# Best player I have trained: Romulo Quiralte Sr.
Romulo Quiralte Sr. leans in to give advice during the final fight between Julio Cesar Chavez and Frankie Randall in Mexico on May 22, 2004. (Photo by Jorge Uzon/AFP, Getty Images)
While some trainers are in the spotlight, others are just as talented but prefer to work behind the scenes and don’t seek praise. Romulo Quiralte Sr. is just that. The Mexican veteran has led 10 fighters to world titles, but most notably helped develop young Julio Cesar Chavez into a champion.
Quiralte, the youngest of three children, was born on February 10, 1946 in Guadalajara. His early years were particularly difficult, but they helped shape him into the person he is today.
“When I was little, my mother abandoned us. I was two years old,” Quiralte told The Ring. “To this day, no one knows what happened. We never had any physical contact or any other means of communication with my father. That’s a very sad thing in my life.
“My grandparents were old and couldn’t take care of us. We lived there. [I was] About 5 years old. They sent us to Mexicali to live with my aunt, but unfortunately it was in very bad conditions because they chased us away. They said, “How much worse can you be when your mother didn’t want you and abandoned you?” Not feeling welcome was very difficult for us. ”
Quiralte first became interested in boxing when he was 8 years old, primarily because he wanted a place to hide after school.
“I used it as an escape from being abandoned. It made me feel better,” he explained. “It was with a gentleman named Don Memo Valero. He was a great trainer. So I learned and absorbed his teaching methods, especially how to be polite in the gym and not use bad language. He made it clear that this was a place for people to become someone. He was taking care of them. He was helping them and feeding them.”
This young man focused on his studies and became an honor student with the highest grades. By the time he was around his 11th year, the government gave him a way back to Guadalajara to study at a better school. He returned with his brothers and they took care of themselves.
Unfortunately, with all that she had been through and the responsibility of caring for her siblings, Ms. Quiralte was unable to complete her scholarship.
“I went to Tijuana with the intention of going to America, but I got a job selling newspapers, which was very popular at the time. Everybody reads newspapers,” he said. “I used to sell newspapers and take a percentage from every newspaper I sold. I then joined a newspaper company and was able to do very well. After establishing myself there , about 5 or 6 years later, I became a trainer when I was about 24 or 25 years old. [The money from working on the newspapers] They paid the rent for the place where I was training.”
In 1973, Quiralte became chief manager of Tijuana’s sports department, El Crea (meaning “to create, to build”), helping children with similar problems as Valero had helped him. I swore. He still operates the facility (albeit renovated).
When a fresh-faced young man arrived from Culiacan, karma rewarded him handsomely.
“Julio Cesar Chavez arrived in Tijuana with a big suitcase full of dreams,” Quiralte recalls. “One of those dreams was to become world champion. At the time, he had only had a couple of professional fights under his belt. I became his trainer until he became world champion.
“Working with Julio was definitely a great experience working with such a great athlete like him. He has an amazing work ethic and a hunger to be something special. One of my greatest memories was watching him become world champion.”
Unfortunately, Quiralte was unable to be in Chavez’s corner that night as he did not have a US visa at the time. Shortly thereafter, circumstances forced fighter and trainer to go in different directions.
“I trained him until his third world title defense. Then Angelo Gutierrez, the gentleman who bought Julio Cesar Chavez’s contract, decided to change camp to another part of Mexico far away. I decided… At that time, most of my children were young and I was also training [Raul] With “Jivaro” Perez, who was on the verge of becoming a world champion. [Juan Jose] “Dinamita” Estrada,” he explained. “So I decided I couldn’t leave this area to go camping with Julio Cesar Chavez.”
Perez and Estrada became world champions in 1988. Kirarte was as humble as ever.
“Even when Perez and Estrada were fighting in Inglewood, Calif.—back then, the weigh-in was the same day as the fight—after the fight I had to go right back to TJ to keep selling newspapers. “There were world champions,” he said.
Next to come off the production line were Jorge Paez, Manuel Medina, Jose Luis Ramirez and Yori Boy Campas. Quiralte and Chavez teamed up prior to his 1998 “El Gran Campion” rematch with Oscar de la Hoya and worked together until Chavez’s retirement in 2005.
Quirarte also achieved further success in leading the likes of Jose Luis Castillo, Jesus Chavez, Julio Díaz, Antonio De Marco, Humberto Soto and Hugo Casares to world honors.
After several years without a world champion, Quiralte recently led Alexandro Santiago to the WBC bantamweight title by defeating the legendary Nonito Donaire, and his trainer says it was a special moment for him. (Santiago will make his first title defense against Junto Nakatani on Saturday.)
Boxing has long been a family business. Quiralte’s sons followed their father into the sport.
“My children have been practicing boxing since 1997. They were very young,” he said. “I saw myself in trouble [when preparing] Julio Cesar Chavez takes on Oscar De La Hoya. I needed help and they helped me. They have been with me ever since.”
The Quiralte family still runs La Claire, modeled on what Romulo learned from his old master, Valero.
“[We’re] It’s like one big family. Everyone is welcome. Between 120 and 140 kids are being trained there,” he said. “Everything is free. Everyone comes and says ‘hello’ when they come and ‘goodbye’ when they leave. Very respectful. Most of them are kids who have already graduated, most of them have college degrees, and that’s what I’ve been teaching them: “You need to be ready after boxing is over.” Get an education. ” I hope one of them becomes the next Santiago.
Quiralte, 78, is married, has six children, 15 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren, and lives in Tijuana.
He was kind enough to take the time to talk to The Ring about the best he’s trained in 10 major categories.
**Best jab**
Humberto Soto: “Humberto Soto and Raul Perez. I would choose Soto. He had a very good sense of timing, so his jab was always on point. That’s why I would choose him. He became very good with the jab, allowing him to initiate almost any combination with the jab and land subsequent punches.
**Best defense**
Julio Cesar Chavez: “Julio would spend hours doing bending and stretching exercises after training. He was able to catch and stop punches. If you look at his highlights, you can see that he had beautiful upper body movements. You can see that we are making a lot of opponents miss.”
**Best hand speed**
Manuel Medina: “He has speed. He doesn’t have power. What I tried to do was help him develop his speed, so he could become a five-time world champion. That was one of the reasons: He has great fundamentals and is able to adapt. [move around] Get in the ring and use your hand speed to win matches. ”
**Best footwork**
Alexandro Santiago: “We work with the abilities that every fighter has, because they are all different. Some players have the ability. That’s exactly what we did with Santiago. He’s still developing, but he can get better. He’s not in his prime yet. He has the ability to move. , and is very smart in coming in and out when he needs to throw combinations.”
**The smartest**
Chavez: “Without a doubt, Julio Cesar Chavez. He was a totally special person. Very smart.”
**Strongest**
Juan Jose Estrada: “Estrada was a strong fighter who always moved forward.”
**Best chin**
Chavez: “When you talk about punchers, you can’t make a puncher. It doesn’t matter what kind of practice you do. You either have it or you don’t have it. The same goes for the chin. He He was born with those qualities. … His work ethic and athleticism and the way he rolls with his punches have made him even better. [he had] That’s an amazing jaw. ”
**Biggest puncher**
“Yoley Boy” Campas: “He had amazing power. Estrada was really good at punching. He could knock someone out with one punch. Chavez would stop you, but , it was a tremendous punishment.”
**Best boxing skills**
Chavez: “Without a doubt, Julio Cesar Chavez. Soto was an incredibly smart fighter, but Julio was better than anyone else. That’s why he’s the king.”
**Overall Grand Prize**
Chavez: “He was special in every way. His heart was never broken – mentally you can never tear him apart. I’ve never seen [him have] There were doubts, especially when he was in his prime. You can see that even when he was losing the fight to Meldrick Taylor, he never had any doubts.flat [when] he knew he was late and pulled [off] Great victory. The burning desire he once had, his work ethic, his consistency was just incredible, and that’s why he became the man he is today. And to this day, he still practices that discipline and consistency. He was the complete package. He had everything you could want in a fighter. ”
*Paco Damian helped coordinate and translate this feature. Ring is grateful for his assistance.*
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