Youth Intends to Fight His Way to Fame

Michael Chavez trained for almost a year for his first boxing match. His opponent was older and several pounds heavier. Chavez was a wiry youngster, “a squeakling” who barely knew the difference between a jab and a speed bag.

But Chavez could punch. And in that first match at Carson’s boxing center, he literally chased his opponent around the ring, winning a three-round decision.

He was 6 years old.

Today, Michael, 13, has more than 80 fights under his belt and has won two national amateur championships. His career includes several knockouts, and he is considered among the savviest fighters in the city of Carson’s touted boxing stable.

While his friends at Wilmington Junior High School enjoy hanging out and going to parties, Michael prefers honing his skills either at his home gym or the boxing center.

“A lot of guys my age, they don’t know what they want,” said Michael, an eighth-grader. “They’re just hanging out. They think I just box. I don’t just box; I want to be a champion, an undisputed one.”

To that end, Michael trains about 15 hours a week. The garage of his family’s Harbor City home has been turned into a gym, complete with heavy bag, speed bag and full-length mirror for shadow boxing. A spare room is lined with photos of Michael posing with various boxing champions and fighting past opponents, and autographed pictures of celebrities. When no one is around, Michael said, he will often go there to watch boxing videotapes and to dream about becoming a champion himself.

“If I work hard, I’ll be up there,” he said, gesturing toward the photos.

At 5 feet, 4 inches and 132 pounds, Michael is considered heavy for his age and height. Consequently, his sparring partners and opponents are often older and taller. At the Carson center, some of his sparring partners are in their 20s.

Fabela Chavez, a distant cousin of Michael’s and director of the center, said Michael’s ring experience belies his age.

“He’s an up-and-coming kid,” said Chavez, who was once among Los Angeles’ biggest draws as a fighter at both the old Olympic Auditorium and Hollywood Legion Stadium. He fought nearly 400 times before retiring in 1957.

Chavez opened Carson’s boxing center under the Parks and Recreation Department in 1978. Over the years it has produced a few state champions and professional boxers. A musty, once-abandoned warehouse, the gym also offers weightlifting and aerobics classes. It draws about 100 participants a day, from senior citizens to 6-year-olds. Those who box vary from amateur to professional.

Michael, the city’s youngest champion, said he is drawn to the sport because of its emphasis on the individual.

“Basically, it’s one on one,” he said. “You don’t have to depend on other people. If you win, it’s all you.”

An articulate bit actor who has appeared in a few features, Michael is his own spokesman; his business card reads boxer/actor. His youthful good looks invite comparisons to Ray (Boom Boom) Mancini, the former World Boxing Assn. lightweight champion.

“I like certain fighters but I have my own style,” he said. “I’m an inside fighter. I come for you. I won’t back up. If there’s a guy who gives me danger, then I’ll box more.”

Those who watch Michael on a regular basis wonder if he is too single-minded in his ambition to become a champion.

“Sometimes we worry about him being too focused because, what if it don’t happen?” said James Wightman, assistant center director. “He needs something to fall back on.”

But Michael’s father and trainer, Ray Chavez, said he has no such worries. Boxing has taught his son discipline, and Michael gets average- to above-average grades, he said.

Besides, said Ray Chavez, even if he attempted to rein in his son’s fervor for the sport, he doubts that he could.

“It’s something he’s always liked and wanted to do,” he said.

The elder Chavez, who saw his son’s proclivity for throwing a punch when he was just 5, asked him if he would like to learn how to box.

“He said ‘Yes.’ I thought he was joking,” Ray Chavez said. “I didn’t think anything of it until five or six months later, when I asked him again. . . . He was real excited about it. So I brought him here.”

Fabela Chavez recalled Michael at the time as “a little squeakling; he was a real baby, actually. That’s why we brought him along slowly.”

Over the years, Michael has amassed a 77-8 record. All his losses were by decision, Michael said, adding that he has yet to be knocked down. In February, he won his second national Silver Gloves youth championship in his weight division. He won his first Silver Gloves national title in 1989.

Right now, he aims for a spot on the 1996 U.S. Olympic Team.

Ray Chavez said other parents sometimes respond negatively when they hear his son is a boxer.

“They don’t see the sacrifices that go into this,” Ray Chavez said. “He’s up at 7 a.m. on Saturdays. He’s not out partying the night before.”

Michael’s mother, Kathy, also supports her son’s boxing efforts and often videotapes his matches.

“When he first fought, I was a little concerned--I mean he was real little,” she said. “Then, when he fights with bigger kids, that kind of concerns me. But we have a tape of him sparring a 25-year-old, and he did really well.”

Both parents say they are confident that Michael can handle himself in the ring. His only injuries so far have been a bloody nose and a broken knuckle.

“It’s a rough sport, I agree,” Ray Chavez said. “But you gotta love it to like it.”