source:San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle / March 4, 1984) Fair Use
And there was a nineteen-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, who walked through the door sometime around 1960. Known at the time as Cassius Clay, he had just won the national amateur light heavyweight title in San Francisco and punched his ticket to the Rome Olympics.
He was supposed to go home. He could not — he hated flying, missed his ride, and ended up staying a stretch.
He trained at Newman’s during those weeks, and when it was finally time to leave, Billy Newman reached into his pocket and handed the young man three hundred dollars to get back to Louisville by ground.
The man who became Muhammad Ali never forgot it.
Several of his associates recalled that if Newman believed a fighter no longer had a future in boxing, he would tell him so. He would rather disappoint a young man than allow him to waste years chasing a dream that was no longer realistic. Sometimes he even tore up contracts rather than profit from someone else’s false hope.
That kind of integrity is rare in any era.
His concern extended beyond the fighters themselves. He worried about their families. He found ways to help them remain close while training and traveling. If a fighter had a poor payday, Newman occasionally sacrificed part of his own share to make sure the boxer received what he needed.
He understood that boxing was about people first.
Twenty years before his passing, Newman established a free boxing program for children fifteen years old and younger. The arrangement was simple. The youngsters showed up, and Billy supplied the gloves, instruction, and encouragement.
“It keeps them off the street,” he explained.
Those few words reveal everything one needs to know about the man.
Money never seemed to matter very much to him. By the early 1980s, the gym was reportedly losing money year after year. Friends had to persuade him to raise membership dues from eight dollars to ten dollars. Even then, Newman resisted.
He wanted the doors to remain open.
He wanted former fighters to have somewhere to gather.
He wanted young kids to have somewhere to learn.
He wanted boxing to survive.
Outside the gym, Newman quietly supported charitable causes throughout San Francisco. He donated to churches, neighborhood organizations, and community fundraisers. He contributed to St. Boniface Church, St. Anthony’s Dining Room, and St. Mary’s Cathedral. Yet he never sought headlines for his generosity.
As one friend observed, Billy Newman never wanted publicity.
He simply wanted to help.
Life tested him repeatedly. During World War II, Newman was diagnosed with cancer of the colon and small intestine. Doctors reportedly told him he would not survive. Yet he refused to surrender. Year after year, he outlived their predictions, demonstrating the same fighting spirit he admired in the boxers who trained under his watch.
In many ways, Billy Newman embodied the best qualities of boxing itself: resilience, courage, honesty, and compassion.
Today, decades after his passing, his name remains inseparable from the gym he loved.
That may be the greatest tribute of all.
Buildings change. Neighborhoods change. Champions come and go. Yet among boxing people, the old gym on Leavenworth is still remembered by the same name.
Newman’s Gym.
Not because Billy Newman sought immortality.
Not because he demanded recognition.
But because he spent a lifetime opening the doors for others.
The champions came to train.
The old-timers came to remember.
The kids came to learn.
And all of them came home…champions all.
Acknowledgment and Fair Use Attribution
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
The Philippine Boxing Historical Society & Hall of Fame gratefully acknowledges journalist Stephanie Salter and the San Francisco Examiner for her moving March 4, 1984 obituary feature on Billy Newman.
The historical details and recollections referenced in this tribute were inspired by and drawn from her reporting, which preserved the memories of Newman’s friends, associates, and the San Francisco boxing community.
Special thanks to Christina Moretta and the San Francisco History Center for their generosity in providing Billy Newman’s photograph
The accompanying newspaper article is reproduced for purposes of historical preservation, scholarship, commentary, and education under principles of fair use. Ms. Salter’s work remains an invaluable record of one of the most respected figures in San Francisco boxing history.
Anton Scherer (Photo courtesy of theSan Francisco History Center)
There are certain figures in boxing history who become almost impossible to separate from the sport itself. Their names never appeared in the largest headlines — they weren’t always the center of anything — yet their presence felt constant. Woven through decades of fighters, gyms, promotions, and handshake deals. Joe Herman was one of those men.
When Herman passed in February 1984, at eighty-five years old, San Francisco boxing lost more than a respected trainer, manager, and promoter. It lost one of its last living connections to an earlier era… a time when the sport was still scratching out its identity on the West Coast, when boxing men learned every corner of the trade because there was often nobody else to do the work.
He was born Anton Scherer, January 28, 1899. His introduction to boxing came as a young newsboy competing in street-corner tournaments throughout Southern California — a world far removed from television cameras and championship spotlights. Young fighters learned wherever they could find willing opponents. For many, the experience was as much about character as it was about winning. Herman embraced that world early; carried its lessons the rest of his life.
By the time his professional career wound down, he’d logged more than one hundred bouts throughout California and Australia. In Fresno — where he both fought and promoted — fans knew him as the Valley Champ. But what distinguished Herman wasn’t merely his willingness to fight. It was his inability to leave the sport behind once his own days in the ring were finished.
For most people, boxing represented a chapter.
For Joe Herman, it became a lifetime.
Over the next seven decades he served the fight game in virtually every capacity imaginable. Trainer, manager, matchmaker, promoter, publicist, adviser, trusted friend. He worked with hundreds of fighters — raw beginners to established champions — and built a reputation remarkably consistent wherever his name came up. People trusted Joe Herman. That much seemed to follow him everywhere.
That trust became one of his greatest assets. In a business often marked by strong personalities and occasional flash points, Herman earned a reputation as a steady, even-tempered presence. Friends and colleagues remembered a man who rarely spoke ill of others, carried no grudges, and approached the fight game with a professionalism rooted in simple decency. Whether a fighter won or lost, whether a promotion came together or fell apart… Herman always seemed able to keep his footing.
His longest and most significant partnership was with Billy Newman. Together, the two men became synonymous with one of San Francisco’s most beloved boxing institutions — Newman-Herman Gym on Leavenworth Street. The gym was never simply a place to train. It was a gathering place; champions, contenders, trainers, writers, referees, and old-timers crossing paths beneath the same roof, year after year.
The partnership worked, not only because of their knowledge, but because they shared similar values. Together they co-managed their one mutual world champion, Tony Olivera, who captured the NBA Flyweight Championship; worked alongside former titleholders Tony Marino and Carl “Bobo” Olson. Yet neither man measured success solely by championships. They understood that a gym’s true value could often be found somewhere quieter — the young fighter learning discipline… the retired boxer finding companionship… the struggling prospect getting one more shot.
That philosophy made Newman-Herman something special. Fighters came for instruction, but many stayed because they felt they belonged.
As the years passed, Herman’s reputation extended well beyond San Francisco. His experience and knowledge earned him assignments as assistant trainer with the United States Olympic boxing team — Rome, 1960; Tokyo, 1964. Later, he served as adviser to South Korea’s amateur boxing program, further expanding a career that had already touched nearly every corner of the sport.
The honors eventually followed. Founding member of the California Boxers Hall of Fame. Founding member of the California Society for Boxing. Fitting recognition for a man who had given so much. Though one suspects personal recognition was never his primary motivation. He seemed happiest doing the work itself — helping fighters, solving problems, organizing events, remaining part of the boxing community he loved.
Today, much of the boxing world Joe Herman knew exists only in photographs, newspaper clippings, and memories. The old gyms are largely gone. Most of the fighters, trainers, and promoters who shared his journey are gone too. Yet Herman’s legacy remains… because it was built on something more enduring than championships or titles.
It was built on service.
For more than seventy years, Joe Herman gave his time, his knowledge, his energy to a sport that had first captured his imagination as a young newsboy on a Southern California street corner. He stayed through the triumphs and the disappointments, through the changing eras and changing faces — because boxing had simply become part of who he was.
In the end, perhaps the simplest explanation is also the most accurate.
Joe Herman spent a lifetime in boxing for the same reason he entered it as a boy.
For love of the fight game.
Obituary written by Al Corona. (Source: The San Francisco Examiner. February 23, 1984 (Page 64).
Acknowledgements
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
Some men in boxing are remembered for what they did under the stadium lights.
Others aren’t—at least not in the same way. They’re the ones just outside it, in the corner, doing the kind of work that doesn’t show up in headlines.
William James “Paddy” Ryan was an exception to the rule.
He was born May 1, 1885, and by the time boxing became part of his life, he had already done more than most. At sixteen, he joined the United States Navy and stayed there for thirty years.
Somewhere in that time—at Manila Bay, during the Spanish-American War—he earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery.
It’s the kind of thing a man could build a reputation around. Ryan didn’t. He accepted it, then quietly moved on without ever mentioning he was a war hero.
When he arrived in San Francisco, he settled into the kind of work that suited him—steady, necessary, close to the ground.
Boxing fit him that way.
He didn’t arrive with a title. Over time, Paddy continued what he built upon during his time in the Navy —trainer, manager, second, matchmaker.
When James J. “Moose” Taussig left for Hawaii, Ryan took over the gym. There wasn’t much ceremony to it. The place just kept going, and he was the one keeping it lit.
In a gym like that, you learn quickly who matters. It’s not always the loudest man in the room. It’s the one fighters turn toward, on instinct. Ryan had that kind of presence.
A newspaper later called him an “old-time manager and trainer.” It may not sound grand—but in boxing, it usually means everything. You understand him better by looking at the fighters around him.
(L-R) Paddy Ryan, Small Montana and Unidentified Filipino Trainer (Source: The Oakland Post Enquirer • Sat, Oct 19, 1935 • Page 6 • Oakland, California)
Paddy Ryan worked closely with the Filipino boxers who came through San Francisco—young men who had crossed the Pacific chasing something better, often finding very little given to them. In the gym, things were simpler. You trained. You fought. You learned fast.
Small Montana, a world flyweight champion, sat in Ryan’s corner.
There’s a photograph—Small Montana the young student on the stool, Ryan the coach leaning in. Just a moment between rounds. But it feels settled, like something both men understood without needing to say much.
Paddy Ryan and Pablo Dano (Artist and Date Unknown, CTTO) Fair Use
Pablo Dano came through the same way, billed in his time as “Paddy Ryan’s crack Filipino.”
In the old drawings, Ryan stands just behind him, a firm hand on the shoulder of his student—steadying more than instructing. Dano had that bobbing and weaving style, low and hard to catch. It took patience to guide a fighter like that.
These weren’t one-off pairings. This was the grind with fighters who needed someone steady behind them.
He also handled men like “Sailor” Grande and George Theodoratos—fighters from a rougher era of the sport. Ryan didn’t look for easy situations. He worked with whoever came through and gave them what he could.
That kind of work rarely makes a man well known. But it makes him part of the structure of the sport.
Over time, Ryan became one of those steady figures in the San Francisco fight game. Not prominent in the way some were—but always there. And in a place like that, presence counts.
In 1942, he passed the gym on to Joe Herman and William “Bill” Newman. By then, they knew what they were getting—not just a space, but a way the place operated. Habits. Expectations. A certain rhythm.
The name would change later. That’s how these things go.
Obituary of William James Ryan by Harry B. Smith (Source: San Francisco Chronicle. January 10, 1942. p15)Fair Use
Ryan died on January 9, 1942, at sixty-one.
The papers kept it brief. The great SF Chronicle sportswriter Harry B. Smith may have said it best.
Paddy Ryan, Old-Timer in the Boxing Game, Passes On… A face in the fight world. A manager. A trainer. A Medal of Honor awardee. Survived by Catherine, his wife.
He didn’t leave behind stories that grow taller with time. What he left was quieter and more meaningful than that. You see it in the fighters who came through his realm—in the habits, the instincts, the small things passed along without anyone stopping to explain where they came from.
The gym changed hands, but the work stayed the same.
And somewhere in that steady rhythm—in the space between rounds, in the voice a fighter listens for when things get hard—there is still something of Paddy Ryan.
Right where he always was.
In the corner.
Acknowledgements:
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes.
Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
Top photo of William James “Paddy” Ryan excerpted, as Fair Use, from the Obituary of William James Ryan by Harry B. Smith (Source: San Francisco Chronicle. January 10, 1942. p15)
James Julius Taussig was born May 16, 1890, in San Francisco. He passed away July 10, 1966…after seventy-six colorful years in and outside the squared circle.
His obituary said: beloved husband, brother, uncle, native son, member of the South of Market Boys.
That’s the short version with a punch.
The real one was longer…more exciting.
Everybody called him Moose.
Nobody seems to have called him anything else.
He didn’t grandstand nor seek the spotlight, and perhaps he never had to.
What he had was quieter and, in the long run, more useful—people just trusted him.
In boxing, a world where everybody’s angling for something, that kind of man stands out.
Slowly, without making a production of it, Moose ended up at the center of San Francisco’s fight scene.
He and William “Paddy” Ryan established the Taussig & Ryan’s Gymnasium on Leavenworth Street, inside the Cadillac Hotel in the Tenderloin.
It was a place to train for fighters
from all over—local kids, drifters, men chasing a payday or just someone trying their luck in fisticuffs.
Moose didn’t turn anyone who wanted to try the Manly Art.
Come in ready to work and you were welcome.
He had a keen eye for talent, ability and desire… no question.
Irish himself, he felt a natural pull toward men who shared that background.
He helped “Pop” Foster when his Belfast protegé was coming up…a teenage kid named Jimmy McLarnin get his feet wet in the fight game. McLarnin went on to become a Hall of Famer. Moose spotted it early, pushed him in the right direction, and gave him the nickname that stuck: “Baby Face.”
It can be told again: Jimmy McLarnin was just sixteen years old when he arrived in San Francisco in 1924 with his manager, Pop Foster, searching for fights and an opportunity to make a name for himself. One of the first men to size him up was boxing trainer and promoter James Julius “Moose” Taussig of Taussig & Ryan’s Gym. Looking at the slight 108-pound teenager with his youthful features, Taussig reportedly remarked, “No wonder you can’t get him a fight. He’s got a baby face.” The nickname stuck. Within a few short years, “Baby Face” Jimmy McLarnin had become one of boxing’s biggest stars, forever linking Moose Taussig to one of the sport’s most famous nicknames.
He didn’t save his attention for one group.
Filipino fighters were coming into San Francisco in growing numbers.
Source: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1939. HAWAII HOCHI. HONOLULU. I. H, PAGE THREE (Fair Use
Japanese professionals and amateurs alike. Italians too. They arrived young, often broke, without connections. Moose made sure his gym was open to all.
Photo of Moose Taussig and his Protégés Source: The Nippu Jiji, February 10, 1933 Fair Use
The first and second generation of Filipino fighters entered his training camp and later made their names in America like Eddie Duarte, Macario Villon, Speedy Dado, Pablo Dano, Small Montana, and his wards Baby Tiger Flowers and Battling Bulahan.
Source: Willie Meehan versus Fred Fulton (Unknown, Undated Photo, CTTO) Fair Use
Willie Meehan was part of that circle too. The San Francisco heavyweight fought Jack Dempsey five times and beat him twice. That’s the kind of record that gets forgotten. It shouldn’t. Moose’s connection to Dempsey went past business. Real loyalty. The kind that doesn’t need to announce itself.
Promoting was another thing he did well. Cards at the Civic Center first. Then Honolulu, where the local scene had deep roots. Then Japan, working with Yujiro Watanabe— the father of Western Boxing in Japan—to bring fights to audiences that hadn’t seen much international boxing.
The bar gig came later. Mid-1930s, Third Street in San Francisco. He was already called Frisco Kid, so he named it after himself, or after his nickname anyway.
Moose Taussig Bar (Photo by Woods: S.F. Restaurants. Third Street. San Francisco. July I935 (SF Examiner https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/127195/export/iiif_manifest) Fair Use
The Moose Taussig Bar wasn’t fancy. ‘‘Twas simply a room where regulars commiserated… and where the conversation ran long.
Moose Taussig Bar (Photo by Woods: S.F. Restaurants. Third Street. San Francisco. July I935 (SF Examiner https://digicoll.lib.berkeley.edu/record/127195/export/iiif_manifest) Fair Use
On one wall, a mural of a moose—large, unhurried, looking out over the room.
The place and its patrons knew whose it was.
The inimitable reporter and friend of Moose, i.e. Eddie Muller of the SF Examiner, once revealed Taussig had a prankster’s streak. A taste for the harmless bit…The one the Filipino fighters told for years involved garlic. Moose had a theory that doubled up as a prescription—delivered with great confidence—that eating plenty of garlic before going to the movies would sharpen your eyesight. The jest was sold and bought so well that a theater manager eventually came looking for him. The smell was emptying the house. (Source of anecdote: Feb. 25, 1979, Section C, Page 3, S.F. Sunday Examiner & Chronicle: Eddie Muller’s remembrance of Golden Gloves past)
He probably didn’t stop laughing about it for a week.
Under the joke was something light-hearted and encouraging… A way of putting young fighters at ease. Of letting them know somebody in this city gave a damn in a game that uses people up and moves on, that mattered.
His Hawaiian connections held through the years. San Francisco stayed his foundation—the Tenderloin blocks, the South of Market crowd, streets he knew from the heart.
But the reach was wider. Manila. Tokyo. Honolulu. Fighters from across the Pacific moved through his world as naturally as anyone from the Mission or the Richmond. In his era, that was not how things usually worked.
He died in 1966. At a solemn ceremony, his family gathered. That was that.
Thereafter, he gave the gym on Leavenworth to fighters nobody believed in, and opened one corner of the Tenderloin to Filipino kids—new to the country, new to the city—who had nowhere else to go.
McLarnin with his Hall of Fame plaque and the nickname Moose gave him. The Dempsey friendship. The Honolulu cards. The Tokyo connections made years before anyone thought to make them.
The bar on Third Street, the mural on the wall, the garlic story still getting laughs long after he was gone.
Moose built something. He didn’t need anyone to notice — just kept the door open, dealt straight, and let people find their way through.
Some men leave a name and a reputation.
Moose left us a vibrant boxing community.
Sources, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings
Top Photo of Moose Taussig: Source: THE HAWAII HOCHI, HONOLULU, T. H., page three, July 23, 1932
Source: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1939. HAWAII HOCHI. HONOLULU. I. H, PAGE THREE
Photo of Moose Taussig and his Protégés Source: The Nippu Jiji, February 10, 1933
Source of anecdote: Feb. 25, 1979, Section C, Page 3, S.F. Sunday Examiner & Chronicle: Eddie Muller’s remembrance of Golden Gloves past
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
They came in waves from 1910 to 1942 — during the golden years of the sport, up until the start of World War Two.
Factotums, farmers, soldiers, wanderers from the Philippine archipelago, looking for their place in the sun.
San Francisco was where many of them found their pugilistic purpose — heart and soul.
They arrived with little more than the will to fight and the instinct to survive, and what they built inside the gyms of this city, inside Newman’s most of all, was something the sport had never quite seen before.
Eddie Duarte got there first, in the 1910s. He stepped off the USAT Burnside, found his way to the Dreamland Rink, and became the first professional Filipino boxer to fight on American soil. He arrived unknown. He left with a record and a reputation — and in doing so cracked open a door that nobody would ever fully close again.
Francisco Guilledo walked through it in 1922. He fought as Pancho Villa and became the first Filipino world champion in any sport — not just boxing.
Source: THE KNOCKOUT, Published Weekly, Vol. 5, SATURDAY, APRIL 23, 1932, No. 16
Villa once trained at Newman’s, and he carried that distinction the way he fought: clean, efficient, devastating, with a quiet certainty that tended to silence whatever doubts were in the room. He was twenty-three years old and already the best fighter on the planet at his weight. He died at twenty-three, too — a dental infection, of all things, just weeks after his last fight. The sport has never entirely recovered from the loss of what he might have become.
Small Montana came along a decade later, training at Newman’s when he wasn’t across the bay in Oakland, and picked up where Villa left off — winning a world title of his own.
Paddy Ryan himself, the same man who had built the gym, was in his corner for that run. Think about that for a moment. The co-founder of the institution was working the corner of one of the best small fighters in the world, passing whatever he knew directly into the next generation of champions.
Little Dado — Eleuterio Zapanta — followed in those footsteps. The first two-division Filipino world champion, he last fought a fellow Filipino, Little Pancho, at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium in a world title fight that ended in a draw.
Little Pancho — Eulogio Villaruel Tingson, Pancho Villa’s half-brother — had trained at the same gym preparing for that very fight.
(L-R) Max Baer poses with Pablo Dano (Site, Date, Artist Unknown. Fair Use)Pablo Dano trained there too, under Ryan’s tutelage, and at one point held the California version of the world bantamweight title.Source: The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, California) • Thu, Jan 18, 1934 • Page 15Ceferino Garcia and his trainer (@Newman’s Gym, Date Unknown, Photo Courtesy of the San Francisco History Center)
Ceferino Garcia came next, shaped in part by that same atmosphere. By the time he climbed to the middleweight championship, the point had been made plainly enough — Filipino fighters were not merely competitive at the top of the sport. They were defining it. Dazzling hand speed, brilliant footwork, a rhythm and timing they brought with them from across the Pacific and refined on the hardwood floors of the Tenderloin.
(L-R) Sandy Saddler and Gabriel “Flash” Elorde pose at Newman’s Gym. Date unknown. (Photo courtesy of the San Francisco History Center)
Gabriel Flash Elorde, the longest-reigning world champion in the 130-pound division, trained and sparred at Newman’s alongside Sandy Saddler and later with Harold Gomes — opponents he would face on great cards at the Cow Palace in the late fifties and early sixties.
Gabriel “Flash” Elorde on a treadmill at Newman’s Gym. August 1960. (Photo courtesy of the San Francisco History Center)
Gabriel “Flash” Elorde on a treadmill at Newman’s Gym. August 1960. (Photo courtesy of the San Francisco History Center)
Photographs from the San Francisco History Center show him on a treadmill at Newman’s, young and focused, the city still new to him, the titles still ahead.
(L-R) Laura Elorde giving pointers to her husband Gabriel “Flash” Elorde at Newman’s Gym. Circa 1956 (Photo courtesy of the San Francisco History Center)(L-R) Hermie Rivera and Luisito Espinosa (2003)
My father, Hermie Rivera, once said that had Newman’s remained open, Manny Pacquiao and Luisito Espinosa would have fit right in. He would know.
(L-R) Manny Pacquiao and Hermie Rivera (2006)
He had been a mentor to the young Pacquiao and personally brought Espinosa — Earthquake Louie — to San Francisco before crowning him the first Filipino bantamweight champion in Thailand. These were not idle words from a man given to sentiment. They were the considered judgment of someone who had watched Filipino fighters work their whole life and understood exactly what Newman’s had meant to them.
Caption: Jimmy Cannon once called boxing the red-light district of sports. It was not a dismissal — it was recognition.
The fight game lived in rough places, like London, like Manila, like New York, like the Tenderloin. A.J. Liebling called Stillman’s in New York the University of Eighth Avenue. He was right about Stillman’s Gym, but he forgot to mention its West Coast counterpart — Newman’s Gym, which was older, and which nobody there would have bragged about out loud.
Caption: Herb Caen put it simply: any city without a Tenderloin isn’t a city at all.
Newman’s was the Tenderloin’s gift to boxing. And the Filipinos — those early wanderers who stepped off boats with nothing but their hands and their hunger — were the greatest gift the Sweet Science ever received.
The Cadillac Hotel still stands at Eddy and Leavenworth.
Inside those walls, fighting men once made the ring at Newman’s Gym their home.
Acknowledgements
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes.
Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
San Francisco once had an institution of higher learning for boxers — an elite fight club and fistic academy (of sorts) on the West Coast.
No diplomas, no degrees were given— just a pat on the back or a playful jab to the breadbasket for the hard, honest curriculum of the squared circle.
It was called Newman’s Gym.
It only exists in memory now, but it was once the oldest and one of the most revered boxing gymnasiums in the nation.
Follow boxing’s trail long enough and it brings you here, to the Tenderloin…and to its historic past.
When Joe Herman and Billy Newman took over the old Taussig & Ryan gym in 1942, they did not arrive as strangers to the fight game.
They arrived as lifers.
Anton Scherer (Photo courtesy of theSan Francisco History Center)
Joe Herman — born Anton Scherer on January 28, 1899 — had been introduced to fighting as a newsboy in street-corner tournaments in Southern California. By the time he was done as a professional, he had logged more than a hundred bouts across California and Australia, fighting through the old four-round era when the game was still finding its shape on the West Coast. In Fresno, where he fought and promoted, people knew him as the Valley Champ.
Joe Herman’s Obituary written by Al Corona. (Source: The San Francisco Examiner. February 23, 1984 (Page 64). Herman’s Obituary by Jack Fiske (Source: SF Chronicle, 1984)
He was also a founding member of the California Boxers Hall of Fame and the California Society for Boxing. When the fighting was over, Herman became whatever boxing needed — trainer, manager, matchmaker, promoter, publicist when it came to that.
He worked with hundreds of fighters over the decades, and those who knew him said much the same thing: steady, even-tempered, not one to hold grudges.
Caption: Together, Herman and Newman co-managed their one world champion — Tony Olivera, who held the NBA Flyweight title — and worked with former titlists Tony Marino and Carl “Bobo” Olson.
Together, Herman and Newman co-managed their one mutual world champion — Tony Olivera, who held the NBA Flyweight title — and worked with former titlists Tony Marino and Carl “Bobo” Olson.
Billy Newman (Photo courtesy of the San Francisco History Center)
William “Bill” Newman was Herman’s partner and, in most ways that mattered, the heart of the place. What Newman is remembered for is not any single fighter. It is the decades he spent keeping the doors open.
Champions and beginners walked through the same entrance and received identical treatment, which is to say nobody received special treatment. You worked, or you found somewhere else not to work.
If a fighter needed gear, Newman found a way. If someone was short on money, he covered it. He never made a thing of it.
Top of the Barrel, Jack Fiske (Source:San Francisco Chronicle, September 4, 1976)
The gym bore that character. By the early 1980s, Newman’s was reputedly the oldest boxing gymnasium in the United States and the last serious professional fight gym left in San Francisco. You could feel the history in the walls — in the worn canvas, the smell of leather and rosin, the photographs staring down from every surface. The names that had passed through the place read like a roll call of the sport’s golden age — Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, James J. Braddock, Max Baer, Rocky Marciano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Archie Moore, Sandy Saddler, Sonny Liston, Floyd Patterson, Sugar Ray Leonard. Different eras, different divisions, same address.
Then there was Miles Davis, who sparred there regularly and was known to remind his partners not to punch his mouth. He had a gig that night.
(L-R) William “Billy” Newman and Muhammad Ali (Source:San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle / March 4, 1984)
And there was a nineteen-year-old from Louisville, Kentucky, who walked through the door sometime around 1960. Known at the time as Cassius Clay, he had just won the national amateur light heavyweight title in San Francisco and punched his ticket to the Rome Olympics.
He was supposed to go home. He could not — he hated flying, missed his ride, and ended up staying a stretch.
He trained at Newman’s during those weeks, and when it was finally time to leave, Billy Newman reached into his pocket and handed the young man three hundred dollars to get back to Louisville by ground.
The man who became Muhammad Ali never forgot it.
Article by Stephanie Salter, Staff Writer. (Source:San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle / March 4, 1984)
Newman died in March 1984. Joe Herman had gone just weeks before, struck by a car in San Francisco at eighty-five. The two men who had kept that gym alive for over four decades were gone within a month of each other.
Don Stewart (Source:San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle / March 4, 1984)
I remember meeting Don Stewart’s office in 1983 or 84, Stewart himself seated among his gallery of photographs, a pose similar to the picture above, the way a man sits in a room he has earned.
Born in 1910, he had been a fighter once, something like 26 and 3, before moving into training.
By 1984, with Newman gone, he was the last keeper — running things day to day, keeping the doors open for at-risk youth at fifty cents a day.
He had worked with Sonny Liston, Gerry Cooney, and a young George Foreman fresh out of the Job Corps. Foreman had sought him out specifically.
The gym’s reputation still meant something, even then.
The office was a proper man cave — photographs and artwork covering every surface, the ephemera of fighting heroes stacked and hung without apology. A museum before anyone called it that.
The gym eventually closed in 1984 and relocated a block south on Leavenworth near Golden Gate and held on into the mid-nineties before closing for good.
(L-R) Mr. George Foreman, One Aspiring Writer, and Robert Lyons (Biltmore Hotel, March 12, 2023)
My father once watched Foreman train at Newman’s in the early eighties and told me about those sparring sessions more than once, to make sure I understood what it meant to be in a room where legends worked. It was my father, along with Jack Fiske of the Chronicle and Al Corona of the Examiner, who first brought me to Newman’s just before the original site closed in 1983.
The Tenderloin Museum now occupies a space within the Cadillac Hotel. The neighborhood’s history — its people, its tensions, its long complicated life — finally has a home.
After 61 Years, Newman’s Gym Throws In the Towel by Jack Fiske (Source: San Francisco Chronicle, Tuesday, April 2, 1985)
Newman’s Gym memory and its legacy lives on — in every fighter who laced up inside those walls, in every corner man, in every boxing fan who understood and appreciated the fight game.
Sources, References, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings:
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
https://www.tenderloinmuseum.org/
(L-R) Keana Rivera, Grant Rivera and Mr. George Foreman (Biltmore Hotel, March 12, 2023)
At the corner of Eddy and Leavenworth, the historic building still stands — Renaissance Revival in its bones, with Baroque flourishes and traces of Art Nouveau worked into the stone.
Most people walk past without a second look. The Tenderloin does not slow down for sentiment. But if you stop long enough, you begin to see something in that building — something time has not managed to take.
The Cadillac Hotel rose from the rubble of the 1906 earthquake and fire, part of San Francisco’s long climb back to its feet. The city was rebuilding its skyline and remaking its identity, and the Cadillac went up in that spirit — a proper hotel in a neighborhood that was still figuring out what it wanted to be.
For nearly two decades, it was a part of the welcoming committee and was a resting site for visitors from all over the world.
A world class hotel in a world class city.
Then, in 1924, a ballroom on the premises found a different calling.
Top of the Barrel, Jack Fiske (Source: San Francisco Chronicle, September 4, 1976)Moose: James Julius Taussig (Source: THE HAWAII HOCHI, HONOLULU, T. H., page three, July 23, 1932)
James Julius Taussig — “Moose” to everyone who knew him — and William J. “Paddy” Ryan opened a boxing gym inside that ballroom and called it Taussig & Ryan’s.
Neither man could have known what they were getting themselves into.
What started as a local fight club became, over the next six decades, one of the most storied boxing gymnasiums in the country, and beyond.
Moose Taussig had the eye. That particular gift — seeing a fighter before the fighter knows he is one — cannot be taught, and Taussig had it in full. He built a boxing club, gave local pugilists a place to call home, then pushed further, matching his stable against rivals at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium on Grove Street.
Willie Meehan (Unknown Artist, Public Domain)
His first star was pugilist Willie Meehan, a durable heavyweight from San Francisco who carried one of the great footnotes in the history of the sport: Meehan defeated Jack Dempsey — the Manassa Mauler — twice in five fights. Those victories put both fighter and gym on the national map, and the reputation built steadily from there.
Source: SATURDAY, MARCH 7, 1936THE HAWAII HOCHI, HONOLULU, T. H., PAGE THREE
By the mid-1930s, Hawaii came calling and Taussig answered, taking on roles as promoter, matchmaker, and cornerman across the Pacific. Late in his career he traveled even further — serving as public relations man to Dempsey and Yujiro Watanabe, considered the father of Western boxing in Japan. The world, it turned out, was not too large for a man from Eddy and Leavenworth.
Paddy Ryan by Harry B. Smith (Source: San Francisco Chronicle. January 10, 1942. p15)
Paddy Ryan was the other half of the equation, and in many ways the more lasting one.
Before he ever taped a fighter’s hands, Ryan had already lived more than most men dream of. He joined the United States Navy at sixteen and served thirty years.
During the Spanish-American War and the Battle of Manila Bay, he acted with such extraordinary bravery that the government awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor. I shall take liberties in repeating that— Congressional Medal of Honor— a true-to-life hero.
When that chapter finally closed, Ryan carried those same qualities into the fight game — the steadiness, the discipline, the quiet authority of a man who had already been tested by something far more serious than boxing.
Paddy Ryan and Pablo Dano ( Poster Artist Unknown. CTTO)
When Taussig left for Hawaii, Ryan stayed on. The gym was in his blood by then. He managed, trained, advised — and for more than a few young men from difficult circumstances, functioned as something close to a father. Those who knew him remembered a stillness in the corner and a feel for the game that went bone-deep.
In 1942, Ryan sold the gym to Joe Herman and Billy Newman, two fight men who had been around long enough to know exactly what they were buying,
not just a gym but a piece of living history with its very own orbit.
Obituary of William James “Paddy” Ryan. January 10, 1942 |Source: (published as Richmond Times-Dispatch) | Richmond, Virginia | Page 16
Ryan died that same year — January 9, 1942, at sixty-one. The loss was felt across the Bay Area boxing community in a way that lingered.
The name on the sign changed.
The place did not.
What Taussig and Ryan built inside that ballroom on Eddy and Leavenworth was something rarer than a boxing gym.
It was a room where the sport’s hard knowledge accumulated year by year, passed from trainer to fighter to the next man through the door.
Cities of the fight game have their own versions of the fight club — Broughton’s Amphitheatre in eighteenth-century London, Gleason’s and Stillman’s both in New York, the Wild Card in Los Angeles. San Francisco had the Cadillac Hotel.
Years later, the city made it official in 2009. The Cadillac Hotel, at 366–394 Eddy Street and 300–324 Leavenworth Street, became San Francisco Landmark No. 176, became a recognized part of the Uptown Tenderloin Historic District.
Landmark No. 176 — designated by the city in 2009 as part of the Uptown Tenderloin Historic District.
Stand at the corner of Eddy and Leavenworth long enough, and something stirs — ghosts of leather and sweat that refuse to go quiet.
Stop into the Tenderloin Museum and see for yourself.
Sources, References, Acknowledgements:
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes.
Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
Promoter Sampson Lewkowicz Photo: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy Promotions
June 2, 2026
San Francisco, California
In the fight game, a man’s reputation is either his greatest asset or his heaviest burden.
For Sampson Lewkowicz, it has only grown stronger and more special through the decades.
Long before the world figured out what Manny Pacquiao would become, Sampson already knew.
He was there at the beginning, helping piece together the fights and opportunities that gave Pacquiao solid ground to build on.
“Through my work with Manny Pacquiao and my other Filipino world champions, I came to know the Philippines and its great tradition with boxing,” he expressed through PhilBoxing.com and PhilippineBoxingHallOfFame.org
History tends to credit the man throwing the punches and rarely gets around to crediting the man who made the calls, opened the doors, and believed first, when believing still carried real risk.
Nowadays, the names on Mr. Lewkowicz’ résumé and his promotional company Sampson Boxing are easy to find— stars like David Benavidez, Sebastian Fundora, Gabriela Fundora, and former Pinoy champions Donnie Nietes, John Riel Casimero, Marvin Sonsona.
According to the WBC website, he has helped the careers, one way or another, of the following titlists and contenders: Jaison Rosario, Javier Fortuna, Sultan Ibragimov, Javier Castillejo, Leavander Johnson, Celestino Caballero, Hugo Ruiz, Anselmo Moreno, Michael Katsidis, Chris John, Rafael Concepcion, Krystof Wlodarzyk, Hanna Gabriels, Kina Malpartida, Cecilia Comunalis…and many more.
But anyone who knows their boxing will tell you that a list of names only goes so far.
What it cannot tell you is whether a man kept his word when keeping it cost him something, or whether the fighters in his corner still trusted him when the cameras were pointed elsewhere.
In Sampson’s case, they did, and they still do.
I can speak to some of this firsthand.
I first met him on July 26, 2003, completely by luck, at press row during a fight card featuring Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao and Emmanuel “Carnicero” Lucero at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles, California.
The match was a successful title defense of Pacquiao for his IBF World Super Bantamweight Championship belt.
I had aspirations of being a reporter back then and was still learning about the fight game, and was there partly in my capacity as the manager for former world champion Luisito Espinosa, who was at ringside looking to make connections for a comeback.
Press rows back then had a particular old school energy to them — organized chaos, full of people who had seen enough of the game to have strong opinions about all of it, the kind of setting where you picked things up fast just by staying alert and keeping quiet.
Mr. Lewkowicz found us and introduced himself, and we simply talked.
Much to our surprise he knew who Espinosa was, and he understood the Filipino boxing tradition going back further than most people in that room, and spoke about it with the ease of someone who had earned that familiarity rather than borrowed it for the occasion.
It left an impression on me that twenty-five years have done nothing to diminish.
That genuine connection to Filipino boxing runs through everything Sampson has done.
He recognized those fighters early, invested in them when the rest of the promotional world was looking elsewhere, and built relationships durable enough to survive the particular pressures this sport puts on everyone involved.
When Filipino boxing people talk about Sampson Lewkowicz, the word that keeps coming back is mapagkakatiwalaan — trustworthy — and in boxing that distinction matters enormously.
His staying power is not complicated once you understand how he operates.
Recently, I respectfully asked Sampson to describe his philosophy. He answered the way he handles most things — simple and direct.
“Always tell the truth,” he said. “Be loyal to the ones loyal to you. Be good to your people and they will go the extra mile for you. There are no shortcuts to building something that will last.”
Easy enough to say, but the test is whether a man actually lives by it, and the people who have worked with Sampson across decades and continents will settle that question quickly if you ask them.
The fighter at the center of his attention right now is Charly Suarez, a Filipino contender with real ability and a genuine case for feeling wronged.
Most ringside observers who watched his recent challenge against Emanuel Navarrete came away believing Suarez had done enough to walk out with the title, and the judges’ decision has not sat well with anyone paying close attention.
Rather than quietly regroup and wait for the politics to peter out, Suarez is stepping forward into one of the most ambitious settings of his career, with Sampson beside him and a rematch firmly in his sights.
(L-R) Charly “King’s Warrior” Suarez, Christy Martin and Manuel “Tino” Avila (courtesy of ivB Boxing)
“I saw that Charly could use some help landing the rematch he is owed against Navarrete. I also know that Filipino boxers will fight anyone, anytime. That is why Charly is taking this fight in front of his fans in San Francisco. He wants to be the best and sharpest version of himself when we do the rematch.”
That setting is San Francisco, on July 11, 2026, at Civic Center Plaza )Photo: iVB Boxing)
Mayor Daniel Lurie is behind it, promoter Ed Pereira is the driving force, and Sampson Boxing leads the way, and veteran Northern California promoter Paco Damian brings the local relationships and hard-won experience that turn big ideas into actual events.
The target is the all-time boxing attendance record — one hundred thirty-five thousand, one hundred thirty-two.
That is the official live attendance record for a boxing event, Tony Zale and Billy Pryor, Milwaukee, 1941, and it is the kind of audacious goal that either becomes a landmark moment in the sport or a cautionary tale about overreach.
Sampson is fully committed to making it happen.
Ed Pereira of iVB Boxing
“I met a man named Ed Pereira and he asked me to help him put together a very special event in San Francisco,” Sampson said.
“He showed me the events he has done in the past and impressed me with his ambition. Plus, I have a very wonderful partner named Paco Damian who has been promoting boxing in Northern California for many years. Together, we are a team planning to do something special for the city and for boxing.”
He understands better than most what a night like this can mean for Filipino fight fans, having watched that community show up in remarkable force across multiple countries and multiple generations of fighters.
When the subject turned to MMA, bare-knuckle boxing, and everything else competing for the combat sports audience, Sampson did not hedge or qualify his answer.
“There will always be boxing,” he said. “You can add kicking and wrestling, you can take away gloves and try other things, but all combat sports are at their best when a boxing match breaks out.”
The endearing moniker ‘Picasso’ has followed him for years, drifting through arenas and hotel lobbies and press rows across several continents, and when I asked him why the tag, he answered with his characteristic humility.
“I don’t have any say in what people call me,” he said, “but I do appreciate all the love and friendships I have built with so many great people all around the world in my career.”
It is the right answer, and without him trying to make it so, a genuinely revealing one.
The comparison was never really about abstract genius but about a man who spent decades building something real and lasting — carefully, seriously, with genuine craft — while the years and the fights and the titles came and went around him.
The work held up, the relationships held up, and the reputation held up in a sport where very few things do.
Belts and titles rotate and records get broken, and promoters cycle in and out of boxing like bad weather, but the fighters who trusted Sampson still trust him.
And on July 11, 2026, he will stand in the middle of the Civic Center in San Francisco helping chase a record that most sensible people would have talked themselves out of chasing.
That alone tells you something important about who he is and how he has always operated.
Pablo Picasso once said the purpose of art is to wash the dust of daily life off our souls.
Sampson Lewkowicz never said anything like that, and he didn’t need to.
Mr. Lewkowicz just kept showing up, kept his word, and kept placing fighters in positions to become something greater than they were when he first met them…which in boxing is as close to art as it gets.
Ed Pereira and iV Boxing Presents in collaboration with The City of San Francisco, California
History in the Making
Saturday, July 11, 2026 — Civic Center Plaza, San Francisco, California
Promoters: Sampson Lewkowicz (Sampson Boxing) Lead Promoter
Paco Damian (Paco Presents)
Akihiko Honda (Teiken Promotions)
Felix “Tuto” Zabala Jr. (All Star Boxing Inc.)
Matchmakers: Paco Damian & Christy Martin
Featured Bouts:
Anthony Olascuaga vs. Andy Dominguez Velasquez
Yan Marcos vs. Guido Emmanuel Schramm
Charly “King’s Warrior” Suarez vs. Manuel “Tino” Avila
Gurgen Hovhannisyan vs. Uila Mau’u
Oscar Bonifacino vs. Raul Escudero
Blake Binskin vs. Elijah Smith
California State Athletic Commission sanctioned.
Acknowledgements:
All photos in this article are courtesy of ivB Boxing and Sampson Boxing Promotions.
Our very best regards and gratitude to Mr. Sampson Lewkowicz for keeping boxing alive and well.
Thanks to Andre Courtemanche, President at Big Media Buzz for the kind and tremendous assist.
Joe Cantada— admired by Filipinos for over three decades, from the 1960s through the early 1990s— still captures the imagination of even casual sports fans like me.
Born March 15, 1942, Jose Cantada left an unforgettable mark on Philippine sports broadcasting. He studied at San Beda and Ateneo, and built a reputation for deep knowledge, thorough research, and remarkable on-the-spot commentary. He rarely used notes. He didn’t need to. He was a natural speaker, the kind who could hold your attention with just his voice.
Joe wasn’t just a broadcaster— he was an athlete too. He played basketball, trained in bodybuilding, and loved boxing. He joined many PBA broadcast panels, where he worked as both a commentator and analyst. In 2005, the league honored him for the excellence he brought to live play-by-play in the 1980s.
His voice stood out most— a deep, clear baritone that commanded attention. He wasn’t just known locally. He went global. Joe was the announcer for the Thrilla in Manila, introducing the legendary fighters in that historic match.
His simple, booming “Introducing…” made crowds wild and made Ali and Frazier seem even more epic.
I like to think it was my dad who gave him the nickname “Smokin’ Joe.” I could be wrong, but I don’t think either of them would mind me saying so. They were close friends, and their bond only deepened after they worked together on Ali–Frazier III. I remember seeing them in conversation often— over bottles of San Miguel, shared food, and cigarette smoke. Whether they were in our family home on Tolentino Street in Quezon City or later in San Francisco, those moments stayed with me.
Boxing has a way of connecting people. My father Hermie Rivera and Joe were proof of that. They formed a strong team, covering important fights featuring champions like Frank Cedeño, Dodie Boy Peñalosa, Rolando Navarrete, and Luisito Espinosa. Their friendship remained solid all the way until Joe’s passing on March 22, 1992.
But his legacy wasn’t only behind the mic.
In 1982, during a visit to Dagupan City— known for bangus and its coastline— Mr. Cantada gave me a Nikon FM SLR camera. He said I should try photography or find a hobby that involved capturing life as it unfolded. That small gesture pushed me to pursue something that’s stayed with me all these years.
Joe also loved music. He had a soft spot for ballads and even recorded an album called ‘Joe Cantada in 12 Rounds’. My sister Charina still has the vinyl copy we got from our parents. He was family to us— he was also my younger brother Gerardo “Andy” Rivera’s godfather.
My father once said: “Joe had a voice made for radio, a physique fit for the movies, and a mustache that changed the face of Philippine sports broadcasting forever.”
Even now, I find myself wondering how Mr. Joe Cantada might have called more recent fights or events.
We’ll never get to hear that. But if he were behind the mic again, one thing’s for sure:
Delfin Boholst at the Golden Gate Bridge Vista Point (2026)
Boxing fans know Delfin Boholst today as the chief trainer of Filipino title contender Charly Suarez.
On July 11, 2026, he’ll work Suarez’s corner at San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza — part of one of the most ambitious fight cards the Bay Area, or the world for that matter, has ever seen.
For Filipino boxing, it’s a significant night.
For Boholst, it’s another chapter in a life built on discipline, service, and purpose.
The road started in Polomolok, South Cotabato, where he was born. He grew up in Gingoog City, Misamis Oriental, raised by his parents.
Today he’s based at Fort Bonifacio in Taguig — where he married, started a family, and continues his Army Reserve service.
Ask him about his role models and he doesn’t hesitate.
“My role models are my parents. They taught me to become a decent person in society.”
That answer sets the tone for everything else.
He wanted to be a soldier from the time he was a boy. Not a passing wish — a fixed point he steered toward his whole life. He entered active duty in 2009, served through 2017, and reached the rank of First Lieutenant. He remains an Army Reserve Officer today.
Boxing ran alongside all of it.
He joined the Philippine National Boxing Team in 2005. Over the next seven years he competed at the 2006 Asian Games in Qatar, the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou, the 2011 Southeast Asian Games in Indonesia, and two Olympic qualifying tournaments.
He didn’t medal at those marquee events, but he collected hardware elsewhere — a Gold at the Tammer Cup in Finland in 2006, a Bronze and Silver in 2010, a Gold at an international tournament in the Philippines that same year, and a Gold at the Blue & Gold tournament in Los Angeles in 2010.
He stepped away from competition in 2012. The 2011 Olympic qualifier was the turning point.
“I realized that fighting was not for me,” he said. “I also continued my Army service as an officer — that’s why I stopped in 2012.”
(L-R) Delfin Boholst, Jimmy Lennon, Jr., Charly Suarez (May 2026)
He understood boxing on his own terms, though. When asked what drew him to the sport, he reached for the phrase fighters and writers have used for generations.
“Boxing is called ‘The Sweet Science’ because it is not all about power punches,” he said. “You need intelligence, discipline, defense, timing, and strategy. It’s like playing chess in the ring — you think about how to touch and manipulate the opponent, and think about how to avoid his punches. It blends ability, skill, and cleverness in fighting.”
The move into coaching came naturally. In 2018 he lent a hand to (Team) Jerwin Ancajas and Joven Jimenez. Work with Team Mark Barriga followed. Somewhere in that stretch he recognized his real calling.
“I realized I had a talent for teaching boxing,” he said.
That recognition eventually led him back to someone he’d known since 2005 — Charly Suarez, his teammate on the national squad.
Team Suarez: Las Vegas, 2026
“Charly and I played boxing together in national and international tournaments …we are like brothers,” he said.
That brotherhood carried over into the professional ranks. Suarez — former Olympian, decorated amateur — has built a sterling professional record. Boholst has been in his corner for all of it.
His approach to coaching mirrors the values his parents instilled and his military service reinforced.
“My role models in life are my parents, coaches, and people who worked hard to achieve their dreams with discipline and respect for others,” he said.
“One of the lessons I want to pass on to the new generation is the importance of discipline and proper behavior. Talent alone is not enough — it also requires hard work, perseverance, respect, and self-belief. True success is not just about winning, but how you approach life and how you become a good person to others.”
He is also a Freemason, a member of Teodoro M. Kalaw Lodge 136, GLP — another thread in a life woven through with brotherhood and obligation.
As July 11 approaches, Boholst has his eyes on Manuel “Tino” Avila, Suarez’s opponent — a tough fighter on home turf.
“I know that Tino Avila is a tough opponent and he is still in his hometown, so I expect strong support for him,” Boholst said.
“But we are ready for any situation. We trained well, we prepared well, we are focused. The stakes are high — everything we have worked hard for will be lost if Charly loses.”
He knows what the night means beyond the result.
“It is a great honor to be on Charly’s corner in this event and represent our country,” he said. “I know the importance of this card, especially with the many Filipinos in California and the Bay Area who will support and pray for us.”
To the young athletes watching, he had a final word — one that covered sport, life, and faith in the same breath.
“Always put discipline, hard work, and respect first,” he said.
Delfin Boholst, Boxer, Amateur Boxing Association of the Philippines (Photo by Emmanuel Rivera, 2010)
“In sports, talent is not enough. You need perseverance, proper training, and readiness for challenges — that is how a true athlete is shaped. In life, do not rush success. There is a process for everything. Learn to rise from every mistake and use it as a lesson. And in spirituality — keep your faith and stay humble. No matter what you achieve, never forget where you started and who helped you get there. When you have faith and a good heart, you become stronger not just inside the ring, but in real life.”
For a man who has spent his life in service — in uniform, on the national team, and now in the corner — those aren’t borrowed words.
They’re the ones he lives by.
——
Ed Pereira and iV Boxing Presents: History in the Making
Jun Aquino presents Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao with his likeness at The 3rd Pacquiao Elorde Awards Night Okada Hotel, Philippines April 30, 2026 Photo by Wendell Rupert Alinea
If you’re a fan of boxing, basketball and politics here in the Philippines and abroad, chances are you’ve seen his artwork in multimedia form (physical and virtual) —charcoal, watercolor, clay, pencil, oils, for example.
He’s been liberally called the personal, de facto or resident painter for the great Emmanuel D. Pacquiao by respected broad sheets, titles he reluctantly accepts. To his friends, family and fans, however, he is simply (The Official) Jun Aquino.
Jun Aquino accepts citation from Quezon City government with his late mother Natalia “Naty” Santiago (In Memoriam, 1932-2023)The Aquino Family (L-R)Kyle, Jun and Melody with the late Natalia “Naty” Santiago
He discovered his passion for the arts at age 6 at his stomping grounds up in the hills of Antipolo, Rizal province. His first paint brush was a lock of his mom’s hair tied to a stick. His first medium was diluted mud on paper, he relates.
In college, he honed his skills studying Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. He was in charge of political artwork for the venerated Philippines Free Press (est. 1908) for 25 years until it closed down in the mid-1970’s.
Amidst the struggles we face in the world today due to post-pandemic woes caused by Covid-19 (SARS-CoV-2) — an invisible nemesis with palpable and debilitating effects on everything tangible — we can find solace in witnessing beauty through Jun Aquino’s eyes and masterful brush strokes.
Mr. Jun Aquino’s work reminds us of an old opening line in Endymion , the eternal poem by John Keats. His better half, Melody, is shown with him in the wonderful photograph above.
A thing of beauty is a joy forever:
Its loveliness increases;
It will never pass into nothingness
Through his celebrated body of work, we are reminded that beauty persists through art.
From Mactan to The Ring For every blow that echoed loud, another tale begins— From Mactan’s spears to gloved-up fists, We carved our name in skin. Not just fighters— we were fire, Burning through colonial spin. This book is not a eulogy. It’s a round that never ends.
Boxing didn’t start as just a sport.
It has always been more… part art, craft, and science.
Its origins reach back well before Greece and Rome ruled the world. Ancient carvings from Egypt and Sumer, dating to the third millennium B.C., show two men squaring off, fists raised.
By 688 BCE, the Greeks had added boxing to the Olympics. The Romans later turned it cruel. Their gladiators wrapped their fists in cestus, thick leather arm and fist straps adorned with deadly spikes and studs.
These weren’t contests of skill. They were trials of endurance…and survival. Footwork and timing had no place in those brutal spectacles.
It was in 18th- and 19th-century England that things began to shift. Bare-knuckle brawls were still brutal, but some saw something beneath the surface.
The British called it pluck and bottom, a combination of bravery and endurance. Slowly, boxing started to reveal a rhythm.
Pierce Egan, the hand behind Boxiana, believed that boxing wasn’t just muscle and blood. He saw strategy, movement, and something honorable. He wrote in 1824:
“No sword or dagger—nor deadly list, And rise or fall but by his fist! The battle’s o’er—all made amends, By shaking hands, becoming friends.”
…Pierce Egan
To Egan, pugilism was the art of character in motion— where presence met principle, and fists spoke louder than weapons. He saw in fighters like Broughton, Cribb, Molyneaux, Richmond, and Mendoza not just brawn, but craft. Mendoza, above all, brought rhythm and feint, turning the ring into a dance of timing and wit.
In Boxiana, Egan framed the fight as noble— a contest that ended not with vengeance, but with respect. That vision, idealistic as it may seem, still endures.
As boxing reached American shores, men like James Corbett, Joe Gans, and Jack Johnson refined it further. They moved smarter, hit clean, and vanished before fists could find them.
In the Orient, something different was taking shape.
Photo: The 24th Colored Infantry Traveling to Manila, P.I. (Copyright 1898, W.H. Kilburn. Now in the Public Domain (Courtesy of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame)
The Arrival of Boxing in the Philippines
In 1899, when the United States occupied the Philippines, they didn’t just bring soldiers and battleships— they brought sports.
The Army was tasked with introducing baseball.
The Navy was to spread boxing.
Both were promoted as tools to build discipline, improve physical education, prevent desertion, and minimize vices— meant to boost morale among the troops and the newly acquired citizens of the Yankee empire.
The islands were ready. Baseball faded. Boxing caught fire.
It was the Army— the 24th Infantry— that ended up being the first to teach Filipinos the sweet science.
Photo: Pair of Sol Levinson Fight Gloves (San Francisco), circa 1928-1934…Professional lace-up gloves representative of Levinson’s mature design period, widely used in West Coast rings during the late 1920s and early 1930s (from the collection of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame)
In 1926, sportswriter Damon Runyon recalled an early sign of this transformation. After U.S. troops captured San Mateo, they discovered something unexpected:
“They found among the possessions abandoned by the fleeing insurrectos a set of boxing gloves…brought in by a renegade soldier from the 24th Infantry. He had been schooling the Filipinos in their use.”
Those gloves, made by Sol Levinson of San Francisco, were more than gear. They were proof that the Americans weren’t just fighting Filipinos— they were teaching them to fight back.
Filipino Martial Arts
Exhibit The Gala of Champions Manila Grand Opera Hotel Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame Santa Cruz, Manila March 22, 2024
But long before gloves landed on Filipino soil, the people already knew how to fight.
Kali, Eskrima, Arnis— collectively known today as Filipino Martial Arts— had been refined over centuries.
These systems didn’t rely on brute strength.
They were built on timing, deception, and movement.
The blade was just an extension.
The real weapon was the body in motion.
So when Filipino fighters entered the boxing ring, they didn’t start from zero. Their feet were already trained. Their instincts were already sharp.
Not only did the Filipinos pick up the fight game— they made it their own. They didn’t just adopt boxing— they transformed it.
The Unorthodox Genius of Gaudencio “Kid Dencio” Cabanela Painting by Brian Bonbon
Gaudencio “Kid Dencio” Cabanela embodied that transformation. He had no formal training, and many believed he was the finest Filipino fighter of his generation. Frank Churchill, the Tait brothers, Edward Gallaher, Joe Waterman, and writers like Bill Miller and Maurice Goldner praised his natural brilliance.
In 1919, British-Welsh champion Llew Edwards arrived in Manila expecting easy victories. He faced three top Filipinos: Francisco “Filipino Tiger” Flores, Eddie Duarte, and finally, Kid Dencio.
Edwards’ 10-round win against Flores was sensational. The KO-3 over Duarte was spectacular. And his April 5 bout against Kid Dencio was unforgettable. The Manila Daily Bulletin called it “the most sensational fight ever witnessed in a Manila ring.” Dencio was lighter, faster, more elusive. His movements felt instinctive, almost pre-written.
The Dance of Battle
Edwards later recalled:
“A tenacious little scrapper with a good pair of hands. His footwork was clever.”
In 1921, Cabanela collapsed during the 13th round of a bout against Bert McCarthy in Melbourne, Australia. He smiled faintly before falling into a coma. He never woke up. But his influence lived on.
Before leaving the Philippines, Edwards passed his knowledge to Cabanela’s protégé— a young fighter named Francisco Guilledo. That boy would become Pancho Villa, the Philippines’ first world champion, defeating Jimmy Wilde in 1923.
Years later, Edwards remarked:
“When our party first visited the islands, dancing was their favorite pastime…When boxing took firm hold there, dancing lost many of its patrons.”
Or maybe the dance never stopped. Maybe it just changed forms.
A Rhythm Remembered
Filipino dance and boxing share the same heartbeat. Tinikling, with its rapid, rhythmic steps between bamboo poles, mirrors the slip and slide of evasive movement. Sayaw sa Bangko builds balance and poise, like dancing on the edge of the ring. Maglalatik and Sakuting, tied to Eskrima, train reflexes and body control. Pangalay and Itik-Itik echo the fluid unpredictability of elite fighters.
Visayan and Bicolano dances like Kuradang, Pantomina, Escotis, and Sinulog focus on shifting weight, angles, and lateral flow. Sinulog’s rhythm— two steps forward, one step back— feels like it was choreographed for the ring. Maybe it was muscle memory. Or something passed down without words. Filipino fighters didn’t need to learn footwork from the West— they already had it.
The Modern Inheritance: Footwork as a Legacy
Dan Inosanto is more than a teacher. He’s a bridge between generations. Bruce Lee’s mentor and closest friend, Inosanto is the grandmaster of Filipino Martial Arts and the foremost voice on its connection to modern boxing.
Under Spanish rule, Filipinos caught practicing martial arts were punished. Many were executed. Blades were banned. Movements were outlawed. But the rhythm survived— in dance, in festivals, in quiet repetition. That rhythm stayed behind— quiet, steady, and alive.
When Master Danovis Pooler and I visited his academy back on March 4, 2023, Guro Dan Inosanto spoke about history and survival. He explained:
“We preserved our (Filipino) martial traditions by hiding them in plain sight— through dance, through ritual, through rhythm. When colonizers tried erasing our fighting systems, we disguised them in celebration. The footwork, the angles, the timing— it was all there. What looked like a performance was actually preparation. What looked like culture was survival.”
Disciples of the Dancing Flame
Luisito Espinosa Painting by Brian Bonbon (2024)
Luisito Espinosa, a two-division world champion known for his dazzling footwork and pinpoint punching, once said, “Footwork is the key to everything. If your footwork is right, you can hit clean and not get hit.”
(L-R) Morris East and Iron Mike Tyson (Photo courtesy of Malou East)
Fleet-footed puncher Morris East, the youngest Filipino to win a WBA world title, agreed, “Your feet control the fight. Not your hands. Not even your head— it’s your feet.”
(L-R) Rachel and Nonito Donaire, Jr. (Circa 2008) Photo by Emmanuel Rivera
Nonito Donaire Jr., a five-division champion, once explained to PhilBoxing.com, “Angles are everything. If you create angles through balance and shifty footwork, you make them work twice as hard just to find you.”
Photo by Mrs. Marie Spivey Roach (Wild Card Boxing Club, March 4, 2023)
Hall of Fame trainer Freddie Roach once described Manny Pacquiao’s magnificent and deceiving footwork by saying, “When Pacquiao moves, he’s gone before you even realize where he was. That’s something you can’t teach— it’s embedded in his DNA.”
Master Danovis “Dee” Pooler summed it up nicely, “Boxing is a sport with the mindset that parallels self-defense. It is a martial art. The timing, rhythm, and craft rooted in the ancient Filipino Martial Arts is evident in the modern-day ring legends like Luisito Espinosa.”
Manny Pacquiao @ Wild Card Gym (November 29, 2008) Photo by Emmanuel Rivera Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame
Pacquiao himself attributes his legendary agility to discipline, emphasizing, “Solid ang paniniwala ko sa conditioning— lalo na sa takbo— dahil ‘yan ang nagpapalakas ng footwork ko. Sa totoo lang, footwork ang naging puhunan ko kaya nakarating ako sa ganitong level sa boksing.”
For our English speaking friends, he stated, “I am a strong proponent of conditioning, particularly running, to enhance my footwork. Footwork has carried me far in boxing.”
Mere mortals can only marvel in agreement, recognizing that base positioning is precisely what sets up the perfect punch or impenetrable defense— the ideal blend of timing, stability, and power flowing effortlessly from the ground up.
Luisito “Lindol” Espinosa (March 22, 2024, Manila Grand Opera Hotel. Photo by Charina Rivera)
The Rhythm of Warriors
It’s not just a fight. Every pivot, sidestep, or feint carries more than just strategy. It’s memory unfolding through motion— the rhythm of those who came before.
Warriors who moved to survive, to adapt, to rise.
And each time a Filipino boxer steps through the ropes, that rhythm finds its way back. It lives in their feet, their stance, their quiet command of space.
Each jab, bolo, or uppercut doesn’t just land— it carries a deeper meaning behind it.
There’s more than fists flying.
They’re guided by something passed through blood, breath, and time— like flowing water, like tempered steel.
Sources, credits and recommended readings:
All references in this article is based on multiple personal interviews, first-hand accounts from fighters and relied on sources like The Ring, Cablenews-American, The Manila Bulletin Daily and others
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.
These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
Pierce Egan’s Boxiana Volume II was published in 1824 by Sherwood, Jones & Company
Churchill is in Error On Boxing in Manila: The Gloves of San Mateo. Negro Soldier Pioneer- By, Damon Runyon – (Copyright 1925– Now in the Public Domain) International Feature Syndicate, Inc., Washington Herald, page 19, October 10, 1925 (Saturday)
Dan Inosanto: The Man, The Teacher, The Artist (Paladin Press, 2000)
Fighting the Filipinos by Llew Edwards, Mail (Adelaide, SA: 1912 – 1954), Saturday,11 September 1937, page 10 as told to J.M. Rohan
Kid Dencio, Luisito Espinosa, Manny Pacquiao and Eustaquio Duarte Gallery: Paintings by Brian Bonbon (Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame)
Gala of Champions, Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame (Souvenir Program, March 23, 2024)
Luisito “Lindol” Espinosa painting by Brian Bonbon
May 17, 2026
San Francisco, California
On July 11, 2026, everything converges on San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza — corporate money, digital turnstiles, the political backing of Mayor Daniel Lurie — all of it aimed at one particular number…One hundred thirty-five thousand, one hundred thirty-two.
That’s the official live attendance record for a boxing event, Tony Zale and Billy Pryor, Milwaukee, 1941.
The promotional outfit iV Boxing, led by promoter Mr. Ed Pereira, along with the city of San Francisco, wants the record eclipsed — and they will need 150,000 enthusiastic fight fans through the gates to make that happen.
The sports press will call it historic, unprecedented.
The history books, particularly the Guinness Records, will document the marvel of modern promotion.
What records won’t mention is that boxing has already been there, done that — bigger crowds, rawer conditions, a great deal more at stake in a land far, far away.
Three decades before San Francisco started drawing blueprints for the July 11th big card, a featherweight from Tondo filled Luneta Park on the shores of Manila Bay and drew a massive crowd that made Milwaukee look like a another club show.
Lindol with his long-lost WBA and WBC belts and Commemorative Belt of the Philippine Boxing Hall of Fame. Manila Grand Opera Hotel March 22, 2024
His name was Luisito Espinosa— one of only 7 fighters since 1890 to wear the bantamweight and featherweight boxing world championship crowns.
Nobody handed him a world record plaque, back in 1997.
Come to think of it, not many handed him much of anything of great significance afterwards — but we’ll get to that.
Parque de Luneta
It happened on May 17, 1997 at the Luneta Grandstand, Rizal Park— open plaza, Manila Bay at its backdrop…tropical heat that never quits.
The organizers could have called it Thrilla in Manila 2, but the historic venue beckoned to have its name immortalized.
Thus, the fight was billed “Battle of Manila Bay 2” — a sequel to the moment when the Yankee flotilla, led by Commodore George Dewey, defeated the Spanish Armada in 1898…with Luisito Espinosa putting his WBC featherweight title on the line against Mexican technician Manuel “Mantecas” Medina.
On May 1, 1898, Commodore George Dewey moved the U.S. Asiatic Squadron into Manila Bay and went straight at the Spanish fleet. The Spanish never had a chance. Their major warships were sunk or wrecked before the day was out. Not one American sailor died in the fighting — a few men were hurt, but that was the extent of it. Over three centuries of Spanish dominion over the Philippine archipelago ended that morning. It was, by all accounts, a rout.
Then-President Fidel Ramos wanted it free to the public.
So it was.
WBC chief José Sulaimán flew in from Mexico City to take in the spectacle firsthand.
The Ring magazine sent its top writers.
The entire Philippine press corps, and all the president’s men, were on red alert.
Pundits even suggested— in jest—
100,000 of the attendees were security detail for the Prez.
For one afternoon the historic Luneta Park on the shores of Manila Bay became the center of the boxing world — no VIP section, no premium seating, just people ten and twenty deep across the plaza, up in the trees, balanced on shoulders, spilling back into the surrounding streets because the park had long since run out of room.
There were 150,000 boxing fans at hand, by the conservative count. A good number of people ringside that day put the figure closer to 250,000.
Espinosa’s name will never be in the Guinness Book of World Records, for a multitude of excuses and reasons.
The promoters, politicians, security detail and organizers were buried in overwhelming logistics and political theater, and somewhere in all of that noise, a counting system never got set up.
No one bothered to have people counters, headcount clickers, nothing a Guinness adjudicator could audit; not even a wide angle shot on film for later generations to dissect.
The whole event dissolved into the kind of story old-timers pass around like tall tales.
(L-R) Promoter Oscar dela Hoya, Luisito Espinosa, and Hermie Rivera (The Tank, San Jose, California May 23, 2002)
Nobody except one man
At ringside that afternoon was Hermenegildo “Hermie” Rivera — Espinosa’s first manager, a true boxing man who had been with Louie from the very start.
Hermie read crowds the way he read everything in boxing — by feel and by instinct, and a lifetime of knowing what a big gate of epic proportions look like.
By his own estimate, at least 140,000 to up to 200 thousand were there.
He knew what he was looking at and he knew the number was something the sport had never seen before.
His son, one aspiring writer who loves to type, never doubted his accounts of The Battle of Manila Bay 2.
You see, when my father talked boxing, you listened and you believed.
But his private tally on the sidelines of Luneta Park was never going to move a Guinness committee, and so the record got extinguished right there, uncertified.
Luisito “Lindol” Espinosa, Circa 1989, Photo by Emmanuel Rivera
October 17, 1989 — Loma Prieta. The SF-Oakland Bay Bridge cracked, the World Series stopped, and San Francisco Bay Area shook while the rest of the country watched the footage play on a loop.
At the time, Espinosa was in Thailand, fighting at Rajadamnern Stadium in Bangkok, where he stopped Kaokor Galaxy for the WBA bantamweight title.
The aftershocks were felt (just figuratively) by theThai slugger, in the form of three left hooks by Espinosa.
Lindol, the Filipinos dubbed him.
They call him “The Earthquake,” so wrote Al Corona and Jack Fiske afterwards.
It was a fitting moniker right from the very start.
Espinosa was not a brawler. He was rangy and composed, with power in both hands and a left hook that had a reliable way of settling arguments.
By 1997 he had been to Bangkok and Tokyo both — Tokyo being where he lifted the WBC featherweight crown from Manuel “Mantecas” Medina the first time around.
Espinosa was, and still is, a genuine two-division champion from an era when holding two world titles was still a rarity, and carried significance because of it.
Luisito Espinosa- Manuel Medina 2, Battle of Manila Bay 2 (Fair Use, Source Attribution: http://gettyimages.co.uk)
The Manila rematch was a tough, tactical slugfest. Medina came with volume punching and kept attacking.
Espinosa sniped and countered and matched him until the eighth, when heads crashed and a cut opened badly over Espinosa’s right eyelid.
The referee stopped it and the fight went to the cards. Technical decision — unanimous for Espinosa.
All 150,000 or 200,000 or even 250,000 in attendance — whatever the true number was — erupted, though no world record attendance was ever officially recorded.
The Irony and The Fallout
Seven months later, the fallout — and the tough luck — for Philippine boxing persisted.
December 6, 1997, Koronadal City.
Espinosa against Carlos Rios of Argentina. The contract guaranteed $150,000 plus ten thousand in training expenses.
The night before the fight, Espinosa had collected only $29,000 — a small fraction of the purse.
His manager Joe Koizumi — one of the most respected men in the fight game — slammed a chair into a restaurant floor and declared the fight was off.
To keep the promotion alive, Rodolfo “Rod” Nazario supposedly signed a personal guarantee, with Governor Hilario de Pedro as backer, for the remaining balance.
A hundred thirty thousand, three hundred forty-nine American dollars, pending…still.
Espinosa went through with the fight and stopped Rios in the sixth.
Nothing came of the haggling and finger-pointing in the ensuing years. Twenty-two years of litigation in the Philippine court system — longer than most boxing careers.
Nazario died in 2009 and left the debt to his descendants.
The Supreme Court of the Philippines finally ruled for Espinosa in November 2019– principal plus two decades of interest. There was moral victory, but no financial justice for the champion.
And still — to this date — no proper recompense for our dear champion.
Civic Center, San Francisco (Photo May 2026)
San Francisco will definitely get its plaque for hosting the biggest boxing event since Milwaukee— that much we know.
The City has everything Manila in 1997 did not — geo-fenced entry points, satellite imaging, bonded purses secured well before the opening bell.
The technology makes that kind of failure in Manila and Koronadal essentially impossible now and everyone involved knows it.
Close to 400,000 Filipino Americans live in the Bay Area — Daly City, the North Bay, East Bay, the South Bay, spread across the whole region — one of the largest Filipino communities anywhere outside the Philippines.
Civic Center Plaza is in their backyard
If the Filipino-Americans come out and support their Kababayan on July 11, the record does not merely get broken.
It gets reset, by the right people, in the right city, for reasons that go well beyond a Guinness plaque.
The fight is FREE for all in attendance …and also streams LIBRE on YouTube.
A hundred four million Filipinos back home and 4 million more worldwide — children and grandchildren of the people who filled Luneta in 1997 — can watch from wherever they are through the magic of the internet.
No ticket, no admission fees at the gate…massive screens for people to watch and the knowledge that a Filipino fighter is on that card in San Francisco, on the largest attendance stage the sport has ever put together.
Charley Suarez, an Filipino Army man, celebrated amateur, accomplished professional, and a man who by any honest accounting should already have a world title on his record. The decision that would have given him one went the other way. The people who were ringside knew what happened. The judges saw something else.
His promoter, the highly respected Sampson Lewkowicz of Sampson Boxing, is one of the most respected personalities of the fight game, will see to it that Suarez gets a shot at the championship again.
Boxiana Booth Philippine Boxing Hall of Fame Bangon Kabayan October 11, 2025 Fulton Plaza, San Francisco, California
So…here is the challenge: Let us Show up at the Civic Center in San Francisco on July 11, 2026, my Fellow Filipinos…
All of you, and all of us.
Be counted!
Be part of a world record attempt for the largest attendance for a boxing event, and it can be said that a Filipino boxer was a part of it.
FYI, Espinosa is still doing what champions do — still punching, still grinding, still passing the Manly Art to the next generation out of his own gym.
That is its own kind of world record.
When San Francisco hands over that Guinness plaque on July 11th, let the record show what Guinness never will.
Luisito Espinosa drew an uncountable sea of people to the shores of Manila Bay, fought his heart out for every one of them, absorbed everything the sport could throw at a man, and is still standing and keeps punchin’ for what’s rightfully his.
The Arena That Endured War and Forged Generations of Filipino Greats
Filipinos simply call it the Rizal Memorial. The name alone still carries (heavy) weight. It was the arena that stood out, where fathers brought their sons, and where fond memories took root.
For every Filipino sports fan, photographs of the Coliseum —whether found in museum archives, tucked in yellowed scrapbooks, or hidden in the shoebox collections of those who once cheered inside its walls— still stir something profound.
I still carry a photo of this grand arena in my wallet as a keepsake from the days when my father would take me there to watch the best of the best.
World War 2, Philippines
It’s the last ancient arena on Philippine soil, and one that withstood the ravages of time and war. It could have been erased, paved over by progress. It still stands, thanks to nostalgia and the resolve of the Filipino people and a few committed leaders who chose memory over demolition.
Built With Purpose
The coliseum was named after Dr. José Rizal, one of our revered national heroes. Rizal stood for discipline, intellect, and sacrifice. The complex that bears his name came to symbolize those same values through sports and entertainment. The Rizal stands where the Manila Carnival once unfurled its banners — a place where brass bands, bright lights, and the hum of a city in celebration filled the air. The gaiety faded, but the ground never lost its sense of spectacle.
By 1927, the canvas tents and Ferris wheels gave way to something more enduring: a home for Filipino athletic pride.
When the Coliseum opened in 1934, just in time for the Far Eastern Championship Games, it was more than concrete and steel. It was a drumbeat in stone. Boxing, football, swimming, tennis, baseball; each sport claimed its moment beneath its Art Deco crown.
At its heart, the Coliseum roared — built for names that would last, for noise that would not be forgotten, for the telling of our national stories in sweat and triumph.
Everett Sanders of the California State Athletic Commission straps the World Middleweight Championship Belt to Ceferino Garcia (AP Photo, 1939)
On December 23, 1939, Ceferino Garcia stopped Glen Lee in the 13th round before 40,000 fans at Rizal Memorial Stadium. Rain slicked the canvas as Lee rose groggily from two knockdowns, only for referee Jack Dempsey to wave it off.
Photo: Jack Dempsey raised champion’s hand (Garcia-Lee, 1939, ctto)
It was their third meeting and Garcia’s finest…this was the second world title fight ever held in the Philippines. Garcia’s homecoming had the vibe of Pancho Villa vs. Clever Sencio world title fight in 1925 at Wallace Field Grounds.
Ceferino Garcia versus Glen Lee, December 23, 1939Saddler-Elorde at Cow Palace (1955). Photo Courtesy of San Francisco History Center
In 1955, Gabriel “Flash” Elorde faced reigning featherweight king Sandy Saddler of America here. Saddler was taller, stronger, and favored to win, but Elorde was different. Round after round, he floated with southpaw grace and precision, refusing to bend. When the final bell rang, the judges gave him a unanimous decision. It wasn’t a title bout, but for Filipinos, it marked the dawn of boxing’s second golden age.
Photo taken at the 2008 Elorde Awards Night
My father was not yet a reporter then…just a young fan in the bleachers…but he never forgot that night.
The Coliseum’s stage was never just for boxing. In 1934, baseball legends Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig played here.
Rizal Memorial Coliseum was once the site of The Beatles Tour
In 1966, The Beatles drew over 50,000 fans, their music filling the same air that once carried the roar of prizefights.
Before the war, Stewart and Edwin Tait kept the fight tradition alive with their boxing cards. (Source: The Tacoma Times (Tacoma, Washington) • Thu, Aug 29, 1940 • Page 14)Photo: Edgar “Socrates” Batoto (File Photo from the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame Collection)
The Night My Father’s Fighter Won
I remember sitting in the crowd with my mom the night my father’s fighter, Edgar “Socrates” Batoto, faced Japanese rising star Kenji Kato. In Round Four, Batoto landed a clean right hook to the stomach. Kato folded— gasping. One perfectly executed body punch. Batoto wasn’t a household name. But that night, under those concrete arches, he mattered. He would earn two rare world title shots later.
Photo: (L-R) Edgar “Socrates” Batoto, A Venezuelan Boxing Fan, and Hermie Rivera, Manager (Caracas, Venezuela, Circa 1975)
My father— the late Hermie Rivera, reporter and lifelong supporter of Philippine sport— brought me here a few times. We watched Pony League baseball, Tour of Luzon bikathons, a marathon, and amateur tennis right on these same grounds. They weren’t always headline events. But they were ours. Rizal Memorial wasn’t just where champions were crowned. It was also where fathers passed something on. New stadiums may rise. New banners may be hung. But this was the foundation. And for many of us, it still is.
Architect Juan M. Arellano — who gave Manila its Post Office and Legislative Hall — designed the Coliseum solid, proud, enduring. His son Salvador — my father’s friend Dodong — later captured its soul on canvas.
If you pass through Manila, stop by. Stand on the steps. Look at the grandeur from the outside and the inside. You’ll feel what it meant— why it still matters. And if you can, bring someone younger, or older. Let them see it not just as a venue, but as a living chapter of who we are.
Sources, Acknowledgments, and Recommended Readings:
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
Attached photos are courtesy of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society, shared by Philboxing.com, http://m.philboxing.com/news/story-174938.html, and are re-reprinted for non-commercial use
Edgar ‘Socrates’ Batoto was a proud Waray, a fighter from Bato, Leyte—a land shaped by challenge, determination, and quiet strength.
Edgar “Socrates” Batoto
Boxing can be both unforgiving and rewarding. Talent, skill, and grace can take a fighter far, but in the end, the sport favors those who can do one thing— finish the fight.
Batoto carried that warrior spirit into the ring, moving with the precision of a dancer and the sharpness of a blade. But for all his brilliance, he was missing one thing— the finishing touch that separates great fighters from champions.
He didn’t look like a brawler. Standing at 5’6”, the same height as Luisito Espinosa, Batoto had the sharp features and lean, wiry build of Bruce Lee. And like The Dragon, he relied on speed, precision, and technique over brute force. He wasn’t a slugger— he was a sniper, a fighter who picked his shots carefully and landed with accuracy.
Batoto was first managed by my father, Hermie Rivera, who saw something special in him—his footwork, his timing, his ability to box rather than brawl. My father once described two of his best fighters in a way that has always stayed with me:
“If Luisito Espinosa was Baryshnikov, then Batoto was Nureyev.”
Espinosa, a two-division world champion, was elegant— graceful and precise. Batoto, though? He was something else. His movements were raw, untamed— a perfect blend of instinct and artistry. Both had impeccable footwork.
But as beautiful as his style was, my father also knew what Batoto lacked…the ability to close the show.
For all his talent, for all the dazzling movement and picture-perfect punches, Batoto wasn’t a finisher. And in the unforgiving world of boxing, that would cost him.
Lessons from a Legend at Elorde’s Gym (Circa 1973-74)
I was just a boy, maybe seven or eight years old, when I first saw Batoto train at Elorde’s Gym in Sucat, Parañaque. Inside that legendary gym, the unmistakable presence of Flash Elorde loomed large. The retired world champion still carried himself like a man who could go twelve rounds if he had to.
From behind a swinging black heavy bag, Elorde’s sharp eyes locked onto a wiry Visayan fighter atop the ring— Socrates “Kid” Batoto. ‘The Kid’ was in his rhythm, unleashing a crisp left jab-right straight-left hook combo on the fly, his nimble footwork bringing to mind Muhammad Ali.
Down went Batoto’s sparring partner, and Elorde took notice.
“Ganyan, basta hindi bara-bara, Bai…pasok yan,” beamed the former world champion. (“Right on, stick with the plan, and you’re in.”)
Then Elorde did something unexpected.
“O, ako naman (My turn),” he said, slipping on a pair of shop-worn gloves.
Six or seven years into retirement, and still sharp as ever, Elorde stepped into the ring and went three full rounds with Batoto. He didn’t take it easy on him. He made him work, teaching him subtle slips, counterpunches, and noggin-shakin’ hooks.
When the sparring ended, Elorde turned to my father and said, “Hermie, konti pang hasa kay ‘Kid’ at pwede na sa kampeonato.”
(“A little more sharpening, and the Kid is ready for a championship.”)
That day, Batoto had earned the respect of one of the greatest Filipino boxers to ever live. But as great as he was, even Elorde couldn’t teach Batoto how to finish.
Finishing Kenji Kato (April 26, 1974)
I was still young, but I remember it well— the night Batoto fought Kenji Kato at the Rizal Memorial Coliseum.
It was the fourth round. A right hook to the breadbasket. Kato crumpled, gasping for air. It wasn’t a wild punch, not a desperate swing— it was clean, surgical, the kind of shot that breaks a man from the inside.
He had all the tools to be great. And he proved it when he got his shots at the world title.
So Close, Yet So Far (1974-1975)
The stories were my father’s, but iI vicariously lived through them. He told me about Mexico City, 1974— the night Batoto challenged Alfonso Zamora for the World Flyweight Championship. Against all odds, he knocked the fearsome puncher down. For a fleeting moment, it seemed like he had stunned not just Zamora, but the whole world.
Then there was Caracas, Venezuela, 1975— the night he fought for the World Bantamweight Championship against Betulio González. Batoto dropped him, too. But like in Mexico, it wasn’t enough.
Final Record & Retirement
After those world title fights, Batoto moved to bantamweight in 1975, but the speed that had once made him special had slowed. His footwork wasn’t as sharp, his stamina betrayed him, and soon, he walked away from the ring.
Career Span: 1968 – 1978
Total Fights: 35
Wins: 20
Losses: 14
Draws: 1
Knockouts: 8
Rounds Fought: 249
KO Rate: 40%
A Legacy Beyond Gold
He never held a world championship belt, but he had something else— a special place in our hearts.
When my dad was still around, we’d lose track of time in late-night conversations, replaying the fights, the close calls, the nights when the Kid stood one punch away from glory. Talk of grace and footwork— what made Filipino fighters great— always led us back to Socrates.
Tucked among my late dad’s mementos are photos of those days— reminders of a fighter we never forgot. I share them now, along with the memories I’ll carry always.
Back on March 29, 2016 at the 16th Elorde Awards Night thrown by the Flash’s family, Mr. and Mrs. Johnny and Liza Elorde, Batoto was honored for his achievements as Philippine and Orient Pacific Boxing Federation flyweight champion.
Though time took us in different paths, it brings me peace knowing he lived a full life. The Kid, aka “Bat Socrates”, was surrounded by family and friends, not broken, not forgotten.
I never got the chance to say goodbye, and after all these years, I still wish I had. He wasn’t just a fighter I admired— he was family in his own way, the big brother I never had.
Note of Appreciation:
Salamat to the family of the great Flash Elorde for honoring Socrates Batoto. He is the champion directly below the likeness of The Flash in this photo (courtesy of Rappler, 2016). Image excerpted in compliance with the Fair Use Doctrine.
He understood something many journalists forget over time — that sports were never just games to Filipinos. They were mirrors…sometimes escape…often a metaphor on life’s struggles.
Sports, particularly boxing, was the one stage where a small nation like the Philippines could stand beside the world’s best.
Chino understood that well.
He knew a good story the way an old trainer know a good fighter — almost immediately, before the headlines arrived, before history had time to settle.
He had that rare mix of curiosity, warmth, instinct, and conviction that can’t be taught or polished in a television studio. It either lives inside a man or it doesn’t.
Chino Trinidad and Erel Cabatbat in front of the refurbished Rizal Memorial Coliseum
Spend even a few moments around him and you walked away feeling somehow more Filipino. His enthusiasm was real. His smile was never rehearsed. Even ordinary conversations took on energy in his presence because he approached people — and stories — with genuine fascination.
Basketball, boxing, culture, literature, history — he moved through all of it with equal passion, because he understood they all pointed back to the same thing: identity.
Jason Otamias remembers Chino Trinidad Ronald T. Sardes honoring the late Chino Trinidad
That was his gift.
He made the ordinary matter.
And in doing so, he made us feel like we mattered too.
From his early days in Mandaluyong through his years at UP Diliman, Manolo Lacsamana Trinidad carried the same wide-eyed curiosity he inherited from his parents, Recah Trinidad and Fe Lacsamana.
Decades in radio, television, and digital media never wore that wonder down. He still approached great athletes the way a young fan would — not hunting for scandal, but looking for the human story underneath— the sacrifice, struggle and what the achievement actually meant.
He understood that Filipino champions were never just competitors. They became symbols for ordinary people who saw parts of their own lives reflected back in every fight.
Over the years he became closely associated with defining figures in Philippine boxing, Luisito Espinosa and Manny Pacquiao among them.
We are eternally grateful that Chino Trinidad graced the Philippine Boxing Hall of Fame, Gala of Champions, Manila Grand Opera Hotel, Santa Cruz, Manila, March 23, 2024 Luisito “Lindol Espinosa and Chino Trinidad (Philippine Boxing Hall of Fame, Gala of Champions, Manila Grand Opera Hotel, Santa Cruz, Manila, March 23, 2024
But what struck me most was never just his access to champions. It was his reverence for those long removed from the bright lights. For those the world was beginning to forget.
Men like Francisco Guilledo — Pancho Villa — the first Filipino and the first Asian world boxing champion.
Plenty of people celebrate legends once history has safely claimed them. Chino did something harder. He remembered them while the forgetting was still happening.
Until the very end, he quietly worked alongside painter Rodolfo “Jun” Aquino and sculptor Frederic Caedo to restore Pancho Villa’s neglected grave. No cameras. No applause. No ratings.
Only respect and gratitude.
Manny Pacquiao, Hermie Rivera, Chino Trinidad
I think back often to November 2009, Los Angeles, during Manny Pacquiao’s preparations for Miguel Cotto. Chino invited me to an undisclosed studio where Manny was rehearsing music with Lito Camo and Madonna Decena. He told me to bring my family — my father Hermie Rivera, Mom Tina, my sister Christine.
That was Chino.
But there was purpose underneath the warmth. He quietly wanted my father — one of Manny’s trusted advisers — to encourage Pacquiao to shorten rehearsal and rest before the biggest fight of his career. Even then, in a recording studio on a Tuesday night, he was looking after people, looking after the moment, and in his own quiet way, looking after the hopes of a nation.
Years later, at the Gala of Champions at the Manila Grand Opera Hotel near the old Olympic Stadium grounds in Santa Cruz, he encouraged my own modest efforts with the Philippine Boxing Historical Society. He saw immediately what I was trying to preserve — not just how Filipino fighters died, but how they lived, and what their lives meant to the dignity and spirit of our people.
Chino understood that memory matters.
He knew these men deserved to be remembered.
And he helped make sure they were.
Charina Rivera and Chino Trinidad
My sister Charina put it simply after joining me on his live stream show Larong Pilipino at DZME:
“There are people that light up the room. He was one of them.”
That’s exactly right.
Some men leave accomplishments. Others leave warmth. Chino left both.
There will never be another Manolo “Chino” Trinidad. He belonged to that increasingly rare group of Filipinos who loved country without performing it, celebrated culture without arrogance, and pursued truth without losing kindness somewhere along the way.
(L-R) Erel Cabatbat, Chino Trinidad, and One Aspiring Writer as Guest on Larong Pilipino, DZME Studios (March 2024)
I carry sadness knowing he is gone. But I carry greater gratitude that our paths crossed at all.
Gratitude that he encouraged this work of preserving Philippine boxing history.
Gratitude that I was able to tell him, while he was still here, what his friendship meant.
And gratitude that Philippine sports journalism once had a man like Chino Trinidad standing ringside — smiling that unmistakable smile, reminding us what storytelling could still be when guided by heart, honesty, and love of country.
Chino Trinidad and his incomparable Father Recah TrinidadRecah Trinidad, Chino Trinidad, and Fe Lacsamana Trinidad (Gala of Champions, Manila Grand Opera Hotel, March 23, 2024)
Mabuhay, Manoy Chino!
Long after the final bell, your voice stays with us still.
Guro Dan Inosanto Was Honored by the Philippine Boxing Hall of Fame with the commemorative belt and vintage Sol Levinson Gloves
Guro Dan Inosanto remains as sharp as the blades he’s mastered, and his presence still moves with the calm precision of someone who has studied rhythm all his life. At eighty-eight, he still moves with purpose— not just in body, but in spirit. His memory does more than recall— it carries the weight of generations.
My father once called him the Keeper of the Dancing Flame.
I understand that now.
On a warm Saturday afternoon, June 21, 2025, my son Grant and I sat with Guro Dan at the Inosanto Academy of Martial Arts in Marina del Rey— a sanctuary for martial artists and disciples of self-defense. Wall-to-wall were vintage photographs, fight artifacts and quiet reverence.
We arrived at his academy to speak about boxers. He welcomed us and graced us with much more. He spoke of rhythm and flow as it relates to martial arts, eastern and western boxing, and the art of self-preservation. We revisited teachings he’s shared before:
“We preserved our (Filipino) martial traditions by hiding them in plain sight— through dance, through ritual, through rhythm. When colonizers tried erasing our fighting systems, we disguised them in celebration. The footwork, the angles, the timing— it was all there. What looked like a performance was actually preparation. What looked like culture was survival.”
He fired a left jab and then stepped to the side. “Balance and footwork is key,” he said.
Guro Dan would know. He boxed during his time in the United States Army and later served as a martial arts instructor. To him, boxing and Filipino Martial Arts (Kali, Arnis, Eskrima) and bare-fisted disciplines like Panuntukan and/or Suntukan, were never separate— they were intertwined, bound by timing, movement, and memory.
At that moment, I understood— Filipino boxers weren’t shaped solely in gyms. They were raised in rhythm.
To me, what Guro Dan teaches goes beyond blades, fists and footwork. In his teachings, Filipino Martial Arts becomes a living map of survival passed down through generations.
He led us to a wall of tribute to Filipino boxers. On it were photos of Jimmy Florita, Speedy Dado, Pancho Villa, Rosalio “Sleepy” Caballero (a Stockton favorite who fought over 300-to-500 amateur and professional bouts), and Dencio Cabanela, Jr., and many others.
There was special reverence for the Docusen brothers: Maxie, the formidable Cajun Filipino pugilist who was avoided by many; Bernard, who faced the great Sugar Ray Robinson; and Regino, an accomplished fighter in his own right.
“Gene Tunney, the great heavyweight champion who beat Jack Dempsey,” he recalled, “was the one who encouraged the Docusens to go professional— despite all the racial and economic barriers at the time.”
He spoke of meeting former world champion and Filipino-American Salvador “Dado” Marino, who once taught at his high school in Hawaii. He remembered the story of former champion Willie Pastrano— Filipino and Italian— who only revealed his roots after winning the world title. Pastrano was the undisputed light-heavyweight king from 1963-65.
Guro Inosanto recalled growing up on the south side of Stockton, California, where even breaking curfew could land you in the back of a paddy wagon. He spoke of a fellow martial artist from Hawaii— Lucky Lucaylucay, an amateur boxing champion in both Kauai and Honolulu.
Lucky’s father, Buenaventura “Kid Bentura” Lucaylucay, was a Filipino immigrant and a professional boxing champion in his own right, holding titles across the islands. Kid Bentura once trained alongside Kid Moro— the same Kid Moro who famously gave Henry Armstrong all he could handle at a fight that resulted in a draw and a riot in Pismo beach, about 300 miles from Watsonville. Hammerin’ Hank was one of his favorite boxers, according to Guro Inosanto.
“Ben never used a stopwatch,” Guro Dan smiled. “But he could time a three-minute round to the second.”
Among the framed memories was a personal photo with Tatay Ben Delgado, the trainer who once guided a young Manny Pacquiao.
We spoke reverently of Gaudencio Cabanela, Sr.— Kid Dencio— a fighter remembered for his courage, footwork, rhythm. Dencio, Sr. once outshone Llew Edwards at the Olympic Stadium in Santa Cruz, Manila, losing by 10-round decision but winning the crowd. A photo of his son, Dencio Cabanela, Jr., now hangs on Guro Dan’s wall.
Remembering Filipino Boxing Pioneers: The Thirty
We also spent time looking through the photo gallery in this book— The Rise of Filipino Boxers in the Squared Circle— portraits and stories that my late father and his friend Jack Fiske have inspired. It paralleled Guro Inosanto’s deep admiration for the Greatest Boxers Made in the Philippines, and in that quiet moment, our shared respect for their legacy came into focus.
Guro Dan nodded. “I heard many stories about them when I was young,” he said. “My parents spoke Pancho Villa’s name with deep respect.”
That quiet confirmation told me everything. They weren’t just fighters. They too were dancers— moving to a rhythm only some could hear, but everyone could still envision.
We spoke about the origins of the Filipino fighting arts…of Lapulapu, Magellan, of the Manila Men, the first Filipinos in America who created the first Filipino community in Saint Malo, Louisiana— the soldiers and sailors from the Manila Galleon era. It was his father, Guro Inosanto explained, who encouraged him to unify the terms Kali, Eskrima, and Arnis under the name Filipino Martial Arts— a phrase he discussed at the Smithsonian in 2010. The world listened.
Archival photo of Master Dan Inosanto (Courtesy of the Inosanto Academy of Martial Arts, 13352 Beach Ave
Marina del Rey, California)
The Rhythm Remains
I asked about the connection between boxing and the blade, “Do the hands follow what the feet dictate?”
“The blade is an extension of the fist,” Guro Dan said. He nodded and broke it down— triangular steps, angled entries, subtle misdirections. The very architecture of attack and deception in the ring, it became clear, didn’t come solely from Western fighting schools. Much of it was already encoded in the Filipino martial movement. And the concept of attack, retreat, offense and defense all start from the ground up. A solid base, i.e. balance and footwork, is integral to any fighting system.
The Keeper of the Dancing Flame
It’s tempting to speak of legacy in the past tense.
But Guro Dan doesn’t just carry memory. He lives it. He was Bruce Lee’s friend, a fellow disciple and a trusted bridge between traditions. It was Guro Dan who introduced Bruce Lee to the single and double stick and helped refine the use of the nunchaku— techniques that later lit up the screen in Fist of Fury (1972), The Way of the Dragon (1972), Enter the Dragon (1973), Game of Death (1978).
What the world saw as cinematic action and spectacle was, in part, the quiet transmission of Filipino martial wisdom. And he passes our Filipino fighting arts forward— not just for posterity, but for those ready to carry the torch.
Guro Dan continues his life’s work with the rhythm of Kid Dencio. He continues to walk the proverbial trail of Pancho Villa. He preserves the blade’s meaning— like Ceferino Garcia with the bolo punch.
Long live the Filipino boxers past and present…And may we all learn to walk the ring through their sacrifices— clear-eyed, grounded, and ready to answer the rhythm that still calls.
Long live the Keeper of the Dancing Flame…Mabuhay at Salamat, po, Guro Dan Inosanto.
Notes of Appreciation:
We’re grateful to Guro Paula Inosanto for welcoming our request and inquiry, and for accommodating us warmly.
Thanks also to Guro John Maidment for offering a short but memorable lesson in Filipino Martial Arts. It was clear he’s spent a lifetime refining what he teaches. We were also joined by Guro Tsuyoshi Abe, Guro Joel Clark, and Guro Ricardo Crespo— instructors and longtime students at the Inosanto Academy. Their presence gave more weight to the visit. Guro Joel Clark has been part of the Academy for more than 30 years. Guro Abe and Guro Maidment have each trained and taught there for close to 40. Their commitment speaks for itself. We thank them all for sharing their time with us. It meant a great deal.
This tribute article has been previously published on PhilBoxing.com:
Edwin Ensign Tait was a man who saw boxing not just as a sport, but as an art, science and an honest way to make a living—one that needed the right vision, the right fighters, and the right stage to flourish. He was a game-changer, someone who knew how to take raw talent and turn it into something world-class.
Born on February 1, 1888, in Chicago, Illinois, Tait grew up in a city that demanded toughness. That same moxie and ambition would define his life and career, one that spanned over seven decades. He left a lasting impact on boxing, entertainment, and sports promotion.
Source: The Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) • Sun, Oct 9, 1955
At the heart of his success was Churchill & Tait Enterprises, a powerhouse in the fight business that put Filipino boxing on the map. He was the brains behind the swatorium that Frank Churchill built.
Tait had an uncanny ability to spot talent where others were short-sighted. Under his guidance, Filipino boxers weren’t just local heroes—they became international contenders, fighting on some of the biggest stages of their time. He himself fought for his fighters outside the ring as fiercely as they fought inside it, ensuring they got the opportunities— and the respect— they deserved.
From the 1910s to the 1930s, he was a driving force in shaping boxing during its early days in the Philippines. A skilled amateur boxer, he had a knack for conversation that made him both engaging and insightful. To his peers and the fighters who stood by him, he was more than just a promoter—he was a fiercely loyal friend. With those qualities, he personified the spirit of a renaissance man in the fight game— determined, charismatic, and resolute.
Tait’s love for the fight game was inspired by his older brother, Stewart “Little Eddie” Tait, whom he regarded as the greatest fighter. Stewart, seeing the potential for lucrative ventures in Hawaii and the Philippines, called upon the one man he knew who had the talent and business acumen to succeed— his younger brother Edwin.
It didn’t take much to convince Edwin. Fueled by his passion for the sport, he set out on a journey that would take him to Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, that would shape his destiny.
Edwin Ensign Tait Draft Card (Source: National Archives Records Administration
In 1907, with little more than determination and a hunger for opportunity, he managed to stowaway on an Army transport ship bound for the Philippine Islands, then an American territory. That journey would mark the start of his deep and lasting connection with the country and its emerging boxing scene.
When he arrived at Pier 7, his older brother Stewart “Little Eddie” Tait there to greet him. From that moment forward, the landscape of Philippine sports and entertainment would never be the same.
In 1917, during a trip to Albay Province, Edwin found his first real chance to shape Manila’s boxing community. He wore many hats at once for the rising Churchill-Tait Enterprises— as matchmaker, treasurer, secretary, and even office boy— at the Olympic Club, Manila’s exclusive boxing venue.
It was the Manila Carnival of 1918 that carved his name. Edwin Tait organized a boxing extravaganza so unique that it spawned modern-day copycats. The fistic festival lasted nine days. For the first time, Filipino boxing stars shone the brightest on the grandest stage. It was there that Kid Dencio was crowned the bantamweight and featherweight champion of the Orient.
From 1911 onwards, Tait catapulted the Olympic Club to become Manila’s premier boxing destination, drawing large crowds to its weekly shows. His vision and hands-on approach generated widespread interest and significantly boosted ticket sales.
Now armed with a larger cash flow, he would eventually plot the rise of the grand Olympic Stadium on Avenida Rizal. The Stadium exported fighters from Australia, the United States, Hong Kong and China, raising the level of competition. Tait knew that keeping boxing alive as a business required superb matchmaking, diverse fight cards, and evenly matched bouts.
Source: The Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) • Sun, Oct 9, 1955 • Page 32
Tait was the driving force behind Churchill-Tait Enterprises, an advertising firm connected to a multitude of industries, like copper mining, billboard construction, and carnival events. His expertise in advertising played a major role in boxing’s growing popularity. His strong connections with sportswriters— such as American journalists Joe Waterman and Bill Miller— helped bring more attention to the sport. He also contributed to the launch of Boxing News, the first Filipino-Spanish-Tagalog boxing publication run by Filipinos, which gave local fighters a voice and helped elevate the sport. Of note, Boxing News was in circulation before Nat Fleischer’s The Ring, the magazine that would later be known as the “Bible of Boxing.”
With his keen eye for talent, Tait helped develop fighters like Pancho Villa, Elino Flores, Macario Villon, Francisco Labra, and practically every Filipino fighter who was willing to put on a great show.
Without overstating the obvious, boxing has inherent dangers. The death of Filipino fighter Dencio Cabanela served as a painful reminder of the risks inside the ring. Tait was in Cabanela’s corner when he suffered fatal injuries in a bout against Bert McCarthy in Melbourne, Australia. On July 2, 1921, Kid Dencio was ahead on points, but in the 13th round, Dencio suddenly paused, pointed to his head and sheepishly smiled. He later collapsed and was brought to Saint Vincent Hospital where he died due to his injuries. The tragedy was gravely mourned in the Philippines, Australia, and the boxing world.
Just before World War II, Tait saw the looming danger. He and his wife, Maurine, managed to leave Manila, narrowly avoiding the devastation of war. His brother Stewart chose to stay behind.
When he passed away at 86 years old on October 30, 1974, boxing lost one of its greatest movers and shakers, and to this day his influence is felt.
Every Filipino fighter who steps onto the world stage today walks a path that Tait helped build. His story isn’t just about boxing. It is about vision, determination, and a belief that greatness can come from all walks of life if given the right chance.
Today, Edwin Ensign Tait’s contributions to Philippine boxing, entertainment, and business still resonate even though many modern-day fighters and promoters are unaware of his influence.
Sources, References, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings
Photo of Edwin Ensign Tait is excerpted from his United States Passport (Courtesy of NARA by way of Ancestry.com, Public Domain)
The Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) • Sun, Oct 9, 1955
The Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) • Sun, Oct 9, 1955 • Page 32
National Archives Records Administration
Birth and Death Dates of Edwin Ensign Tait, taken from FindAGrave.com
All references in this article are based on multiple sources like The Ring, The Boxing Blade, The Referee, Cablenews American, BoxRec.com, BoxerList.com, The Tribune, The Manila Bulletin Daily and others
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.
These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes.
Every reasonable effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
Steward Tait was also known as Eddie Tait (Photo Courtesy of the San Francisco History Center)
In the early 1900s, as boxing fever swept through the Philippine Islands, Stewart Alfred Tait became more than just a name in the crowd—he was the man behind the curtain.
A natural showman with a fighter’s heart, he didn’t just introduce boxing to the islands; he helped shape it into something Filipinos could claim as their own.
Born on April 23, 1884, in Cook County, Chicago, Stewart was the son of Edward Tait and Celia Ensign. They called him “Little Eddie” as a boy, but the name never quite matched the man he became.
Restless and wide-eyed, he didn’t settle for the ordinary. His early days were spent moving through carnivals, crossing oceans, and— eventually— fighting beside both Filipino and American troops in World War II. His story stretched far beyond tents and ropes. It lived in the people he lifted up.
When World War 2 came, Tait was captured and interned at the Santo Tomas Camp.
But even behind barbed wire, he didn’t stop giving. He shared his carnival tents and supplies with fellow prisoners, turning hardship into hope.
Courage came naturally to him— on the battlefield, in the ring, and in life.
Source: The Tacoma Times (Tacoma, Washington) • Thursday, Aug 29, 1940 • Page 1
Before Manila became his home, he crisscrossed the East Indies with his brother Edwin, staging carnivals and shows from one island to the next. They called him the “Barnum of Borneo” for his flair and grit. He had a knack for knowing what people wanted before they did. When he first walked the streets of San Francisco, it wasn’t the gold rush that caught his eye— it was the nickelodeons on Market Street. Those tiny theaters playing silent films for a coin gave him a new vision: entertainment that moved people.
Boxing was in his blood, too. He fought in two pro matches and kept lacing up during his time with the Army Transport Service. Between ports and battles, he logged 40 amateur bouts aboard Pacific crossings. But his real fight was waiting in Manila.
Once he arrived, the game changed.
For over four decades, Tait lived and breathed Filipino boxing. He partnered with Frank Churchill to launch the country’s first professional fights. He didn’t just promote matches— he built an entire ecosystem where Filipino fighters could thrive. They didn’t have to dream of America. They could fight— and win— at home.
Source: Seattle Union Record (Seattle, Washington) • Wednesday, Dec 14, 1921
It was Tait who discovered a scrappy young man named Eustaquio Duarte aboard the USAT Sherman during World War I.
He gave him a new name— Eddie Duarte— and sent him on the path to history as the first Filipino pro fighter. A single moment. A single meeting. That’s all it took. And the ripples would be felt for generations.
Source: Tacoma Times, Aug 4, 1940• Page 14• (Tacoma, Washington)
But Tait’s influence went well beyond boxing. He introduced the country’s first dine-and-dance cabaret, the first merry-go-round, and even the first movie theater in Honolulu before bringing cinema to Manila. Before Hollywood arrived, Tait was already producing films with all-Filipino casts, proving that stories didn’t need subtitles to move people.
He managed the Olympic Club on American Lake in Tacoma, Washington— first as a GI dance hall, later as an ice rink— and brought that same energy to Manila’s own Olympic Stadium.
Whether it was a ring, a rink, or a stage, Stewart turned every space into something alive.
Stewart Tait produced the 1937 blockbuster movie Zamboanga which starred Fernando Poe and Rosa del Rosario, setting a standard for local Filipino cinema.
He made movies on a shoestring budget, but they meant everything to the people watching.
That was Tait’s gift— he knew how to make something big from almost nothing.
What made him different wasn’t just what he built— it was how he made people feel. He believed in Filipino talent and gave it room to breathe. He didn’t just pass through the Philippines. He became part of it.
In the end, Stewart Tait found something richer than fame. The people didn’t remember him as a businessman.
Source: The Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) • Fri, Aug 3, 1923 • Page 20
Filipinos remembered the fights, the laughter, the music, and the flickering lights of a projector on a warm Manila night.
They remembered the man who gave them a stage.
And he remembered them right back.
Notes of Appreciation:
Banner Photo of Stewart Alfred Tait is from the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin (Photo Morgue, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library)
The Tacoma Times (Tacoma, Washington) • Thursday, Aug 29, 1940 • Page 1
Seattle Union Record (Seattle, Washington) • Wednesday, Dec 14, 1921
Special thanks for their kind assistance to Christina Moretta (Photo Curator, Acting Manager) and Lisa Palella (Library Technical Assistant II) at the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library
The Tacoma Times (Tacoma, Washington) • Thursday, Aug 29, 1940 • Page 1
Seattle Union Record (Seattle, Washington) • Wednesday, Dec 14, 1921
Tacoma Times, Aug 4, 1940• Page 14• (Tacoma, Washington)
The Tacoma News Tribune (Tacoma, Washington) • Fri, Aug 3, 1923 • Page 20
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
If you’ve ever stumbled across the names Little Pancho, Small Montana, Speedy Dado, Young Tommy, or Star Frisco—and felt something stir— more than likely, you’ve felt the touch of the man who gave those names their story.
Born on December 15, 1891, William Eli Miller— known to most as Bill— was more than a reporter. He was a storyteller, a publicist, and the unseen hand behind some of the most enduring legends in Filipino boxing. While the Tait brothers and Frank Churchill brought electricity to the ring, it was Miller who made sure the memory stayed alive. He didn’t just cover fights; he gave them meaning.
As a U.S. Army Sergeant Major stationed in Manila during the early 1900s, Miller arrived just as Philippine boxing was beginning to take shape. He quickly found his place— not as a promoter or matchmaker, but as the man who could turn punches into poetry. His words elevated the sport; his writing carried fighters beyond the arena lights.
Throughout his long career, Miller wore many hats— columnist, agent, editor, and feature writer. His work appeared in The Ring under Nat Fleischer, the Los Angeles Times, and The Philippine Republic. He also served as sports editor for the Manila Daily Bulletin and penned a syndicated column titled ‘To You I Tell It’, where he captured the emotion behind each bout. He didn’t just list results; he told you why they mattered. He made readers feel like they knew Pancho Villa, that they had walked alongside Speedy Dado, or shared a quiet moment with Small Montana in a corner gym in Manila.
When Miller moved to Los Angeles, his reach only expanded. From 1942 to 1956, he served as lead publicist for the Olympic Auditorium— promoting cards that featured Rocky Marciano and building anticipation for the unforgettable matchup between a 36-year-old Muhammad Ali and a young, rising Leon Spinks. But boxing wasn’t his only canvas. He championed acts like the Harlem Globetrotters with the same depth and care. For Miller, sport was never just spectacle— it was spirit, rhythm, and the human story behind the stats.
Off the page, Miller was a devoted family man. He adored his wife, Adelle, and took immense pride in his sons— one a U.S. Air Force serviceman who passed before him, the other a UCLA graduate and respected attorney in Los Angeles. He didn’t lead conversations with credentials; he led with love. “My son is engaged,” he’d say. Or, “My son Pete is an attorney.” That was Bill— humble, grounded, and full of heart.
He also had a sense of humor that stuck with you. In a letter to a fellow columnist, he once joked, “You may remember me as the tall, handsome feller with roguish eyes— the one who always looks the other way when the waiter brings the check.” That was classic Miller— witty, self-aware, and unmistakably human.
He passed away on June 4, 1975. But what he left behind continues to echo across the history of the sport. His stories didn’t just report— they remembered. They honored. They stayed.
And before he left us, he shared one last keepsake— his personal list of the greatest Filipino fighters he ever saw in the ring:
1. Dencio Cabanela
2. Pancho Villa
3. Pete Sarmiento
4. Clever Sencio
5. Speedy Dado
6. Francisco Flores
7. Ceferino Garcia
8. Johnny Hill
9. Ignacio Fernandez
10. Young Tommy
He didn’t just write their names; he gave them weight. He gave them life.
Because of William Eli Miller, the Filipino legends didn’t fade; they just kept swinging.
Edward Gallaher never stood in the spotlight. But for those who know where to look, he was always there— quietly guiding from the corner, just out of frame.
Born in Ireland around 1872–76 and naturalized as a U.S. citizen around 1896, Gallaher rose through the Marine ranks as a non-commissioned officer. He wasn’t known for barking orders.
He was known for being calm, observant, and precise— almost too precise, as if he had manicured his entire persona to remain a mystery.
He left no known photo of himself behind.
No rank proudly etched in stone.
His fingerprints, though, are all over the rise of Filipino boxing.
Kid Dencio (Photo Courtesy of the National Library of Australia, Elephind.com)
Kid Dencio: The Copper Shop Kid
There was one boy Gallaher couldn’t forget. A wiry, mop haired teenager from Pampanga named Gaudencio Cabanela— just another helper at the Navy Copper Shop in Olongapo. He wasn’t paid much, but he moved like he belonged in the ring. Gallaher noticed the way he mimicked the Marines, took hits without flinching, punches seemed to roll off his shoulders, and kept coming back.
One day, Gallaher walked in on a scene straight out of a boot camp fever dream— a 200-pound Marine launching a medicine ball full force into the kid’s chin.
Most would’ve called it abuse. Dencio called it training.
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t fold. He just stood there, waiting for the next one.
Gallaher raised an eyebrow— and maybe even cracked a smile.
No official drill manual recommended it— but it worked.
That was all he needed to see.
With a nod and a quiet word, Gallaher set the wheels in motion.
He sent the boy to Manila— to Churchill, Tait, and the Olympic Club. From there, the kid became something else entirely.
In 1921, Cabanela faced Llew Edwards at the Olympic Stadium. Lighter, younger, and with everything to prove, he outmaneuvered the seasoned champion early, bringing the crowd to its feet.
Bill Miller of the Manila Daily Bulletin wrote, “the best fight Manila had ever seen.”
Another headline called it “the most sensational fight ever witnessed in a Manila ring.”
That night proved what Filipino boxers could do.
And none of it happens without Gallaher.
More Than a Mentor
Gallaher didn’t just discover fighters. They discovered him. He gave them purpose— and often, a paycheck.
Before the world saw them as contenders, men like Silvino Jamito and Frisco Concepcion worked directly for him. Gallaher was their employer— part Marine, part businessman, part connector.
Jamito had been doing odd jobs around the barracks when Gallaher pulled him aside and told him he moved like a fighter. It was Jamito who later pointed Gallaher toward the wiry kid working at the Copper Shop— Kid Dencio.
Silvino Jamito (circa 1923, Public Domain)Frisco Concepcion: The Ring, June 1924. The record books have nearly forgotten that Frisco Concepcion handed Pancho Villa his first loss
Frisco Concepcion, the first man to ever defeat the great Pancho Villa, was also part of Gallaher’s quiet circle. When Frisco’s fighting days began to fade, Gallaher didn’t cast him aside. He handed him a camera. That moment changed everything.
Frisco became the eyes behind Gallaher’s story. With each click of the lens, he froze a moment— a Marine’s bruised smile, a fighter’s clenched jaw, a dusty gym soaked in afternoon light. Frisco Concepcion was no longer just a boxer. He became a witness.
Gallaher never called himself a publicist. He didn’t need to. Posters went up. Matches got attention. Local fighters got their chance— because he made sure of it.
He didn’t just open the door— he stayed behind to keep it open, long after others had walked through.
And in lifting them, he found his own quiet kind of immortality.
The Legacy in Silence
Edward Gallaher never chased the spotlight. He didn’t pose for pictures. He didn’t leave behind a box of medals or a book of memoirs. Just a few clippings. A community that remembered. And a single poem.
He stayed in Olongapo long after his military days, living among old fighters, expats, and locals who called him ‘Kuya’ or simply Mr. Gallaher. When his time came, he passed quietly at St. Luke’s Hospital in Manila— one of the most respected facilities in the country. There was no headline. No grand farewell.
But for those who remember the boy from the Copper Shop— for those who stood near the ring on the night Dencio became a star— his legacy is undeniable.
Attached below is a poignant poem by Gallaher, published after Gaudencio Cabanela’s death.
“The Champions”
By Ed. Gallaher, Manila – In memory of Kid Dencio
“…nine, ten!” the referee, Eternity,
Has called the fatal toll, Raised high the victor hand— Of him all champions one grim day must meet, Doomed to a sure defeat. Though brave the stand— The prize, his dauntless soul— Still shall the toll “…nine, ten!” be counted as he lies With sightless eyes, Unhearing, “…out!” at last. And Death, the victor, in his arms shall take Pitying, the champion that has passed. And o’er the Styx Shall bring him to that Land Where champions are— Champions of peace and war; Champions of all time! Those brave of earth Who lived as men should live; Who gave as men should give; Who fought as men should fight,— Champions by regal right! Who passed out smiling,— Victors, though vanquished!
Source: (The Referee, Sydney, NSW: 1886–1939, Wednesday 14 September 1921, page 10)
That poem may have been his only public cry of grief. Or maybe his final lesson: That the ones who matter most are the ones we lift— not the ones who remember us.
Some say the only known image connected to him is a photograph of a boxing match— perhaps one he captured himself.
One final frame from a man who never asked to be remembered— only to make sure others were.
Perhaps one of only two images with the byline of Ed Gallaher. (Public Domain, Gallaher Photo, Christmas Day, 1909, Olongapo)Cine Naval (Olongapo Theater): Operated by former U.S. Marine Edward Gallaher, who arrived with Doyen’s battalion in 1904. Behind the theater stood a gymnasium where Silvino Jamito, Pancho Villa, and Dencio Cabanela once trained. (Photo attributed to Ed Gallaher)
Francis Aglar Churchill: The Father of Philippine Boxing
History tends to forget the quiet builders. But Frank Churchill won’t be one of them.
His name lives deep in the roots of Philippine boxing— not as a side note, but as a cornerstone. What he helped create was more than sport. It was a movement. A legacy built with grit, instinct, and the kind of heart you don’t learn in school.
Passport Application of Francis Aglar Churchill (Source: NARA, National Archives and Records Administration)
Born on May 2, 1878, in Winthrop, Massachusetts, Churchill came up in the tough streets of Boston—where the shadow of John L. Sullivan still loomed. He had a restless nature and a nose for opportunity. From prospecting in Alaska to taking a desk job in Manila, from soldier to promoter, he moved through life with purpose. Whatever path he took, he left a mark.
Passport /application of Francis Aglar Churchill (Source: NARA, National Archives and Records Administration)
He co-founded Churchill and Tait Enterprises— a venture that brought parades, carnivals, and prizefights to the islands.
The timing couldn’t have been better.
The Philippines was coming out of war, and the people needed an outlet. Churchill gave them boxing, and they gave him their loyalty.
Frank Churchill, Circa 1930s (Fair Use Attribution)
His turning point came at the U.S. Customs House, on the banks of the Pasig River.
What began as clerical work led him straight into the fight world. He started small— helping organize local matches at the Olympic Club in Quiapo and Palomar Park in Tondo.
But Churchill had vision. He saw boxing not just as entertainment, but as something that could unify a nation.
The matches got bigger. The venues got louder. And then came his greatest achievement: the Olympic Stadium on Calle Doroteo Jose and Avenida Rizal.
That arena would become sacred ground for Filipino fighters— where boys became champions, and champions became legends.
Source: The Ring, January 1924 (From the Collection of the Philippine Boxing Hall of Fame)
Still, Churchill was never in it just for business. He took care of his fighters, not just when they won, but when they fell. He paid debts. He helped their families. He kept promises long after the final bell. For men like Gaudencio Cabanela, Francisco Guilledo, and Inocencio Moldez, he was more than a promoter. He was family.
Together with partners Stewart Alfred Tait, Edwin Tait, Joseph Hyman Waterman, and William Eli Miller, Churchill built an industry. They didn’t just import boxing. They helped the Philippines make it their own.
The local scene exploded. Fighters like Eustaquio Duarte, Francisco Labra, Silvino Jamito, Elino Flores, Pete Sarmiento, Johnny Hill, and Inocencio Moldez stepped up. So did American champions like Mike Ballerino, Sammy Schaffer, and Tod Morgan. Through war, politics, and shifting times, boxing became something permanent. Churchill had helped make that happen.
Source: The Los Angeles Times (Los Angeles, California) • Fri, Mar 31, 1933, Page 24
On March 30, 1933, Frank Churchill passed away at 54. Some said it was his heart that gave out. Others said it was the loss of his beloved Guilledo— Pancho Villa— that he never recovered from.
To Churchill, Guilledo wasn’t just a world champion. He was the son he never had.
But his story didn’t end there. What he sparked became a wildfire— burning through generations, etched in every fist that rose from the barrios to the bright lights.
Churchill didn’t just bring boxing to the Philippines. He gave the people a fight they could call their own.
And the Filipinos answered in kind— with loyalty, with love, and with legacy.
They never forgot the man who gave them the thrill of battle, the roar of the crowd, and the pride of a nation in the ring.
He brought them the fight game.
And they made it theirs forever.
Sources:
The photo of Francis Aglar Churchill is from the collection of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame (Circa 1926, Public Domain)
All references in this article are based on multiple sources like The Ring, The Boxing Blade, The Referee, Cablenews American, The Manila Bulletin Daily and others
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
Two (or Three) Lefts Make a Right: Francisco Guilledo to Luisito Espinosa
The Filipino boxing aficionados of old called it Gancho al hígado, luego de izquierda a la cabeza— a hook to the liver, then a left to the head.
It was the favorite punch combination of Francisco Tingson Guilledo, the Filipino Pancho Villa, and one we still see in the squared circle today.
On October 18, 1989, at about the same instant the Great Loma Prieta Earthquake shook the San Francisco Bay Area, Luisito “Lindol” Espinosa toppled the mighty Khaokor Galaxy in his lair at Rajadamnern Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand…with the same punches spiced with a modern twist.
That moment, seared in memory and old newsprint, was retold on March 23, 2024, at the Gala of Champions in the Manila Grand Opera Hotel. Espinosa, reflective yet sharp, described exactly how the left series unfolded against Galaxy— a southpaw, flat-footed, a plodder, but powerful all the same.
“Nakita ko, bukas ‘yung tagiliran niya, at yung mga kamay niya parang pumapaspas lang, tapos nakatayo lang siya nang tuwid. Kaya binato ko yung kaliwang jab…daplis lang pero tinaas pa lalo ‘yung kanan niya kaya pinakawalan ko agad sa atay, sinundan ko pa ng kaliwa ulit papunta sa kanan niyang kukote…
“Ang target ko talaga, panga. Narinig ko siyang umungol, pinaikot ko siya, tapos umabante siya, pilit akong itinutulak sa lubid. Pagpasok niya, nagbitaw ako ng parang kalahating uppercut sa baba niya pero sapul muna ‘yung kaniyang bituka — yun, sapul…boom! Ramdam kong gumuho baga niya, tapos bigla na lang pinunasan niya noo niya at tumirik ang mga mata niya. Doon ko naisip, ay, hindi na ‘to tatayo.”
(I saw his right flank wide open, both his hands pawing, upright, and almost like instinct I jabbed him with my left…it grazed him but his right hand went higher so I drove the left into the liver, then followed with the same hand toward his right temple. The target was his jaw. I heard him grunt, then I spun him. He pushed forward, trying to bully me onto the ropes. He advanced forward, so I tossed a half-uppercut for the chin, but his stomach caught it first— and boom. I felt his lungs deflate. Galaxy wiped his brow, then his eyes rolled back. Right there I knew he wasn’t getting up.)
Long before that spectacular win by Luisito, my father had asked a famed Mexican trainer to teach a then prospect Espinosa that series of punches at Señor Miguel Jara’s famed Star Boxing Gym in Alum Rock, San Jose, circa 1988. The results were fine, devastating. The aftershocks still linger.
“The credit goes to Pancho Villa,” so said my father, Hermie Rivera, the late maker of champions.
Photo: Luisito Espinosa versus Khaokor Galaxy, (The Bangkok Post, October 19, 1989)
Luisito Espinosa was a fellow disciple of that punch combo, carrying it into his own world championship nights. In Mexico, the same rhythm became a national signature. Julio César Chávez Sr. built his Hall of Fame career around the punishing body-to-head hook, Marco Antonio Barrera sharpened it into a surgeon’s tool, Juan Manuel Márquez timed it with counterpunching genius, Salvador Sánchez carried the same fluid motion in his short but brilliant career, and Erik “El Terrible” Morales unleashed it with the fearless aggression that once edged out Manny Pacquiao. They all shared the lineage of Villa’s double left, throwing it with pride, not knowing its roots traced back to a Filipino flyweight. The younger generation of fighters, particularly in Mexico, throw this combination often. They’ve made careers out of it, but many have no idea where it truly began.
Source: The Brooklyn Citizen (Brooklyn, New York) • Sun, Feb 1, 1925 • Page 17
The well of inspiration, in my mind’s eye, truly belongs to Pancho Villa, who once told The Brooklyn Citizen in 1925: “My best punch? They is two of them. First I hook to the body, and then with the same movement, I hook to the jaw.”
Born in the Visayas in 1901, Villa was documented as an Iloilo native, though most accounts now suggest he first saw light in La Carlota, Negros Occidental. His life was marked by hardship and hunger. By his teens he had run away from home, scraping meals and fighting to survive. Boxing gave him a way out. Small, wiry, and fast, he carried dynamite fists that became his passport.
The double left— liver first, jaw second— wasn’t just a trick of mechanics. It was born of necessity as well as preference. As Villa explained to The Brooklyn Citizen after upsetting Johnny Buff: “I no step back. I hook him to the chin. Then I know I have him whipped.”
Johnny Buff was the first to fall to it. Then came Jimmy Wilde, the legendary “Mighty Atom.” Villa said it was the body shot that beat him. “As soon as I hit him with the left, he clinched. I could feel his fingers pressing hard on my arm, as if he was afraid to let go.”
Villa’s hooks left marks even tougher fighters couldn’t forget. Canadian great Jimmy McLarnin, who later became a welterweight champion, remembered it with painful clarity. In words preserved by author Peter Heller, McLarnin admitted: “It was a tough fight. On the inside he kept hitting me on the ears. He was a great infighter. I wound up with two black ears. I heard of people winding up with black eyes, but I wound up with two black ears. He was a great little fighter.”
What made Pancho Villa beloved was not just his fighting style but the way he lived. Reporters portrayed him as a whirlwind. One cartoon showed him grinning wide, flanked on one side by sketches of his double left and on the other by his reckless spending. “A free and easy spender, likes to break $1,000 bills at parties,” the caption read.
In his twenties and suddenly wealthy, he blew through more than a quarter of a million dollars. “I live but the once,” he told The Brooklyn Citizen.
“I like not the money itself, I like what him buys.” But even with all the flash, he remained a gym rat, drilling that double left that carried him from La Carlota’s sugarcane shadows to Madison Square Garden and The Polo Grounds’ bright lights.
In Mexican gyms, still, the call is drilled the same way…body first, then head. In Filipino gyms, trainers say it in Tagalog or Visayan, but the message is the same.
…Una al hígado, luego arriba…One to the liver, then upstairs…
It is Villa’s ghost teaching through calloused mitts.
Pancho Villa did not live long enough to see his legacy fulfilled. In 1925, at just twenty-three, he died from complications of an infected tooth only ten days after his fight against Jimmy McLarnin on July 4th, 1925 at the Oaks Ball Park in Emeryville, California. But the imprint of his style— especially that double left— has never been forgotten.
When young Filipino, Mexican, American fighters, one and all, throw the left hook to the body and double it to the head, they are not just imitating a series of blows. They are calling back the ferocious Little Brown Doll from the Philippines who became the first Filipino and Asian world champion.
Villa’s double left was more than a punch. It was a philosophy…A strike to open the door, another to claim destiny.
Greatness often hides in the smallest things…a quick shift of the hips, a bend of the waist, a second punch when one would suffice, the courage not to step back when everyone expects you to retreat.
Sources, Credits and Recommended Readings:
This article has been previously published on PhilBoxing.com
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
The Brooklyn Citizen (Brooklyn, New York) • Sun, Feb 1, 1925 • Page 17
The Bangkok Post, October 19, 1989
Peter Heller’s In This Corner…! Forty-Two World Champions Tell Their Stories was first published in 1973. Book was reissued in paperback by Da Capo Press in 1994 (ISBN 9780306806032).
The Oakland Auditorium, now known as the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, occupies a holy place in the Pantheon of Philippine boxing. Long before championships were unified and sanctioning bodies standardized the language of greatness, this civic hall became a place where Filipino fighters were not merely featured, but immortalized.
In the early 1930s, opportunity in boxing was unevenly distributed. Filipino fighters, many of them migrants navigating a society shaped by exclusion laws and racial hierarchy, fought often and traveled relentlessly for recognition that rarely came into fruition.
Oakland offered something unique.
The Auditorium was a public building, built for blue and white collar workers and the city at large. To fight there was to be placed squarely in the front and center of city life, not on its margins.
That threshold was crossed decisively in 1932.
Source: THE KNOCKOUT, Vol. 5, No. 41, OCTOBER 15, 1932 (Fair use)
On October 12 of that year, the Oakland Civic Auditorium hosted what was openly billed as the first Filipino versus Filipino championship bout on American soil. Promoted as the Battle of Brown Dolls, Young Tommy faced Speedy Dado for the Bantamweight Championship of California. The advertising was explicit and unapologetic. There was no attempt to soften the fighters’ identities or disguise the stakes. Two Filipinos fought for a state title, in a major venue, before a mixed San Francisco Bay Area crowd.
And Oakland became a major part of Philippine boxing history that day. Filipino boxing was no longer an imported novelty. It became a matter of public record. Three years later, the Auditorium moved from legitimizing Filipino boxing to shaping future champions of the squared circle.
Caption: Small Montana wins a 10-round points decision over Midget Wolgast, on September 16, 1935, to win the NYSAC Flyweight title at the Oakland Auditorium (Oakland Tribune)
Small Montana wins in Oakland (Artist, Photographer, Source attributed to Oakland Tribune but unsure on date) (Fair use)
On September 16, 1935, Small Montana defeated Midget Wolgast in Oakland and earned recognition from the New York State Athletic Commission as world flyweight champion. With that decision, Montana became the second Filipino world champion and the first to be crowned in California. The location mattered more than people realized at the time. New York’s Polo Grounds had announced Filipino excellence to the East when Pancho Villa won his title in 1923. Oakland confirmed that excellence in the West. The Auditorium was no longer merely hosting history. It was making it. By the late 1930s, Oakland’s role was unmistakable.
Sources: The Oakland Post Enquirer • Wed, Nov 30, 1938 • Page 16 • (Oakland, California)(Fair use)
On November 30, 1938, the Auditorium staged a fight newspapers treated not as a curiosity, but as a division-defining bout. Small Montana faced Little Dado. Coverage framed the match within a lineage that ran from Jimmy Wilde and Pancho Villa to the present. Betting odds were even. Photographs placed two Filipinos at the center of the boxing universe. The American Flyweight Championship and the World Flyweight Title recognized in California, were at stake. Filipino boxing had become a big part of the conversation in American culture sporting life.
Source: The Knockout, Vol. 13, No. 28, July 15, 1939 (Fair use)
Little Dado’s rise confirmed that he belonged. He was ranked among the world’s elite flyweights from 1938 through 1943, and consistently recognized in the top five by The Ring magazine and rated number one in 1939, during a time when the The Bible of Boxing considered the title vacant.
In 1941, Dado won the vacant world bantamweight title (California version) against tough Tony Olivera on April 24, 1940 in Oakland (Boxrec.com), making him simultaneous champ in two divisions.
Oakland remained the place where his rise first seeped into public domain. It was where Little Dado’s name became forever intertwined with Small Montana’s, and where Filipino fistic excellence was etched in stone. Oakland’s significance was never limited to champions alone. It was also a proving ground for fighters who carried Filipino boxing forward.
Source: THE KNOCKOUT, Vol. 5, No. 10, MARCH 12, 1932 (Fair use)
Early in his career in 1936, Ceferino Garcia boxed at the Auditorium and lost a California welterweight title there before moving up in weight. Oakland did not crown him that day, but it catapulted him. He refined the bolo punch, and ultimately became world middleweight champion.
Source: THE KNOCKOUT, Vol. 5, No. 42, OCTOBER 22, 1932 (Fair use)
Pinoy stars like Young Tommy returned repeatedly to the Bay Area circuit, embodying the grind that sustained Filipino boxing between headline moments.
These fighters fought often, traveled constantly, and filled cards that kept the Auditorium alive as a fight hall. Behind the scenes, promoters understood the importance of the venue. Men such as Joe Waterman and Louis Parente placed Filipino fighters on Oakland cards because the venue conferred legitimacy. To fight at the Auditorium meant scrutiny, press coverage, and consequence. It meant being part of the city’s sporting life.
The audience completed the equation. On fight nights, the crowd reflected the Bay Area itself. Filipinos sat beside Mexican fans. Black and white dockworkers cheered side by side. In an era shaped by segregation and exclusion laws, the arena offered a brief suspension of rigid boundaries. Inside the ropes, endurance and skill carried the argument.
Photo: Earl Turner vs. Sugar Ray Robinson, Referee Magazine, April 21, 1949, World Welterweight Championship at Oakland Auditorium (Fair use)
Oakland’s place in boxing history is confirmed by what happened inside its ring. The same canvas that crowned Montana and framed Dado also welcomed fighters who would later stand among the sport’s giants— most notably Sugar Ray Robinson, widely regarded as the greatest boxer of all time, along with American greats such as Max Baer and Archie Moore.
Joe Louis appeared at the Oakland Auditorium late in his career during a West Coast exhibition tour. Though the bout was not part of his championship record, it placed the sport’s most recognizable heavyweight on the same canvas that had crowned Filipino champions, underscoring Oakland’s standing in American boxing history.
Just as important, Oakland played a singular role in Filipino boxing history. It hosted the first Filipino-versus-Filipino championship ever staged on American soil. It crowned the second and third Filipino world champions. Over the years, the building saw younger fighters come through as well. Ceferino Garcia and Speedy Dado boxed there before their names carried weight, alongside many others working their way forward. The fights added up. Taken together, they explain why the Oakland Municipal Auditorium remains part of boxing’s shared memory.
The Comeback Trail
The Auditorium, now restored as the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, has undergone a major interior transformation and is scheduled to reopen to the public in January 2026. A grand reopening is already set, including a family musical among the early offerings.
Located on 10th Street near Lake Merritt, the Beau-Arts style building was built in 1915 as a grand municipal venue that has featured numerous public spectacles, concerts, conventions, rallies, and historic sporting events for more than a century. It too has served the public once as a temporary hospital run by the Red Cross during the 1918 influenza pandemic.
The ring and the ropes may be gone but the memories remain. In Oakland, Filipino boxing crossed from presence into permanence…where Filipino boxers once stood, fought and crowned champions of the world.
Acknowledgements:
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
Before the condos and skyscrapers rose like silent monuments to the wealthy, before memory gave way to glass and steel, there was a place in San Francisco where fists, not fortunes, determined your worth.
A place called Dreamland— how fitting. The rink, the auditorium, the pavilion— all under one shimmering name. It began as a skating rink in 1906—built on the scorched bones of a city leveled by the Great San Francisco Earthquake.
A few months after the calamity, Dreamland’s owners saw an opportunity to revitalize business thereafter. In between seasonal offerings like ice skating, conventions and opera, the low-peak rental season was enhanced by featuring boxing.
For decades, San Francisco was a big fight town and the boxing promoters gave the fans their money’s worth.
Photo source: Photo Morgue, San Francisco History Center @ the San Francisco Public Library
Forget slow, cautious fights.
Give the people action.
They slashed the gloves down to five ounces.
They cut fights to just four rounds.
They lit the nights with the crack of leather on flesh— and the crowd loved it.
And when they looked for fighters willing to tear into battle from the opening bell, they turned to two sources: the scrappy Americans… and the fearless Filipinos.
The Rise of Filipino Fury
Eddie Duarte was the first to answer. Born in Daanbantayan, Cebu Province, toughened in Manila’s dust and docks, Duarte didn’t ask for favors. He came to Dreamland to throw hands, fighting men like Ben Gard, Johnny Schiff, and Joe Murphy under the harsh lights and howling galleries.
When the posters couldn’t decide what to call him—“Kid Duarte,” “Filipino Duarte”—Eddie let his fists do the talking.
Every jab, every hook, every desperate clinch was a message: We belong. We can fight. We will not be forgotten.
Then came Maximiano “Max” Villon, known later as Macario Villon. Faster than most, ruthless when needed, Villon turned Dreamland into his proving ground— knocking out foes like Jack O’Keefe before they could get started.
And Francisco “Cowboy” Reyes, rugged and relentless, carved his own path through Dreamland’s smoky halls, trading blows with American tough guys like Johnny Ortega and Harry Wallace.
Speedy Dado is confirmed to have fought at Dreamland in San Francisco on three occasions: a 10-round draw with Pete Sanstol (June 9, 1933), a 10-round decision loss to Young Tommy for the California State bantamweight title (May 19, 1933), and an earlier decision loss to Canto Robledo (November 6, 1931).
Ceferino Garcia fought fellow legend Barney Ross at Dreamland Auditorium in San Francisco on September 13, 1935 — dropped him in the first round, pressed him through ten, and still came away without the win. The judges gave it to Ross. Unanimous. Non-title. Controversial then. Still is.
Photo: Barney Ross down in the first round against Ceferino Garcia. Dreamland Auditorium (AP wire photo)
Dreamland’s Ghosts Never Sleep
The Dreamland Rink was more than brick and timber.
It was a shrine to those who fought when four rounds were a lifetime— and every second mattered.
Today, when you walk by the corner of Post and Steiner, you won’t find Dreamland anymore.
Instead, you’ll find towering condos, aka townhouses, few can afford. Luxury for the chosen few.
Caption: Dreamland (Winterland) Auditorium, then and now at the intersection of Post and Steiner, San Francisco
But back then, for a couple of coins, anyone could step into Dreamland and witness history: Filipino boys— immigrants, laborers, sons of the Pacific storm— fighting their way into America’s heart.
In the rafters, in the wind, in the memory of leather and blood, you can still hear them:
Duarte. Villon. Reyes. Speedy. Garcia.
Fighting not for fame.
Fighting not even for survival. Fighting because in Dreamland— for one night, in four savage rounds— they were kings.
Sources, References, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings:
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
All references in this article are based on multiple sources like PhilBoxing.com, The National Library of Australia, Elephind.com Database, Newspapers.com, Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, The Ring, The Ring (Records and Almanac), The Boxing Blade, The Referee, Knockout, Cablenews-American, BoxRec.com, BoxerList.com, The Tribune, The Manila Bulletin Daily, The Philippine Republic, and others.
Regarding the photos of The Dreamland, a special thanks to Christina Moretta (Photo Curator, Acting Manager) and Lisa Palella (Library Technical Assistant II) at the San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library for their gracious assistance.
The most celebrated fighter to grace the ring at Dreamland was Jack Johnson, the Premier American Heavyweight Champion of the World, circa 1910 (Photo source: Photo Morgue, San Francisco History Center @ the San Francisco Public Library)
A Journey Through Keepsakes From Thrilla in Manila to The Fight of the Century
What’s the point of an autograph, really? On the surface it’s just ink—somebody’s name scrawled on a ticket, a program, maybe the back of a fight stub. But if you’ve ever stood in line, waiting, heart beating a little too fast as the pen slid across paper, you know it feels like more.
For that blink of a second, you’re close enough to brush against greatness.
I’ve got a few myself, signed by my favorite fighters. Each one carries its own story—at least to me. But over time I’ve come to see that autographs are only one piece of a larger puzzle.
The real story lives in boxing ephemera: programs, clippings, gloves, even a mouthguard. Odd little things that outlast the final bell and keep the memory breathing.
My father, Hermie Rivera, spent over fifty years as a journalist. Chasing autographs wasn’t his thing. He went to fights to write, to report, to be a witness. And often enough, his accounts themselves turned into keepsakes.
Photo: (L-R) Don King, Don Dunphy, Hermie Rivera, Ringside at the Thrilla in Manila, Araneta Coliseum, October 1, 1975
At the Thrilla in Manila in 1975, he served as emcee at one of the press conferences. The Greatest— Muhammad Ali— never one to let the spotlight wander, waved him aside with a grin:
“Hermie, you’re not as dumb as you look.”
There were plenty of other keepsakes. Long before anybody said “selfie,” he had snapshots with Don King, with legendary ring broadcaster Don Dunphy.
He even introduced me to Joe Frazier at a training camp hotel. No photo of that—just my word.
Thrilla in Manila, Araneta— Joe Frazier Versus Muhammad Ali. October 1, 1975 Araneta Coliseum Quezon City Philippines
The press corps broke into laughter. Writers and his friends like Recah Trinidad, Nick Joaquin, even Smokin’ Joe Cantada later slipped the moment into print and verse.
To my father it was nothing more than another day on the job.
A few days after the fight—the most brutal and spectacular battle ever fought in the ring—he saw Ali again. A photographer handed him a picture: Ali holding a child, the crowd pressing close. And there in the front corner stood my father—the only one smiling. Ali signed it. That small act turned the photo into the crown jewel of our family’s collection.
He had stacks of photos through the years, but this one lasted because my late mother, Cristina Pasaoa Rivera, tucked it away safe.
Papa and Muhammad Ali: Thrilla in Manila (Hermie Rivera smiling at far left, Muhammad Ali and Filipina fan, Lope “Jun” Sarreal, Jr. at far right (Circa September 1975)
Last year at the Gala of Champions, my sister, Charina Rivera, placed it in my hands. Finding it again—well, it felt like stumbling onto a hidden treasure. What could have been lost forever became a thread tying Ali’s inscription, my father’s grin, and my family’s care in keeping memory alive.
When it came to souvenirs, my father leaned toward the simple: press passes, fight programs, news clippings. To some they looked like clutter. To me they’re treasure chests. Every credential opens the door to a night when fists flew and history got written under bright lights.
That’s the magic of ephemera. It isn’t meant to sit in drawers forever. It’s meant to be pulled out, handled, remembered. Jim Croce said it best in his classic tune Photographs and Memories. A bent program, a faded clipping, a ticket stub with a smudge of ink—each one hums like a verse of a song.
Boxiana Series by Pierce Egan
And before glossy programs and autographs, there was Pierce Egan. I’m fortunate to hold three complete volume sets of his Boxiana in our collection, along with Life in London and Sporting Anecdotes.
They are the cornerstones of boxing literature.
Back in the 1800s, Egan gave bare-knuckle days their voice—slangy, lively, alive. Reading him now, you step into a world where fights were “mills” and crowds were “the fancy.” It would take a dozen lifetimes to read his books, but they will forever remind me—as once imprinted upon me by my father and his friend Jack Fiske—that sometimes the story itself (even the mere fact of having an artifact) is the keepsake.
Sol Levinson Fight Gloves (c. 1925–early 1930s) 1028 Market Street, San Francisco
Leather lace-up boxing gloves produced during the later phase of Sol Levinson’s prominence in early twentieth-century boxing. Featuring a more defined striking surface, improved thumb integration, and a standardized block-style Levinson label, these gloves reflect the continued refinement of boxing equipment following the sport’s initial period of development in the 1920s.
Other treasures rest on my shelves: more than ten pairs of original Sol Levinson gloves, stitched in San Francisco nearly a century ago. They’re not polished. They’re worn, softened by sweat and resin. Not ornaments—evidence. Fighters almost never signed gloves; most thought it unlucky.
Benjamin L. Gan: Levinson Gloves of Small Montana
Only one pair in our collection carries a signed name: Benjamin Gan, better known as Small Montana, the second Filipino world champion. The rest stay blank, but alive with history.
And then there’s the piece I never saw coming. Dr. Ed dela Vega, Pacquiao’s dentist, friend to many (which is an understatement), and an unsung humanitarian placed in my hands something remarkable: the official backup mouthguard he made for Manny “PacMan” Pacquiao before the “Fight of the Century” with Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas, May 2, 2015.
Manny Pacquiao’s Mouthpiece designed, crafted and donated by a great humanitarian Dr. Ed dela Vega
It’s striped in Pacquiao’s colors, shaped by his bite. It never touched the ring, but it waited in the corner that night, ready if needed.
It is his—saliva and all.
Strange as it sounds, it feels more personal than any autograph.
Posters fade, ink smears, but a mouthguard belongs to no one but the fighter.
Press Pass of Hermie Rivera— Floyd Mayweather, Jr. versus 8-weight division champion Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao, Sr. (May 2, 2015, MGM Grand Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada)
And here’s the part that hits home: my father was there too, covering that night as a reporter. Pacquiao and Mayweather in the ring, my father at ringside, Dr. Ed in the corner, and myself now the keeper of the mouthguard—it feels like all those threads tied themselves into one story.
(L-R) Dr. Ed Dela Vega fitting Emmanuel Pacquiao, Sr. (before the Pacquiao- Barrios fight, July 2025). Photo courtesy of Jason Otamias, aka Jhay Oh
Today, the language of keepsakes has shifted. My father’s generation leaned toward scrapbooks, clippings, magazines, with autographs sprinkled in from the 1950s through the nineties.
All of it became stories they told later on.
My fascination has leaned toward gloves, programs, books—and yes, even a mouthguard.
Fans today lift their phones, lean in, and snap a selfie. Faster, flashier, instantly shared. But the impulse hasn’t really changed. Whether ink on a program, sweat on a glove, blood on trunks, or pixels in the cloud—we’re all reaching for the same thing: proof that we stood near greatness, even if just for a moment.
Some people laugh at holding on to something like that. But that’s the paradox of collecting. The most meaningful pieces are usually the plain ones: a note folded in a drawer, a glove stiff with dried sweat, a mouthguard still marked by teeth. Each one holds memory. Or maybe it holds us.
In the end I hear my father’s words:
We are guardians and keepers of memories. Share it.
And that thought pulls everything together—Boxiana, Mr. Fiske’s archives, Ali’s photo, the Levinson gloves, Pacquiao’s mouthguard, even today’s selfies. None of it is truly ours. We keep these things for a while, then pass them on.
It was my father who introduced me to Dr. Ed dela Vega, whose hands crafted Pacquiao’s mouthguard. And it was my father who pointed me toward the best editor I could ask for—the man who brings these stories alive for readers around the world: Mr. Dong Secuya, founder of PhilBoxing.com. In his work, as in my father’s and Dr. Ed’s, the same truth shows itself: we are caretakers of memory, not owners, bound by the duty to share.
Maybe that’s our role.
To keep boxing’s song alive—verse by verse, artifact by artifact: autographs, gloves, books, and mouthguards, saliva and all.
With gratitude, we express our solemn promise to be stewards of some memorabilia shared by friends like the honorable Dr. Ed dela Vega, whose contributions to the history of Philippine Boxing History often goes unmentioned.
Mr. Manny Pacquiao’s mouthpiece, crafted and designed by Doc Ed will be featured in our upcoming exhibit in San Francisco this summer 2026.
Acknowledgements:
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
Without the right promoters, boxing might never have become the sport we know today.
Bringing a fight night to life takes a certain kind of mind. Lining up the card. Keeping the show tight. Making sure the whole thing doesn’t fall apart at the seams. Joe Waterman had that mind. And he took it wherever the fight game needed somebody who understood what they were doing.
Before any of that, Waterman was everywhere. Sailor. Fighter. Referee. Matchmaker. Promoter. Writer. He did all of it, and most of it before anybody thought to write it down.
His biggest mark came in the Philippines— the 1910s and ’20s, years when Filipino boxing was still finding itself. But his reach didn’t stop there. When the fight scene in Los Angeles needed a pulse, Waterman turned up.
What made him different wasn’t the volume of work. It was his eye. He saw fighters coming before the rest of the world caught on.
To get a real picture of the man, go back to Corregidor— that honey-combed rock in the mouth of Manila Bay. 1918. The war still on. Thousands of U.S. soldiers stationed at the Corregidor training base, orders pending, nerves taut. In a ring pitched outdoors under a black Philippine sky, two lightweights named Jack Dalton and Stiff Brierty were busy beating each other’s brains out.
Journalist Al Stump put the scene down right, writing for The Oregonian. The third man in that ring was Waterman— a stock, kinky-haired lad with a lantern paw, already building his name. Fourth round, the rains came. Not a drizzle— a drenching, obliterating tropical downpour. Seconds abandoned corners. Nobody needed a sponge anymore. Two men kept swinging in sheets of rain.
Six rounds and Waterman still couldn’t make a decision. He called for two more. The crowd howled. He shook his head, ordered another two. The ring was a canvas-bottomed lake by then. Dalton and Brierty ground through rounds nine and ten in a dead standoff. Drenched fans screamed for a ruling. Both fighters, arms heavy, legs gone, begged the referee to just pick somebody.
Water running down his pug nose, the official stuck out his jaw.
“No decision!” he thundered. “This fight will be continued tomorrow night!“
Stump called it the outstanding fistic event of a life given entirely to one profession. And he was correct— and it was more than a good story. It was a picture of exactly who Waterman was. He didn’t cave to the crowd. Didn’t manufacture a verdict the evidence wouldn’t hold. When the situation was genuinely impossible, he said so out loud— and didn’t move.
That was the man. That quality went with him everywhere he worked.
(Reference and Source: Al Stump, Staff Writer, The Oregonian for The Knockout, Vol. 17., No. 11, March 13, 1943) (Fair use)
Stationed in Subic Bay in Zambales, Waterman worked alongside U.S. Marine Edward Gallaher in Olongapo.
The two of them helped piece together a new way to score fights— what became known as the Australian Scoring System.
Frank Churchill eventually adapted the scoring system to appease the Australian contingent that fought at his new Olympic Stadium. Eleven points per round. No even scores. A margin designed to make decisions stick. Knockdowns earned five points. Fouls could cost up to two. Ten rounds meant 110 points available, and a fighter needed to lead by three to take the win. It wasn’t flawless, but it held up. California rings used that system for over 30 years— 1925 through well into the 1950s.
As a matchmaker, his instincts helped define an era. He wasn’t just putting fights together— he was building careers. The Flores brothers— Macario, Francisco, Ireneo, Elino. Francisco Guilledo. Benjamin Gan. Eleuterio Zapanta. Ceferino Garcia. The Docusen brothers— Regino, Maxie, Bernard. Pancho Villa. Young Nationalista. Dencio Cabanela. Speedy Dado. Clever Sencio. Eustaquio Duarte. Francisco Labra. Silvino Jamito. Gaudencio Cabanela. Inocencio Moldez. Name after name, career after career— his fingerprints are all over the early history of Filipino boxing.
Source: The Seattle Star (Seattle, Washington) • Fri, Feb 1, 1924 • Page 20 (Fair use)
After the war he moved through the circuit. San Diego. Los Angeles. Tacoma. Portland. Seattle. Vancouver, B.C. When the Depression hit and boxing felt it, Waterman didn’t wait around.
He took the matchmaker job at the Olympic Auditorium in September 1935 and did something that looked strange on paper— he slashed ticket prices. A dollar seat went for twenty-five cents. Gates that once pulled nearly $19,000 in a night dropped to just over $5,000. But the house was full.
Source: The Knockout, No. 4, Vol. 5, Published Weekly, SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1932 (Fair use)
That same year, Henry Armstrong was getting nowhere. Waterman saw what was there and put him on as a headliner. By the end of 1936, more than 400,000 fans had walked through the Olympic’s doors. The room came back. So did Armstrong. Stump wrote later that Waterman had tabbed Armstrong an all-time great. He’d said it before almost anyone else thought to.
A Red Cross benefit Waterman ran in Manila in 1918 drew $40,000. The Armstrong–Baby Arizmendi title fight in Los Angeles grossed $20,000. The Armstrong–Belloise match did the same. Stump put it plainly: the man went from a kid earning $33 a month shoveling coal to one with $25,000 in the bank— best hotels, best trains, same rooms as Damon Runyon and Tex Rickard and Bing Crosby. Boxing had been good to Joe Waterman.
Source: The Knockout, Published Weekly. No. 31, Vol. 5, SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1932 (Fair use)
He’d be the first to tell you it has an unlovely side too. Many lose by it over the long pull. He didn’t— not through luck, but because he understood the game all the way down. He’d seen it raw, in the rain at Corregidor, calling for more rounds when any other man would have grabbed an easy out. He’d seen it at its best, watching Armstrong in a packed house. He knew what it was. Both ends of it.
Source: The Ring, June 1936 (Fair use)
He didn’t work for headlines. He worked to keep the sport breathing— to get fighters their shot, fill the seats, build something that lasted.
Photo: Joe Waterman and Ralph “Bud”, Ridley The Knockout, Published Weekly, Vol. 5, No. 15, SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1932 (Fair use)
His name doesn’t come up the way the champions he helped shape do. Doesn’t mean his piece of the story is any smaller.
For those who know the Sweet Science—especially in the Philippines— Joe Waterman’s mark is still there.
Quiet, steady, and lasting.
Just like the man himself.
Sources, References, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings
Photos of Joe Waterman are in the public domain and some attributed images were excerpted from the National Archives Records Administration, The Knockout, The Ring, BoxRec.com, The Tribune, The Manila Bulletin Daily and others
Al Stump, Staff Writer, The Oregonian for The Knockout, Vol. 17., No. 11, March 13, 1943)
A special photo was respectfully borrowed from the The George Mendies Scrapbook: National Library of Australia Ephemera Scrapbook 5 u|https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1653011390
Special thanks to the National Library of Australia for preserving these visual records. In honoring Mendies who was associated with Joe Waterman, we too honor the quiet strength of those whose stories almost slipped away.
The Knockout, Published Weekly, No. 31, Vol. 5, SATURDAY, AUGUST 6, 1932
The Knockout, No. 4, Vol. 5, Published Weekly, SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1932
Joe Waterman and Ralph “Bud”, Ridley: The Knockout, Published Weekly, Vol. 5, No. 15, SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 1932
Article by Gene Vinassa (The Ring, June 1936)
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.
These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes.
Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
Pierce Egan — Mr. Boxiana who became ‘The Life of London’
Pierce Egan didn’t just belong to “The Fancy” — he defined it, embodying the culture and spirit of the prize ring:
“As many of our readers may not be flash to the above term, it perhaps becomes necessary to state, that it simply means, any person who is fond of a particular amusement, or closely attached to some subject: a lively instance fortunately presents itself in illustrating the phrase beyond all doubt— as the old woman observed, when she kissed her cat, that it was— ‘her fancy!’” — Boxiana, Vol. I (1812)
To revel in the simple pleasures of life, leisure, and sport is to stand in good company with Pierce Egan.
No one captured the essence of English culture and the prize ring quite like Mr. Egan.
Far more than a chronicler of the “Manly Art of Boxing,” he lived and breathed the English martial art, championing it as a science and promoting it as a path to exercise, self-defense, and mastery of one’s being.
In nineteenth-century sporting language, The Fancy referred to the entire brotherhood of the prize ring—fighters, patrons, gamblers, journalists, and the devoted followers of the Sweet Science.
Through his celebrated Boxiana volumes, Egan became the chronicler and voice of that remarkable world.
In his 1845 bookend to Boxiana, ‘Every Gentleman’s Manual: A Lecture on the Art of Self-Defence’, Egan celebrated boxing as a worthwhile physical activity, an indispensable skill for self-preservation, and an essential tool for personal empowerment.
To him, boxing represented universal values of respect, discipline, and relentless hard work — qualities that fortify individuals to embrace the triumphs of victory and endure the lessons of defeat.
Historical Contributions
During the early 19th century, Egan’s prolific writing brought England’s bare-knuckle champions to life, immortalizing legends like Tom Cribb, Bill Richmond, Tom Molineaux, John Broughton, Daniel Mendoza, and Jem Belcher.
His vibrant, detailed prose transformed sports and investigative journalism.
Immortal Works
Egan’s legacy is enshrined in his magnum opus, the Boxiana series, and other notable works that vividly chronicled Regency culture:
Boxiana (Vols. I–III, 1813–1821)
Life in London (1821)
Sporting Anecdotes (1821)
The Life of an Actor (1825)
New Series Boxiana (Vols. I–II, 1828–1829)
Finish to the Adventures of Tom and Jerry (1828)
Pierce Egan’s Life in London and Sporting Guide, a weekly sporting paper (1831)
Pierce Egan’s Book of Sports and Mirror of Life: Embracing the Turf, the Chase, the Ring, and the Stage (1832)
Every Gentleman’s Manual: A Lecture on the Art of Self Defence (1845)
The British Library (Tuesday, May 17, 2022)
Beyond the Prize Ring: A Cultural Icon
Egan’s influence extended far beyond boxing, showcasing his multifaceted talent as a keen observer, pioneering compositor, meticulous editor, and superb printer — a rare fusion of literary prowess and storytelling mastery. His Life in London (1821), illustrated by George Cruikshank and dedicated to King George IV, became a cultural sensation. With its vivid portrayal of London’s nightlife, the book captivated readers across social classes, achieving extraordinary success with 65 editions published.
Pierce Egan transformed how sports were perceived and reported, emphasizing their cultural significance and societal impact. A tireless advocate for boxing, he championed it as a noble art capable of reducing societal violence—a view shared by contemporaries like Gentleman John Jackson, John Broughton, and Daniel Mendoza, who built amphitheaters dedicated to teaching the pugilistic arts and sciences.
An active and adventurous man, Egan traveled extensively across England to document the vibrant sporting culture of his time. His contributions extended well beyond boxing, encompassing racing, hunting, cricket, racquets, cockfighting, equestrian pursuits, and other popular activities. Much of his slang-filled poems and lively sporting songs gained popularity in his compendiums Sports Anecdotes (1820) and Book of Sports: Mirror of Life (1832).
Egan’s fame was not without controversy.
Critics and Victorian-era moralists denounced his vivid depictions of slums and debauchery, with some even calling for government censorship.
Through adversity, Egan thrived, popularizing the trend of “slumming,” which encouraged London’s elite to venture into the East End’s grittier locales.
Plays inspired by his works dominated the stage, at times even surpassing Shakespearean productions in popularity.
It’s downright astonishing how much of Egan’s lively slang still punches above its weight today. His slang captured the lively spirit of Regency England and remains relevant today.
Sure, some of it has “kicked the bucket”, but dive back 200 years, and you’ll find Egan’s lot calling a pawnbroker “Uncle” and referring to money as “soft stuff.” They’d “drill” around town in “squads” and “bunches,” painting the town red. A “pull” meant sway with the police, just as it does now—proof that Egan’s knack for the spoken and written word was well ahead of its time. In those old days, they had “dead ones,” “nutty ones,” “daffy ones,” “old soaks,” “deadbeats,” and “good fellows” as we do now. “Coffin nails” then referred to spirituous liquors instead of cigarettes. The sports of 1820 “trotted too fast” and “went the pace,” as sports always will.
Egan’s slang for drink is particularly colorful— “blue ruin,” a “shove in the mouth,” “slushing his worries,” a “clap of thunder,” or a “piece of tripe,” while beer was a “heavy wet.” People with “loose screws”, annoyed that generation as they do now.
“Queer street” (state of confusion, senselessness or disorientation, often after a hard punch in boxing)
“Tow street” (being in a difficult or precarious situation, especially in a fight. Today, we might say someone is “on the ropes” or “in a tight spot.”)
“Take on cargoes” (to drink alcohol heavily—Modern equivalents include “getting loaded” or “getting hammered”
“Three sheets to the wind” (completely intoxicated)
“High flyers “ (successful, ambitious, or showy people)
“Knowing ones” (savvy and knowledgeable people)
“Wiseguys,” (smart-alecks or people who think they know better than others)
“Green ones.” (inexperienced or naive individuals)
“Ripe ones” (People who are ready or mature)
A Lasting Legacy
Rare are firsthand accounts of the great Pierce Egan, whose life remains shrouded in mystery despite his immense contributions to literature and sport.
Historians of both past and present continue to revere Mr. Egan, finally granting him the long-overdue recognition he deserves.
While much is known about his prolific body of work, far less is recorded about the man himself, making it a privilege to reprint a rare firsthand reflection.
In his 1895 autobiography, George Augustus Sala, the esteemed British author and publisher, recalled meeting Pierce Egan in his later years:
“Pierce Egan, as I remember him, had a rather quavering voice, and a shrinking, shuffling manner, as though the poor old gentleman had found the burden of his great life a misery to him, and was yearning to shake it off. I had drunk deep of his books from my earliest boyhood. I had copied, in pen-and-ink, scores of the etchings made by George and Robert Cruikshank for the illustration of “Life in London,” and I could not help asking myself, mentally, and with mournful dismay, whether this withered patriarch would be the renowned Pierce Egan, whose proficiency in slang had been praised in Blackwood’s Magazine, who had been the life and soul of several sporting “free-and-easies,” and a referee at a hundred prize fights.
Sala continued, “Still, you will remember that which Burton says of the occasional relaxation of Democritus:—” Howso-ever it was, there he lived at last in a garden in the suburbs, wholly betaking himself to his studies and a private life, saving that sometimes he would walk down to the haven, and laugh heartily at such variety of ridiculous objects which there he saw.
“So it was with Pierce Egan the Elder. I forget whether he smoked; but Holt and I soon managed to wreathe his old head with garlands of cerulean vapour, not from cigars, if you please, but from good honest “yards of clay,” of the Broseley pattern; and then, after a few glasses of rum punch, the cockles of Pierce’s heart were warmed; the old man became eloquent; he began to talk of Tom Spring and Tom Belcher, and Bob Gregson and other famous gladiators of the bygone; he told us of Jack Mitton and of Gully, the pugilist, who retired from the prize ring to become eventually a Member of Parliament. He descanted on the cock-fighting, the bull-baiting, the badger-drawing, the rat-ting, and the dog-and-duck fighting he had seen in the brave days of old; he had known
“Shaw the Life-guardsman, he had played billiards with Jack Thurtell; he was the abstract and chronicle of the manners of an age which had vanished, and which, it is most devoutly to be hoped, will never repeat itself on this sublunary sphere again. It was not an intellectual evening, and from the point of view of the higher morality, not a very edifying one; still, altogether, the night was one of the most entertaining that I ever passed.”
Modern day writers, journalists and historians have not forgotten about Mr. Egan. In The Sweet Science (1956), A.J. Liebling offered high praise, referring to Egan as ‘the Froissart of the London prize-ring’, ‘the Sire de Joinville of the London prize-ring’, and ‘the Edward Gibbon and Sir Thomas Malory of the old prize-ring.’ Liebling further noted: “Egan’s round-by-round stories, with ringside highlights and betting fluctuations, are masterpieces of technical reportage, but he also saw the ring as a juicy hunk of English life, in no way separable from the rest.”
Collage: ‘Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher’. Written and directed by Matt Hookings
Boxiana and Life in London and Sporting Guide served as the inspiration for a recent Hollywood movie, in 2022– ‘Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher’. Written and directed by Matt Hookings, who also starred as Jem Belcher, the film serves as a throwback to Regency England. With Russell Crowe in the role of Jack Slack, Prizefighter offers a rich glimpse into a time when boxing dominated the scene, immersing viewers in the grit and glory of the fight game’s early days. Glenn Cox delivered a compelling portrayal of Egan, capturing his mannerisms and the distinctive and engaging speech that brought the boxing historian to life.
As the late Professor John Cowie Reid reverently wrote in his knockout of a book ‘Bucks and Bruisers: Pierce Egan and Regency England (1971)’:
“In a sense, every modern sports writer, gifted with the ability to report an event accurately, to capture the feel and colour of the occasion, to transmit something of its excitement and the reactions of the spectators, is Pierce Egan’s heir. He took sports reporting away from the stuffy, stilted, impersonal style which had been the norm and made it personal, picturesque, detailed, racy, and fun to read; he also saw sport as a social phenomenon of no mean importance and related it to the life of his times.
“For these achievements, as much as for his value as a literary innovator, a forerunner of greater writers, a well of social history, and for his independent, ebullient, resilient and likeable personality, he deserves a good deal more than the occasional patronizing glancing reference or grudging and usually inaccurate footnote which he is accorded in whichever literary histories happen to notice him.”
In Memoriam
“We owe a debt of gratitude to Pierce Egan. His descriptions of a well-placed blow—its intent, impact, and aftermath—still excite. You will find the heart of London in his works—Boxiana and Life in London. Boxing has become a metaphor for someone like me. And for that, I have to thank Mr. Egan,” My late father, Hermie Rivera, often reflected on Egan’s impact.
Pierce Egan passed away on August 3, 1849 in his home in the Islington area of London.
His spirit and life’s work endures in the vernacular of the streets, the higher and lower strata of society, the artistry and science of the boxing ring, and in the hearts and minds of those who know a good story when they see one.
Sources, References, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings
All references in this article are based on multiple sources like Boxiana, Life in London, PhilBoxing.com, The Ring, and others
The Monumental Inscriptions of Middlesex Vol 2. J Russell Smith. p. 37. (Cansick, Frederick Teague (1872)
‘Bucks and Bruisers: Pierce Egan and Regency England (1971). J.C. Reid (John Cowie Reid), published by Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1971.
‘Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher’. Written and directed by Matt Hooking (2022)
The Life and Adventures of George Augustus Sala, Written by Himself (1894/1895), printed by Cassell and Company, Limited, London.
The Sweet Science by Abbott Joseph Liebling (The Viking Press, New York, 1956 with the texts first appearing in The New Yorker)
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.
These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes.
Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
Hermenegildo Ordoña Rivera was born on April 17, 1938, in Baguio City, Philippines. Growing up in the cool climes of the Mountain Province, amidst the clouds, he witnessed the fusion of Filipino and American cultures characteristic of “The City of Pines,“.
As a young waiter, he polished his command of the English language and refined his manners through osmosis and lively interactions with American soldiers at Camp John Hay and international educators at Teacher’s Camp.
Baguio was a bustling hub infused with American influence— a crucible of culture and tradition— and the environment appealed to Rivera, whose autodidactic nature complemented an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.
He embraced life with gusto and explored the world through books, travel, and keen observation. Rivera’s journey took him to far-flung corners of the Philippines, like Laoag, Cebu, Davao, Jolo and Aparri.
In 1965, as an aspiring disc jockey, he landed in the coastal City of Dagupan where he met the love of his life, our mother Cristina Pasaoa.
Their union blessed them with six children, Antonio, Charina, Maria Christine, Gerardo, and Hermenegildo Jr., and I, grandkids Keana , Leila, Nikolus, Grant, Louis and great grandchildren Evangeline and Eleanor.
In 1983, Rivera and our family migrated to the San Francisco Bay Area, embarking on a new chapter in their lives.
Rivera’s heart remained tethered to his roots, as evidenced by his continued involvement in promoting Filipino culture and heritage, both in the Philippines and abroad.
It was in the world of boxing that he left an indelible mark. Known for his sharp wit and deep understanding of the sport, Rivera earned recognition as a boxing manager, guiding fighters like Luisito “Lindol” Espinosa, one of only seven boxers since 1890 who wore the world’s bantamweight and featherweight crowns, and Morris East, the youngest Filipino world champion.
The Sweet Science of Bruising had a particular allure to my father. The sport became his metaphor and guiding mantra.
He shared his insights as a fight analyst and his colorful commentary endeared him to fellow fans of the gloved game.
His passion for storytelling led him to a career in broadcasting and lent his voice to various radio and television stations like RPM, DZRL, DZTD, Channel 4 and 5, Philippine Broadcasting Services, MBC 11, IBC 13, National Media Production Center, Maharlika Broadcasting System, and PhilBoxing.com.
“Little Brown Dolls: A Gallery of Philippine Boxing Champions” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 20, 1994)“The Best Of A Nation: The All-Time Top 10 Of The Philippines” (The Bible of Boxing, The Ring), August 1994)
My father, the late Hermie Rivera, cherished every moment he shared with you—his friends, his peers, and even the rare foe.
He is the guiding inspiration for our celebration today. Though he would have loved to be here, I am sure he would have insisted that this special occasion not revolve around him.
On January 15, 2016, my father passed away in his sleep at the age of 77, leaving behind a legacy of gratitude, respect and the following message he often repeated during his time with all of us.
Jack Fiske, widely recognized as the Dean of Boxing Writers in the United States and beyond, epitomizes the essence of what a sportswriter should be.
“Jack has a style akin to Pierce Egan’s—stinging, swift, sufficient—much like a left hook from Joe Frazier or Muhammad Ali’s jab,” my father once said of his friend.
Jacob Quincy Finkelstein was born on July 15, 1917, in New York City and grew up in the rough and tumble streets of the Bronx.
He enlisted during WWII and served as a medic in the Army Air Forces in Australia and New Guinea. After his military service, he enrolled at the University of Alabama and later managed the school boxing team.
Mr. Fiske worked for The Birmingham Post (Alabama), Newport News Daily Press (Virginia), Daily Press, Trentonian (New Jersey), Alameda Times-Star, and Richmond Independent (California) before joining The San Francisco Chronicle in 1950.
He wrote about boxing for over 40 years. His widely-circulated and syndicated column, “Punching The Bag,” was the premier source of boxing information in the United States from 1947-1992.
His house on Robblee Street was a veritable boxing museum filled with rare books, artworks, photos, and memorabilia he amassed during his adventures in and around the squared circle.
Renowned for his concise and hard-hitting analysis, Mr. Fiske covered notable ring battles, including the first Muhammad Ali – Sonny Liston bout (February 25, 1964), Sandy Saddler – Gabriel “Flash” Elorde at the Cow Palace (January 18, 1956), and wrote about the rise of Filipino greats Luisito Espinosa in the San Francisco Bay Area (1988-90) and Morris East (1992).
Mr. Fiske possessed a keen eye for detail and dove headfirst into the brutality of boxing. A representative of the old school of journalism, he submitted his vivid fight descriptions via payphones, relying on notes hastily written on whatever sheet of paper was at his disposal. Fight fans eagerly awaited and were always ready to devour “The Chronicle’s Perspective.”
The following articles written by Jack Fiske and his pal Hermie Rivera inspired the development of our very own Philippine Boxing Hall of Fame.
“Little Brown Dolls: A Gallery of Philippine Boxing Champions” (Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 20, 1994)“The Best Of A Nation: The All-Time Top 10 Of The Philippines” (The Bible of Boxing, The Ring), August 1994)
Near the end of his storied career in sportswriting, he collaborated with his friend Hermie Rivera and co-wrote about the great Filipino boxers of the past.
Author’s Note
The Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame honors Mr. Jack Fiske for his dedication and integrity in chronicling the sport of boxing.
The photo of the late Jack Fiske was taken by his equally late friend Hermie Rivera and is part of our collection.
The attached photos and the articles both men have co-authored have been republished for non-commercial use and are in accordance with the United States Fair Use Doctrine.
Long before Filipino fighters, and boxers as a community, stepped onto the world stage, boxing had already traveled across continents, oceans and centuries.
The fight game did not arrive in the Philippines fully shaped or formed…it arrived unannounced, evolved gradually, carried forward by generations of fighters who contested beneath open skies.
What we now call the Sweet Science began as something primitive, almost elemental— a proving ground for resolve and survival.
Source of Article: St. Louis Post-Dispatch • Sun, Jul 02, 1922 • Page Page 73 • (St. Louis, Missouri). Texts and etchings are in the Public Domain
In its earliest English form, prizefighting bore little resemblance to the organized sport we see today. There were no standardized rules and few safeguards for.
Two fighters toed the line and fought until one could no longer stand. The public admired the sheer courage demanded by such brutal contests…though the specter of death and permanent injury cast a long shadow over boxing’s future.
Without reform, the sport risked exhausting itself beneath its own violence.
Source: The Ring, January 1950
The first meaningful step toward order came from Jack Broughton, a champion of the mid-eighteenth century who understood that boxing required structure if it hoped to outlast him.
In 1743, he drew up the first recognized code — thirty seconds for a downed man to recover, no striking him while he was there, judges placed ringside to keep watch.
Source: Pierce Egan’s Book of Sports and Mirror of Life: Embracing the Turf, the Chase, the Ring, and the Stage (1832)
He also introduced “mufflers” for sparring — thick, rounded coverings worn over the hands that cushioned the impact of punches so the craft could actually be taught without a student losing his teeth in the process.
Broughton designed them for his gentlemen pupils, wealthy patrons who wanted to learn the sport on safer terms. The fist mitts never appeared in actual prize fights, which stayed bare-knuckle.
But in the training room, they quietly started something — the direct ancestor of the padded glove that would one day become standard across the sport.
Source: Pierce Egan’s Boxiana (Vol. I, 1823)
Broughton took it further still.
He built one of boxing’s earliest training academies, Broughton’s Amphitheatre, where fighters were expected to prepare through conditioning and discipline rather than raw toughness alone. Technique entered the equation. Study became part of the process. And gradually, out of all of it, the professional fighter emerged as a recognizable figure within sporting life.
The reforms looked modest on the surface. Their consequences reached further than anyone at ringside could have imagined. For the first time, the ring began to practice the idea of fairness — and fighting started its long, uneven turn toward something people would one day call the Sweet Science.
As boxing drew wider attention, Broughton’s reforms developed into the London Prize Ring Rules, formally introduced in 1838 and later revised in 1853. These regulations governed the final great era of bare-knuckle prizefighting.
Fighters fought inside a roped square, be it on the pitch, the ground, or an elevated stage, and a round concluded when one man was knocked down.
Fighters are required to square up in the middle of the ring within a minute or forfeit the match. Hip throws and grappling were permitted, often transforming contests into exhausting trials of physical endurance.
Referees and umpires now settled disputes, penalized fouls, and even disqualified participants for egregious infractions.
The London Prize Ring Rules preserved boxing’s competitive nature while allowing the sport to gain broader acceptance. Prizefighting developed traditions, expectations, and recognizable standards that spectators could appreciate and respect.
Photo: Daniel Mendoza (National Portrait Gallery, Public Domain)
Daniel Mendoza, the Jewish champion, innovated the sport. Rising to prominence during the 1780s, Mendoza popularized defensive techniques and refined the art of combat through balanced footwork and effective counterpunching. His ring savvy and intelligence could overcome physical disadvantage.
By controlling distance and forcing opponents into traps, Mendoza elevated boxing into a contest of strategy and skill as much as brute strength.
Crowds gathered to watch his innovative scientific techniques, which were spectacular…his ring intelligence became his strategy.
Mendoza’s influence extended well beyond his lifetime. The emphasis upon speed, timing, and precision would later define boxing styles admired around the world— styles that would, in time, find extraordinary expression in fight arenas worldwide.
Photo of John Jackson is in the Public Domain (Article Source Unknown. Painting attributed to Sir Henry Smythe, Bart)
Gentleman John Jackson helped carry boxing further into respectable society. Jackson became a respected boxing instructor to Britain’s upper class and presented the sport as disciplined physical exercise rather than unruly combat. His exhibitions drew members of the nobility, the gentry, political leaders, and literary figures. Boxing gradually stepped beyond its earlier reputation and entered organized athletic culture.
Photo of Bill Richmond (National Portrait Gallery, Public Domain)
Bill Richmond contributed another defining chapter to boxing’s development. Born into slavery in colonial America, Richmond secured his freedom through the auspices of an English nobleman, and he later established his career in England. There, he earned distinction as both a skilled fighter and a thoughtful strategist.
Richmond studied his opponents carefully, fought intelligently, and struck only when opportunity presented itself. His method of punching while retreating introduced an early form of counterpunching that would later become a template.
Richmond’s life beyond the ring reflected boxing’s promise and possibilities. He moved within influential social circles, including associations with the Prince Regent, later King George IV.
Tom Cribb became England’s champion, retiring undefeated.
Cribb represented boxing’s promise that perseverance could produce recognition and dignity.
Cribb’s Parlour. Tom Introducing Jerry and Logic to the Champion of England (Source: Etching by Robert Cruikshank, George Cruikshank. Life in London by Pierce Egan, 1821, Public Domain)
Cribb would stand among the dominant champions of bare-knuckle fighting before the sport entered a new era of international prominence.
Tom Cribb Pub (October 26, 2025) as it stands today (Formerly called Union Arms, renamed in honor of Tom Cribb)
Boxing’s global prominence arrived in the form of Tom Molineaux, a formerly enslaved American fighter who traveled to England determined to face its greatest champions.
Molineaux fought with exceptional determination and pride. His contests with Tom Cribb became one of boxing’s earliest transatlantic rivalries.
Although Molineaux never won England’s championship, he earned respect. Fighters who crossed oceans often carried expectations far heavier than their gloves… the hopes and dreams of a nation.
Source: BOXING and Wrestling, VOL. 7, No. 11• AUGUST 1957
Molineaux’s journey quietly anticipated the paths that later fighters would follow in pursuit of opportunity abroad.
Other fighters strengthened boxing’s growing mythology.
Photo: Jem Belcher (National Portrait Gallery, Public Domain)
Jem Belcher gained popularity through speed and personality, while Henry Pearce became known for remarkable courage despite severe injury. Their careers reinforced boxing’s reputation as a proving ground where perseverance defined achievement and memory often proved as enduring as victory.
The drama of the prize ring also attracted literary observers. William Hazlitt’s essay “The Fight” is a celebrated description of the Cribb-Molineaux contest and remains one of sport’s most vivid historical accounts, elevating prizefighting into narrative literature by portraying the ring as a stage where character, courage, and national identity converged.
Lord Byron, the Romantic poet fascinated by heroism and human struggle, found himself drawn to the bravery of prizefighters and often kept company with boxing personalities of his day.
Pierce Egan’s Every Gentleman’s Manual: A Lecture on the Art of Self Defence (1845)
Pierce Egan played a historic and invaluable role in keeping boxing’s early story alive through his Boxiana volumes. He wrote about fights and the personalities who stepped into the ring with a clarity that helped boxing find one of its earliest and most recognizable voices, both inside the ropes and around them.
Anyone who spends time exploring boxing’s past eventually runs into Egan, because so much of the sport’s early memory still rests on the work he left behind. His life and contributions reach far beyond what any single chapter could truly hold, and this book humbly sets aside a chapter in recognition of the legacy he helped build.
Jonathan Badcock, writing under the pseudonym Jon Bee, also contributed to boxing’s literary tradition. Some historical accounts suggest that during a period when Egan encountered publishing difficulty, Jon Bee contributed material to the second volume of Boxiana without formal credit. Within those pages appeared the phrase “the Sweet Science of Bruising,” which would later evolve into the enduring expression…the Sweet Science.
Source: Tom Sayers versus John C. Heenan. The first International Super Fight. Harper’s Weekly, Circa April 17, 1860 (Public Domain)
By 1860, boxing expanded beyond national identity and entered global competition. England’s champion Tom Sayers met American challenger John C. Heenan in what many historians regard as boxing’s first international super fight.
Sayers represented English technical tradition, while Heenan embodied rising American power.
The contest extended beyond two punishing hours, with both men demonstrating extraordinary endurance.
Officials ultimately declared the bout a draw…though the attention it attracted helped carry boxing’s reputation across continents and into new imaginations.
Photo: Marquis of Queensberry (Public Domain, through Sam Andre’s and Nat Fleischer’s APictorial History of Boxing, 1959)
Boxing formally entered its modern era in 1867 with the introduction of the Queensberry Rules, shaped largely by sportsman John Graham Chambers, endorsed by John Douglas, 9th Marquess of Queensberry, commonly known as the Queensberry Rules.
Gloves became mandatory. Rounds were standardized to three minutes. The ten-second count following knockdowns was introduced. Wrestling techniques were removed, shifting emphasis toward speed, timing, and technical precision. Boxing did not abandon its past with the introduction of gloves…it adapted, preserving its lineage while ensuring survival.
These reforms allowed boxing to expand internationally and develop into a regulated professional sport. Fighters trained with a tighter regimen and discipline. Contests became more structured for both competitors and spectators.
Through the ages, boxing retained the essential qualities that had defined it from the beginning… endurance, courage, and tactical intelligence linking modern competitors to their bare-knuckle predecessors.
The English Martial Art, i.e. boxing, spread to the United States, where it became a public spectacle. American fighters adopted British techniques while building championship systems of their own that broadened boxing’s reach.
Photo of Souvenir Program, Olympic Club in New Orleans (Public Domain)Attribution: A Brief History of the Ring Belt (The Ring Magazine, c. 2000–2002. Nigel Collins (—NC)
By the early twentieth century, American soldiers and athletic instructors introduced organized boxing to the Philippines through military recreation programs and public exhibitions.
Photo Attribution: Grant-Goodrich Boxing Bout, Christmas Day ‘09, Olongapo, P.I. (Gallaher Photo)Series: Photos of US Army teaching Filipino lads The Manly Art, Circa 1910-1920, Philippine Islands (Philippine Boxing Historical Society Collection)
Filipino fighters have an innate aptitude, almost natural, for the sport.
Their balance, speed, and timing allowed them to master its techniques.
Source: The Ring, February 1936, Vol. XV., No.1, page 27
Perhaps, the balance and techniques of these new adherents of the sport have deep roots in the well-documented Filipino Martial Arts–a collective terminology by Guro Dan Inosanto that encompasses the fighting arts Kali, Escrima, and Arnis.
Within a generation, Filipino fighters advanced from local competitions to world championship contests.
In time, those fistic traditions would take root in distant rings across the Pacific, where young pugilists would shape them into something uniquely their own.
Source: Garcia’s Rise…FILIPINOS WHO MADE RING HISTORY (The Ring, December 1938)
Boxing had traveled thousands of miles… though its lessons remained familiar to every fighter who stepped forward with courage and discipline.
The path of boxing from England to America and then to the Philippines reflects the transmission of courage and endurance— “Pluck and Bottom,” as Pierce Egan once called it…code for courage and endurance.
Source: The Ring, April 1925 (Public Domain
From Broughton’s early reforms to the modernization ushered in under the Marquess of Queensberry Rules, boxing continues to endure, despite its storied and checkered past.
Sources, References, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings
All references in this article are based on multiple sources like Nat Fleischer’s The Ring, Harper’s Weekly, British National Portrait Gallery and others
Boxiana (Vols. I–III, 1813–1821)
New Series Boxiana (Vols. I–II, 1828–1829)
Pierce Egan’s Life in London and Sporting Guide, a weekly sporting paper (1831)
Pierce Egan’s Book of Sports and Mirror of Life: Embracing the Turf, the Chase, the Ring, and the Stage (1832)
We are proud to feature from our collection: EVERY GENTLEMAN’S MANUAL. A LECTURE ON THE ART OF SELF-DEFENCE, by PIERCE EGAN, LONDON, SHERWOOD AND BOWYER, STRAND. 1845.
The Ring, April 1925 (Public Domain
Garcia’s Rise…FILIPINOS WHO MADE RING HISTORY (The Ring, December 1938)
Photo: Marquis of Queensberry (Public Domain, through Sam Andre’s and Nat Fleischer’s A Pictorial History of Boxing, 1959)
Harper’s Weekly, Circa April 17, 1860 (Public Domain)
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.
These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes.
Every reasonable effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
The Best of a Nation: The All-Time Top 10 Of The Philippines
The pages of The Ring in August 1994— the Bible of Boxing — were never meant to settle arguments so much as to keep them alive.
But when Jack Fiske and Hermie Rivera put their names on a byline together, they weren’t just chronicling greatness.
They were insisting on it.
What they were really doing was picking up a conversation nobody had finished — one that started decades back, in packed arenas and waterfront gyms and port towns where Filipino fighters first showed the world what they had.
It started the way a lot of things worth remembering start — not at a desk, not on a deadline.
Saint Patrick’s Day, 1990. A corner table at Lefty O’Doul’s on Geary Street. The aroma of cabbage and corned beef in the air, Tony Bennett on the speakers, the city outside doing what San Francisco does on a green-streamer afternoon.
My father Hermie Rivera and Jack Fiske sat together, and the talk turned — the way it always did between those two — to the ones who made history and the ones history let slip.
That conversation became an article. The article became a document.
The Ring recognized Mr. Fiske as the dean of American boxing writers, forty years at the San Francisco Chronicle. He wrote through eras most journalists only read about — filed from payphones, scribbled notes on whatever paper was within reach. The words came out clean and lasted.
Hermie Rivera was a radio and TV announcer, a manager, a storyteller — but above all, a man who never stood at the edge of the fight game looking in. He was inside it. He managed world champions Morris East and Luisito Espinosa through the long seasons of a fighter’s life — the training camps, the title shots, the losses that don’t leave you. These weren’t subjects to him. He’d broken bread with them, traveled with them, sat with them in back rooms that smelled of tape and liniment while they waited for everything to be decided. When a fight ended and the room emptied out, my father was still there.
Mr. Fiske gave the bouts and the fighters fitting words.
My father gave the fighters their witness.
On those two pages of The Ring, they did both.
The List
Pancho Villa reached boxing’s summit first. Next were Gabriel Elorde, Ceferino Garcia, Ben Villaflor, Little Dado, Small Montana, Rolando Navarrete, Erbito Salavarria, Dodie Boy Peñalosa, Bernabe Villacampo.
Ten names that live on.
Villa — Francisco Guilledo — is where the article begins. He was not just the first Filipino world champion. He was the beginning of belief and hero worship. In 1923 he knocked out Jimmy Wilde — the greatest flyweight who ever lived, most people still say — and took the 112-pound title. The old-timers swear by him. Mr. Fiske wrote that, and it hasn’t aged a day. Villa made four successful defenses before a non-title loss July 4, 1925 to Jimmy McLarnin in Emeryville Baseball Park near San Francisco, and died ten days later at twenty-three — blood poisoning from an ulcerated tooth.
Gabriel Elorde — “Flash”, they called him— was the craftsman. He beat Sandy Saddler in a non-title tenner in Manila, then lost on cuts in their second bout at the Cow Palace. He lost to legendary lightweight Carlos Ortiz twice, but learned from those defeats the way only great fighters can — not by changing who they were, but by refining what they got. Then Harold Gomes came along, and the world junior lightweight title with him, and that was the end of the questions. March 16, 1960, the Cow Palace. Elorde stopped him in seven rounds. Gomes wanted another shot. Fine — June 4, 1960, Araneta Coliseum, home crowd, everything on the line. One round. Same result. He made ten successful defenses thereafter.
Mr. Fiske and Señor Rivera called him one of the best junior lightweights of all time. Where Villa had kicked the door open, Elorde held it — patient, precise, always there. The kind of champion who doesn’t just win a title but makes you understand what a title is supposed to mean.
Ceferino Garcia brought defiance — fists and his bolo punch, Filipino instinct refined into ring science, and a middleweight crown taken from Fred Apostoli by seventh-round kayo in 1939. A controversial draw against Henry Armstrong may have cost Garcia a fourth world title simultaneously held — a distinction that would have been unprecedented. He never got it. He never stopped coming forward either.
Ben Villaflor turned professional at fifteen — before he’d barely started. He outpointed Alfredo Marcano in 1972 and took the world junior lightweight title. Left-handed, heavy hands, and when he lost the belt he didn’t disappear — he came back and took it again. What came after made the early exit hard to believe.
Little Dado — Eleuterio Zapanta — moved to Northern California and did most of his fighting there, outpointing countryman Small Montana in 1938 for the vacant California flyweight world title. Two Filipinos, far from home, fighting each other for a title most of the boxing world barely acknowledged. Fiske and Rivera put it down without comment. They didn’t need to add anything.
Benjamin Ledesma Gan — Small Montana — went seventy-nine and change, ten knockouts, and ran through men the record books still carry. He won the New York State world title in 1935 by decisioning Midget Wolgast — a man who required outpointing, not outpunching. He fought draws against Little Dado and Jackie Jurich, defeated Manuel Ortiz and Tony Marino. An era that preferred knockouts never quite knew what to do with him. He didn’t change his approach for anyone.
Rolando Navarrete — the Bad Boy from Dadiangas — was the hardest-punching 130-pounder in the world during the golden age of the division. Arguello knocked him out cold in 1980. He came back anyway — crushed Cornelius Boza-Edwards in five rounds the following year and took the WBC crown. Defended it. Lost it to Bazooka Limon. Then spent years in jail. The article records that too, without flinching. Greatness rarely arrives clean.
Erbito Salavarria put Chartchai Chionoi away in two rounds in 1970 and had the WBC flyweight belt. Five years later he became the first Filipino ever to win back a world title. His people never forgot that.
Dodie Boy Peñalosa had polio as a child. Left leg shorter than his right. Became national junior flyweight champion, won the IBF title in his fourteenth bout, made three successful defenses. Some records you have to sit with for a moment before they settle.
Bernabe Villacampo — and Fiske and Rivera said this plainly — wasn’t polished. His record wasn’t pretty either. But he went all-in every time he climbed through the ropes, and somehow worked his way to a world title shot. The crowd always loved him for it. You can’t manufacture that.
Ten fighters. Two writers. One document that refused to let these men disappear.
That afternoon at Lefty O’Doul’s remains in my heart. The corned beef, the cable car, Tony Bennett in the background — and at our table, my father and Jack Fiske talking the way men talk when they’ve earned the right to be certain.
Luisito Espinosa and I listened quietly.
We didn’t interrupt that conversation.
We were just grateful to have been there.
What I understand now, that I couldn’t fully then — it wasn’t two writers planning a piece. It was two men settling a debt, something owed to the Greatest Boxers Made in the Philippines.
The Filipino boxing greats crossed oceans and filled arenas but never quite got the homage they deserved, and Mr. Fiske and my father corrected that oversight the only way reporters and fans of The Sweet Science, like them, can.
The byline remains true and closed to our heart— Jack Fiske & Hermie Rivera and has become a veritable hall of fame.
Two names on pages in the Bible of Boxing — and inside those pages, ten men who were never little, never dolls, never anything less than the best of a nation.
The Yanks arrived with rifles, rations, and something they called civilization. So did the Conquistadores Españoles centuries earlier— only theirs came with swords, cannons, and religion.
May 1, 1898. The cannons roared across Manila Bay. In just a few hours, Commodore Dewey’s fleet crushed the Spanish Armada. The battle ended one empire but opened the door to another. The Americans had arrived, not as liberators, but as the next in line.
Not everything they brought wore a uniform. Some things were quite literally foreign— like the blood sport where two men squared up and traded punches until one gave in. To most Filipinos, it made little sense, and it struck a nerve.
Soon after the fall of Manila, American brass issued a clarion call for sports. The Army rolled out baseball. The Navy pushed boxing. They claimed it would keep everyone in line— soldiers, local subjects, everyone. Moral uplift, great for the body and soul, they said. Baseball faded. Boxing flourished.
A Soft Ban
In 1902, they tried to stop it. Act No. 557 outlawed prizefighting. Big fines. Possible jail time. They said it was about protecting public morals. However, for many aspiring Filipinos, boxing gave people a way to move, to stand up, to fight without picking up arms. So, they passed a law banning boxing, but the fights kept coming.
Source: The Cablenews-American, 1910.11.11
Circumvention
Promoters found ways to avoid detection and fines. Clubs became “private.” Temporary membership fees got you through the door. Ads hinted at what was really happening. Pay your peso, become an associate member for a day, and a boxing fan forever. Training continued too. It just went deeper into the back alleys, the borrowed corners, the quiet rooms.
The Lexington Herald (Lexington, Kentucky) • Wed, Aug 4, 1920 • Page 6
How Things Changed
By 1920, the silence broke. One U.S. headline shouted: “Boxing Gloves Supplant Knives in Philippines.” It was a crude analysis, but something tangible had shifted for the better. Old grudges were being handled in new ways. Instead of bolos, disputes were now settled through fisticuffs. The Manly Art, they and their English forebears— called it.
And then came 1921.With Act No. 2984, boxing was legalized— officially. Promoters had to register. Rules were set. Medical checks became part of the game. Gloves, rounds, referees— it all got written down. Boxing had rules now and receipts.
Across the Ocean: A Parallel Fight for Legitimacy
What was happening in the Philippines wasn’t happening in a vacuum. Across the Pacific, New York was facing its own fight outside the ring. Prizefighting had been banned there as early as 1859. Laws came and went like shifting tides. The Horton Law of 1896 gave boxing a brief breath, but it was shut down again by 1900 under the Lewis Law. For two decades, boxing lived in the shadows.
But it didn’t disappear. Not in New York, and not in Manila. In both places, promoters bent the rules without breaking them. “Clubs” popped up, where membership—often bought at the door— gave you access to what was clearly a fight. Decisions were outlawed in New York at one point. Mixed-race bouts were even banned. Some called it reform. Others saw control.
Then came 1920. In New York, the Walker Law, named after Senator James J. Walker, brought boxing out of the shadows. It created a commission to regulate the sport, enforce rules, and issue licenses. Fighters had to be examined by doctors. Gloves, weights, even ticket prices were standardized. Just like that, boxing became legitimate.
The Philippines passed Act No. 2984 just months later. It wasn’t a copy, but the mirror image was undeniable. Both laws aimed to protect the fighters and the crowd, but also to keep the sport in line. Both moved boxing from outlaw to institution…From a sideline hustle to a sanctioned profession.
And just like that, boxing had rules. Not just rules of the ring but rules of survival. In New York, kids under 21 couldn’t go more than six rounds. In Manila, the rules were stricter than before but also more clear. The sport had structure. And that meant it had a future.
Two places. Two systems. One story. Boxing refused to stay buried. It adapted. It waited. And when the law caught up, the fighters were still there…and ready
In Conclusion
The ban did not totally kill the fight game. More than anything, it gave the sport roots. Boxing became more than mere sport. It became a way out, a way up… A chance to prove something— even if no one believed in you. And even after the papers were signed, after it all became legal, the real spirit of it stayed the same.
Filipino boxers and their adherents kept stepping in, ready for the setto. Whatever purpose the sport once served, we gave it soul. The Sweet Science became more than a contest— it became something we Filipinos could rightfully, to this day, call our own.
Sources, References, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings
All references in this article are based on multiple sources like The Ring, The Boxing Blade, The Referee, Cablenews American, BoxRec.com, BoxerList.com, The Tribune, The Manila Bulletin Daily and others
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.
These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes.
Every reasonable effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
Olympic Club (Tondo, Manila): Pearl of the Orient Fists
Long before the bright lights of the Olympic Stadium at the intersection of Avenida Rizal and Calle Doroteo Jose, before the roars erupted in the Filipino boxing circuit and Filipino boxing champions became household names, there was a smaller, humbler cradle of heroes.
They called it the Olympic Athletic Club.
Born out of smoky halls at 62 Calle San Geronimo in Quiapo before 1909, and later transplanted to the Palomar Pavilion in Tondo, the Olympic Club wasn’t built to make stars; it was built to make fighters. In these make-do rings, where tobacco smoke hung heavy and the boards of the ring creaked under each step, Filipino fists first found their rhythm.
It was a time when boxing in Manila was still finding itself, borrowing customs from the Yankees stationed in the Islands but forging something unmistakably Filipino. Here, men didn’t fight for thousand-peso purses. They fought for pride, for standing, for the chance to rise above the dust.
Before Pancho Villa set sail for America, before he carved his name into the pantheon of boxing, he first sharpened his fists here. So did Kid Dencio, who once fought Francisco “Filipino Tiger” Flores for the featherweight championship of the Orient under the Olympic Club’s lights. Flores himself, along with his brothers Ireneo and Macario, was a fixture of these bruising evenings, where reputations were made and unmade before the ink dried on the next day’s paper.
Names that would later reverberate across oceans— Eddie Duarte, Maximiano Villon, Inocencio Moldez, Silvino Jamito— first made their bones here, in fights that most of the world never saw but every Filipino fight fan remembered— through presence, through hearsay, and through newspaper accounts.
And it wasn’t just the locals. American battlers Harry Holmes, Sammy Good, and Rufe Turner, Charlie Lanum, and others stopped by this cauldron. Promoters like Frank Churchill and Eddie Tait kept the wheels turning, staging “smokers” that packed men elbow-to-elbow into Palomar Pavilion, where the gymnasium was flanked by running tracks and galleries for paying spectators.
Digital interpretation of the Olympic Club at Palomar Pavilion (by ManoyTKO)
The rules were simple; pay your peso, find your corner, and brace yourself for thirty-six rounds of raw, unfiltered war.
It began in Quiapo, or so many believed. But records now show the club eventually moved to the heart of Tondo. There, it stood near Calle Palomar, framed by Calle Dizon to the north, the Estero de Magdalena to the east, and the old City Pound to the south— just steps from the constant motion of Tutuban Terminal. It didn’t look like much, but inside, Filipino boxing quietly came alive.
Today, nothing remains of the Olympic Club or its fabled Palomar Pavilion.
Source: National Museum of the Philippines (Correspondence, December 14, 2023.
Where fists once flew and crowds once roared, now stand the halls of Chiang Kai Shek College, alongside a row of private buildings. This history has been carefully confirmed by the Pambansang Museo ng Pilipinas— National Museum of the Philippines, through the kind assistance of Director-General Jeremy R. Barns, CESO III, and his gracious and efficient team in correspondence dated December 14, 2023.
Palomar Park (En Parque de Palomar): (Source: Attributed to respected periodicals like Excélsior, La Vanguardia, El Renacimiento, and La Opinión, circa 1920)
The carousel is gone. So is the Virginia Reel. The estero waters have been tamed. The ring itself, and so too with the boards, ropes, and dreams, has long since disappeared. But if you listen closely, especially browse through the pages of PhilBoxing.com, you might still hear it…the snap of leather and the roar of a crowd rising with every punch.
Fight cards from that era read like a roll call of forgotten warriors— Typhoon Hinds trading blows with Red Emerson, Francisco “Cowboy” Reyes going rounds with Leoncio Bernabe, Young Zuzu squaring up against Joe Ryder. Men like Iron Bux, Kid O’Brien, and Daniel Alberto became legends of the local circuit, their feats whispered about in cabarets and cafés long after the ring lights dimmed.
The Olympic Club wasn’t perfect. It moved, shifted, and sometimes struggled. But it endured because it carried the hopes of young Filipino men who, with each jab and hook, carved a space for themselves in a world that often refused to see them.
By 1918, Churchill and Tait dreamed bigger still. They built the Olympic Stadium along Avenida Rizal in Santa Cruz— Manila’s own comparable to the old Madison Square Garden. It was there, under brighter lights but on the same old canvas, that Filipino boxing would truly roar for the world to hear.
Source: The Cablenews-American, 1910.11.11
Today, the old Olympic Club exists only in memory of yellowed clippings and the faint echoes of battered gloves meeting bone. At least to the extent of our research, there are no known photographs of the ring at the Olympic Club; the sites along Calle San Geronimo and later the Palomar Pavilion too are long gone, erased by time and tides.
It would only be through boxing posters such as this do we know about PALOMAR PARK: It is a sight you wouldn’t forget—The Home of Fun— an entire amusement park constructed like a little Coney Island (New York). Along Calle de Reina Regente in Tondo, the park featured moving pictures, dance halls, merry-go-rounds, a mystic maze, The Famous Samar Twins, even a human roulette wheel. And right in the middle of it all stood the Trozo Boxing Club, where a thousand voices once roared— and where the Olympic Athletic Club would soon be born.
Source: Cablenews-American 1909.11.03: Page 13
It was here, between the laughter, carnival rides, curios, and the scent of river tides, that the Filipino boxer first found his voice. It was here that a nation of fighters, battered but unbroken, first dreamed aloud.
All became part of the story that Filipino fists were writing— one round, one roar, one dream at a time.
Sources, References, Acknowledgements and Recommended Readings:
The Olympic Club flyer and fight card is from the collection of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame (Public Domain)
Digital interpretation of the Olympic Club at Palomar Pavilion (by ManoyTKO)
The Cablenews-American 1910.11.20: Page 7
The Cablenews-American, 1910.11.11
The Cablenews-American 1913.07.19: Page 7)
This article contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act.
These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes.
Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
All references in this article are based on multiple sources like PhilBoxing.com, The National Library of Australia, Elephind.com Database, Newspapers.com, Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, The Ring, The Ring (Records and Almanac), Knockout, Cablenews-American, BoxRec.com, BoxerList.com, The Tribune, The Manila Bulletin Daily, The Philippine Republic, and others.
Olympic Stadium: Philippine Boxing’s Temple of BOOM
(Santa Cruz, Manila)
The Olympic Stadium exists only in memory, passed down from one generation to the next through old newspaper clippings, faded photographs, and stories. Gone are the fighters, the swells, and The Fancy of a golden era. What unforgettable sights and sounds must have filled the air on Saturday nights on Avenida Rizal and Calle Doroteo Jose— the cheers and jeers of a packed crowd enthralled by two fighters testing their will in the squared circle.
Known simply as “The Stadium,” this venue was once a vibrant hub of excitement and camaraderie. American military officers mingled with Filipino elites and commoners alike during a time when boxing reigned as the undisputed kingpin of sports and entertainment. If boxing was the king of sports, then the Olympic Stadium was its queen—a venue unmatched in grandeur and meaning.
Francis Aglar Churchill, popularly known as Frank to friends and business partners— the Tait brothers, Edwin Ensign and Stewart Alfred—helped create a flourishing fight scene in the Philippines. In real estate, they say location is key, and the grounds they chose to build this shrine to boxing were perfect— befitting the sport’s royalty. Situated in what was once the epicenter of Yankee rule during the Philippine Insurrection, it became a space where pugilistic history unfolded.
Digital Art by ManoyTKO (Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame)
The Stadium was a success from the very beginning. You can almost hear the roar of the crowd as local legends like Duarte, Labra, Gener, Jamito, Cabanela, Villon, Zapanta, Moldez, Garcia, Zapanta and Guilledo aka Pancho Villa— the “little giants of the prize ring”— took turns fighting on the canvas to face the best. With blazing fists, innovative footwork, and fearless determination, they captivated a nation and its conquerors, electrifying fight fans from all walks of life.
Photo Credit: The Tribune, February 15, 1934 (Manila, Philippines)
A lifelong curiosity about the origins of Philippine boxing led me to this long-forgotten site—a venue that, in its day, was state-of-the-art, rivaling even some of today’s indoor arenas. It was the birthplace of many Filipino boxing greats, standing proudly across the Manila Grand Opera House on Calle Doroteo Jose and Avenida Rizal.
Photo: Gala of Champions at the Manila Grand Opera Hotel and Casino (March 22-23, 2024). With Luisito Espinosa and the Godfather of Philippine Boxing Antonio Lopez Aldeguer.
It must have been an awe-inspiring sight—two iconic venues facing off on the same street, where Filipinos and Americans once gathered, both serving as grand stages for sports and entertainment.
Due to the high public demand, Llew Edwards, the British lightweight star, embarked on a 4-fight deal to inaugurate the Stadium. His fistic trifecta against our rising Filipino greats started on February 22, 1919, when he fought and beat Francisco “Filipino Tiger” Flores in 10 spirited rounds. Next, on March 26, 1919, he spreadeagled Eustaquio “Eddie” Duarte, considered the first Filipino professional boxer, in 3 rounds of a scheduled 10.
On April 5, 1919, Edwards had his hands full as Kid Dencio Cabanela, who was six pounds lighter, gave the crowd reason for multiple standing ovations. As Bill Miller of the Manila Daily Bulletin surmised the next day, “…This was the most sensational and the most interesting fight ever witnessed in a Manila ring. Cabanela won the 1st, 5th, and 7th rounds, with the seventh being by far his best, as he cut Edwards’ eye and hurt him with a terrific body punch. But Edwards won all the other rounds from the lighter man, and ‘pounded Cabanela all over the ring in round ten and had him at his mercy when the final bell rang.”
Photo Credit: The Tribune, February 24, 1934 (Manila, Philippines)
The Olympic Stadium at Santa Cruz, Manila deserves a book in itself as it is essentially the story of Philippine boxing and its pioneers. What started in 1908 as the Olympic Club in Quiapo, an underground fight club featuring American soldiers and sailors, to the non-profit Olympic Athletic Club in Palomar Park, Tondo, Manila in 1909 later became the swatorium that Frank Churchill built.
After 15 glorious years, the Olympic Stadium’s run ended with a thud on Saturday, February 24, 1934, when Young Tommy knocked out Cunning Nene, taking the Bantamweight Championship of the Orient. The site was later demolished to make way for the Mapua Institute of Technology.
Sources, recommended readings and notes of appreciation:
The top image is from the collection of the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame. The painting is an artist rendition of the Olympic Stadium based on an old advertisement GRAN PELEA on El Debate, February 1925. The fight card is based on a Cable News-American sporting news marquee (April 5, 1919)
Photo Credit: The Tribune, February 15, 1934 (Manila, Philippines)
Photo Credit: The Tribune, February 24, 1934 (Manila, Philippines)
Digital Art by ManoyTKO (Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame)
This book contains selected excerpts, quotations, images, and archival references used under the Fair Use provisions of Section 107 of the United States Copyright Act. These materials are presented for educational, scholarly, and cultural preservation purposes. Every effort has been made to properly attribute sources and limit use to what is necessary to honor the historical and cultural narrative.
All references in this book are based on multiple sources like The Ring, The Ring (Records and Almanac), The Boxing Blade, The Referee, Knockout, Cablenews American, BoxRec.com, BoxerList.com, PhilBoxing.com, The Tribune, The Manila Bulletin Daily and others.
This article has been previously published by PhilBoxing.com, the #1 Boxing Site created by Mr. Dong Secuya
Every celebration begins with the lives that gave it weight and meaning. Family, friends, strangers, acquaintances, colleagues, revered mentors, and the rare editors we meet along the way all help make our narrative complete.
The quest I embarked upon, in and out of the squared circle, began with two men who were the best of pals…My late father, Hermenegildo Ordoña Rivera, also known as Hermie, and Jacob Quincy Finkelstein— Jack Fiske.
One was born in the City of Pines, Baguio. The other came from the Bronx, New York. In 1983 their paths crossed in San Francisco, where the stories of Filipino boxers became legend.
To me, they were great mentors. To each other, they were friends who carried the same fire.
Even today, their memory continues to guide as we gather for Bangon Kabayan: Pistahan sa Fulton — a celebration set for October 11, from 12:00 to 5:00 at the Fulton Steps in San Francisco.
May this tribute honor their memory, and may the event itself carry forward their legacy.
My father was born in 1938 in Baguio City, where pine trees brushed the clouds and cool winds carried both Filipino warmth and American influence.
As a young man at Camp John Hay, he worked tables and polished his grasp of the English language from American soldiers and teachers. But what mattered wasn’t just the words — it was how he listened to their stories, their laughter, even the silence in between.
In 1965, in Dagupan, he met Cristina Pasaoa — our mother — and together they raised six children. By 1983, we had crossed the Pacific and made our home in the Bay Area. Wherever he went, he carried the Philippines with him: in his humor, in his voice, in the way he told a story. Boxing was his compass and his metaphor. He managed champions like Luisito “Lindol” Espinosa and Morris East, and spoke on radio and television with the same sharp eye he once used at ringside.
But boxing, to him, was never just about championships and titles. It was about life — falling, getting up, moving forward. His lessons always carried the rhythm of the ring: never stop; never stay down.
Jack Fiske
Jack Fiske — born Jacob Quincy Finkelstein in 1917 — grew up in the Bronx, served as a medic in World War II, and found his calling in words. By 1950, he was at The San Francisco Chronicle, where his column “Punching the Bag” became a lifeline for fight fans for over 40 years.
His writing was crisp, sharp; and what made him unforgettable was the way he honored the fighter’s journey. He covered Muhammad Ali and Sonny Liston, Sandy Saddler and Flash Elorde, both Luisito Espinosa and MorrisEast…and every other boxer of significance…always showing that a bout was never just a contest. His home on Robblee Street was filled with photos, mementos and boxing ephemera, and seemed less like a house and more like a museum. According to legend, ‘The Greatest’ once paused a press conference to ask Mr. Fiske if he had a question for him.
To many — myself included — Jack was a mentor. And to my father, he was a trusted friend. Together they showed me that behind every punch was a person with a hidden story; behind every fighter, a proud people.
Becoming Giants
It was Saint Patrick’s Day, 1990, at Lefty O’Doul’s on Geary Street…The smell of corned beef in the air, a cable car rattling outside, and from the speakers, Tony Bennett’s voice…crooning…I Left My Heart in San Francisco.
At our table sat four fans of the Sweet Science— Luisito Espinosa, then WBA world bantamweight champion, my father, Hermie, Jack Fiske, and myself.
“They called them Little Brown Dolls,” Jack said — pride in his voice, but also sadness. He knew those men were giants limited to a phrase too small.
My father leaned back, smiled faintly… and said, “And how they could fight.”
That moment will always be in my heart.
My father and Jack collaborated on writing two enduring masterpieces about Filipino boxers — “Little Brown Dolls: A Gallery of Philippine Boxing Champions” and“The Best of a Nation: Philippines” featured in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Philippine Daily Inquirer and The Ring (The Bible of Boxing), respectively.
And their words inspired this aspiring writer.
From that day forward, I began my own quest. I followed the trail that led to the arenas where Filipino fists once thundered; the Olympic Stadium in Santa Cruz, Manila, Dreamland Rink in San Francisco, Cow Palace in Daly City, where Gabriel “Flash” Elorde fought Sandy Saddler, and the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium — a block from Fulton Plaza — where Little Pancho fought Little Dado in 1940, and where Manny Pacquiao fought Agapito Sánchez in 2001.
Some fighters carried our pride across oceans. Others, like Gaudencio “Kid Dencio” Cabanela and Inocencio “Clever Sencio” Moldez gave everything in faraway lands and never made it back home.
After my father passed, I found a bag on his desk — worn Levinson gloves, some wrapped in cloth, with a note in his hand: “You’ll know what to do with these.”
I knew then — they weren’t souvenirs. They were tangible pieces of memory, waiting to be carried forward.
The Friendship and the Torch
What bonded my father and Jack together was simple…they believed the Filipino boxers and fighters mattered. Their struggles in the ring reflected the immigrant’s journey — dignity fought for, round after round.
Before their voices grew quiet, they left us their stories. Those stories became the seed of what we humbly call the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame.
Bangon, Kabayan: Pistahan sa Fulton
The journey has come full circle. From the island of Mactan to the Golden Gate Strait… From Baguio City and the Bronx, from Avenida Rizal in Santa Cruz, Manila , from the Olympic Stadium to Dreamland Rink and the Civic Auditorium — all paths lead here, to San Francisco….To Fulton Plaza, where the San Francisco Public Library and the Asian Art Museum now face each other. As a boy, I Iingered in the old Library — now the museum — while my father and Jack spoke of Francisco Tingson Guilledo (the Pinoy Pancho Villa), Ceferino Garcia, Speedy Dado, and others once described as Little Brown Dolls.
Today, the memories of our Filipino boxing greats return — carried into this plaza, into an exhibit we’ve shaped in the spirit of a bahay kubo, humble and familiar, complete with a kulambo draped as though to guard their legacy. We simply call it Boxiana, in honor of Pierce Egan. Mr. Egan never saw Filipinos fight, but he can be assured the Pinoys carried the torch of boxing with pride. He once wrote of ‘pluck and bottom’ — courage and endurance — qualities ingrained in every Filipino who stepped into the ring and kept rising.
And if you listen closely, one can almost hear Tony Bennett again: I left my heart in San Francisco… For the city, it is an anthem; for us, a prayer — that their legacies stay rooted here, beating still in the heart of the city.
Keep Punchin’
My father left us on January 15, 2016 — he was 77.
Jack Fiske had gone about ten years before.
And I am very sure that they are both smiling from up above and proud of the image of their friend— the great Gabriel “Flash” Elorde gracing the flyer of our celebration on October 11, 2025.
Mabuhay. Salamat. Long live! Thanks.
And as my father always said:
Keep punchin’… and rise from the canvas like the ‘Greatest Boxers Made in the Philippines’.
Event: Bangon, Kabayan: Pistahan sa Fulton
Date & time: Saturday, October 11, 2025 (12:00 – 5:00 p.m.)
Location: Fulton Plaza, Fulton Street Steps, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, California, 94102 (between the Main Library and the Asian Art Museum, near Civic Center BART Station and the U.N. Plaza)
We humbly offer this tribute and artistic photo rendition, drawn from original photographs, in honor of The Thirty Filipino fistic pioneers whose faces mirror our own story.
Behind every name is a heartbeat that has endured for more than a century — a Filipino rhythm, a Pinoy fighting spirit we still carry today. What follows is only a part of their story — and ours — told through the lens of boxing.
It began at Pier 7 in Manila Bay, where Filipino fighters boarded westbound ships with clenched fists, borrowed Sol Levinson gloves, and whatever chance they could grab for a new life.
The Philippines shaped them long before the Pacific took them west. They were dreamers, wanderers, factotums, farmhands, soldiers, fighters — Filipino boys who learned to box anywhere a ring could be set up or imagined.
They climbed the undercard and eventually fought alongside Yankee GI’s at the unofficial and exclusive fight den called Olympic Club on Calle San Geronimo in Quiapo. They fought under open skies at Palomar Park in Tondo, and inside the cauldron called Olympic Stadium along Avenida Rizal and Calle Doroteo Jose — where crowds roared to the high heavens.
They left Manila not as champions but as young fighters stepping into a future none of them could fully envision. They boarded military vessels built more for war than anything else. Many slept beside crates, ammunition and cargo. Their names weren’t known at the time, but their will and resolve pushed them forward.
Their journey crossed the Pacific and brought them to San Francisco — a place wide enough for their stories to unfold.
No banners, no headlines, no promises awaited…Just the idea that if they kept moving, they might land on streets paved with gold.
Photo: Sol Levinson gloves at the Embarcadero (Ferry Building and Clock Tower, San Francisco, October 2025)
The Bay met them with thick fog, bone-chilling wind, and a stiff challenge. By the time they caught sight of the Ferry Building clock tower and stepped onto the piers along the Embarcadero, something in them stirred.
They had reached what the conquering Yanks called “God’s Country.”
Hunger and hardship— not to mention pestilence, subjugation, typhoons, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions— shaped them and gave them the necessary credentials and fortitude to succeed in a foreign land.
The City of San Francisco was the place where the Filipino boxers’ rise in America began.
On Market Street, they settled into the American story as immigrants who became folk heroes, in the stretch south of Market Street that would one day be known as Little Manila — the earliest Filipino enclave to rise in a major American city.
Photo: The lacustrine village of Saint Malo, Louisiana: Bits of Saint Malo scenery (Drawn by Charles Graham from sketches by J.O. Davidson). Saint Malo, first described by Lafcadio Hearn for Harper’s Weekly (March 31, 1883)
Long before that, Filipino sailors who plied the Acapulco–Manila galleon trade for Spain decided to stay in New Orleans and built the lacustrine village of St. Malo on the marshes of Lake Borgne in Louisiana — a quiet settlement shaped by wind on the water, shifting reeds, and boats knocking gently against their moorings.
Formed in the early 1800s, it stands as the first permanent Filipino community in the United States, a reminder that our story here began in the stillness of the water before it ever reached the noise and brightness of the big city.
Photo: (L) Bill Graham Civic Auditorium • (R) San Francisco City Hall
Filipino fighters walked into gyms and boxed at halls where nothing came easy. From the 1910s through the 1940s, they fought in clubs up and down the West Coast — including the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles — where crowds moved from doubt…to surprise…to respect.
Photo: Dreamland Rink–Auditorium (Then and Now)
Eddie Duarte — the first professional boxer from the Philippines — fought at Dreamland Rink and paved the way for the likes of Macario Villon, Speedy Dado, Small Montana, Little Pancho and Little Dado.
Here in the Bay, the story of Francisco Tingson Guilledo leaned toward both triumph and tragedy. Known as Pancho Villa, he fought his last bout at the old Oaks Ball Park in Emeryville on July 4, 1925. Most ringside observers — and nearly every newspaperman — had him winning, but the lone judge, referee Bobby Johnson, ruled it differently. Ten days later, in San Francisco — a city sharing the name of the saint he was likely named after — Francisco Tingson Guilledo passed away with the world crown still in his possession.
Ceferino Garcia turned the bolo punch into something distinctly his own at Dreamland on Post and Steiner. Ringside writers noted that Ross received the decision and Garcia was denied the win on September 14, 1935.
Caption: Little Dado–Little Pancho world flyweight title fight. Pancho lands a right cross. (Honolulu Star-Advertiser, Jul 1, 1940)
The last championship bout here was the Little Dado–Little Pancho draw at the San Francisco Civic Auditorium (now the Bill Graham Civic) on June 17, 1940.
Decades later, Gabriel “Flash” Elorde, Luisito “Lindol” Espinosa, and Emmanuel “Manny” Pacquiao walked the same streets and fought in the Bay Area — carrying the memory of those who came before us.
The squared circle kept going, evolving. Boxing reshaped itself, and our Filipino fighters stayed in the mix— in California to New York and somewhere in between. Size, as the saying goes, does not matter on the path to greatness.
For over a century, the names of The Thirty waited quietly in archives, trunks, and scrapbooks… fading ink… fragile clippings… until one windy autumn afternoon at the plaza.
Bangon Kabayan — Pistahan sa Fulton became something more than a gathering.
On October 11, 2025, at the Fulton Steps in Civic Center, the journey bent back to where many of these paths first touched America.
The barrio fiesta honoring Philippine boxing carried the feel of a homecoming — in its own way.
People from different walks of life — boxers, martial artists, families, passersby — formed a modest crowd that seemed to move with one steady pulse.
For a brief moment in time, San Francisco felt just a little like Manila.
This revival happened because a Filipino and American community decided the past deserved light. Librarians, curators, organizers, artists, folk dancers, boxers, martial artists, families, and friends — each lifted a corner of the story until it rose into view.
The gathering at the Fulton Steps in San Francisco would not have been possible without the support of friends, family, and our Filipino and American community.
We thank Jaena Rae Cabrera, project manager, and Melissa-Ann Reyes, librarian of the Filipino American Center at the SFPL — whose care and steady vision gave us a chance to share the story of Philippine boxing.
Jaena Rae Cabrera brings a journalist’s curiosity and a librarian’s touch. With degrees from San Francisco State University and Syracuse, she shaped programs that moved history out of the shelves and into the community. She served on national stages too…co-director of the Filipino American International Book Festival; president of APALA. She has a way of making gatherings feel familiar, blending scholarship with celebration.
The LIKHA Pilipino Folk Ensemble carried our traditions through music and dance.
Power Struggle and Bayani Art showed how culture grows when people create together.
To our friends — old and new — at the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame…Thanks.
Our Pinoy boxers began their fistic journey in Manila and reached San Francisco — a city that welcomed them, much as it welcomed us, the doers and dreamers like my niece Keana Christine Rivera and her mother, my sister Charina.
We are also thankful to Master Danovis “Dee” Pooler and Kru Mark Tabuso of Evolve Martial Arts, who showed that boxing and footwork grow from rhythm, art, and discipline tied to Filipino Martial Arts.
To the Medida Family— Joan and Ryan and their daughters Athena Ryanne and Hera Joanne— Salamat for your presence.
To Sir Dong Secuya, founder of PhilBoxing.com — Daghang Salamat. We look forward to more stories, and many more rounds, with you in our corner.
A Boxiana Homecoming for The Thirty
They were the thunder before the storm, the sound that told the world something was coming.They took the steps others hesitated to take and refused to live as footnotes in the story of the fight game. On their shoulders, we continue to rise. With courage, resourcefulness, and the truth carried in their fists, they lifted the heart and soul of us Filipinos onto the world stage — and in so doing, they became giants.
Sila ang kulog bago ang bagyo. Dahil sa kanila, patuloy tayong umaangat. Tinahak nila ang mga landas na inatrasan ng iba, at hindi pumayag na maging pahapyaw na tala sa kasaysayan ng boksing. Sa tapang, talino, at lakas ng kanilang kamao, iniangat nila ang puso at kaluluwa ng Pilipino sa harap ng mundo — at sa gayon, sila ay naging mga higante.
Mabuhay at Salamat.
Sources and Acknowledgements
The artistic collage and rendition of Filipino boxing greats were designed and digitally created by ManoyTKO Digisigns, faithfully using modern tools with reference to archival materials from The Ring Magazine, the Manila Daily Bulletin, the National Archives of the United States, San Francisco newspapers (the SF Examiner, SF Bulletin, and SF Call), the San Francisco History Center at the SFPL, and various vintage trading cards and photographs that have been preserved over time.
All other photographs in this article were taken by us, or shared from sources long committed to remembering our past. We make no claims of ownership, only the responsibility of caretakers who wish to share them with reverence.
These images— spanning the 1910s to the 1940s— are presented under the United States Fair Use Doctrine for non-commercial, educational, and historical purposes.
Boxing has long been woven into the fabric of Filipino identity. For over a hundred years, the Sweet Science has shaped the spirit of our people. The ring was where hardship became hope. Pinoy boxers didn’t just fight for belts. They fought for dignity, for recognition, and for the kind of respect our people were often denied.
I understood part of that history — but it came into sharper focus one afternoon in 1990, at Lefty O’Doul’s on Geary Street in San Francisco.
The Corner Table at Lefty’s
It was Saint Patrick’s Day at Lefty O’Doul’s, a hoppin’ Irish pub on Geary Street. The smell of corned beef mixed with warm sourdough. A cable car passed outside. Somewhere in the background, Tony Bennett sang “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
But at our table, it wasn’t about celebration. It was about memory.
I sat with Luisito “Lindol” Espinosa — WBA Bantamweight Champion at the time — my father Hermie Rivera, and Jack Fiske, the hall-of-fame boxing writer from the San Francisco Chronicle.
They spoke of the greats, and Louie and I listened. About the ones who made their mark. And the ones who never got their due.
“They called them Little Brown Dolls,” Mr. Fiske said. His voice held pride, but also pain — he knew they were giants, bound by a name too small.
My father nodded. “And how they could fight.”
In Search of Giants
What followed wasn’t just a story in the papers. My father and Mr. Fiske had written pieces that brought old names back into the light. For most, it was history. For me, it was personal. The history and mystique of the fight game drew me in. I started digging through books, yellowed clippings, forgotten photos, and stories passed down in gyms. I was looking for them. And maybe I was looking for myself too — as a Filipino and as an American.
Some of their gloves remain with us. Duarte’s leather. Jamito’s faded pair. Villa’s cracked gloves from the McLarnin fight. They weren’t signed. Real fighters didn’t do that. Jack Fiske used to say it was like tempting fate. My father believed it too.
I once tried to have Luisito Espinosa and Morris East sign their fight mitts. They smiled and said no.
“That brings bad luck,” Luisito said.
“You don’t bring misfortune into your corner,” Morris concurred, years later.
They were more than champions to me. They were my friends. And like the old ones, they kept to the code.
Luisito added, as if to punch the message home: “If you need a signature to prove they’re yours, you probably haven’t earned the right to keep them.”
Some gloves came through quiet bequests. Jack Fiske passed on those of Villa, Duarte, Villon, Posadas, Jamito, and Cabanela. Al Corona gave us those of Garcia, Gan, and Zapanta.
My father kept them close. He never boasted. He just held on. After he passed, I found a bag beneath his desk. Inside were fight gloves — some unlaced, some wrapped in cloth. Folded between them was a note in his hand: “You’ll know what to do with these Levinsons.” They weren’t souvenirs. They were stories. Left behind by men who never asked to be remembered — only to be understood.
Where Filipino Fists Made the Ground Tremble
Long before Vegas, before the Garden, the Olympic Auditorium in L.A., or the Civic in San Francisco, there was a place in Santa Cruz, Manila. The Olympic Stadium. They simply called it The Stadium. It’s gone now. But if you close your eyes, it’s still there. You can hear the crowd. Feel the air shift. Smell cigars and sweat. Leather against skin. Feet on canvas. That’s where Duarte, Jamito, Cabanela, Villon, Garcia, and Pancho Villa stepped into the ring and made it sacred — by fighting for something bigger than themselves.
The Stadium opened on February 22, 1919. That night, Francisco “Filipino Tiger” Flores faced Llew Edwards of Wales. It wasn’t just a fight — it was a message. The world was starting to see what we already knew: Filipino fighters belonged.
In 1899, during the Philippine-American War, Damon Runyon wrote about U.S. troops finding a pair of Sol Levinson gloves inside a Filipino barracks after the Battle of San Mateo. One Runyon article became two. We gave it a chapter in this book.
From that flame came a generation who stepped through the ropes. In 1910, Eustaquio Duarte — once a messboy on the US Army Transport Burnside — stepped off the deck in Tacoma and into the fight game. Then San Francisco. Then Manila. He became the first Filipino professional boxer. Then came Cowboy Reyes, Macario Villon, Speedy Dado Posadas — who brought their fists to the Dreamland Rink and the Olympic Auditorium. Back home, the fire kept growing. The Olympic Club in Quiapo held matches as early as 1913, featuring the first all-Filipino card — headlined by Francisco Labra and Daniel Alberto, for best bantamweight of the Philippine Islands. By 1918, crowds packed the Palomar Pavilion in Tondo. They weren’t just stepping in. They were headlining.
Crossing Oceans, Carrying Names
Frank Churchill ran the shows. The Brothers Tait — Stewart and Edwin — handled promotion and matchmaking. The U.S. Navy’s Chief Yeoman Joe Waterman and Marine Ed Gallaher helped build the scene from Subic Bay to Olongapo.
Names like Labra, Cortez, and Sanchez kept boxing alive. When local fights dried up in 1920, some boxers went abroad. Jamito, Cabanela, and Villon fought in Australia.
But not all stories ended well.
In Melbourne, Kid Dencio collapsed in the 13th round. He died the next day. Still they pressed on.
Rhythm in the Ring
Through the 1920s and ’30s, Filipino fighters rose. They fought in Los Angeles, San Francisco, the Polo Grounds, Madison Square Garden — wherever the work was. They weren’t supposed to be the main event. But they were. They were small — five feet tall, maybe a hundred pounds. But they carried a strength you couldn’t weigh. Their style came from home. There were traces of Kali, Eskrima, and Arnis in their rhythm. They didn’t just box. They transformed the fight.
As my father kept walking his road through boxing, I kept building on what he left behind — news clippings, gloves, posters, stories from old scribes. So much was lost to war and time. But enough survived to bring their names back into the light.
March 23, 2024. We stood on the corner of Avenida Rizal and Calle Doroteo Jose, across from the old Manila Grand Opera House. It’s just traffic now. Noise, vendors, wires. But that day we saw something else. We pictured a “Sabado” fight night under incandescent lights. A packed crowd — Filipinos in barongs, others in suits and ties — all tipping their hats to the American promoters and boxers who brought the fight game to our islands. We felt the heat, saw the tension, and smelled stale tobacco smoke. We heard echoes from the past— the shuffle of feet on canvas, thuds of gloves and punches, and the roar of the crowd…and the silence between rounds.
Just for a moment in the tropical heat of Manila, it all came back.
This was the place
Santa Cruz, Manila — where boxing gave our people something to believe in. Where men stepped into the ring and left everything they had. Where a bruised but rising nation found its rhythm — and its heart.
For Them, For Us
It is my hope that the Philippine Boxing Historical Society and Hall of Fame becomes more than a name…and that it becomes our home, our gathering place where Filipino boxing greats are honored and remembered.
This is for them — for our fellow Little Brown Dolls.
The Greatest Fighters Made in the Philippines.
For the boxers whose stories are inextricably woven into ours.
Who rose from humble beginnings to become giants.
Mabuhay. Salamat. Long live.
Thank you for joining this aspiring writer in remembering.
Saturday, July 11, 2026
