A Pilgrimage, A Century and a Year Later

August 1, 2026 (San Francisco, California)

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.

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.

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.