Title Shot Is Cruz’s Pipe Dream : McGuigan’s Challenger Has Waited Five Years for Chance

May 19, 1986. It’s 10:45 a.m. in Fort Worth, and 22-year-old plumber’s helper Steve Cruz is cutting plastic pipe in a suburban neighborhood.

“We were running a sewer line from the main line under the street to a new house,” Cruz recalled Friday afternoon at Johnny Tocco’s steamy Ringside Gym in Las Vegas.

“I work for Rivera Plumbing in Fort Worth, and a messenger was sent out to tell me to get to my gym quick, that it was important.”

When Cruz got to Gorman’s Super Pro Gym, his manager, Dave Gorman, and his father, Steve Cruz Sr., and uncle, Joe Cruz, were waiting.

In Gorman’s office, Gorman asked Cruz: “Steve, how do you feel about fighting Barry McGuigan at Caesars Palace on June 23?”

That morning, Gorman received a phone call from promoter Bob Arum, who had just been told that Argentine Fernando Sosa, the scheduled challenger for McGuigan’s World Boxing Assn. featherweight title on Monday night’s tripleheader card at Caesars Palace, had two detached retinas.

Cruz said there wasn’t much conversation.

“We talked maybe five minutes,” he said. “I’d been working out in the gym for 12 or 13 days for another fight anyway, so I was in shape. I’ve been waiting for a big break like this for five years. I’m ready.”

For many in boxing like Cruz, the breaks are a long time coming. For Cruz, it has been five long years of endless afternoons in the gym and meager paydays, waiting patiently for the Big Break.

In 1981, Cruz was one of the United States’ outstanding amateurs, expected by many to be a gold medal contender at the Los Angeles Olympics. But he turned pro in 1981, against the advice of many in amateur boxing circles.

“I’d competed in the Olympic trials in 1980, after we knew the U.S. wasn’t going (to Moscow), and the whole thing wasn’t a good experience,” Cruz said. “I made the decision then to turn pro after one more year as an amateur.

“I’m not jealous of the Olympic guys who did well in L.A. and made a lot of money. Maybe I would have, and maybe I wouldn’t. I don’t look back. I don’t regret anything.”

Cruz, who boxes in the same Fort Worth stable as world welterweight champion Donald Curry, doesn’t perceive himself as an “opponent” for McGuigan, the constant-motion slugger from Ireland whose Caesars Palace appearance is being promoted as his American coming-out party. McGuigan has had one U.S. appearance, a one-round knockout of Lavon McGowan in Chicago in 1983, two years before he became champion.

Said Cruz: “McGuigan is a tough, durable guy with a lot of guts and heart. I won’t have to look for him, he’ll be right in my face. He’s done a lot for his country, and I admire him as a man and as a fighter. But when I get in the ring, all that’s out the window. I’m here to beat him, and I plan to do it by boxing him, by outsmarting him, by trying to sucker him.

“I’ve waited five years. This is a great opportunity I’ve been given, and I want to take advantage of it.”

Cruz’s two biggest paydays have been two $5,000 purses. Monday night, he gets $70,000.

Folks in Fort Worth who know the Cruz family would offer this advice to McGuigan: Don’t mess with Stevie Cruz.

Cruz’s 76-year-old grandfather, Jose, born and raised in Fort Worth, was a bantamweight boxer in the Fort Worth-Dallas area five decades ago. Cruz’s father, Steve Sr., 41, was an amateur flyweight in the 1960s. Little Steve has been boxing since he was 6.

The way Steve Jr. figures, if his grandfather is tough enough to stop two bullets, Barry McGuigan isn’t all that tall an order for him.

“My grandfather came home one night earlier this year, and two burglars came running out of his house as he drove up,” Cruz explained. “They shot him in the arm and the stomach with a .22 and kept on running. Someone took him to the hospital, where they fixed his arm. They left the other bullet in his stomach. He’s a tough old guy.”

Not tough enough to board an airplane, though.

“There’ll be about 75 people from Fort Worth here Monday (five of them employees of the Rivera Plumbing Co.), including most of my family,” he said. “But my grandfather’s old-fashioned. He’ll watch me on TV instead. He doesn’t like to fly. In fact, he won’t even drive on the freeway when he comes to visit us.”

Cruz is 25-1 with 13 knockouts, McGuigan 29-1 with 24 knockouts. Cruz, 22, is the WBA’s ninth-ranked featherweight. His loss was at Las Vegas in 1984, a first-round knockout by Lennie Valdez.

Said Gorman: “Steve just walked into a big punch that night. He didn’t recover from it, and the referee stopped it.”

Gorman gives his fighter an even chance or better to spoil McGuigan’s party Monday night. Odds are 7-1 to 8-1 favoring McGuigan.

“I give Steve a 50-50 shot or better,” Gorman said. “McGuigan is always in great condition, but Steve is a better boxer. Steve is confident, and he really believes he can beat this guy.”

At that, Gorman burst out laughing and said: “Actually, the reason I think Steve will win is because Steve is a newlywed and he’s had to room with his trainer, Joe Barrientos, for the last three weeks. He’s getting mean on us. He wants to take care of McGuigan in a hurry, so he can go home to his wife.”