There is a certain spiritual affinity between boxing events at the Jardin Nuevas Glorias Soberanas is Juan Diaz and at the Panama Al Brown Arena in Colon.
These venues, though with their obvious differences, are similar to one another and different from the more upscale Panama City locales in the crowds that they attract. You don’t have corporate VIP sections in Juan Diaz or Colon. The “beautiful people” don’t show their faces in such plebeian places. These are gathering places of the rank and file, the true keepers of the boxing tradition, which in many cases is the family tradition. In Colon it happens to be a predominantly black crowd, while in Juan Diaz the people who turn out for boxing are in the main cholos, but really, race has nothing to do with this. It’s a matter of class. In Colon and Juan Diaz people come to see the boxing, not to be seen drinking and smoking with the in crowd. Whole families come, the male elders often bearing the scars of their boxing years, the little boys impatient for the day when, like their older brothers, they will enter the ring.
The Jardin Nuevas Glorias Soberanas is in many ways an abominable venue in the physical sense. The lighting is improvised, although with a bit more skill than what I have seen at more upscale boxing venues. The wooden steps to the blue corner appeared to be close to the point of collapse. The plastic chairs in which the crowd sits most likely wouldn’t do much harm if some drunken and bloodthirsty dolt threw one of them into the ring, but they are neither sturdy nor comfortable. If ever Panama's boxers were to unionize, the dressing rooms would be a labor grievance. Moreover, the Juan Diaz boxing headquarters doesn’t hold a very large crowd, which is another reason why “important” fights don’t take place there.
On this night, for example, the night’s principal bout was an inconsequential rematch between Panamanian Renán “Bam Bam” Acosta and Colombian Dairo Julio. VERY inconsequential, seeing Acosta came two the weigh-in two pounds heavier than he should have been, and though the fight went on, the local pugilist stepped into the ring having lost by forfeit.
It turned out to be a well-matched fight with its excellent moments. I was there with a documentary crew from BBC television, who were there for not only a good time but also to add a bit of color to a 20-minute segment on Panama in general. My habit is to score fights as they go, as it seems also to be with one of the British journalists. At the end of the fight I had the Colombian winning by a point, my colleague had it the other way by the same margin and the judges gave their split decision to Acosta, I think entirely on the strength of a sixth-round knockdown that Julio protested should have been counted as a slip and fall.
The bottom line? Though disgraced by failing to make weight, Acosta wasn’t doubly set back by being beaten to boot, so at 12-2 his professional career probably isn’t over. He should consider himself lucky.
That was at the end of the night, but as we came into the jardin we caught the last bout and a half of an amateur card that preceded the professional boxing night. Now it is most unusual here, and prohibited in many places, to feature the amateurs and professionals in the same place on the same night. But in Juan Diaz it made sense. This is a neighborhood venue where working people go to see fighters on their way up, and almost anything that can be done to promote Panama’s neglected amateur boxing scene is worthy.
(Come September we shall see if one of the possible things that can be done to promote the amateur fight game will in fact be done, when the new administration and legislature decide whether to reverse Mireya Moscoso’s decision to eliminate legislators’ circuit funds and centralize all political patronage in the presidency. Say what you will about the long history of abuses by various legislators, but there is also a tradition of the circuit funds being used to promote local sports. For years the Golden Gloves subsisted on such subsidies, and when the circuit funds were abolished the president never saw fit to replace amateur boxing’s loss with money from other sources. That’s one of the main reasons why, even though little Panama is a big boxing power, we won’t be sending any fighters to the Athens Olympics.)
The professional boxing matches began with a couple of quickies. Jonathan Aguilar and Javier Tello got in a few minor licks in the first round, and in the second the doctor stopped the fight with Aguilar bleeding from a nasty cut over his right eye. But the ref said that the cut was from an unintentional head butt --- which neither I nor the people around me saw --- and thus there was no decision. Then the Chiricano Ramiro Lara sent the hometown hopeful Mario Moreno crashing to the canvas for the count in the first round.
There followed a truly awful bout --- the pugilistic analogue of a tale told by an idiot, complete with head down bull charges, bobbing without weaving, wild flailing, signifying more or less nothing --- between Anselmo “Chemito” Moreno and Saturnino Camacho. Moreno got the decision and now has an 8-1 record, which speaks a lot better for him than did his performance on this night.
Then it was time for people outside the ring to disgrace themselves. Armando Rojas and Gilberto González squared off with the latter totally dominating in the first couple of rounds but the former rallying in the next three. Roja’s entourage jammed up front, into their man’s corner, making it hard for people to see. The promoters and then the cops tried to get these people to sit back down so that everybody else could enjoy the fight, but they weren’t listening. Finally in the sixth round Rojas’s trainer Eduardo Mena jumped into the ring to protest that referee Héctor Afú had allowed González to make an illegal punch, and Afú did the proper thing in the situation: he disqualified Rojas due to Mena’s presence in the ring. People threw beer into the ring and Rojas’s obnoxious entourage threw a fit. It was a sordid scene all the way around.
The night’s penultimate bout was the best, in my opinion. Panama City’s José “Maco” Arboleda squared off against Colon’s José “Indio” Miranda and the 122-pounders traded licks, and combinations of licks, over eight rounds. In the second round Miranda put Arboleda down on the canvas, but Arboleda got back up and held his own for the remainder of the asalto. The third round especially was a thrilling back-and-forth slugfest. At the end of it Arboleda won a decision with which my scorecard concurred, but a substantial part of the crowd apparently disagreed. The result left Arboleda with an 11-3 record, against Miranda’s 7-3-2 --- neither of them is ever likely to make it to the top, but both were worthy representatives of the sport on this night in Juan Diaz.
Also in this section:
Panamanians in Major League Baseball
Boxing Night in Juan Diaz
National Soccer team warms up against Bermuda, Guatemala
FSU-Panama wins the local American Football championship
