Out--and a Bout : His Prison Stay Over, Ex-Champion Aquino Makes a Comeback

The light from the television flickered in the sad eyes of Lupe Aquino as he watched the screen late at night, gazing at Michael Nunn and Iran Barkley and Tommy Hearns and James Toney and the rest of the world’s top middleweights who jabbed and danced their way across boxing rings, punching their way into the bright lights and huge paychecks.

“I knew I could beat those guys,” Aquino said. “I’d watch the TV and I’d say, ‘I could beat that guy right now.’ ”

And then he’d drop his head back on the pillow on his small, hard bed and gaze through the steel bars of his prison cell and realize that for him, boxing--once the only thing he lived for--was gone and might not return.

Aquino, of Santa Paula, briefly was the World Boxing Council’s junior middleweight champion. He was fast and skilled and tough and had a devastating punch. He loved to fight.

But, admittedly, he also loved to drink.

On Aug. 14, 1988, he drove from Santa Paula to the Forum in Inglewood to attend a concert. With him was Michelle Avila--his girlfriend and the mother of his son--and friends Theresa Bellow and Howard Thomas. At the concert, Aquino drank beer. Far too much, according to police. On the way home, Aquino lost control of the car as it roared down the steep north side of the Sepulveda pass on the San Diego Freeway.

When the glass stopped shattering, Bellow and Thomas were dead. Aquino and Avila were not seriously injured.

Convicted on two counts of vehicular manslaughter, Aquino was sentenced to six years in prison.

Today at the San Diego Sports Arena, Aquino, 29, will get a second chance. Released from prison on Thanksgiving Day last year, he will try to revive his boxing career when he fights Ernie Magdalano of San Diego on a card featuring Olympic gold medalist Oscar De La Hoya, who will fight Curtis Strong in a nationally televised bout.

It is a chance Aquino never thought he’d get. “I figured it was all over,” Aquino said. “I had thrown it all away.”

He admits he was wrong to drink and drive. The memories of the crash will never fade, he said.

“Theresa and Howard, they are with me all the time, every day,” he said. “I can never forget what happened. It’s still there. It’s still so fresh in my mind. I’m sorry. I really am. I wish I could bring them back. But now I have to get on with my life, to live and take care of things the best way I know how.”

In the accident and subsequent trial, Aquino said, he also was a victim.

“Michelle was in the front seat with me, and we were arguing,” he said. “She got mad and reached over and pulled hard on the steering wheel. That’s why we crashed. She denied it, and no one believed me, and I paid for it. She knows what happened. She has to live with it.”

Aquino said he has not spoken to Avila since the trial.

“And at the trial, I believe I was used to make an example,” he said. “I had a name. I was a world champion. I had no criminal history, not a thing. But they wanted to make me an example.”

For three years he sat in his small cell inside the state prison at Chino and thought about what might have been. Watching boxing on his small TV made things unbearable, he said.

He could beat Nunn. He could beat Barkley and the others.

Perhaps.

There was the day in 1987 when promoter and manager Dan Goossen brought Aquino to his gym in Van Nuys to spar with then-superstar Nunn, a guy who made a career of being unhittable.

Aquino hit him.

“We never told anyone and we kept it a big secret, but Lupe destroyed Michael in that sparring session,” Goossen said. “He hit Michael in the ribs with the most devastating body shot I’ve ever seen. He took Michael out of commission for a month and a half. What a punch!

“Lupe Aquino was one helluva fighter.”

Aquino also remembers that day. “The rumor has gotten around that I hurt Nunn’s ribs,” Aquino said. “It’s an accurate rumor. He was supposed to be this untouchable guy, but I caught him with one punch and I know he didn’t spar again for a long, long time.

“And then I’d sit in prison watching him fight and making all this money, and it was hard to handle.”

During his three-year incarceration, there was some fighting in Aquino’s life. But there were no gloves and no ring. Because of his previous profession, there were more than a few challenges.

“I think I got a lot of respect in prison because of who I was,” he said. “But there were times that I had to fight. A few guys wanted to test me. And after they did, and they got a little bit too much of a test, then things settled down and people left me alone.”

Aquino built a 37-5-1 record as a pro. He won the WBC junior middleweight (154-pound limit) title on July 12, 1987, with a decision over Duane Thomas but lost it three months later to Gianfranco Rossi of Italy. He fought at 160 pounds after that loss but enters today’s fight as a light-heavyweight at 175 pounds. “That will be a disadvantage in a comeback,” Goossen said. “He was great at 154 pounds, but now he’ll face some really big, strong punchers.”

Aquino also knows that 175 pounds isn’t his ideal weight.

“I lifted weights for three years and just put on the pounds,” he said. “My arms and shoulders are so much bigger, and I feel so much stronger than I did as a middleweight. But I’ve still got a few pounds to burn off. Maybe I can get down to 168 and fight as a super-middleweight, but I’d really like to get back to 160 pounds. That’s where I belong.”

His comeback fight won’t be easy. Magdalano is 17-0 and ranked ninth by the International Boxing Federation. But even with the loss of three years and the gain of about 15 pounds, Aquino said he will be a better fighter the second time around.

“I missed boxing so much,” he said. “It was what I loved, and it was taken away. This time, I won’t let anything go wrong. I wasn’t very serious about boxing before the accident. I didn’t train as hard as I should have, and I played too much. Prison gave me a lot of time to think and to mature.

“Now I’m ready to do it again. And this time I’m going to do it right.”