Ricardo Antonio Mayorga Perez (born October
3, 1973), is a Nicaraguan professional boxer and mixed martial artist.Somewhere it is written that professional boxers must adopt a nom
de ring, no matter how trite or ill fitting. Thus the pugilistic landscape
is littered with ponderous Cheetahs and gelatinous Rocks. There are
more Rockys than there are Rocky sequels.
Then there is Ricardo
Mayorga. The welterweight champion might be nicknamed El Matador,
It’s even tattooed on the side of his neck, but the handle could scarcely
be less accurate. Matadors succeed with a combination of grace and
precision; Mayorga does so with sheer power and aggression. If anything,
his moniker should be El Toro. He is rash and impetuous, while matadors
are calculating and poised. Perhaps most telling: While matadors merely
flirt with death, Mayorga all but stalks it.
These first 30
years of Mayorga’s life are replete with near misses. As a teenager
in Nicaragua he spent six years in a gang and twice stared down the
barrel of a gun. Both times, he says the weapon jammed. He has a half
dozen scars commemorating various knife fights, a scar on top of his
head was produced by a lead pipe. He is a drag-racing fiend whose
preferred pastime is Via de la Suerte (the Street of Luck), a “game”
that involves gunning his tricked-up Honda coupe and speeding through
the red light at a busy intersection. As if we need further evidence
of a self-destructive streak, he has a notorious pack-a-day smoking
habit. And, of course, his line of work isn’t exactly OSHA-approved.
“I know I push the envelope of danger, but God had been very good
to me,” he says with a shrug. “I should probably be dead by now.”
Instead
he is breathing life into his moribund sport. A slugger whose wildly
entertaining style, such as it is, entails unleashing a hail of punches
from bell to bell, Mayorga is suddenly one of the hottest acts in
boxing. He KO’d highly-regarded Andrew (Six Heads) Lewis in a mild
upset. He needed only three rounds to clock Vernon (the Viper) Forrest,
previously undefeated and the 2002 Fighter of the Year, in a considerable
upset. When he decisioned Forrest in an exhilarating July rematch,
he had proved his mettle. “Ricardo Mayorga is the truth, and that’s
no lie,” says his promoter, Don King, “Plus, he has the adrenaline
to meet the prophecy.”
Translation: Mayorga has a personality
that, by comparison, renders Ali an introvert and Tyson a Calvinist.
Mayorga isn’t from another era so much as he’s from another planet.
The night before his rematch with Forrest, Mayorga was on the floor
of the host casino at 3 AM, a cigarette in his hand, a woman on his
arm, a diminishing stack of chips in his grasp. When he retired to
his room shortly afterward, he fell asleep in his street clothes,
woke a few hours later and won the fight. While sparring at his
training camp in Fort Pierce, FL, he beseeched his corner to ply him
with rum between rounds. The following morning at breakfast he gave
his order to a perky waitress and promptly announced to his dining
companions, “It’s a good thing I don’t speak better English or I’d
(romance) all your women.”
Though Mayorga speaks through an interpreter,
he has become boxing’s reigning champ of the ritual preflight smack-talking.
According to Mayorga, Oscar de La Hoya is a maricon (a homosexual)
in need of a set of cojones. Shane Mosley is a payaso (clown) who
should be shining Mayorga’s shoes.
About the only thing Mayorga
filters are his cigarettes. In addition to the obligatory nickname,
every boxer needs a shtick, and the “fistic fumigator” is a good one.
But Mayorga is not merely blowing smoke when he blows smoke. “I don’t
do it to show off,” he says, dragging on a Marlboro. “I’m addicted.”
Yet contrary to all conventional (and unconventional) wisdom, he has
the stamina of a marathoner, running five miles a day and often sparring
for more than an hour. In his last fight (the decision over Forrest),
Mayorga endured 12 rounds and looked little the worse for wear.