A FIGHT FOR SURVIVAL : Frankie Duarte Doesn’t Want to Box Anymore, but He Has No Other Choice

“I coulda had class. I coulda been a contendah. I coulda been somebody.” --Marlon Brando as Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront”

Rocky Balboa is reel life.

Terry Malloy is real life.

All fighters start out thinking they’re going to be Rocky, but too many of them wind up like Malloy. Even the successful ones.

Take Frankie Duarte.

Here’s a guy who had the toughness to battle back from alcohol and drug addiction.

Here’s a guy who was a contender for years.

And what’s he got to show for it?

At 34, Duarte retired. Now, he’s broke and in debt.

This is the Requiem for a bantamweight.

Two years ago, Duarte was boxing at the Forum, before a cheering, celebrity-studded crowd, fighting for a world title. Today, he’s fighting for financial survival, trying to scrape enough money together to pay delinquent taxes and perhaps have enough left over to make the payments on his house and buy the machinery he needs to start a carpet-cleaning business.

For now, he’s dependent on occasional work in the carpet business and money from his mother, Lillian, with whom he lives in West Los Angeles.

Six weeks ago, Duarte had another title shot lined up, with International Boxing Federation champion Orlando Canizales. Duarte was in line to get $25,000. The fight, originally scheduled for mid-January, was postponed when Canizales came down with an infection.

Before it could be rescheduled, Duarte walked out on his handlers, the Goossen family of North Hollywood, and announced his retirement.

“I just don’t want to fight anymore,” Duarte said the other day. “I wasn’t a champion of the world, but I came as close as you can get. I take great satisfaction in what I accomplished, even though I don’t have the money to show for it.

“People remember you for your last fight. I’d rather walk out of the fight game than go out on my back because I’ve had one fight too many. Who am I kidding? I’m a 34-year-old man. I have a great chin, but there’s always that night the chin turns to rust. It happens to the greatest of them.

“I’ve been able to stay young for a long time, but now I’ve gotten old. When I punch the bag, my hand hurts. When I do road work, my knees hurt.”

That’s understandable. Even at his peak, Duarte took as much as he gave, often more. He was willing to take three punches to land one. The scar tissue piled up over his eyes. Even in victory, his blood flowed with the champagne.

“I’m basically broke,” Duarte said. “But I at least still have my marbles, although who knows what will happen two years from now. Sometimes brain problems show up later. I want to come out standing right and talking right.

“If someone called and offered me $150,000 to fight, I would have to turn it down because what I stand for is far more important than the money. Others might take the money, take a beating and then have their managers throw in the towel. I won’t do that. When I get in the ring, I fight to the death. And I’m too young to die.”

Duarte, who grew up in Venice, began fighting in 1973 and won his first 16 matches. The bleak days began in 1979, when drug and alcohol addiction temporarily cost him his career, and nearly his life.

The postfight parties got longer and longer until, finally, he did away with the fighting altogether and just devoted himself to the partying.

The drug use increased. Recreational drugs were gradually replaced with the hard stuff. Duarte eventually turned to heroin.

“I was with these guys one night and I told them to make mine a good one,” said Duarte of his worst experience with heroin. “I went into the bathroom and slammed it in. I turned on the water to wash off my arm and boom!”

That’s all Duarte remembers until he woke up hours later in a bathtub, huge blisters on his feet.

His companions told him how he had nearly died, how they had tried to bring him back with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, by shooting salt into his veins, and finally by lighting matches to the bottoms of his bare feet to shock his system back to life.

“I was so remorseful,” Duarte said. “I promised myself, this was it. I was going to quit. I was such a screw-off. I quit--for two weeks. Then I went right back on it.”

That was 1983. A year later, Duarte, who figures he overdosed two or three times, finally did quit. He signed with the Ten Goose Boxing Club of North Hollywood, the Goossen family business, and, under trainer Joe Goossen, underwent a rigorous conditioning program. Soon Duarte was back in the ring, fighting as though the previous five years had been nothing more than a bad dream.

Suddenly, his biggest vice was sneaking away from training occasionally to get some Mexican food.

In 1986, Duarte won the North American Boxing Federation bantamweight title. A year later, he finally got his long-awaited world-title shot, losing a 15-round decision to World Boxing Assn. champion Bernardo Pinango at the Forum.

Four months later, Duarte returned to the Forum and successfully defended his NABF crown against Albert Davila, winning on a 10th-round TKO.

It was nice, but it wasn’t a world title. That was what Duarte felt he truly needed to make his career complete.

Duarte’s manager, Dan Goossen, went to work behind the scenes. A fight was arranged last year with Wilfredo Vasquez, the new WBA champ. Duarte was to receive between $40,000 and $50,000, a heavy purse for a bantamweight. But first Vasquez had a title defense against Kaokor Galaxy of Thailand.

Duarte was told that would be just a formality. It wasn’t. Vasquez lost.

Goossen tried to match Duarte with Galaxy, but Galaxy was too badly cut from the Vasquez fight.

Goossen talked with Kelvin Seabrooks, International Boxing Federation bantamweight champion, but details couldn’t be agreed upon.

A bout against Miguel Lora, the World Boxing Council bantamweight champion, was discussed, but Duarte wasn’t ready for a fight as quickly as Lora wanted.

Finally, when Canizales beat Seabrooks, a deal was struck. Duarte and Canizales would fight on Jan. 15 at Miami.

For Duarte, it was none too soon. He was financially tapped out. His purse from the Pinango fight had been $15,000. Five thousand of that had gone for training expenses. After deducting the manager’s share, Duarte walked away with just $7,000 before taxes.

That may not seem like a lot for a nationally televised bout, but it’s about scale for bantamweights. They are just not in a lucrative division. Once you get below the welterweights, big purses are rare.

Duarte’s share of the Davila fight was $29,000. But he fought just twice afterward, tune-ups to keep him sharp. His income from those two bouts, both last year, was $8,000.

Duarte’s parents helped him out financially. He responded in the only way he could, by doing chores around the house.

Duarte said he went to Goossen, his manager, several times for money just to live.

“When you go in that office to ask for a few bucks, you were made to feel like a pain in the . . . . I was never able to be business minded. It was not because of stupidity, but being a fighter takes so much concentration. You think boxing, boxing, boxing. I couldn’t think about what was best for me. I hoped Dan Goossen was thinking about what was best for me.

“I asked him for a loan for $1,200 for a down payment on a house and he said he was broke. This is the guy who drives a fancy car and hangs with the stars.”

Said Goossen: “I’m sorry Frankie felt like that. Unfortunately, I disappointed him. It hurts me, because I don’t ever want to disappoint anyone, especially someone I respect like Frankie Duarte.

“I always felt that not only were my office doors open, but our family doors were open as well. Frankie was someone who always worked hard for everything. He may have felt uncomfortable to come in and ask me something he didn’t want to ask. But my door is always open.

“I’m proud of what Frankie Duarte accomplished. I always wanted him to be a part of Ten Goose after his career was over. To me, he’ll always be a world champion.”

The car Duarte is currently driving was paid for by Ten Goose, but Duarte says the Goossens are now trying to repossess it.

When he wasn’t fighting, Duarte helped out Joe Goossen as a corner man in fights involving other Ten Goose boxers, but says he never got paid for that.

“If I owe anything to Ten Goose, I would say it would be to Joe because, as my trainer, he pushed me beyond what I thought I was going to be able to do,” Duarte said. “I understand the Goossens took a chance by going with a 29-year-old fighter on drugs.”

Duarte was to have received $25,000 for the Canizales fight. He got a $5,000 advance, but the fight was put off by Canizales’ sickness and was going to have to be delayed for at least a few months.

That was too long for Duarte. He retired.

Doesn’t make sense, you say? Why would someone desperately in need of money, desperately chasing a world title across nearly two decades, quit just a few months away from his goal?

“Every time there was a chance for a title shot, I would get in the gym and get all psyched,” Duarte said. “Then boom, when it fell through, I would go all the way down mentally. I had a hard time psyching myself up again.

“When I get excited and get that spark about fighting, it can lead to a towering inferno. Then I fight like the devil. But when things fall through, that inferno would go back to just a pilot light. The pilot light was always on. But when the Canizales fight fell through, the pilot light went out, and I just can’t light it again. I can’t produce an inferno anymore. The pilot light has died.”

Goossen said he understands.

“It’s a shame. I would have liked to have enjoyed the title with Frankie,” Goossen said. “But I’m happy that someone that close to a world title fight makes such a decision for his peace of mind. I’m happy that if he feels in his mind he shouldn’t fight, he is strong enough to stick to it. I’m always happy someone can make a decision like that. You can’t lie to yourself.”

But Duarte is not happy. He is bitter. And most of his bitterness is directed at the Goossens. Not just because of his financial plight, either. He believes he was shunted aside, once Ten Goose’s other major fighter, middleweight Michael Nunn, won the IBF title. Duarte believes that Dan Goossen turned down a potentially lucrative rematch with Davila to pursue a title fight that never materialized.

“Dan talked me into turning down Davila,” Duarte said. “You know how slick he is. He said I’d be better off with the title. He did it for himself. He could get more credibility for Ten Goose by getting a 34-year-old fighter a world championship. But now I don’t have either the title or the money from a Davila fight. I could have been living in a two-story house with a swimming pool and have some cash flow.”

Responded Goossen: “The key was to get Frankie enough money to live off the rest of his life. Rather than having him make big money now and see it gone in a year or a year and a half, we wanted to try to keep him in the chips for the rest of his life. The only way he could do that was with a world title. Then he could do the talk shows, the movie, the book. We wanted to keep him in the money after boxing and we knew he did not have much time left in the ring.”

How hard did Goossen really work at getting a title shot?

“Dan Goossen was on my tail. That is the truth,” said Norm Kaplan, a Los Angeles attorney who has represented both Pinango and Vasquez. “It seemed like a daily situation on the telephone with him. He was exerting all effort to get his fighter a title shot. If I was in his shoes, I’d have done same thing, rather than go after the Davila fight.”

For the time being, however, reality for Duarte is poverty.

“When I got back into boxing, I was just hoping to get a fight or two, and maybe a junk car and an apartment,” he said. “Instead, I did many good things, the most important being getting off drugs and alcohol. I think I gained the respect of a lot of people. I wrote my book. It’s just that the final chapter was never completed.”

Postscript: Some dreams die hard.

Two days after having spoken with a reporter, Duarte changed his mind.

He would not return to the Goossens, but he would fight Canizales if a deal could be put together.

Stan Hoffman, who handles Canizales, doesn’t know if that is still possible. He wouldn’t rule it out, but the date, site and TV deal have already been lost for this fight.

Rocky gets sequels.

Terry Malloy may not.

“I would rather retire,” Duarte said. “But I realize I cannot. I have to fight because I don’t want to lose my house. It’s all I have.”

The reality of bills and debts has reignited the pilot light.

“I’m positive I could knock Canizales out because he’s too small for me,” Duarte said. “He can’t take my pressure. I will not just get a payday. I will find a way to get motivated again. I will come out a winner.

“I’m angry I am left with no other options. I wish I could find a way where I don’t have to fight again. I really do. I don’t have a high school diploma. I have no real skills. So I have to do something I don’t really want to do. It’s scary.”