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“You could no more than get his name out, and he had a great big grin from ear to ear,” said Jerrad Jeske, former Rainier High School head football coach, who coached Perez in 2004 and 2005.
“He always had a smile on his face, even when he was in trouble,” said Russ Surridge, Eloy’s principal at Grand Mound Elementary School near Rochester. “He’d look at me with that smile and say, ‘Yeah, I know.’ That’s not a difficult kid.”
The only trouble Perez is causing these days is for his opponents in the boxing ring. In nearly eight years as a professional boxer, Eloy has never lost a fight, compiling a 23-0-2 (seven KOs) record.
Perez’s climb to the top of the professional boxing world has been nearly 13 years in the making. After a once-troubled childhood in Rochester, Perez used boxing as an outlet to deal with aggression. He is one fight away from achieving his dream of bringing a professional world championship back to Washington and his hometown.
Last month, the 25-year-old Perez received the news that he will face WBO super featherweight champion Adrien Broner (22-0-0, 18 KOs) for his first shot at a professional world championship Feb. 25 in St. Louis. The fight will be broadcast live on HBO on the undercard of the Devon Alexander vs. Marcos Maidana fight.
“My life is blessed,” Perez said while sitting with his father in his modest two-bedroom apartment along U.S. Highway 101 in Salinas, Calif.
TROUBLED CHILDHOOD
Fighting came naturally to young Eloy, who was teased by Rochester classmates about his Mexican heritage. Perez said he was chubby and shy, and the teasing often led to scraps – short fights that Perez won – when someone chose the wrong day to pick on him.
Lifelong friend James Douglas, now a baseball coach at Oakville High School, said it was the only way Perez knew to stand up for himself.
“He got a lot of teasing about being Mexican, you know ‘You’re from Oaxaca’ and stuff like that,” Douglas said. “But he was always tough enough to stand up for himself. My dad told him, ‘You like to fight so much, let’s see how you like boxing’ and took us to the gym.”
Perez said he thought he was turning into a bully, and that boxing gave him a controlled outlet for his aggression and helped him learn to avoid fights at school.
Rose Farrar, Perez’s third- and fourth-grade teacher at Grand Mound Elementary, recalled Perez as a “pure boy” who simply needed guidance.
“He needed to be told that he should do something, that it needed to be done, and that he wouldn’t regret it,” she said. “He took some work.”
“I was a devil, but she kept having faith in me,” Perez said.
Perez came to the United States as a 13-month-old baby. His father, Eloy Perez Sr., gave up his career as a teacher in Mexico to make a better life for his wife, Digna Montealegre, and their son. First coming to the United States on his own, the elder Perez was robbed, and returned to Mexico broke and ashamed. His family gave him money for a second chance. He eventually brought his son and wife to Rochester, where Eloy Sr. worked long hours on a dairy farm. At one point, the family lived in a small trailer home with holes in the rotting floor.
“He had a hard life, and look at where we are now,” Perez said, giving his dad a hug.
THE LONG ROAD
Perez began amateur boxing in 1999 at age 13, and compiled a 55-11 record over the next five years. In his final amateur fight, the 17-year-old Perez won the 132-pound Ringside World Championship by defeating 22-year-old Canadian Arash Usmanee. He turned professional the next year.
Still a senior in high school, Perez won his first professional fight by knockout at the Lucky Eagle Casino in Rochester.
But the real legend of Eloy Perez came on Oct. 21, 2005, when as a senior running back on the Rainier High School football team (Perez transferred from Rochester for his junior and senior years after his parents moved to Rainier) he rushed for 245 yards and four touchdowns in the Mountaineers’ 48-22 win over Toledo. The following night, Perez won his third professional fight, defeating Ivan Korotkov, 21, in a four-round decision. That was when coach Jeske knew Perez was a special kid. Even though Perez took a beating by a grown man, he still showed up for football practice the following Monday.
“I knew then what he was made of,” Jeske said.
“He was the kind of kid you could tell was going to be a professional something,” said former Rainier assistant football coach Pete Zimmerman. “It didn’t matter what sport. He loved the competition.”
Perez trained at the small Fight For Life gym along U.S. Highway 12 east of Rochester with manager Jim Douglas, trainer Rudy “The Haida Warrior” Nix, and coaches Tony Medina and James Douglas. He compiled a 7-0-1 professional record, fighting at various South Sound casinos where raucous hometown crowds would chant his name throughout the fight.
A sparring job in 2007 with California state champion Jesus “Chuy” Rodriguez opened trainer Max Garcia’s eyes to the young boxer’s skills and toughness.
“Eloy had fast hands and fast feet. … Things you can’t teach, he had,” Garcia said of the 5-foot-6, 130-pound Perez. “I saw some potential. We had to work with this kid.”
At the encouragement of Douglas, Perez made the difficult decision to move more than 800 miles to Salinas, asking to join the strict training regime of the Garcia Boxing camp. In the nearly five years under new manager Kathy Garcia, the sharp-dressing kid they nicknamed “The Prince” faced tougher and tougher competition, earning super-featherweight titles in the North American Boxing Organization and the United States National Boxing Championship.
The move away from family, friends and coaches was hard on the 20-year-old. Even now at 25, being far from home isn’t easy. His longtime girlfriend moved to Salinas last year, but returned home to Washington.
“I feel so alone and empty sometimes,” Perez said. “I think that’s why I’m a fighter, because this life is alone. And in the ring, I am alone.”
Perez doesn’t eat fast food. He doesn’t go out to nightclubs. He goes to bed early. He’s up before dawn for an intense two-hour workout, and back in the Garcia gym for another four hours in the evening. It’s the life of a professional boxer.
The investment has paid off with notable victories, including a 10-round decision over hard-hitting David Rodela in 2010, a six-round TKO of Ira Terry in 2011, and in the toughest test of his career, a unanimous decision over previously undefeated Dannie Williams in the WBC USNBC super-featherweight title fight at the Playboy Mansion in 2009. In that fight, Perez was knocked down twice – hit in the head so hard that he was unable to remain standing – but rebounded to dominate the 10-round decision, leaving both Williams and the ring drenched in blood.
Fighting out of the Garcia gym led to an invitation for Perez to spar with three-time world champion “Sugar” Shane Mosley in 2010 before his fight against Floyd Mayweather Jr. at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Perez was included on the undercard of the big stage event, earning a 10-round decision over Gilberto Sanchez-Leon in his NABO title defense.
The relationship with Mosley – who took Perez under his wing – earned Perez the opportunity to sign with Golden Boy Promotions and founder Oscar De La Hoya. Perez calls signing with Golden Boy “the best business decision of my life.”
Through it all, Perez has continued to win. Quality opponents and television exposure helped build his following. In November, the North American Boxing Organization named him 2011 Fighter of the Year.
Critics say Perez’s shortage of knockout victories shows a weakness, but his undefeated record says otherwise.
“It’s a fair criticism,” Garcia said, “but they’ve never felt his punch.”
Derrick Campos has felt Perez’s punch.
In their August 2010 fight at Pico Rivera, Calif., Perez picked apart his opponent with sharp, stinging jabs and combinations. By the fifth round, Campos’ face was beginning to swell. Halfway through the round, judge Gwen Adair began whispering under her breath: “Stop the fight. Stop the fight.” Within 30 seconds, referee Jose Cobain stepped in to stop the fight in a technical knockout.
Perez left the ring without a scratch.
“It’s a smart fighter who is proud enough of his skills to not take unnecessary punishment,” Douglas said. “Eloy is smart enough to know he’s a survivor. He’s always been a survivor.”
His second-round knockout of former NABO champion Daniel Jimenez (20-4-1, 15 KOs) in September 2011 silenced many critics. But not Adrien Broner, the world champion nicknamed “The Problem,” who has knocked out 18 of his 22 opponents.
“Broner’s going to find out what Eloy’s about,” Garcia said. “He’s for real. If you ask me, he’s the best 130-pounder in the world.”
Garcia says “good boxing genes” could keep Perez healthy and fighting professionally for another 10 years. “We see a Hall of Fame career for him.”
FIGHT OF HIS LIFE
Perez is ready for the February title shot. He began training camp before the fight was arranged, and is leaving the tactics to combat Broner to Garcia and fight strategist Dean Familton of Los Angeles.
Perez says that the reality of the biggest fight of his life won’t sink in until he’s in the ring, under the bright lights for a worldwide audience.
“The competition is getting better, but that’s what sports are about,” Perez said. “I’m just living the moment. And when I fight for the title, I’m not thinking about winning or losing, but to give it my best shot.”
With a win, Perez hopes to fight other champions to unify the super-featherweight divisions. A loss for either fighter could mean a long climb back before another world title shot, more so for the underdog Perez.
“He doesn’t want to lose. And that, of all things, is probably the defining factor in why Eloy can win this fight,” Douglas said.
GIVING BACK
Perez says he is uncomfortable with the spotlight on him. He prefers that his exposure in the boxing world helps those in need. He hopes to return to Rochester after his retirement from boxing and wants to pursue a career in law enforcement.
“I want to give back,” he said. “Everyone has given me so much.”
In 2010, he wore a patch on his shorts for Done Vida (“Donate Life”), an organ, eye and tissue donation advocacy group, to support liver transplant recipient Ricki Lee. In 2011, Perez befriended Sy Sherman, a 9-year-old boxing fan fighting a rare form of liver cancer. Perez has welcomed Sy to training camps, taken him to boxing matches and introduced him to world champions such as Mosley and De La Hoya. He even let Sy ride on his shoulders in the ring after a victory.
“Fame and money, that’s just a blessing,” Perez said. “I want to use my name to tell everyone else’s story. I can sacrifice for everyone else.”
On a trip back to Rochester in the spring, Perez visited his old school, Grand Mound Elementary, to have lunch and play at recess with third-grade friend Jayden Lancaster. “I wanted him to feel special,” Perez explained.
“His boxing talent and hard work aside, Eloy has become the kind of person that I am proud to have my son idolize,” said Erin Lancaster, Jayden’s mom. “I have known him since junior high. And to see what he’s done with himself is amazing.”
Perez also visits The Resurrection Boxing Club in Chehalis to work with young boxers under the tutelage of Perez’s former trainer Tony Medina. Last spring, he sparred with the youngsters, offering tips and encouragement while allowing them to take shots at the pro.
“It’s a good experience. Definitely he knows what he’s doing,” said Samantha Garcia of Centralia. “He’s somebody you wouldn’t want to mess with.”
“I’m trying to give them courage, give them confidence, kind of give them a boost,” Perez said. “It’s important to have someone to look up to. Maybe they’ll work a little harder when they see what they can accomplish.”
Those in his hometown of Rochester feel lucky to have been part of Perez’s growth and success.
“Wherever you come from, but especially when you come from a small town like Rochester, it says something about everyone who touched Eloy along the way,” his teacher Rose Farrar said. “He didn’t do it on his own. It took everyone. We can all be very proud of Eloy.”
Tony Overman: 360-754-5467
toverman@theolympian.com
Photojournalist Tony Overman began following the career of professional boxer Eloy Perez with a four-month photo story published in The Olympian in 2006. Overman returned to the story in 2009 in anticipation of Perez earning a shot at a world championship. Overman flew to Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and drove to San Francisco, Los Angeles and Salinas over the past two years to photograph fights and research the story. Help from Kathy Garcia and the Garcia Boxing Team, Monica Sears and Golden Boy Promotions, and the staff of the MGM Grand in Las Vegas provided ringside and backstage access for the story.
