Becoming Giants
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.
As my father, Hermie Rivera, used to say —
Keep punchin’…
—Emmanuel Rivera