PicoBlog

I come not to praise controversial and disgraced trainer Carlos Panama Lewis, but I do not come to bury him either.

I assume a funeral director, or a crematorium will handle that as Lewis, age 74, died a couple of weeks ago.

If his life is defined and judged by one brutal act, then he has no celestial address but is sweating out in the hot place (Hades) where everyone gets a pitchfork and eternal damnation.

SLAVA KOZA PART 1 EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH CONTROVERSIAL PANAMA LEWIS

Lewis was sentenced to six years in a New York prison for loading up Luis Resto’s gloves in a Madison Square Garden bout which left Billy Collins with various colored knots about his face and other parts of his head.

But beyond his state sentence Lewis, whose trademark shout was “bullets and gun smoke,” essentially got a lifetime ban from boxing.  Most will say Lewis deserved the pugilistic punishment, but I think it was a tad excessive.

Not Draconian but a bit too severe. Suffice to say I never thought his penalty fit the grime and crime. 

Lewis was treated as though he murdered the Tennessee boxer, as though he drove the car off a cliff and had Collins tied up in the trunk.

But instead of rehashing the tainted bout and the aftermath in which Collins died in a car wreck, I want to underline the magnetic attraction Lewis held over such big talents as Mike Tyson, Roberto Duran, ill-fated Arturo Gatti, Mike “Body Snatcher” McCallum, Matthew Hilton, Michael Nunn and many other fighters.

(Lewis and Duran were so friendly that “Hands Of Stone” okayed the trainer dating his sister for some time.)

When such fighters bought into Lewis’ training style, they bought it 100 percent.  Give Lewis this, his boxing “pitch” had an almost hypnotic effect on such world champions and top contenders.

SEE PART 2 SLAVA KOZA UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL WITH CONTROVERSIAL BANNED FOR LIFE TRAINER PANAMA LEWIS.

Say what you will about the Collins debacle or the “black bottle” Lewis mixed up for Aaron “Hawk” Pryor in the Miami Orange Bowl spectacular fight (held in 1982) with also great Alexis Arguello.

But to bruisers like Duran and Tyson Lewis sang a siren song that was ring magic, a tune that made them dig deeper into their own personal well of natural ability.

Anyone who sat in a gym where Lewis put such superstars through their paces could see how enamored and satisfied these fighters were with Panama’s drills and accompanying bellowing commands.

In both English and Spanish Lewis exhibited a rough-hewn charisma in tutoring fighters. He was about as smooth as sandpaper, but his words and gestures usually connected

Lewis had studied under brilliant trainer predecessors such as elegant Ray Arcel and no-nonsense Freddie Brown. To some, Panama was too flashy, made too much noise and was more hype than substance but the key to his success was that boxers went hook, line and sinker for his daily routine.

Yes, Lewis could clown it up but, stripped down, he injected vigor and enthusiasm into most of his charges.

Although he was an adversary to Arguello and his esteemed trainer Eddie “Mister” Futch, both men knew a Lewis prepped opponent would be highly motivated.

Sterling McPherson, an unbeaten pro lightweight until he ran into Rockin’ Robin Blake, was remarkably close, an advocate for Panama, and he estimated that he sparred “thousands of rounds” with the Nifty Nicaraguan.

“I was quite close to Alex,” McPherson said from his Las Vegas home. “If he flew into Vegas, I would pick him up at the airport. I asked him once about the so-called black bottle.”

According to McPherson, who went on to manage Michael Dokes and Francois “White Buffalo” Botha and as a right-hand man for promoter Don King, Arguello chuckled.

“’Stop that nonsense,’” Alex told me that day. He said, “Give me that magic pill or drink from the black bottle. There is no such pill or drink which can win you a world championship fight. Are you kidding me? Is that what it takes to win world championship fights?”

Yet and still, others say the late Arguello pondered whether the padding in Pryor’s gloves were tampered with or removed. Guess we’ll never know definitively.

Technically, no commission ever banned Lewis for life. He was allowed to yell like a fan from a ringside seat but not permitted to work the corners.

In June 1991, a freed from jail Lewis was at loose ends until her was summoned to Vegas to drill Tyson who had a second bout coming with Jamaican brawler Donovan Razor Ruddock. Scribe Mike “Wolfman” Katz did a big story in the New York Daily News and he quoted Lewis.

“Right now, I’m on first base. Thank God for that,” Lewis told the reporter. “Let’s just say Tyson called for me.

“He will listen to me. He knows me, he knows I don’t take any nonsense. You either do things my way or we’re through.

“Tyson is like a son to me, he brought me in with him against the odds.” Lewis said speaking to Boxingconfidential.com in 2008.

“I’m OK with yelling from the audience, who’s got a bigger mouth than me?” Lewis said then.

But having your chief second close to but not in your corner was untenable and the two separated.

Two boxing guys who kept in touch with Lewis in his final months and years were Detroit based ex-fighters Tarick Salmaci and John “Lightning JL” Lepak. Salmaci was a successful pro while Lepak worked as a camp coordinator for Tyson through his final bouts.

“For sure, Panama was grateful to Mike for bringing him into camp,” Lepak said.

“Panama had an aura about him that attracted loyalty from fighters. He knew every boxing trick in the book, dirty tricks and legal tricks of the trade. He was great with energizing boxers, building up their confidence or boosting them up mentally.

“He’d stroll and swagger into the gym yelling, ‘Wake up, wake up. He’d throw cold water on a fighter who was tired or sagging. They can say what they want but he had a special chemistry to which all fighters seemed to respond favorably to. His enthusiasm was catchy,” Lepak said.

So, in the wake of Lewis’ death, you might say we should give this boxing devil his due.

If Panama didn’t skirt the rules and taint some or all of his student’s victories, he would go down in history along with Futch, with Arcel and Brown and the gloved genius of Angelo Dundee and Emanuel Steward.

Instead, because he played by his own rules and was caught, Lewis finished up more notorious than celebrated.

He didn’t need to load up Resto’s gloves or put any illegal “juice in a bottle.

Playing it straight would’ve been more than enough.

The tag line belongs to Tyson mentor Cus D’Amato who once said, “Somebody who is born round doesn’t die square.”

That’s Panama’s boxing epitaph.

Lewis was not just some gym rat with a towel over his shoulder.

More’s the pity.

(mlcmarley@aol.com)

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