The sternum-thumping music had not been cued, the air inside the darkened Robart's Arena was still cool and free of the mix of cigar smoke and sweat that would give the place a musty tinge.

Jose Alonzo wouldn't say he was nervous, even though it had been more than a year since his last professional fight. He preferred anxious.

He paced from the front door, through a small clutch of spectators too busy buying beer to consider if he was one of the fighters they would see in the ring this Friday night in Sarasota. A bad cold threatened to ruin his sixth pro fight, and he sipped water spiked with cough drops as he chatted with his family and glanced toward the ring.

A budding career was hinging on how he would do in there in a couple of hours, that red-and-blue stage elevated and illuminated in the middle of neat rows of chairs and $800 tables.

Alonzo, with a 5-0 record, sipped some more water and wandered back into his home base, the "Blue" locker room.

"This a big night," Alonzo said.

Inside the concrete vault that was the locker room, Anthony Vazquez had shed his street clothes and was beginning to limber. It was less than an hour until the first bout was set to begin, and Vazquez, a featherweight from New Port Richey, had just found out from the white-haired man in the headset that he would fight second.

The man was the Florida State Boxing Commission's sentinel in the locker room, and has a lot of power. He also had a lot of dirty work to do, including watching each fighter like a hawk once they have donned their gloves. He inspects and endorses each taped hand with a Sharpie, and if they meet his approval, he moves on and does the same with the gloves.

If a fighter has to use the bathroom once he's taped or gloved, the inspector must follow him to make sure nothing is tampered with.

"They go right in there," laughed trainer Angel Rosa, laying out the pieces of bandage he would wrap around Vazquez's hands. "You have to. There could be someone in the stall with you ready to slip a lead shot in there otherwise. You never know in this business."

Vazquez had returned from the bathroom -- alone -- by the time the official threw open the door to the dour locker room, allowing in a clamor of voices and the first strains of the Star Spangled Banner.

Nearly 3,600 would jam into the arena, mostly to see hometown hero China "The Dragon" Smith fight for his 18th consecutive victory, and they were itching for some action in the meantime.

Alonzo ducked outside the locker room and into the throng, and quickly was surrounded by some of the 100 or more friends who had traveled from Spring Hill for the fight. A long-time friend, C.J. Aldamuy, gave him a tiny gold cross he'd slip into his sock for good luck.

"Sitting around waiting is the worst part," Alonzo said. "I'm not nervous, not yet, but I want to get out there."

After a final moment with his girlfriend, Michelle Ramos, he ducked back inside the solitude of the locker room and began addressing the unwritten prefight checklist item by item.

First, the Puerto Rico flag head wrap went on, then shadow boxing, then pacing.

The routine was broken momentarily when the headliner, Smith, arrived with his large entourage, including trainer and local boxing legend Henry Grooms.

Being the headliner has its advantages. Three sets of trainers and fighters have to halt their activity to allow Smith's camp to push through the narrow confines of their corner of the room. A teal and white curtain slices the room in half, similar to the partition between coach and first-class seating on an airplane, and Smith will have all the space he needs in the back.

The snap of Latex gloves means it's fight time. Vazquez, who trains in the same New Port Richey gym as Alonzo, is ready for his second pro fight and Alonzo hovers near the locker door to wish him luck.

A few feet away, Lizette Vera cheers wildly as her fiancee's camp makes the short swagger from the locker room to the ring.

"My baby better win," she said. "He can take it. I don't get nervous about him receiving the punches. I'm not even nervous about him giving the punches. I just want him to win."

He does, quickly scoring a technical knockout a minute-and-a-half into the second round.

Back in the lockers, it's hard to key down, but he's looking forward to the week off from training he'll have before starting the cycle again.

"I didn't sleep at all last night," Vazquez said. "Tonight, I'll sleep like a baby. Easy."

Rosa still has work to do, however.

Dwayne White is up next and Rosa is busily "catching mitts" to help him prepare. The synchronous dance continues several minutes, Rosa dodging, weaving and thudding what look like overstuffed oven mitts into White's punches. After every few cycles he illuminates a hole in White's defense with a thwap! against the side of his head.

After a few minutes, White is worked into a prefight lather. Rosa's pooped, and plops into a chair. A former club fighter and third-generation trainer, Rosa, in his 40s, has been around the sport since his teens.

He knows what they're going through.

"It's tense on the fighter," he said. "Me, I'm used to it. It's like a walk in the park, but I feel for them, too. It gets to me because I want to put myself in their shoes, which is what I do. I pretend I'm him and I'm going to fight and go through the same routine as when I was in the ring."

Squeezed next to the bathroom is trainer Mike Serrano -- who runs an Ybor City gym -- and his corner man, holding a metal bucket with some towels and sponges inside. Their Latex gloves are on.

"In here, I'm okay," said Serrano, who has three sons who box. "Out there ..."

Even the fans feel the tension.

Outside the arena, Alonzo's girlfriend, Michelle Ramos, is with some of Alonzo's friends from Spring Hill who are smoking away a little tension.

"The last of his fights I went to I was eight months pregnant," Mary Weisman said. "I thought I was going to go into labor."

Stress begins to show in Alonzo's corner of the locker room. State officials had just given Rosa permission to begin taping Alonzo's hands when Dwayne "Dynamite" White answered the blare of his The Devil Went Down to Georgia intro music.

Less than 15 minutes later, White was back, wearing his black cowboy hat, cattle coat and nary a scratch after scoring a first-round knockout. Alonzo didn't even have his gloves on yet.

"We should have done this a long time ago," Alonzo bellowed as Rosa smeared petroleum jelly on his face.

A few feet away, arms crossed, eyes scanning the scene, is Juan LaPorte, a former WBC featherweight champ who looks like he could still handle most anyone in the building.

LaPorte, an acquaintance of Rosa's, made a 20-hour drive from New York City to see Alonzo. He, Rosa, and Alonzo's stepfather, Nelson Saldana, would all wear the shiny black-and-white jerseys as Alonzo's cornermen.

LaPorte had been in Alonzo's position dozens of times before, heard the cheers, and the deafening silence when they went away. Now he's content to train fighters and offer tidbits of advice, like putting the cough drops in the water bottle to keep nasal passages clear. Boxers can't fight if they can't breathe.

"I'm over this," he smirked. "I had my fun."

Rosa catches mitts with Alonzo for a few minutes before the official answers the voice on the other side of his walkie-talkie. It's time.

"Let's go," the man says, swinging open the door.

Rosa slips Alonzo's black robe onto his hopping frame and the procession begins.

Into the din, into the fray.

The spectacle is intoxicating, overwhelming each sense in turn. Thumping music, blinding lights, three-minute flurries of violence separated by the strut of ring girls inside the ropes.

Underneath the buzz, the fighters, the cornermen struggle with their craft.

"You block it all out," Rosa said. "You have to because you have to focus on the fight. You hear the people behind you and the screaming and the punches when they hit, but you have to focus. It's like everything stands still for that four rounds -- completely stands still. You don't see anything but two guys in front of each other. And all of a sudden it's over, and you awaken."

Alonzo's technical knockout came in 96 seconds, as a year's worth of compressed angst discharged onto Kevin Underwood's head with a left hook.

Alonzo, back in the locker room, celebrated with his corner just longer than the bout lasted. He and Vazquez, back in street clothes, hug with their families in the arena, anonymous again.

Running a fever and feeling ill, he and Ramos would be in a car and off for Spring Hill before Smith entered the ring.

"This is pretty unbelievable," said Saldana, sipping a beer and smiling for the first time in hours. "We were pretty tense before. Right now, though, we celebrate."

Back to Hernando County news

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

From today's
Hernando Times

Fight brews between utility, neighborhood

Pleas may resuscitate drivers ed

Can we talk about this year's budget?

Joining fire districts maximizes efficiency

Hernando briefs

The night of the fight