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Ali now has
‘pretty’ good company

THREE boxing stories from Fight Day at the Honolulu Quarterback Club:

Every female boxer just got a new nickname: "Million-Dollar Baby."

The latest is Gina Ramos, 16, a junior at Moanalua. She does not look like a boxer. She does not talk like a boxer. Hilary Swank, we can believe. She looks mean, at least. But Gina?

"The loveliest fighter I've ever introduced," Les Keiter said. And remember, that includes Muhammad "I'm Pretty" Ali.

"My friends think it's kind of weird because I'm not really a person to fight," she said. "But when it comes to the ring I just ... let it go."

She must. Or something. Because she's 95 pounds and seems quiet and dainty and shy. She seems so nice. Does she really punch people?

"She can punch," her coach, Bruce Kawano, said.

She got into boxing because she saw how much attention her brother was getting, "and he's one year younger than me," she said.

Last month, she became a Hawaii state Junior Olympic champion. Next month, she makes history when she becomes the first female to go with the Hawaii team to the Junior Olympic National Championships.

Does she have anybody she practices her skills on?

"My younger brother," she said, and everybody laughed.

Suddenly, I believe her. Million Dollar Baby, here we come.

J.J. BENITEZ IS bigger than his belt. Barely.

Heavier, we're not sure. I lifted the belt, which he won last year at the Ringside world championships, and it took some heft. I did not lift him. He may be 11 and a sixth grader at Waianae's Kamaile Elementary, but he looks like he might have a good right hand.

"He's 60 pounds," Kawano said.

"Sixty-five," J.J. said.

Yeah, barely bigger than the belt. And it turns out that, yes, he's a boxer, but, as a small guy, punching is not his bag.

He wins, Kawano said, "not with punches but his freak of nature uncanny ability to dodge punches and make his opponents miss. He even defeated the national junior Golden Gloves champion in the finals, who was getting so frustrated he was trying to grab J.J. and hit 'em."

Wow.

"One day Brian Viloria's dad came in the gym and said, 'Wow, this kid is unbelievable. He reminds me of Brian,' " Kawano said. "But then, I know Brian from when he was a kid, and I thought with his foot speed and J.J.'s defense that he's better than Brian at that age."

That's high praise. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. He may be undefeated and he may have moves like Floyd Mayweather, but he's still very, very young.

"When he finds out the difference between boys and girls," Bobby Lee said, "he's not going to be a boxer."

THEN, LEE, WHO has been everything in boxing in Hawaii through the years.

"I don't think I've ever introduced a man I've respected more," Keiter said.

So naturally when Ali wanted to fight in Hawaii at the sad end of his career after he'd been beaten by a regretful Larry Holmes, it was Lee's guidance they sought. The phone rang and he was whisked into the governor's office to be immediately sworn in for one of his many stints on the state boxing commission.

Lee famously rallied against Ali being granted a license to fight in Hawaii. There would not be an unsafe bout on Lee's watch. Not even for Ali.

"The promoter who promoted that fight, he had a lot of money," Lee said. "And he was paying fighters and he was buying fighters and he was paying enormous wages." The guy was entertaining impressionable (but influential) people, spreading the vision of what an Ali fight would mean.

But they called in Lee, and then Hawaii said no. The state wouldn't sanction a fight when the champ was only a shell of his former self.

It was a great stand of integrity, one still celebrated to this day.

"And then (someone) said to me, 'Bobby, did you know this guy was carrying $2,000, $25 million, $250,000 in his bag as loose change?,' " Lee said, setting up the punch line:

"I said, 'Chee, how come you tell me after I turned 'em down?' "