Interview Dated 2005 Gym Owner/

Interview Dated 2005

Gym Owner/Trainer Juan Lopez

Juan Lopez is one of the dozens of men and women who continue to devote their time and energy to the future of boxing in the Houston area. He runs the Lopez Boxing Gym in Baytown, where kids from that industrial community toil as their pursue their dreams. Lopez has dreams as well, of goals he has yet to realize in the sport. Most notably in the past he has trained former I.B.F. Light Middleweight Champion Raul Marquez during Marquez's three-year comeback bid. But Lopez continues to look toward the future as he develops several promising young Baytown prospects.

HBS - Where are you from originally?

JL - I was born across the border in Reynosa and I came to Baytown in 1977.

HBS - How did you first become interested in boxing?

JL - I came to the United States when I was 13 years old in South Texas and that's where traiing and then when I came to Houston I fought a couple of times here and then I moved to Baytown because first I was living in Pasadena. Then I quit boxing and they didn't have no gyms in Baytown and so we had two kids, me and my wife, and stopped boxing. It was just an accident that I started training two fighters here from Baytown. That's how it started in 1984.

HBS - Your fights they were pro fights or amateur fights?

JL - They were amateur fights.

HBS - What is it that attracted you to the sport?

JL - I had always loved boxing you know but I didn't want to commit to train fighters because I don't like to do things halfway so when I started training these two kids I told them I was just going to train them for the Golden Gloves and then they were going to go their separate ways. I wasn't looking to train for the long haul.

HBS - You mentioned that was in a backyard?

JL - Actually it was in their daddy's backyard. It was Mr. Gonzalez. That's where we set up a ring. It was Frankie and Rudy Gonzalez. That was the first two kids that I ever started training here in Baytown.

HBS - What happened with them?

JL - Frankie went on to win national titles and he won a lot of Golden Gloves and state championships and then he turned pro and fought like ten times and then he got married and quit and Rudy did the same thing. He fought ten times as a pro here with me and never lost a fight but he got married and quit the sport.

HBS - When did you move to your current location here on Defee Street?

JL - Thirteen years ago.

HBS - So you have a pretty fair collection of kids I see working out here. Tell us about some of the top pro and amateur boxers that have come through here over the years.

JL - My first main event fighter was Joel Perez. We got him up to the number two in the I.B.F as a lightweight and he fought for the world title against Paul Spadafora in Denver and we lost a decision against him. Over the years Jaime was one of the best amateurs, my son Jaime Lopez. He won like 11 Golden Gloves and he had six or seven open titles in the state and he was with the USA team. He fought against Argentina and some international fights and also he had eight pro fights and he never lost a fight but he quit fighting to graduate from the University of Houston in Education so he's already graduated. I'm real proud of him.

HBS - Now you've got a couple of pros in here, Miguel Martin among them. Tell us where things stand right now.

JL - We've got Miguel Martin and he's 18-2 as a pro and I got him when he was real green as a raw novice pretty much. He's been working with us here in Baytown since 2001 and we also have J. C. Candelo, a Colombian kid that went 12 rounds with Winky Wright. I also trained Raul Marquez for all his comeback fights except the one against Taylor, his last fight but he never lost a fight while he was here with us in Baytown.

HBS - Martin's had some ups and downs but he's coming off a big win. Tell us about that.

JL - While we had training camp for the last fight I told Miguel that he looked extremely well, even better than when he was undefeated 17-0. So he had a real good training camp. He had a lot of problems last year, financially and personal problems and that really was a setback for him. But really thank God he's through with that and he's real dedicated and looking forward to fight again. So we got an offer from Golden Boy Promotions that we're looking at and we'll see in the next couple of weeks what develops.

HBS - What is it about boxing that has kept you in it all these years?

JL - Well it's obviously the love of the sport because it's not the money. Because we put in a lot of time and effort and money. One of the things that is the hardest is to be away from the family when you go to train. One time when we fought Mosely I was in Vegas for training camp for six weeks and that ain't something that you really enjoy. You enjoy the training camp and everything but being away from the family is the hardest but I guess the love of the sport is what keeps me in it and I'm still going. There are two things that I still want to accomplish before I really give the boxing gym to my son Jaime so he can keep on training the kids. I want to have an Olympian and I want to have a world champion which we've been real close on both. We're 0-3 in world titles and it's obvious that we haven't had an Olympic guy but we're getting there. We've got a couple of kids that in 2008 look real promising so we're looking forward to it.

HBS - As a trainer what are some of the most common mistakes you see boxers making?

JL - Well I had a conversation with Walt Hailey and Kenny Weldon and Ray Ontiveros which are some of the old trainers that were there when I started. To me the biggest problem we have in boxing right now is the kids that start, it's all about the trainers, not about the fighters. They don't teach good fundamentals from the get-go. They're too worried about winning fights. When they do that they develop the kids to be just brawlers and they don't have the right skills for the future. That's one thing that I don't do. A lot of my kids get slapped around when they first fight, the first, second, third fight but I'm not for the sprint, I'm for the marathon. So I look forward to develop kids on the national level so that's one of the things that I see in the Gulf Association that needs to change. But who am I to say that, you know? I just develop my kids and we'll see what happens.