[BOXING]
|
For the love of boxing Boxing is as much about balance as anything else, whether it is inside or outside the ring.
A former champ returns to the
ring Friday after 3 years awayBy Jerry Campany
jcampany@starbulletin.comAnd nobody can explain it better than Eric Alexander.
Alexander, 31, won the National Boxing Association welterweight title with a sixth-round knockout of Otilio Villareal in March of 1999, improving to 17-7. As hard as he worked to get that title -- he was knocked down twice, but floored Villareal three times -- he never defended it. In fact, he never fought again.
"It was a big regret for me," Alexander said. "It was a childhood dream to win the title. Unfortunately, I didn't have a chance to defend it. But I made the wise decision to quit."
But he will fight again, specifically Friday when he goes against Jerry Balagbagan on the undercard of Brian Viloria's bout with Sandro Oviedo. He didn't spend the three years away from the sport entirely in exile, as he allowed the game to maintain a place in his heart and occasionally let it take up space in his mind.
"I missed the challenge, the thrill, the excitement." Alexander said. "Sometimes I would pop my head into the gym and just miss it so bad."
Alexander missed it because he couldn't have it. After he won the title, those around him began dreaming of the money he could get by defending it. They talked about fame that could come with unifying the whole weight class. Some of them went so far as to say he could match up with Oscar De La Hoya.
|
But Alexander didn't want to be the man to stop the golden boy, he wanted to be the man to raise his own golden boy.He thought about his year-old son, and how he couldn't remember changing a single diaper. So he quit.
"She (his wife, Dellas) has been through it all," Alexander said. "I barely remember my sons growing up, the diapers and the childbirth. I missed out on all those things."
He says the choice was not as hard as it may seem.
On the one hand, he was one of the best in his chosen profession. On the other, he was not even a contender in the profession that chose him. He didn't have time to devote to both boxing and family, so he hung up the gloves.
"It was between loving my sport and pushing my wife and kids away or loving my family and push boxing away," Alexander said. "Well, I wrestled with that choice, but looking back, it was not much of a choice at all. It is more important to be a good father and a good husband."
After three months of marriage, Alexander retired, citing a "lazy eye" that would not allow him to become one of Hawaii's best boxers, but would allow him to pursue the unofficial title of Hawaii's best drywall installer.
As satisfying as the carpentry business was -- and still is -- the nail does not put up much fight against the hammer. He began to itch for the competitiveness of standing in a ring with another man and testing whose plan would prevail. But it seemed like those days were so long ago that they were not coming back. Fighting was not a possibility, just one of those things that daddy "used to do before he met me."
Until his youngest son, 4-year-old Raine Kaheaku -- one of the reasons Alexander got out of the game in the first place -- learned that when you put a tape into a VCR, more often than not your father is on the screen bobbing and weaving his way in and out of trouble. Then he begins to ask -- nearly every day -- to see "daddy's boxing."
Raine lit the fire and it spread through the family, drawing Alexander back into the gym, with 14-year-old Kainoa behind him. Kainoa began to spar with the old man, hoping to land that one lucky punch that would bring acceptance.
Alexander has been juggling drywall, training and family ever since he received his wife's blessing and told the local boxing world that he was pursuing a fight. He got back into the game quoting the Bible, believing the part that reads, "A chord of three strands is the strongest." It will never be tested more than Friday when he steps in with Balagbagan, a fighter he has never even seen on tape.
Alexander has not seen Balagbagan because he has had more important things to do. His fifth son, Gabriel, was born last Tuesday with jaundice and put into intensive care until Saturday. It put boxing completely out of his mind for a bit, but Alexander thinks that has made him that much stronger in the ring.
"I didn't know how to balance everything," Alexander said. "I have grown a little, I still don't have all of the answers, but I feel more complete, stronger with so many people behind me."