Jose Torres - Light Heavyweight Champ

 

 

I want to talk to you about something very serious in boxing, and that is that when I was growing up in Puerto Rico was during the World War II. And my heroes were the American soldiers that were stationed near my house. They had the best-looking girls. They were always in the street. They were protecting us. And we always spoke of them as the greatest people in the world, the American soldier. [applause] And--. Oh, thank you. Is that a Puerto Rican there? [audience chuckles] So, I remember that all I wanted to do when I was growing up was to become a soldier. And at 17, I forged some signature and said that my mother was sick and that she signed, but that I was 18. But I was only 17 and I went as a volunteer into the Army.

 

Two weeks after I was in the Army, I realized that that had been the worst decision of my life. [audience chuckles] I disliked the Army passionately. And I began to shake. And I was getting sick. It was depression. And then someone told me that if I joined sports, I would feel fine and very happy. And I went to special services and I said, "I want to become a baseball player," because I played baseball in high school. And they said, "The season is over." I said, "Well, then I want to become a basketball player." And they said, "The season is over." I said, "Okay, track and field, 400 meters." [audience chuckles] "The season is over." I said, "Which season is on?" They said, "Boxing." And I was so unhappy by being a soldier that I said, "Okay, I want to be a boxer."

 

And a few weeks later, I started to learn how to box. And the only thing I had done while I was in Ponce, my hometown, was to street fight. So, I applied the same kind of method in which I just was a natural good puncher. So, in my first fight, I knocked the guy out. Second fight, I knocked the guy out. Third fight, I knocked the guy out. And I became very happy in the Army. [audience laughter] So now we're going to fight for the Antilles Championship, the Armed Forces. And I had two fights and I knocked both guys out. Then we flew to Panama to fight for the Caribbean Armed Forces Championship. I was a welterweight, 147 pounds. And I went there and I won.

 

When I got to Panama, for the first time in my life, I saw my opponent and I began to shake. I was shaking and shaking, and eventually I learned that there was fear out of control. I was shaking and I went to my trainer and I said, "I cannot beat this guy. I'm sorry, I don't know why, but I cannot beat this guy." My trainer got very angry and he cursed me and he thought that I was the best fighter pound for pound in the world, that I should not be talking that way. And I said, "I'm sorry. This guy, I can't beat him. Look at my hands." And I was shaking all over the place. The fight night came very soon, sooner than I expected. I was so scared.

 

And then I was walking into the ring and I turned to my trainer and I said to him, "Listen, don't be concerned. I'm going to do my best and I'm going to lose doing my best." He says, "You know something? That's what I want to hear. Just do your best." I went in there and I was still shaking. And the first punch the other guy threw was a right hand that hit me right on the bottom. And I felt like 10 million ants enter my whole body. But I was very scared. And then I hit the guy with a shot, and then he refused to take advantage of my condition and the bell rang.

 

And when I came to the corner, my trainer says, "You know, you lost this round, but you won the last 10 seconds of the round so you have the momentum, [audience chuckles] so you have to continue that in the second round." Second round, I continued to fight and I began to lose the fear. And at the end of the third round, I had won the fight. Pure skills, none. I mean, it was nothing mental, it was all physical. And I came out of that fight thinking this guy was in awe of me, my trainer, thinking that even though my mind was telling me that I was going to lose the fight, I still won the fight. And he was talking about mind over matter. It was the opposite. It was matter over mind.

 

In other words, I was so good physically that I did not have to use my mind to win this fight. And, of course, eventually I came to New York. There's this man that Mr. Plimpton knew very well. His name was Cus D'Amato. And I explained to Cus what had happened to me. He put me back in the amateurs. I won the New York Golden Gloves. By the way, in the Army, after that fight, I went into the Army and I won the Second Army Championship, the All Army Championship, the All Services Championship. Then I went to the Olympic Games, and I won the silver medal in the Olympics, losing by one point the gold medal to a Hungarian by the name of László Papp, who had won the '48 Olympic gold medal, the '52 Olympic gold medal, and then '56. He beat him at one point. He was very controversial. But I thought I lost, even though I lost by one point.

 

In any event, after all that, I came to New York, and Cus D'Amato began to explain to me all those experiences that I had in the Army. And he discovered-- I mean, the reason why I was so scared in Panama. He asked me, “Whom did I fight on my first fight?” And I said to him, "Oh, it was a guy from Puerto Rico." And who did you beat in the second fight?” And I said, "Oh, there was a guy from St. Thomas." And who did I beat in the third fight? I said, "Another guy from St. Thomas." And then my first four fights, I beat Puerto Ricans or blacks from St. Thomas.

 

And when I went to Panama, I faced the first hero of my youth, the American, the white American soldier. And the reason why I was so scared was because I thought that they were superior to me. And Cus D'Amato brought that out. And I began to understand about fear much better than I ever did. And then in that fight-- his name was Billy Priest. In that fight with Billy Priest, we became friends later. In that fight with Billy Priest from Boston, a blonde guy, very good-looking guy, strong, I discovered the equality of the colors and race and ethnicity. And it was a great thing except that when Cus began to teach me about fear, I discovered once that Cus D'Amato was afraid of flying.

 

And I began to question him. I said, "Wait a minute. How can you teach me about fear if you are so afraid to fly? You never flew in your entire life." And I said, "You know, when your number comes up." And he says, "You know, you have to be smarter than that, Jose. I don't mind when my number comes up. But I would mind when the pilot number comes up and I am in the plane." [audience laughter] So, he persuaded me that he was right. It was okay for him to have fear and to have understanding about fear. Then I learned, of course, as a professional fighter, that fear was something that you must have if you wanted to be a champion. Because fighting and having that fear, but not allowing the fear to get the best of you, but to use fear to help you, that is one of the best qualities of champion. You must have fear in order for you to understand when the guy is going to throw a punch before he throws a punch. When you are able to anticipate what the other guy is going to do before he does it, that is all triggered by fear. So, I established myself through experience taught by Cus D'Amato, who was afraid to fly. I learned with him that one of the best friends that a champion had was fear. Thank you.