1951 Fight for Life: Remembering Keeny Teran and Enrique Bolanos

                                                         Enrique Bolanos

By kiki

Edit by Phil Rice

In 1951 when I was a fifteen-year-old kid, I rode the bus and streetcar from the Simons Brickyard to the Teamsters Gym in downtown L.A. to spar with Keeny Teran as he was getting ready for his Hollywood Legion Stadium fight with Gil Cadilli. Keeny and Gil were two hot prospects at the time. Prospects didn't stop fighting each other back then as they came up the ranks. Keeny, two or three years older than me and a much better fighter, didn't try to hurt me in our sparring sessions. He would move, jab, move, jab— my job was to help him sharpen his boxing skills. But, of course, I was thrilled to be in the same ring as Keeny. We only sparred a few times because he would have to go to the Main Street Gym to get some heavy sparring with local pros.

Keeny was a small guy who looked like he was fourteen years old or younger at the age of eighteen. But if you tried to take advantage of his youthful looks in the ring, he would ensure you paid for it.

The Teran vs. Cadilli fight was between two cross-town rivals. They were both from Flats, a Boyle Heights neighborhood. Cadilli had an 8-1 record, and Keeny was undefeated in six fights. It was a fight that, on its own merits, would have sold out the Legion. The main event was Enrique Bolanos and Eddie Chavez in a twelve-rounder. The Bolanos vs. Chavez fight was the 1951 "Fight for Life," where some gate proceeds would go to the City of Hope Cancer Hospital. Fight for Life was a big yearly event, and it was decided by matchmaker Hap Navarro to make the 1951 Fight for Life card the greatest card in the history of the annual event. In my opinion, he succeeded.

On fight night, June 22, 1951, Tony Ramos and Ray Gonzalez, my uncles, and I jumped in Uncle Ray's 1948 Chevy coupe to drive to the Hollywood Legion Stadium to see Keeny and Gil fight the six-round semi-main. We could feel the electricity in the air as we walked into the sold-out smoke-filled arena. It felt so thick that you could have sliced it with a knife. And I felt proud to have been close to Keeny Teran, who played a big part in creating the electricity the fans felt that night in the Golden Age of Southern California boxing.

The fight started fast, with Keeny having the upper hand in the first four rounds. Cadilli came on strong in the last two rounds to make it a close fight, but not strong enough to win it—at least not in my eyes. I thought Keeny had won the fight, but the fight was called a draw. Maybe I was biased.

The Bolanos vs. Chavez match, a California State Lightweight Title fight, was an action-packed bout, with first, one, then the other having the upper hand. In the end, Enrique Bolanos walked out of the ring with a unanimous decision.

The night of June 22, 1951, was a great fight night…

                                                       Keeny Teran

Enrique Bolanos

Enrique Bolanos was my boyhood boxing idol, the only boxer I ever idolized. In 1946, when I was ten years old, my dad, Aurelio Baltazar, took me to my first live boxing event, and he couldn't have picked a better card. So, along with a couple of my uncles, we went to see my idol Enrique Bolanos in a world title fight against the world's lightweight champion, Ike Williams. 

That April night in 1946 did not end well for me as my idol fought gallantly for the first seven rounds before getting K.O.'d in the eighth. On an underneath ten-rounder Fabela Chavez TKO 6, my son Frankie's future Co-manager Jackie McCoy. Bolanos went on to fight Williams twice more, once in 1948 and again in 1949. I also went to watch those fights live with my dad and uncles. The 1948 fight was close, but Enrique lost a fifteen-round split decision. The 1949 fight was a lopsided affair, with Enrique losing by TKO in the fourth round. The most memorable part of that hot 1949 July night was watching Jack Dempsey refereeing the fight; Jack Dempsey was a great champion but not a good referee.

Enrique fought in the early 1950s against fighters like Maxie Docusen, Art Aragon, Eddie Chavez, and former lightweight champion Jimmy Carter.

I got to know Enrique in the late 1950s after he had retired from boxing, and in the mid-1960s, he helped me train my sons Frankie and Tony at the Teamsters Gym.

Keeny Teran

Keeny Teran, I first met around 1949 at the Teamsters Gym. Working out at the same time, we became good gym friends. Keeny was a great prospect as a very young teenager. He was so good that he was forced to turn pro just after his seventeenth birthday. His actual age was discovered about one month before he turned eighteen, and he was forced to sit out that month.

Keeny was on a roll with some good wins and only a draw with cross-town rival Gil Cadilli to mar his record when he got K.O.'d by Tommy "Go For Broke" Umeda Olympic Auditorium. We at the arena couldn't believe what we had just witnessed. The following week the news broke that Keeny was a drug addict. We learned through the newspapers that he had been using heroin since he was twelve. Some Hollywood money backers sent him and his wife Sally to the mountains to try and clean up. Months later, he returned to fight some good fights, most of which he won, against fighters like Pappy Gault, Hugh Riley, Johnny Ortega, and Billy Peacock. He also defeated Tommy Umeda in a rematch. Keeny's last fight was a K.O. loss to Memo Diaz in 1955. We later discovered that he had shot heroin in the afternoon of the fight.

I didn't see Keeny again till the late 1970s when he showed up one night at the Olympic Auditorium to see my son Frankie fight. We sat briefly and reminisced about the old days at the Teamsters Gym. After that, he would show up every time Frankie or Tony fought, and we would sit and reminisce.

Enrique Bolanos and Keeny Teran were two of the most memorable fighters I've ever seen. Bolanos was a tremendous contender who lost three world title fights to Ike Williams, one of the finest lightweight champions in history. As a boxer, Keeny Teran mostly battled his demons, denying himself a chance to fight for the world title. But, whatever else can be said, they were both good men.

My idol Enrique Bolanos died on June 4, 2012; Keeny Teran died from cancer in 1995. I'm proud to have called each of them my friend.