A Johnnie Flores story

By kiki

Johnnie Flores, late Los Angeles boxing manager, trainer, and WWII hero told me all kinds of stories back in the day. For example, he said to me as we were flying to Miami in 1977 was about a Mexican boxer who was sent to him in the early '60s to handle while the boxer was in Los Angeles to fight a local hero. When promoter Aileen Eaton called a press conference to promote the fight, Johnnie discovered that the fighter didn't have any decent clothing to appear in front of the press; Johnnie told me that the boxer needed to be dressed up, but how? First, he was not about to drop a couple of hundred bucks at a Robert Hall Clothier store for a suit, then he remembered his uncle Zeferino Ramirez. 

Mr. Ramirez was the owner of a Southern California chain of mortuaries. Johnnie said he called on his uncle and asked for a favor. After Johnnie explained the situation to Mr. Ramirez, the mortician said he would be happy to help him. Mr. Ramirez, whose dying male clients were mainly on the poor side, had closets at his mortuaries that were full of cheap, cheap, ill-fitted suits to sell to the families of the newly departed grandfathers, fathers, uncles, etc., etc. - Johnnie drove the fighter to the Zeferino Ramirez Mortuary which was located on Brooklyn Ave in East Los Angeles. He dressed the fighter in a white shirt, blue tie, and a black ill-fitted suit. Johnnie said that as they were leaving, Mr. Ramirez told them to be sure to bring the threads back as soon as the press conference was over as he had a client who was the same size as the fighter waiting on the slab to get dressed...I asked Johnnie how the Mexican fighter did in the fight, "he got KO'd in the first round," he answered.