Espinosa thinks the unthinkable—a comeback

SACRAMENTO, California—This sounds crazy, but it’s true. Former two-time world boxing champion Luisito Espinosa, now 44, is indeed thinking of a comeback.
“Please keep everything hush-hush in the meantime,” Luisito told me in Filipino when I reached him at work by phone yesterday. “My new handlers may not like the premature publicity.”
But Espinosa relented when told the cat was out of the bag—that a common friend, former North Cotabato Gov. Manny Piñol— has written a newspaper column expressing concern about Luisito getting ready to embrace the sweet science again.
Espinosa fell silent and handed the phone to Kirk Stoner, his new, unofficial boxing manager who is also his supervisor at the Lucky Chances Casino near San Francisco.
The casino in the city of Colma is the first Filipino-owned gambling establishment in the United States. Its owner, self-made millionaire Rene Medina, originally from Arayat, Pampanga, has a colorful past. He served time for tax evasion a few years back.
“Everybody’s been saying we need to assist Louie but nobody’s been stepping up to the plate,” Stoner, Medina’s facilities chief told me. He said he took it upon himself, with Rene’s nod, to prepare their man to box again, if he so desires.
To back their words, Luisito’s patrons have built a makeshift ring at the gambling hall’s parking basement for the boxer’s use after his early-morning shift as a carpet cleaner at Lucky Chances.
Stoner, who has visions of Espinosa as the flesh-and-blood version of the cinematic Rocky, believes that the first step to his boxer’s comeback—a license from the California Athletic Commission—is achievable.
But would it not be horrible on the Commission’s part if it allowed an old boxer to return to the ring, after refusing to renew Espinosa’s license following his heart-rending losses to upstarts six years ago?
Stoner said Espinosa’s string of defeats (5 of his last 8 fights) before his retirement in 2005 was due to mental stress caused by several factors—management changes, promotional disputes, his wife leaving him, etc.—and has nothing to do with his physical ability which is still superb.
I see nothing but peril in Luisito’s plans. He sees nothing but silver lining in them for sure.
Luisito remains mum about his reasons for a comeback. But Dennis Cailles, the boxer’s friend as quoted by Piñol, thinks his bud’s impending return to the ring is a sign of “protest to the injustice inflicted on him.”
Before Manny Pacquiao, Espinosa was a constant source of pride for Filipinos when he ruled both the bantamweight and featherweight boxing classes, one of only a few fighters to don dual world crowns.
But a hard-earned $150,000 purse from a world featherweight championship fight he won against Argentina’s Carlos Rios in Koronadal, South Cotabato, 14 years ago is still owed him by absconding promoters.
Hermie Rivera, Louie’s former manager had filed a civil suit to collect the purse. But the case lingered in legal limbo and remains unresolved even today.
Luisito wrote then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo about his plight.
He sought the help of Pacquiao, boxing’s reigning pound-for-pound king, who at one time fought in an undercard to a Luisito title bout.
Espinosa’s pleas have all fallen on deaf ears.
The boxer said he will write President Aquino in the coming days and will not rest until the money is deposited in the bank for his children—Janica, Niko and John Louie.