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04/04/2005 Archived Entry: "Former 'Next Great Champ' Participant Speaks Out: David Pareja Unplugged!"
Former 'Next Great Champ' Participant Speaks Out: David Pareja Unplugged!
By Juan C. Ayllon
CHICAGO, IL – Boxer David Pareja (3-1-0), featured finalist from Oscar de la Hoya’s “Next Great Champ” reality boxing show, will be fighting with something to prove on Friday at the Aragon Ballroom.
Pareja felt that he was misrepresented in what was tantamount to a choreographed and selectively edited show on national television, which ultimately ended in a controversial decision loss to Otis Griffin, whose record was 3-1-1, 1 KO at the time. Now, he wants his fists to do the talking.
David Pareja spoke with the Cyber Boxing Zone’s Juan Ayllon about his experiences on the show, as well as his career, in an exclusive interview.
JUAN AYLLON: How are you doing?
DAVID PAREJA: I’m doing really good. Thanks.
JUAN AYLLON: Tell us about your experience on the ‘Next Great Champ’ reality-boxing show.
DAVID PAREJA: It was first of all, how difficult it is; it’s not just professional on the show, but to turn professional on a show like that. They don’t care about the fighter, but how you perform on the show. For example, I fought a guy in my pro debut on the show. We were walking up and down for five hours before the show…they had us wrapping our hands over and over several hours before the fight. It was really a difficult condition to turn professional under.
They had to do “take one, and take two” over and over, no rest whatsoever. At fight time, they had us do the ring entrance. I’m in my zone totally ready to fight. Then, after we get into the ring, they do, ‘Take two’ and have us do the ring entrance again.
After my first fight, I totally got into the producers. I said, ‘We’re fighters, you have us on our feet all day’ and they made adjustments. There was just a lot of Hollywood stuff involved. Then it got a little better.
When I got to the show, I was under the impression that this would be a tough training camp. We had to beg them to take us to the gym to get our workouts in! It was everyone for themselves. They didn’t have regular sparring partners; we just had one another to spar with. We had to convince them to spar with us. After a while, no one wanted to spar! It was all about the camera.
Living with your opponents that you’re about to fight was really stressful. After I won my fight, it was totally out of control, because I was sitting in the spot where they wanted to be. When you’re on the set, it’s like your waiting for an eternity, waiting, waiting. You know you’re going to be in the ring with these guys and you can’t build friendships.
Surrounding the final fight, there were a lot of things that were strange.
What happened is they obviously edited the fights how they wanted to show it. Like my first fight, they showed it as if it was a draw, like I might have lost, but it was a one-sided domination. They showed like 30 seconds…like it was a back and forth fight. I have this fight on tape and people say that’s not the fight I saw.
In the final fight, I went into the fight and I felt like I fought a really good fight and after the fight Oscar de la Hoya jumped in the ring to announce whoever the winner would be and what happened was the producers called him out of the ring and they were having some sort of discussion outside of the ring. You could see [that] when Oscar came back in, you could tell he was super upset. After they announced the fight, he said to me, ‘Dave you fought an excellent fight when this is all over, I want to talk to you about signing with Golden Boy Promotions.’
I was kind of shocked. Supposedly, I had lost a landslide decision and I couldn’t understand it; I didn’t get hit in that whole fight, but I had him stunned on like four different occasions, on the fifth and sixth round, I almost had him knocked out. They took out about four or five minutes of that fight…as the way they showed it, people came up to me on the street and said they thought I was robbed. They didn’t give me a copy of that fight because I wanted to protest that decision.
I’m Polish and I have light skin. If I would have gotten touched, you would have seen marks on my face. I left that fight without one scratch on my face or body. Otis had lumps on his head and bruises on his body, but somehow he got the decision!
First of all they tried to make me come across as a racist. That’s not me! I’ve got a coach that’s African American. When they tried to portray me that way, I was stunned. When I started to see the show, it all started to make sense. Otis lost the first fight. When they brought him back, he got a draw. They kicked that other guy off. When I fought him, I beat him.
After the fight, they announced two winners—they announced two winners: they announced Otis as the winner and they announced the scores they announced on TV, the same scores; and then there was a five minute breaks, and they flip-flopped the same scores and announced me as the winner. They did this to confuse the crowd supposedly.
But, I’ve got my own view of why they did this, but I think it was a piece of garbage. I don’t know if this was part of the Hollywood thing or what, but there was complete chaos in my corner. Lou Duva was yelling different things, one Mexican guy was yelling something else and the other two different Mexicans were yelling different things and there is supposed to be only one voice; in my other two fights, it was very calm and there was one voice.
For the final fight, they allowed my coach to fly out, but they would not let him under any circumstances work in my corner. He was in the bleachers. His name is Butch Elliot. I’m looking at him and he’s telling me what to do. The other Mexican guy—Manny—sees this and stands up right in my way the rest of the fight. During my other fights, my wife was allowed to sit on the rign apron to give me instructions. During this last fight, Manny pushed her completely out of the way; she was on the floor.
It was very strange. From the end of the first round, Lou Duva was yelling at me, “You’ve got to knock this guy out! You’re losing!” There was all this water and ice in my corner. There was never any of this in my previous two fights. Lou Duva being the world-class trainer that he is should have taken control of the corner and not have let things get out of control but he allowed complete chaos. At the end of every round, the ref was telling them to clean up the water and ice.
I just couldn’t understand it. I’ve had a lot of fights before—probably 70-something amateur fights before and several park district fights and I had 23 kickboxing matches, I was 23-0, I was national kickboxing champion and I had 20 knockouts in kickboxing (The International Kickboxing Federation). I started at 154 but won the national title at light heavyweight in 1999 towards the end of my kickboxing career. [Needless to say] There was a lot of things going on there that was out of the norm.
The whole final fight was total chaos in my corner and I had to shut them out.
Afterwards, I tried to talk with De la Hoya and tried to talk with the guys at Golden Boy, and that’s when everyone started getting nervous…why there was a 20 minute intermission after the fight before the decision; why they talked with De la Hoya out of the ring and then they had a 20 minute meeting out of the ring. Later, they said they had technical difficulties. I called De la Hoya’s people—Golden Boy—and they gave me the run around.
Richard Schaefer, De la Hoya’s right hand man and Ron came running up to me after the fight and said, “Dave, you fought an incredible fight and we want to sign you up with Golden Boy!” I knew how I fought that fight, I didn’t’ get touched and I beat him up, I bloodied him…I didn’t know that I lost the fight until I saw it on TV.
I was fighting in California and fighting the California guy. They were trying to keep him in. Every fight I fought in, I dominated, now I have a loss on my record that I don’t deserve. I want a rematch in front of the real boxing world as it is, not as Hollywood wants it to be.
JUAN AYLLON: Who will you will you be fighting this Friday at the Aragon Ballroom and how do you plan on fighting him?
DAVID PAREJA: I found out today who I’ll be fighting. It’s a guy named Ryan Franklin out of Michigan. I think he’s 2-1. I’m going to go out them, feel him out with my jab, and use my movement, watch him to see what he does wrong and proceed to take him apart from there.
I’ve got a big crowd—a couple hundred people coming—to see me. I love Chicago, I grew up in Chicago, I’m very proud of my city.
JUAN AYLLON: Tell us about your background.
DAVID PAREJA: I am Polish. It’s funny, because people see me and I’m more Polish than anything. My mom is 100% Polish, My dad is Columbian and Italian. I’ve grown up in Chicago with my Polish side of my family. Most of my Columbian family lives in Columbia and Florida. My mom used to teach the Spanish students English in Columbia to the Columbian students. I was born in Columbia. My folks moved there and my brothers and I were born there and we moved back; I’ve lived in Chicago since I was two years old.
JUAN AYLLON: What’s next after this fight?
DAVID PAREJA: After that, I want to take on guys in my division with winning records, 7-0, 10-0 I want to build my name up in the division; I want to take on guys that I can beat and that are going to make me look good. I want to fight guys with more of a name than I do so I can prove myself. I want to show my boxing ability. I want to show people my skills, what I’m really made of. I just want to show people that I’m real. I’m coming out to take on whoever; I’m not looking to pick and choose my opponents so that when I beat them, it raises eyebrows.
For example, my first pro fights [on ‘Next Great Champ’], I had no say in who I was able to fight. For anyone turning pro, these guys were all tough fighters. It’s a very tough circumstance to fight under; they were all there to win.
In my fourth pro fight, I fought on the under card of Arturo Gatti-Jesse James Leija in Atlantic City, NJ. They called me up to fight as an opponent, Gino Ranquillo. I wasn’t supposed to beat this kid. I beat him on the scorecard solid, except one hometown judge scored it for him. I wasn’t that sharp, cause I had three weeks to get ready…the show burned me out.
JUAN AYLLON: Why were you burned out?
DAVID PAREJA: They told all of us that we would be fighting in December for the final episode, which never aired. I trained hard from August till the middle of November. That’s when I started calling and asking questions, like, ‘what exactly happened and why?’ I just started to think.
I called Golden Boy and they said they had no control over the fight that it was FOX; FOX told me that they had no control but it was Golden Boy. I took off all the way till the beginning of January because I was so burned out.
When Main Events called me to ask me if I would fight at cruiserweight; I was walking around at 191, so that was perfect. I went into his backyard, which was his own turf and beat him.
JUAN AYLLON: How is training going now?
DAVID PAREJA: This fight here will be my sharpest, I’ve been getting great sparring with the number three light heavyweight in the world Tomasz Adameck, and he is getting ready to fight Paul Briggs at the United Center for the vacant WBO light heavyweight title here in Chicago in May on the undercard of Golotta-Brewster. I’ve been getting sparring with the best in the world, he’s 28-0, 20 knockouts. Excellent sparring!
JUAN AYLLON: What are your long-term plans?
DAVID PAREJA: I want to really build, do what [popular heavyweight boxer] Joe Mesi did in Buffalo; I want to bring big crowds of people. This is my first fight in Chicago and I’m bringing 200 people. I’ll probably double that in my next fight. In the next two or three years, I want to fight for a title. I would like to stay at light heavyweight but my body is hanging onto more body weight—I’m ripped and I’m hanging onto more muscle. If I dry out, I can make 175 fairly easy. I want to fight and win a title at 175 down the line.
Now that I’m going to be fighting regularly and I’ll be fighting at the 175 area, I shouldn’t have that hard a time making 175. I want to fight every three to six weeks. I want to stay busy.
I’ve taken care of my body; I’m a young 26 years old. I would like to fight until I’m 34 or 35, rule my division and get out. If I can put everything into it, I’ll do it. Right now, I’ve got to run my business. I’ve been working really hard and things are starting to take off for me. When it’s done, I want to walk away. I want to train fighters. I’ve had an excellent coach who was a great fighter in his day. I think it’s important to have trainers who have actual fighting experience versus others who learned from a book. I think they have a great advantage like Buddy McGirt, who had a hell of a career. That’s what I’d like to do to give back to boxing down the road, because I love boxing.
JUAN AYLLON: What do you plan to do after boxing?
DAVID PAREJA: I have my own painting company, painting homes; a very select clientele. There’s a lot of new homes. This summer, I want to expand. My wife is very into interior decorating and I want to help her and me and my crew can come and transform it into the way it’s supposed to look. I also have some other businesses, like buying foreclosed property and rehabbing it.
David Pareja will be fighting this Friday at the Aragon Ballroom in a fightcard put on by Dominic Pesoli's 8 Count Productions.
Photo by Tom Glunz.
