Big Screen Replaces the Ring

Carlos Palomino was one of the unlikeliest boxing champions in the history of pugilism.

He had an incalculable advantage over his opponents--he could think. He could also spell, add, read and he often was the one guy in the gym who knew that Hemingway wasn’t a light-heavy out of Detroit. He was a college boy, eventually a college graduate.

Now, if you think fight gyms are crowded with college grads, you haven’t been in one lately. If ever. A pug majors in bleeding, not reading.

On Saturday night, Carlos would be trading punches with the toughest guys on the planet. On Monday mornings, he would be in class with a bunch of guys in eyeglasses who couldn’t outpoint a punching bag.

He never really intended to be a prizefighter. It was just a way to stay alive a bit longer. He was in the Army at Ft. Hood in Texas, a lowly draftee, when a buddy explained to him that if you got on the boxing team, you got all kinds of privileges, not the least of which was staying in this country longer and delaying the plane ride to Vietnam.

“You had all kinds of advantages if you were in Special Services,” recalls Palomino. “You could dress like a civilian, you had separate barracks. Your time was pretty much your own. You didn’t have to clean latrines. You lived like an officer, not an enlisted man.”

And you deferred your tour to Vietnam.

At first, it seemed like not such a good idea. They put Carlos in with an experienced tough guy, a top kick who knew every dirty trick in the books, and he made Carlos look like something that had just fallen off the back of a truck.

But Carlos learned fast and, with the aid of a canny, grizzled old trainer, he was soon outclassing even the old hands in the fort’s ring.

“I went on to win the All-Army chanmpionships in Ft. Carson, Colo,” he says He also beat the best European servicemen.

When he got out of the Army, he decided to bankroll his college studies by boxing. “The trouble was, I had learned the European-Olympic style of fighting--with no emphasis on power,” he says. “The old gym guys shook their heads and told me, ‘You’ll get killed if you try that in a pro gym. You have to remake your style.’ ”

His conditioning was turned over to the redoubtable Jackie McCoy, one of the last of the great teachers.

Palomino departed from the stereotypical Latino prizefighter, vaqueros who considered it cowardly to get out of the way of a punch and who cheerfully took three punches to get in one. Palomino hit hard with either hand, but he preferred to be the one landing the three punches.

He was 18-1 and didn’t have a mark on him when he fought a draw with Hedgemon Lewis in the fall of 1975.

It turned out to be a great break. He had a return fight clause with Lewis, who wanted it waived so he could fight John Stracey in London for the welterweight title. After Hedgemon beats Stracey, Lewis’ connections said, he will fight Carlos for the title.

Only Hedge didn’t beat Stracey. The champ knocked him out in 10.

The good news was, Stracey’s people thought Palomino would be more of same. They offered him a London fight for the title.

Carlos knocked the champion out in 12 rounds. “His style was perfect for me,” Palomino recalls. “He had the European style: head protected, body exposed. He went down three times.”

Palomino defended his title seven times--against Armando Muniz twice (“Those were rare nights--two college graduates fought for a title for the first time ever,” Carlos says), against Dave (Boy) Green in London, Everaldo Azevedo and three other contenders.

He lost his title in 1979 to Wilfred Benitez in Puerto Rico. “The WBC said I had to go there for the fight,” Carlos says. “As I look back on it, I wonder why? I mean, I was the champion. I should have been able to pick the site.

“I chased him for 15 rounds. He was elusive, but he just hit me pitty-pat punches. I lost a split decision. I think I would have won any place else.”

His last fight was against Roberto Duran. “I lost,” he admits. “Nothing split about it. It was a unanimous decision. Even I agreed with it.”

Carlos Palomino came along before the big pay-per-view purses hit the boxing business. But don’t look for this former champ to be carrying a pail and a stool or holding a heavy bag for some rookie in a gym. If you want to see Carlos Palomino, try theaters everywhere. He plays an Apache scout in the hit movie “Geronimo,” which is playing country-wide these days.

Usually, former champs play the goons guarding the gangster hideout and their longest speaking part is a grunt. They perform in turkeys like “The Prizefighter And The Lady,” or remakes of “The Champ,” but Carlos has made acting a career. “I was in ‘Taxi’ on television and I loved it,” he says. “I knew it was for me.”

Unlike a lot of athletes who thought their press clippings were credentials enough, Carlos has studied acting. He made films such as “Rampage,” “A Stranger’s Kiss”and “Dance Of the Dwarf” and attended acting school between roles.

On “Geronimo,” he makes a point of studying the craft of co-stars Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall. “If you want to learn fighting, you study the moves of a Sugar Ray Robinson. If you want to learn acting, you watch Robert Duvall and Gene Hackman,” he advises.

The picture is a labor of love (Carlos is one-quarter Yaqui), even though he plays a turncoat Apache working for the U.S. Cavalry.

They are trying to hunt down and hang Geronimo. “I made a study of Geronimo,” Carlos says proudly. “They had 25,000 cavalrymen chasing 35 warriors--and they couldn’t find him. He would even move whole villages--and they could never corner him. He was never where they looked. He would have made a great prizefighter.”

So did Carlos Palomino, who might have made a great Apache chief: “When he surrendered, Geronimo said he moved so that when they came to him, they found only the wind. I tried to do that in the ring, too.”