Stand Tall

by Dewey Bozella

“All that work for nothing, man. All that work for nothing,” I muttered to myself. “That’s the way my life’s been. Always a struggle and conflict. The fuck I’m gonna try it again for? It’s over with, man. They killed it! It’s over with!” I got up to go back inside.

  Trena was still talking to Guevara.

  “I know the first part is stunning, probably, to Dewey,” he was saying, “but the last portion, we gave him hope. We gave him some avenue to hone his skills and be reevaluated. We’re confident that we came up with the correct evaluation in that, at present, he doesn’t show the ability to be at that level.”

  Trena was heartbroken, too, but stayed levelheaded and diplomatic. She had cut through the mumbo jumbo to the heart of what she knew mattered most: I still had a chance. They were willing to leave the door open and let me try again in a month.

  “I do believe you didn’t get the best out of Dewey,” Trena said, “and I believe it’s fair that he come on fresh, and then if it still has the same outcome, then I believe it was a fair decision.”

  Guevara said the letter would explain exactly what I needed to work on. I interrupted before he could read it all over again.

  “Where is that fair?” I shouted. How was it fair that I came into the sparring match from a twenty-five-minute workout against an opponent who hadn’t had to do the same exercises? “He sat there the whole half hour I worked out! And then you put me with a heavyweight when I’m a cruiserweight. He got me by at least twenty-five pounds!” I was pacing our tiny living room now, stalking back and forth, gesturing wildly at the voice on the speakerphone.

  “If you didn’t take the advantage away from me, I guarantee you, it’s a whole different fight! I probably would’ve dropped him! But how can I drop him if you take away my energy? He even said, ‘Yo, man, you want me to go out and fight this man, spar this man after all the work you did with him?’ And you all said go out there, and that’s exactly what I did. He didn’t beat me, I beat him!”

  Guevara was shouting at me now, trying to stop the tirade.

  “Dewey! Dewey!”

  I kept on bellowing.

  “It hurts, man. It hurts! You’re taking away my dream. You’re taking away the only thing I got left and you killed it!”

  Guevara jumped in again.

  “Trena? Trena, are you on the phone?”

  “Yes, I am,” she answered.

  “Okay,” the inspector said, sounding agitated. “He needs to settle down right now.”

  Trena pursed her lips. She didn’t appreciate being treated like the mother of a bratty toddler instead of the wife of a deeply wounded man.

  “Okay,” she said tersely. “I appreciate your time.”

  They hung up, and she turned and tried to get through to me.

  “They’re going to give you another chance,” she said.

  “It’s over with,” I said fiercely.

  “Nope.” Trena shook her head adamantly.

  “Trena, I’m not talking about it no more,” I declared. This was it, the end of that road. I wasn’t budging.

  “Nope,” she said again. “You can’t quit now.”

  “It’s not quitting. It’s reality. The reality is they’re going to do the same thing over again.”

  “The reality is this, Dewey: Nothing ever comes easy for you! That’s reality!”

  “I’m tired of it, Trena. I’m sick of it.”

  “Nope. You got thirty days.”

  “For what?” I hollered.

  “Thirty days to find a trainer . . .” she started, but I cut her off again. She shouted over me. “That’s how it is! Remember you said you either lie down or you get up and fight? Which one you gonna do?”

  “It’s not lying down,” I argued. “It’s just the simple fact they don’t want me to fight.”

  “PROVE THEM WRONG!!” Trena urged. “YES! You’re my husband who says never give up!”

  “I’m not giving up,” I protested. “I’m just pissed.”

  “Well, pissed ain’t going to do it,” she said.

  “Every single time, it’s struggle and conflict, Trena. Struggle and conflict, struggle and conflict, struggle and conflict.”

  “That’s life!” she reminded me.

  “I always gotta bust my ass to prove something.” My arms were still crossed tight against my chest, but I could feel myself surrendering to her unwavering faith in me, her pure passion for a dream that wasn’t even her own.

  “That’s right,” she said, and with that, without saying anything, we knew it was decided. I would try again. There was no way this woman was going to let me sag against the ropes in self-defeat. Not when I was devoting my life to kids who reminded me of what I once had been, telling them every chance I got to never give up, to never let anybody take away their dreams.

  WHEN WORD OF MY FAILURE TO GET LICENSED REACHED OSCAR DE LA HOYA, he redoubled his efforts to make a total stranger’s lifelong dream become reality: he invited me to train in Philadelphia with Bernard Hopkins, whose match against Chad Dawson was the marquee draw of the Staples Center event. Raised in the tough projects of Philadelphia, Hopkins had grown up on the streets and had run wild from an early age. He was mugging people at thirteen, and when he hit seventeen, he got locked up on nine felonies. He spent nearly five years in the state penitentiary and, like me, turned his life around with boxing while behind bars. I admired his reputation for discipline and clean living. He was living proof that motivation and talent, not age, determined when a fighter was out of the game. Hopkins was just a couple years younger than I was, and at forty-six, he had broken George Foreman’s record to become the oldest pro boxer ever to win a world championship. A former middleweight champ who successfully defended his title a record twenty times, Hopkins had changed weight classes to become a prize light-heavyweight fighter later in his career. If there was anybody who knew exactly what it would take—inside and out—for me to prove myself pro material, it was Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins.

  His assistant trainer, Danny Davis, was charged with sizing me up the first day I reported to the Joe Hand Boxing Gym in Philly. A young former Golden Gloves titleholder, Danny had honed a national reputation for himself by training Hopkins into a world-class fighter. Pro athletes, even outside the boxing world, wanted to be at the top of their game.

  That first morning, Danny wasted no time in pushing me to my limits. He figured I was done for when it was time for me to work the mitt with him after he had put me through a punishing series of eight exercises that had left me drenched in sweat and panting.

  He was wrong.

  But I was tired and sluggish. “Too slow, too slow!” Danny shouted as I hit sloppily at the padded target. We broke after two rounds, but I barely had time to gather my strength before Danny ordered me back into the ring for another two rounds. I knew I still had to prove myself, to show him I wasn’t some old wannabe who was getting handed a damn pity fight because life had dealt me a lousy hand. Willpower is any athlete’s greatest strength, and when I drew on mine, I could feel my body respond with the surge of adrenaline I needed. I was in my zone now, loose and dancing on my toes. Danny noticed. When we finished, he had a big smile pasted across his face.

  “We’re gonna make some noise,” he promised.

  I had thought I knew how to train from the books I studied at Sing Sing and from the other boxers and mixed martial arts guys I met in prison. Danny’s routine showed me that I was way off. He and Bernard Hopkins at Joe Hand strove not only to condition boxers physically, but to educate them and teach them an art. Before Hopkins recruited him, Danny had worked as a mental health tech in a juvenile facility after he hung up his gloves, and a big part of why he agreed to come on board at Joe Hand was because the owners of the gym made a big commitment to helping at-risk youth. There was even a computer lab for the kids who hung out at the gym or trained after school. Seeing how the people at Joe Hand integrated boxing with building character in these young boys motivated me to stand back up like a
man and make it happen in California. The more successful I became, the better my chances of realizing my own dream of opening up a gym like Joe Hand’s to help keep kids off the street back in New York.

  Sparring was the biggest hurdle I had to face before trying for my license again. “They need to see action,” Danny reminded me when I climbed into the ring at Joe Hand. “Put the pressure on him; I want you to make his ass fight,” he urged my sparring partner. He came at me hard from the first second. “Keep up the pressure, pressure him, pressure him!” Danny shouted from the sidelines. “Too slow, too slow!” he hollered at me. We took our one-minute break. “Okay, this is the round I want to see him get through,” Danny instructed my opponent. “You’re gonna make him or break him.” We went back for another three minutes. Danny rode me hard. I wasn’t pushing back hard enough, my feet were lead. “You ain’t gonna pass the test like that!” Danny taunted. I needed to get up on my toes and dance. My opponent pummeled away, backing me up against the ropes.

  “Make him box his way out of that corner!” Danny commanded.

  I fought my way back to the center of the ring. Danny called time. We both felt good about the progress I’d made. I left Philadelphia stronger and wiser, grateful that Bernard and Danny had compressed their world of experience into just a few weeks. Even if California said no again, I would know for certain now that I gave 100 percent.

  I could live with that.

  THIS TIME, I ARRIVED FOR MY EVALUATION FRESH AND ENERGIZED. Oscar De La Hoya came to offer his personal support. I knew he had shown up for other reasons, though: he needed to see for himself if I was worth it, because his reputation was on the line as president of Golden Boy Productions. Even though my scheduled fight with Larry Hopkins (no relation to Bernard) was fourth on a nine-fight card, it was already generating a lot of national media interest. Jose Morales and his camera crew had been following me for six months filming their ESPN documentary. Major news outlets like the New York Times, the Associated Press, and the Los Angeles Times had all written about me. The match, and the story behind it, was going to have an audience that was much bigger than the fans in the Staples Center on fight day.

  “I don’t wish for the commission to focus on the power of his punches or his speed,” De La Hoya explained to the ESPN camera. “I want them to focus directly on his heart, and think about what he’s accomplished and think about what he’s been through to be right here today. It doesn’t get any tougher than that.”

  This time, I sailed through the whole evaluation process and barely broke a sweat. I dominated all three rounds of the sparring test, and afterward, Commissioner George Dodd pulled me aside. “Let’s go talk real quick,” he said. I felt a flash of dread. Maybe this was all just a cruel cosmic joke, and California had no intention of licensing a fifty-two-year-old man. It was this guy’s job to let me down easy, tell me thanks for trying, go have a great life. He offered a short critique of my jabs, then started gathering up his paperwork.

  “You’re ready to go,” he said.

  It took a second for his matter-of-fact announcement to sink in.

  “You giving it to me?”

  “You got it,” he confirmed.

  I couldn’t wait to share the news with Trena.

  “I passed the physical. They gave me my license,” I told her. They said I couldn’t do it, but I did it. I heard Trena give a little whoop and laugh with joy. I was officially a professional boxer, and my debut was just sixteen days away. There was no time to bask in my sense of accomplishment. I still had a fight ahead of me. My fight.

  BACK HOME, I STUCK TO DANNY’S REGIMEN. He had whipped me into top shape, and I had to maintain that training. This time, when we boarded the plane for Los Angeles, it felt like every possible emotion was ricocheting through me at once. I was confident and terrified at the same time. So many people had invested their talents, their time, and most of all, their faith in me. My wife, my legal team, ESPN and ESPYs producer Maura Mandt, Oscar De La Hoya, Bernard Hopkins, Danny Davis, and the other trainers at Joe Hand Gymnasium. I couldn’t bear the thought that I might let any of them down.

  Three days before my fight, I was told to stand by the phone for an important call from a supporter: the president of the United States. How was that even possible? Barack Obama wanted to speak to me? An ex-con who didn’t even have the right to go into a voting booth? The phone rang.

  “Dewey?”

  “Yes, is this Mr. President?” I asked, even though the voice was unmistakable.

  “Yessir! How are you?”

  “Oh my God.” I was in a state of total disbelief. Sitting next to me, Trena was about to burst. “I’m good,” I managed to answer.

  “I heard about your story and wanted to call and say good luck with your fight,” the president went on. “Everything you accomplished in prison and what you’ve been doing since is something I think all of us are very impressed with.

  “You’re certain that there’s going to be just one fight you’re going to fight?”

  “Yes, absolutely, man,” I said.

  “All right, man. Well, I wish you all the best. Take care.”

  I told the president to take care, too, said good-bye, set the phone down, put my head in my hands, and rubbed away the tears. I looked over at Trena and shook my head.

  “Talk about pressure,” I said softly.

  OSCAR HELD A PRESS CONFERENCE BEFORE THE FIGHT TO INTRODUCE ME. I knew what the reporters, what the world must have been thinking: I was a nobody freed from prison after twenty-six years trying to realize the dream of my stolen youth. I stepped up to the podium and leaned into the mike.

  “I want everyone to know this wasn’t just handed to me,” I said. “You may think this is charity. This is not a charity thing. I’m out here to win, and I’m going to give you a zillion percent of what I’ve got at fifty-two, and I’m not busted.”

  I paused to remove my cap and peel off my shirt, offering my bare chest and six-pack to the cameras.

  “I’m not busted! I’m not busted, so I earned mine.”

  Larry Hopkins had three fights but no wins coming into our match and was considered to be a weak opponent by the boxing press. But I had no pro fights, no wins, and an extra thirty years of wear and tear on my body, so I was still the underdog. When Hopkins saw me before the bout and asked to pose for a picture, I figured it was a psychological ploy to throw me off, mess with my head, make my brain think “friendly” when I saw him again in the ring. You’re not fucking with me, I silently cursed him while I obligingly smiled for his selfie.

  The Staples Center had a decent turnout—more than eight thousand fans—but I felt like it was just God and God alone watching as the announcer drew out my name—DEWEEEEY BOZELLLLA!!—and I climbed into the ring, into the lights. I shrugged off the silk cape emblazoned with my professional moniker, “Radar” Bozella. “Radar” was a twist on “Rader,” the middle name I shared with the father whose cruelty had nearly destroyed me. That hurt little boy stepped into the ring, too. The bell rang, and I began to fight.

  Hopkins came at me with good jabs, but I could see he was awkward. I wasn’t loose and kept throwing sloppy jabs myself as I tried to figure him out. I knew I wasn’t crisp. I kept throwing short, giving Hopkins the chance to step in and connect. He threw wild, looping rights from his knees, and I kept my head moving, but a couple still nibbled at me. The first three-minute round ended, and I felt like I was getting a handle on him.

  Danny was waiting in my corner. “You all right?” he asked, dressing a small welt over my eye.

  “I need water.”

  Danny spieled off his take on the fight as I drank.

  “Relax, relax,” he said. “You finished this round off pretty strong. This guy’s got nothing. Use your jab a little bit more. Keep your hands up. Throw a little bit more punches. You don’t have to be careless. We just need combinations.”

  I went back in for the second round more relaxed, reminding myself to move more and not s
tand in front of him dancing. He got in a couple of quick jabs and landed a couple of body shots. Hopkins was spending too much energy too soon. I was sure I could wear him out, but I would have to pace myself, too. I took a hook to the head, but got him with an uppercut to the jaw. The ref called time.

  “You gotta let your hands go,” Danny urged me. “Dawg, listen. That was a better round. You’re giving me better jabs, but let this damn right hand go! Let it go, let it go, and come back. Deep breath. You’re doing good with the left. That’s all he’s got is the right. Come back with the hook. Work that right hand. You hit a couple of good body shots and you stop. Work that body!”

  “I don’t wanna run into nothing wild,” I told Danny. He shook his head. That wasn’t going to happen. It was time to let any caution go.

  I went into the third round throwing left-right combos and hit Hopkins with a couple of hooks. Hopkins tried to land a haymaker and missed, but got me up against the ropes. Big mistake. I turned and pushed him into a worse position. My confidence was surging now, and I relaxed as I felt my body follow suit, growing stronger with every punch. The opposite was happening to Hopkins. His punches felt weaker and weaker, and I could see him slowing down. He was running out of gas, so I started to dance and move around him faster, taking what was left of his energy.

  Back in my corner before the fourth and final round, Danny was beaming.

  “Take a deep breath!” he commanded. “How we feel?”

  “Good!” I answered.

  “How we feel?” he shouted again.

  “Good!!” I shouted back. And I did. I felt on fire.

  “That was a beautiful round,” Danny said. “Show your ass off in this round. He’s ready to quit. Don’t let him back in the fight!”

  Twenty seconds into the final round, I was throwing so many punches that the beleaguered Hopkins spit out his mouthpiece. It could’ve been an accident, sure, but the thing fit fine the first three rounds, and boxers usually spit out their mouthpieces when they’re tired and want to stall, since the ref has to call a one-minute break to clean it. When we started again, I got even more aggressive and landed an uppercut. He spit out the mouthpiece again. The crowd was onto him and booed. I waved at them, Don’t worry, I got him.