By Steve Kim
In early November, the man who helped nurture and guide Roman 'Chocolatito' Gonzalez (46-0, 38KOs) to great heights throughout his boxing career, passed away after suffering a stroke. Now, the team tries to move on without his presence.
Carlos Blandon, who manages the current WBC super flyweight titlist, told BoxingScene.com:
"As you know we had three trainers. The head trainer is the one that passed away, Arnulfo Obando, then we had his father - which was the assistant trainer - then we had a second trainer and physical and strength coach, Wilmer Hernandez. Wilmer Hernandez, he had an amateur career with Roman. He was one of the chosen with Alexis Arguello and Alexis, also chose Roman. So they fought together and they know each other very well. He was obviously in a different weight division, 130-pounds. So the thing is he had to retire as a professional boxer, he was undefeated but he had got his retina displaced out of both eyes.
Blandon says believes that since it's not broke, there's really nothing to fix.
"We're going to stay with his father, Wilmer, he's going to be inside the ring and then for a cutman we'll be using Miguel Diaz and Rudy Hernandez when possible," he explained. "So we're going to keep it like that and this is more than a family than anything else. So we feel we're at that point where we hve all the necessary instruments to keep going on a good pace with Roman's career."
The feeling is that they have a chemistry that can't be replicated.
"What's been created the past few years is more than a family,"explained Blandon,"we got to training camp, everybody is under the same roof, everybody is cooking, this and that. That type of environment is very hard to re-create."
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com
