Cotto’s Trainer Learned Trade Outside the Ring

By GREG BISHOP
Published: November 13, 2009

LAS VEGAS — Joe Santiago is 32 years old. He has never boxed, not once, never built a champion, never trained a fighter for a bout of the magnitude that awaits him Saturday.

Santiago speaks softly, in Spanish, his baseball cap turned backward, his baby face revealed. He is not a trainer cut from the Rocky cloth. He lacks the facial scars, the advice delivered in gruff tones and colorful language, the ever-present stogie.

Santiago earned two degrees, a bachelor’s in physical education and a master’s in athletic training. But for those who doubt he can help Miguel Cotto defeat Manny Pacquiao in their World Boxing Organization welterweight title fight, Santiago pointed to his most important schooling, 18 years in boxing gyms in Puerto Rico, where he earned an unofficial doctorate in the sport.

“I’ve followed boxing all my life,” he said through a translator.

The gym opened a half-mile from his home in Caguas when Santiago was 14. This was not a gym in the typical sense. It was an old building that fit no more than 30 people. The ring sat in the backyard. Fighters jumped rope on the sidewalk out front.

Locals nicknamed it the Garage, and during off-hours they parked cars next to punching bags, removing them each morning to resume training.

Santiago loved every aspect of that gym — the sounds, the smells, the intoxicating daily rhythm. Only one problem remained: his parents refused to let him fight. His father, Jose Luis, a longtime firefighter, knew all about a profession with danger inherent in its job description.

They compromised. As long as Santiago fulfilled his school obligations he could spend as much time at the gym as he wanted. But he would not box.

Even then, he dreamed of fights like Saturday’s — in Las Vegas, sold out, millions watching, critiquing, wondering, who is that young man in Cotto’s corner?

“This is my dream,” Santiago said. “To be in this kind of fight, the magnitude of it, the stakes.”

Santiago explained that the rich tradition of Puerto Rican boxing resulted from the plethora of gyms situated in the south. The best fighters train all over, fight all over, and in 1993, seven years before Cotto made his name in the Olympics, he stumbled into Santiago in a chance meeting.

Cotto introduced Santiago to his uncle and trainer at the time, Evangelista, who invited Santiago to his gym. In 2002, Cotto added Santiago to his payroll, as a physical trainer and nutritionist, two jobs tailored to Santiago’s schooling.

Cotto and Santiago bonded instantly. Close in age (Cotto is three years younger), they had similar temperaments, similar tastes in music and a singular obsession — boxing. They became like brothers.

Evangelista build his nephew into a champion. They won their first 32 fights and world titles in two divisions, their only loss coming under a cloud of suspicion to a boxer, Antonio Margarito, later caught with doctored gloves.

But a dispute flared last April. Cotto wanted to move his training camp to Tampa, Fla. Evangelista, who worked with other fighters, demanded that they remain in Puerto Rico.

A local newspaper, Primera Hora, reported the details: the uncle and his nephew, together for 18 years, exchanging blows; the fight continuing at Cotto’s home; the uncle lobbing a brick at his nephew; the brick shattering the window of the nephew’s Jaguar; the uncle getting fired.

Boxers routinely change trainers, and those close to Cotto had seen the dispute coming. His promoter, Bob Arum, the chairman of Top Rank Boxing, said that he had sensed tension earlier and that Santiago had become Cotto’s main confidant long before Evangelista’s dismissal.

Arum labeled the change necessary, but not everyone agrees.

“It was painful,” said Miguel Cotto Sr., whose relationship with his brother has been severed. “But my son is the athlete, and he had to make decisions and go forward.”

They decided not to seek an outside trainer, believing they already had the right one in Santiago. Since the switch, Team Cotto said, unity has increased markedly.

“There are other trainers, big-name trainers, but maybe they don’t have the relationship with their fighter that I have,” Santiago said. “All I have to do is look at his face and I know if he’s doing what he’s supposed to do or not.”

This fight is Santiago’s second as lead trainer. Should Cotto win, Santiago is likely to receive sparse praise, but he will shoulder heavy blame if Cotto loses.

Freddie Roach knows the feeling. He is Pacquiao’s trainer, and at 49 he is the only man to win trainer of the year three times. He was Santiago 20 years ago.

Roach was 27 when he worked his first championship fight for Virgil Hill. Roach even acknowledged making a rookie mistake, accidentally setting Hill up for a fierce blow on the final day of sparring. A deep cut opened atop Hill’s left eyebrow, but they covered it with makeup and everything worked out.

When Hill triumphed, Roach pronounced it the happiest day of his young life. But even now, 23 champions later, he still gets nervous.

Roach has spent the past few weeks needling Santiago, trying to climb inside the young trainer’s head. He said that Cotto runs the show. He pointed to Santiago’s inexperience. He predicted a Pacquiao knockout.

Santiago said he paid Roach no attention, believing his deep, longstanding bond with Cotto will overcome his inexperience.

“People make that critique,” Cotto Sr. said. “But if you don’t give the quote-unquote inexperienced person the opportunity, they will remain so. Joe is not inexperienced in boxing whatsoever.”

On Wednesday, at the final news conference for this fight, the little-known Santiago stepped behind the lectern. He looked younger than his 32 years. He wished Pacquiao good luck, before adding, “You’re going to need it.”

In a fight marked by an atypical lack of trash talk, Santiago had fired the salvo like a veteran.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/14/sports/14santiago.html?_r=1