Nine years ago, on a cold January night in Chicago, I was working late when a buddy phoned and said he had an extra ticket to a boxing card being held at the Ramada Plaza near O’Hare Airport.
After debating whether I wanted to brave the snow and the traffic, I finally caved to the pressure, called my wife to tell her I’d be home much later, and agreed to meet the group of liquored-up bachelors near the box office.
Once I'd navigated through a maze of plowed-under automobiles, I parked as close to the Plaza as I could and rushed to the nearest door. I remember it being bitterly cold, and the wind-chill made it unbearable to be outside for more than a few minutes.
But my timing couldn’t have been worse. The undercard was in full swing and it was standing-room only inside. Light heavyweights Antonio Tarver and Reggie Johnson were in their dressing rooms preparing to fight in the main event, and the show was being broadcast live on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights.
I tugged on one set of glass doors, then another, before quickly coming to the realization that they were all locked. At that moment, a man in a white and blue satin jacket approached and opened one of the doors.
“Come in, come in,” said Genaro Hernandez, the two-time Junior Lightweight champion, flashing a toothy smile, his eyes wide open as a burst of wind rushed in behind me. I recognized him immediately, but I was at a complete loss for words. It was like an NFL fan showing up late to the Super Bowl and having Peyton Manning open the door to let him in the stadium. I didn’t really know what to say.
Apparently, I’d entered near the dressing room area and Hernandez, who was working Johnson’s corner that night, had heard me rattling the doors and saw me through the glass. I asked him where the box office was, telling him I was there to meet friends. Hernandez smiled again and told me I just needed to follow the hallway around to the other side of the ballroom.
After thanking him, he simply smiled and said, “No problem.”
Sure, looking back it was a small gesture. But it was one of those random acts of kindness that tends to stick with a person. And the memories of that night came flooding back when I learned the kindhearted man who implored me to come in from the cold had taken his last breath.
On Tuesday, Genaro “Chicanito” Hernandez died in his home in Mission Viejo, Calif., surrounded by family. The quiet, unassuming fighter who had ruled the 130-pound division in the 1990s while amassing an impressive record of 38-2-1, finally succumbed to a rare form of cancer – rhabdomyosarcoma – that had been systematically destroying his body for several years.
He was 45.
Genaro Hernandez: 'Giving All He Had'
During the '90s, the 130-pound division was breeding ground for colorful characters and excellent prizefighters. Household names like Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Azumah Nelson, Arturo Gatti, Gabe Ruelas, Jorge Paez, Tony “The Tiger” Lopez, John-John Molina, Jesse James Leija and Angel Manfredy all either held championships in the decade or challenged for them.
But standing tall among them was Hernandez. Between 1992 and 1998, "Chicanito" won both the World Boxing Association (WBA) and World Boxing Council (WBC) championships and made a combined 11 successful title defenses.
Unfortunately, Hernandez’s cool demeanor and classic boxing style was often overshadowed by the antics of his colorful peers. And when he did lace up the gloves and square off against the top pound-for-pound boxers of the era, the meetings often ended with Hernandez suffering some sort of freak injury.
The pattern began after a chance meeting with "The Golden Boy" in 1992.
Hernandez and De La Hoya first crossed paths when the two met in a series of impromptu sparring sessions at the Resurrection Gym in East Los Angeles before De La Hoya left for the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, where he was the only U.S. boxer to win a Gold Medal.
At the time, Hernandez was preparing to fight Daniel Londas (who he stopped in nine rounds) for the vacant WBA 130-pound strap. Hernandez reportedly had taken some time off from the gym to allow a damaged knuckle to heal and on the day he returned he found De La Hoya there looking for a sparring partner.
“They asked me if I would give (Oscar) some work,” Hernandez recalled in a Ring Magazine interview in 1994. “I told them I wasn’t in shape because of the layoff, but I would give him all I had. We boxed three or four rounds a day for about a week. The first few days, he had the edge. That’s when all the talk started. The newspapers said he manhandled me. What a joke. As soon as I started to get in shape, he quit boxing with me.”
As 1993 came to a close, rumors were swirling across California that De La Hoya would challenge the undefeated Hernandez for the WBA Junior Lightweight title at the historic Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles.
But when De La Hoya’s team finally announced their plans, Hernandez was out and little-known WBO Junior Lightweight champion Jimmi Bredahl was in.
Hernandez vs. De La Hoya: 'Shattered Dreams'
In its March 1994 issue, Ring Magazine asked the question on the minds of fans up and down the California coast: “Is Oscar De La Hoya Ducking Genaro Hernandez?” Ring’s Nigel Collins spoke to Hernandez’s brother, Rudy, who was training the fighter, and his response was an unequivocal yes.
“They put us through a lot of shit,” Rudy Hernandez told Collins. “They hounded us for three or four weeks, made it sound like a legitimate thing for February 5 (1994). They offered us $500,000. We said ‘Okay.’ They said no TV rights. We said, ‘Okay.’ Everything they asked for, we said, ‘Okay.’ But the day after Oscar got dropped by Narciso Valenzuela (in October 1993) they said the deal was off. No explanation was given, but I think the knockdown scared them off.”
When questioned by Collins, Robert Mittleman, De La Hoya’s co-manager at the time, said the decision simply came down to dollars and cents.
“Genaro wanted too much money,” Mittleman told Ring. “Genaro is a good fighter, but he can only get on HBO by buying a ticket to the show. He’s not an attraction.”
So De La Hoya fought Bredahl, while Hernandez went ahead with a title defense against Jorge Ramirez for a fraction of the money he was promised against "The Golden Boy" and tried to put the whole incident behind him.
“The way I see it, they’re just using my name (for publicity)," Hernandez told Collins. "That’s all it was from the beginning. His people never wanted to fight me. I don’t think we’ll ever fight. I just wish they would go about their business and stop using my name.”
A year and a half later, after De La Hoya had defeated Paez for the WBO Lightweight title, his camp offered Hernandez a fight if he would agree to relinquish his title and move up to 135-pounds.
Chicanito’s reply: “No problem.”
The match was set for Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas in September 1995. Unfortunately, during one of his final sparring sessions before the bout, Hernandez suffered a broken nose after absorbing an uppercut from Shane Mosley, who was a top-five Lightweight contender at that time.
Not wanting to lose out on a $500,000 payday, Hernandez decided to go ahead and fight De La Hoya anyway.
During one of his final interviews, Hernandez told Los Angeles Times reporter Bill Dwyre in February this year that, apparently, word of his injury got back to the De La Hoya camp.
"Oscar never threw a body punch all night," Hernandez said. "Shane started the broken nose and Oscar sure finished it.”
At the end of the sixth round, Hernandez couldn’t take the pain anymore and refused to continue. Doctors discovered his nose had been fractured into 22 separate pieces.
“I went in there with the nose broken,” Hernandez said afterward. "Then Oscar caught me with a good left uppercut and destroyed my nose completely. The doctor said it was like taking an egg out of the refrigerator and dropping it."
To add insult to injury, while Hernandez sat in the hospital waiting to see a physician, De La Hoya arrived for a post-fight physical and was rushed in ahead of him.
'Be a Champion For a Long Time'
Hernandez returned to the 130-pound division the following year and, in March 1997, faced the legendary Azumah Nelson for the WBC version of the title. After building an early lead, Hernandez absorbed a brutal left hook to the throat that Nelson threw just after the bell sounded ending round seven. Hernandez hit the canvas clutching his neck, in obvious distress.
After being helped back to his corner, Hernandez was informed that if he couldn't continue, he'd be awarded the win since he was ahead on the official scorecards. But Hernandez refused to win a title via a foul, and continued on, eventually winning a 12-round decision.
With his ring career coming to a close, Hernandez agreed to defend his title for the last time against the undefeated Olympian Floyd Mayweather Jr. in Las Vegas in 1998. After taking a sustained beating from Mayweather over eight one-sided rounds, Rudy Hernandez called referee Jay Nady over to the corner before the start of the ninth and, ignoring Genaro's protests, stopped the fight. Upon hearing the news, Mayweather burst into tears and collapsed to the floor.
Always the gentleman, Hernandez wished the new champ all the best.
“(Mayweather) defeated me the way a true champion does,” Hernandez told HBO viewers. “He’s quicker. He’s smart. We’re both sportsmen. I tried to give him my best, but my reflexes and my speed weren’t there.”
Hernandez then put his hand on Mayweather’s shoulder and said, “You be a champion for a long time. And may God bless you and your family.”
In the years since then, Hernandez worked with up-and-coming fighters and often served as an expert commentator on Spanish-language boxing telecasts.
He was diagnosed with head and neck cancer in 2008.
“I feel like an old man that somebody needs to take care of," Hernandez told Dwyer in February. "I lost 50 pounds. I limp. I've got tumors on both shoulders, one on each thigh, one on my neck and three on my back. But I'm hanging in there."
The only two men to beat him, Mayweather and De La Hoya, who went on to earn more money than any fighters in the history of the sport, were both noticeably silent after the news of Hernandez's death broke on Tuesday. Neither released public statements.
But Bob Arum, who promoted fights involving all three boxers (and covered many of Hernandez’s hospital bills when he was no longer able to work) was full of praise.
"(Genaro) was a lovely man, and he was really a credit to the sport of boxing," said Arum, echoing the sentiments of many. “He was a brave guy, a great guy."
And after hearing the news late last night, I couldn't help but relive my brief meeting with the former champ. And I hoped that when he closed his eyes and took his final breath, Genaro was greeted by someone with a smile as warm as his own who invited him to come in from cold.
Genaro Hernandez is survived by his wife of 20 years, Liliana, and two children, Amanda and Steven.
