He’s Learned No Man Is an Island in Fight Game

Boxer Brian Viloria weighs 108 pounds, about the same as George Foreman’s left leg.

He fights in a weight class called light-flyweight. That’s like being a small miniature Chihuahua.

He was champion of the world, or at least that part recognized by the World Boxing Council, until Aug. 10, when another small miniature Chihuahua, Omar Nino of Mexico, had more bite than Viloria’s bark. Nino won a unanimous decision, taking away Viloria’s title in his second defense, at the Orleans Hotel in Las Vegas.

For Viloria, a Hawaiian who spent some of his young life in the Philippines and who may be among the world’s better athletes -- pound for pound, as they say in boxing -- the defeat was no small trauma. Nor was it the end of a roller-coaster ride he has been on for the last 15 months.

On May 28, 2005, Viloria won a match at Staples Center against an undistinguished Mexican fighter named Ruben Contreras.

In the middle of the fight, Contreras,

bleeding from the nose, stopped fighting, turned away from Viloria and walked to his corner, telling the referee he was done. Leaving the ring, he said he felt faint and he soon collapsed, experiencing a seizure.

Doctors later said that, had he not been so close to a hospital and had emergency personnel not reacted quickly, Contreras would have died.

By the time Viloria was told what had happened, as he stepped out of the shower after the fight, Contreras was having brain surgery.

Suddenly, Viloria, the “Hawaiian Punch” from the city of Waipahu, which overlooks Pearl Harbor, was not sure his career goals were the same as they had been an hour earlier.

He started boxing when he was 6, partly because his younger brother, Gaylord, who now stands 6 feet and weighs 250, beat him up a lot. Their father, Ben, took Brian to a gym for lessons.

Later, squeezing boxing into a high school schedule that included state competition in wrestling and tennis, plus performing in the band -- he plays woodwinds -- Viloria became a world-class amateur fighter.

When it came time for college, he found an Olympic program for boxers at Northern Michigan, certainly the last choice of schools for somebody from Hawaii. But Viloria took off for Marquette, Mich., in the state’s Upper Peninsula, where he quickly discovered a pressing need for gloves and headgear -- the warm kind.

He stayed 2 1/2 years, had nearly 300 amateur fights, won all but eight or nine of those, won the world championship in 1999 by beating an Olympic gold medalist, and then became the first of several Americans who suffered controversial defeats at the 2000 Sydney Olympics when he lost in the second round to Frenchman Brahim Asloum, the eventual gold medalist.

The score was 8-6 and the bout was controversial in that neither fighter was given points for body punches, of which Viloria threw many.

“He came right out with his hands high, inviting body punches,” Viloria says. “So I took the opening.”

He was the last of that Olympic crop to become a pro, but when Bob Arum and Top Rank signed him and he quickly grew in reputation, if not in stature, there was talk that he could be the next Michael Carbajal, the only fighter under 125 pounds to ever fight for a seven-figure purse.

But the Contreras fight nearly ended all that. Asked if he ever would have climbed back in the ring if Contreras hadn’t climbed out of his hospital bed, Viloria grimaced and shook his head.

The night of Sept. 10, 2005, brought Viloria back to the Staples Center boxing ring. Before he stepped into it, he walked over and hugged a man sitting at ringside.

“I told Ruben, ‘Thank God you are here,’ ” Viloria says. “I told him I would dedicate the fight to him.”

The bell rang and, exactly 2 minutes 59 seconds later, or one second shy of the end of the first round, Viloria was ready to climb back out. He had caught WBC champion Eric Ortiz, who was expected to give him a full 12 rounds, with a straight right knockout punch. Weeks after nearly quitting, Viloria was a world champion.

Ring announcer Michael Buffer handed him the microphone, Viloria announced that he had dedicated the fight to Contreras, and then spoke in Tagalog, the native language of the Philippines.

Boxing in the feature event that night was Manny Pacquiao, the Filipino who is bigger in his country than the pope is in Rome. Most Filipinos had not known of Viloria’s connection, but many were tuned in to see Pacquiao. Now, Viloria is assistant pope.

After a few days, Viloria went back to the Philippines to see his grandfather, Oscar, 72, who was dying of colon cancer. He took his title belt to his grandfather, who had said he would hang on until he saw it. Six hours later, Oscar Viloria died.

Viloria defended his title in February, breaking his hand in the process. But when he took his 19-0 record into the boxing ring in the hockey arena at the Orleans, nearly everybody expected him to skate through easily. Nino was the WBC’s 10th-ranked contender.

Afterward, a dazed Viloria said he’d just fought a bad fight. No excuses.

He feared, though, that the loss would cost him a rematch. But a week later, Viloria got the word that Arum was sticking with him and that a rematch had been arranged for either Nov. 16 at the Orleans or as part of the Pacquiao-Erik Morales undercard two nights later at the Thomas & Mack Center.

So, for Viloria, the roller-coaster ride continues.

“Been quite a year,” he says.