"Frankie Baltazar's Last Fight"

By kiki

October 24, 1991: Frankie Baltazar was fighting Charles "Mad Dog" Young for Don Fraser at the Marriott Hotel in Irvine, Ca. We arrived early for the eight-in. The contract weight was 143, give or take. Frankie was right on the money at 143. Mad Dog came in 148, five pounds over the contract agreement. The CSAC only allows a fighter to lose two pounds on the day of the fight, which meant Mad Dog could only come in at 146, still three pounds over. Don Fraser was ready to have a heart attack as he was about to lose his main event. Don asked me if we would fight Mad Dog at '46; I said yes, but that we would get 10 % of Mad Dog's purse; the CSAC inspector jumped at that and said, "no way are you getting 10 % of Young's purse", I told the inspector that if the fight was to go on, we were getting 10% of Young's purse and that if he read his rulebook, he would find out that we could get it, he called out to his flunky to get him the rule book, he read the rule book, and he said, "yes, you can get 10 %, and the CSAC gets another 10 %!". Poor Mad Dog just lost 20 % of his purse. After the inspector and Don Fraser explained things to him, he agreed to lose two pounds, but I don't think he understood the 20%.

Mad Dog came to the fight without a corner, so he asked Hall Of Fame Corner Man Chuck Bodak and Jerry Boyd if they would work his corner and told them that he would pay them right after the fight. Jerry Boyd, in 2004 had a book published, "Rope Burns" under the name F.X. Toole. The Oscar-winning movie "Million Dollar Baby" was made from that book.

Two or three hours later, Mad Dog made 146, so the fight was on. Later in the afternoon, I was sitting with Pat Russell; Pat would referee our fight at the hotel's coffee shop; as we were sitting there, Mad Dog came over to our table to talk trash about how he would knock Frankie out. I told him that that was okay with me. Either way, I would walk out with the winner; he asked me, "whatcha mean, whatcha mean?!" I told him; that he and Frankie were my fighters; he said to me: "I am not your fighter." I then told him that I owned 10 % of him; Pat Russell said that was true; he then walked away, muttering.

The fight, which turned out to be Frankie's last fight, went all his way. He stopped Mad Dog in the ninth round. After the fight in the dressing room, I told Frankie we needed to talk about his boxing career and where he was going. I told him that I thought it was time to hang up the gloves; I argued that he was 31 years old and had been boxing since he was 6. He argued back a bit and said he still hoped to get a world title shot; he named a few fighters who had won world titles well into their 30s. I told him not to go chasing the rainbow because he could get totally lost in the process. He listened well, and he called it a career.

Afterward, I was in the hotel bar having a drink with some friends and fans of Frankie when Chuck Bodak and Jerry Boyd came up to me and asked me if I had seen Mad Dog; I said no; what happened? I asked them, "The S-B didn't pay us"... I told them good luck because The Mad Dog was in the wind!!!