Tony Ayala Jnr

dead

http://www.boxingnewsonline.net/tony-ayala-jnr-found-dead-at-the-age-of-52/

Mixed feelings. Committed horrible crimes. Missed out on great potential

Talented fighter...

McCallum v Ayala would have been tasty...

Troubled man......

A very talented fighter, but as is often the case with a fighter with a nasty edge, he was a nasty piece of work outside the ring too. He obviously had issues.

Probably one of the most touted young fighters of all time. Sparring Cuevas at 13 and apprantley doing him over will always be one of the great sparring stories.

But what a piece of work he was though. He is now just one of boxing 'if only' stories.

Hope his passing can at least give some kind of closure to his victims.

Difficult to know how good Ayala really was or could have been, I think. I know he came with commendations from some pretty lofty figures in the sport who raved about how great he was going to be, so there was obviously something there, and that legendary tale about him apparently laying waste to Cuevas (who was WBA Welterweight champion at the time) in sparring as a 13 / 14 year old has helped the reputation grow and given him a bit of a boogeyman status. But based on what I've seen of him I can't really row with the idea that his imprisonment definitely robbed boxing of a fighter who was guaranteed to become a legend, especially as Messieurs McCallum and Hearns were set to clean out 154 between them over the next two or three years.

Had a similar thing with Valero a few years back, I guess. Definitely interesting to ponder what might have been.

Good post Chris agree completly

Seen his fights that are available.

Hype job if you ask me. Real aggressive fighter but I am sure he would have been found out quite soon. Turned to crime which suggests to me that he was not very confident in his abilities to succeed in the fight game anyway.

Watched a bit of him. It was hard to see really what all the fuss was about. He could certainly fight and was a prospect but so were lots of other people.

Did the cuevas sparring actually happen? Don't know... Its a legend but a disputed one I think. Seems a little hard to believe.

Whichever, great prospect or not, not a great human being.

I think it's always best to approach these sparring tales with a bit of caution and definitely a pinch of salt. Ali used to get stood on his head by just about every sparring partner he ever had according to legend.

Others tend to get really in to them and read a lot in to the rumours, but I find it usually only carries significance if it makes their favourite fighter look good. If it makes them look bad, then it's meaningless. AdamT would get gushy over a 17 year old Mayweather reportedly getting the better of Randall in Whitaker in sparring back in 1994 but tell us that sparring means less than nowt if you mention Paul Spadafora apparently chasing him out of the ring when they trained together a few years later, I bet!

A lof of people claim to have been in that San Antonio gym when baby Ayala beat up Cuevas, so I don't know, but there are some inconsistencies. Half the time he just administered a boxing lesson to him and left Cuevas a bit red-faced, the other half he's meant to have completely sparked him having beaten him to a pulp beforehand. Shame there wasn't a single Kodak within ten square miles of San Antonio in 1977!

... it doesn't help when also the age changes, the location changes etc. Don't recall there ever being a denial from cuevas, but then i'm not sure there was ever an affirmation from ayala himself. Could be wrong. It certainly helped with marketing him.

I take sparring stories with a pinch of salt. Unless they regard golovkin knocking out elephants, rhino's and any other thick skinned pachyderm's you care to come up with. Those i'm happy to believe.

Tony Ayala was a nasty man in the ring and a violent evil man outside the ring, I read what Ayala got the 35 year prison for, it was sickening, the sentence was totally justified.

Spitting on opponents after knocking them down or out a vile character.