By Thomas Gerbasi
When the boxing world forgot Gabriel Bracero, Tommy Gallagher remembered.
Even in a sport described as bizarre on the best of days, the pairing of the Puerto Rican street tough from Brooklyn and the no nonsense Irish trainer who had seen it all – twice – was an odd one, but for some reason, they clicked.
“There was just something about him,” said Gallagher, a fixture of the New York fight scene who gained national notoriety as a trainer on the reality series ‘The Contender.’ “And that’s what attracted me to him. It was I’m gonna break him, or he’s gonna break me.”
As it turned out, Bracero did a pretty good job of breaking himself. A talented amateur with two New York Golden Gloves titles and a junior Olympic crown, he turned pro with Gallagher in 2001 and ran off five wins without a loss.
But the lure of the street was always more attractive than the possibility of glory in the ring, and it cost Bracero in 2003, when he was arrested for criminal possession of a weapon and sent to prison. Added in with a 2001 charge he had plea bargained down from attempted murder to aggravated assault, he was going to spend time behind bars which would effectively kill off his boxing career.
He was 22 years old.
“This kid believed that being a thug was what made him special,” said Gallagher. “That’s how f**ked up this kid was.”
Yet as Bracero paid his debt to society, all the while wondering what he was going to do with his life when he got out, Gallagher didn’t abandon him. Instead, he made sure to call and write Bracero and keep him focused on what might be if he turned his life around. Ask the trainer why he stayed so loyal, and he simply says, “That’s what I’m about. We corresponded while he was in the can and I liked all the things he said. Something in jail happened and he tried to be loyal to himself, in a sense. I noticed it when we talked on the phone or in his letters. I said ‘look, nobody wanted me to get involved,’ but I’ll take a shot and see what happens.”
You can’t overlook a bond like that. And if you think that Bracero was some otherworldly talent with huge paydays waiting on the other side for him and Gallagher to share, then you don’t know Tommy Gallagher. This was about more than boxing, but Gallagher also knew that boxing could be Bracero’s savior. At that point, Bracero got it.
“Tommy always made it known that he wasn’t just my friend, but that I was family to him,” said Bracero. “So Tommy was always supportive. Even if I didn’t want to make it in boxing and I wanted to find a career in something else, Tommy always had my back. But Tommy believed in my talent in boxing. He said I’ve got your back one hundred percent in whatever you want to do, but you have talent in boxing and you can make money in boxing. Tommy always gave me the vision and he helped me keep that vision alive.”
It wasn’t always easy though, especially when a package would come for Bracero with boxing magazines that described the exploits of some of his former peers, kids like the ones he won 1998 Golden Gloves titles with – Paulie Malignaggi and Luis Collazo. It reminded him of just what he gave up.
“I remember being in a jail cell and receiving the boxing magazines and reading up on Paulie and Collazo and Joan Guzman, and all these guys winning titles, and sometimes there would be nights when I was doubtful (if I could make it back,)” he said. “But at the same time, I knew that these were guys that I grew up with, and I was competitive with these guys, and I knew I was just as good as they were, if not better. So it was more motivation because I would train and hold that dream alive that once I came out, I was gonna get down to business.”
In 2009, just shy of his 28th birthday, Bracero was released into a world that looked a lot different than it did when he left it. A father of four, Bracero’s options were simple – get a job, get back to the gym, and hope that the talent he had in 2003 was still there in 2009. One thing that wasn’t an option was going back to the life he had before.
“Once I went away, I set my mind that I wasn’t gonna go back there,” he said. “Even if I wasn’t gonna make it, I wasn’t gonna turn to something else. Whether I had to go back to school and learn a trade or something, the whole point was that I made up my mind when I went away that I didn’t only hurt myself, but I hurt my family. I have a wife, I have children, so I promised myself that I would never hurt my family the way I did before, and I made a promise to myself that I was gonna make my family proud one way or another.”
Bracero got a job in construction as Gallagher prepared to bring him back to the ring. Sounds simple enough, but it was anything but. Basically forced to live the life of a responsible adult for the first time, Bracero struggled, but instead of falling back into old habits, he persevered.
“The first six months was hard,” he admits. “I came home to nothing and all I had was my dream to get back into the ring. So when I first came home, I was working construction and all these jobs and still making it to the gym, where I was exhausted. I had kids to feed and I didn’t know whether my boxing career was gonna go anywhere or whether I was gonna have to look for a regular 9 to 5. But I never gave up and it was hard. I remember days waking up and taking the train at six o’clock in the morning to go do construction in the scorching heat in the summertime and by the time I left I was so exhausted. I would daydream and I would tear and cry a little bit, wondering when it was gonna get easier.”
Surprisingly, the place where it got easier was a place that may be the toughest proving ground in the world – the prize ring. Bracero made his return to boxing on August 26, 2009, decisioning Melchor Guillen Jr. over four rounds. By the end of the year he had three wins under his belt, and 2010 was even better, as he compiled five more victories and became a popular mainstay on Lou DiBella’s “Broadway Boxing” shows. In 2011 thus far, he defeated veteran Christopher Fernandez, handed highly-touted Danny O’Connor his first pro loss on Showtime’s ShoBox series, and then scored the first opening round knockout of his career (and only second KO overall) over Guillermo Valdes in June.
“Every day, every fight, every sparring session, I’m picking up more and more,” said Bracero, now 16-0. “I’m learning from my mistakes, my confidence level is building in the ring, and everything’s coming on naturally. Now, I’m having fun with it and I feel that for all my success and everything that awaits me, there’s a bigger purpose than just me. I believe I was given this opportunity for a reason, so I have to do my part with the gift I’ve been given.”
“All he does is win,” adds Gallagher. “He’s not fighting the greatest fighters in the world, but trust me, he’ll be competitive against anybody.”
This Saturday, he returns to headline “Broadway Boxing” at Brooklyn’s Aviator Sports Complex against 8-6 Danie van Staden. Like Gallagher said, he’s not fighting the greatest fighters in the world, but he is staying busy, winning, and slowly putting himself in a position, at 30, where he could wind up in a big fight sooner rather than later.
By all appearances, it looks like a redemption song of the highest order. Gallagher remains cautiously optimistic that his charge won’t ever stray from the path again.
“If we needed someone to go and save our lives, that’s the kid you want with you,” he said of Bracero. “Is there something that would push the button? I don’t know. But if that button is pushed, it’s over. All I know is this, once the bell rings he gives you a thousand percent. It’s a battle every day, but I’m willing to take that.”
So is Bracero, even though he knows that no matter what he does moving forward or how many lives he may affect in a positive manner by telling his story and putting himself out there as a cautionary tale to young people who may be headed down the wrong path, there are still some who won’t let him forget.
“It doesn’t matter who brings it up,” he said. “Whatever I’ve been through, whatever mistakes I’ve made, I embrace it because it’s made me into the person I am now. To be honest, if I didn’t go through what I went through, I probably wouldn’t be the person I am today. I probably would have been lost somewhere. But it helped me mature and it helped me grow. Now I see life differently, so my goal is to just keep living my dream and to be an inspiration and motivation to others. And for all those people that look down on others because they say they’ll never change and never be anybody, I want to be the reason why people will be motivated to make it. And when people say you’re not gonna be nobody, they can turn around and say ‘yeah, I’m gonna be somebody.’”