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Thursday, January 15, 2004
Oyson: Flash Elorde’s discoverer: Part I
By Manuel N. Oyson Jr.
Counter punch
It was supposed to be only a regular luncheon press conference to introduce the fourth generation boxers of the ALA Boxing Club at the Crossroads last Thursday. For this columnist, it turned out instead out to be a free-wheeling 180-minute one-on-one gabfest on boxing with Jesus “Dondon” Neri. Who the heck is Dondon Neri?
For openers, he was the one who originally discovered the great Gabriel “Flash” Elorde. And he is already 83-years-old. Thus, when everybody had left the presscon, this elderly man whom I had not met before, barely walking, wearing a hearing aid, approached me and introduced himself as Jesus “Dondon” Neri. The name immediately rang a bell.
TALE. I was suddenly interested to listen to the man. For I heard of him before as a boxing promoter in the 1950’s in Davao and Cagayan de Oro. I heard, too, that he was the original patron of Elorde when the latter was new in the game, before the latter met Papa Sarreal and went on to become a junior lightweight world boxing champion. Everyone but us had already deserted Café Adriatico’s second level.
Dondon and I swapped boxing lore for the next two hours and a half. His trusted nurse “Inday” was with us, gingerly holding his walking cane all the while. This is the tale that he told me and which various sports books, especially the prestigious Ring Record Book and Boxing Encyclopedia (1982 ed.) and “Guinness: The Boxing Records” will confirm.
GRADE ONE. For starters, Dondon was a two-term mayor of Mambajao, Camiguin. When Mt. Hibok-Hibok erupted in 1951, resulting in 800 confirmed deaths, Neri was the town mayor. He was later a close friend of the late President Ramon F. Magsaysay and sometimes acted as his valet. RM appointed him acting governor of Misamis Oriental in 1954.
By then, he had accidentally discovered the rising Gabriel Elorde who was then a poor shoeshine boy in Hipodromo. When he was first introduced to Elorde in Cebu by George Chiong Cui, the lad told him that he went to school for only one day in his life. He enrolled at grade one in Bogo, Cebu where he was born on Mar 22, 1935. But did not comeback the next day for the start of classes. He wanted to find a stable job, even lifting weights at the pier.
SIXTEEN. He was only a shoeshine boy. It was Dondon’s wife, Paz, who taught the would-be world champion how to write his name “Gabriel.” He was already 16-years-old. He had already made eight professional fights when he was 16. He won six of them by knockout. Neri, who was president of a stevedoring union in Cagayan, brought Gabriel to Mambajao to train him further.
Dondon recalls that earlier in May 1947, David Kui Kong Young of Hong Kong challenged and lost to Manuel Ortiz for the world bantamweight championship in Honolulu in 15 rounds. Later, Levin who managed then world contender Tirso del Rosario, invited Kui Kong Young to Cebu to meet upcoming Bonnie Espinosa at the Merlo Aznar Memorial Stadium. (Part II: “Kid Independence knocks out Elorde”)
QUOTE OF THE DAY: “It’s sad but I expected it. Joma should retire now.” – Boxing patron Tony Aldeguer, after Joma Gamboa’s loss to Jorge Arce for the WBC junior flyweight title
(mno@sunstar.com.ph)
(January 15, 2004 issue)
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