by
Louie Burke
As told to Chris Cozzone & Ricardo Trujillo
new
photos by chris cozzone
older photos courtesy of louie burke
Compared
to the boxers trying to make it in the ‘80s, the professional fighters
today in New Mexico have it easy. Back then, there were no
local cards. All New Mexico fighters had to go out-of-state to
fight—always on someone else’s home turf. There were no padded records
because every win was a hard-earned battle. The good thing was, you knew
who the good fighters were. Guys like Tommy Cordova. And Louie Burke.
Louie
Burke made his bones in the early days of ESPN, fighting the likes of
Freddie Roach, Charlie “White Lightning” Brown and Hector Camacho. He
beat Roach twice, lost a highly-disputed fight with Charlie Brown and got
stopped due to a swollen eye in his bout with the Macho Man. He was on his
way to a match-up with boxing legend Julio Cesar Chavez when injuries
forced him to retire.
Fortunately for us, Louie Burke
remained active in the sport, training and serving on the New Mexico State
Athletic Commission for ten years. He continues to train fighters and his
boxing philosophy has made him a sort of New Mexican version of Teddy
Atlas.
We
caught up with Louie at the PAL gym in Las Cruces one afternoon where he
was training up-n-comin’ heavyweight from El Paso, David Rodriguez.
After the training session, he took us back to the ‘80s and his time in
the spotlight . . . .
 We
were at a post-fight interview after my first fight with Freddie Roach
when somebody asked my father: “When did you know Louie was gonna become
a boxer?”
His
answer: “Six months before he was born.”
That
kind of answers how I got into the sport: I was born into it.
My father, Sam Burke, boxed, back in
the days when they’d have to hitchhike to different locations to fight.
And he also boxed in the Marine Corps until he got shot in Korea. That
ended his boxing career as a fighter. He had plans to turn pro, too, until
he got wounded. He came back to coach and traveled all over the world with
the U.S. Boxing team.
My
brother Rocky boxed, too. He’s 8 years older than I am, so by the time
he retired from boxing, I was just getting started. Rocky had his first
amateur fight at 6 or 7 years old. He went to the Olympic trials in 1976,
losing to Bruce Curry who ended up losing to Sugar Ray Leonard—and
everyone knows how well he did. Rocky turned pro and had 7 pro
fights (7-0) before he retired.
My
dad had a problem about both of us fighting on the same pro card. He told
us it’d be too stressful for him, and for us. Rocky would always worry
more about me when I was fighting, and vice versa: I’d worry more about him
when he was fighting.
My
older sister would’ve boxed, too. She wanted to box. People
don’t realize that my sister is actually the toughest one in the family.
If any of us had the potential to be a world champion, it was her. If
she’d been a boy, she would’ve pursued boxing but back then, there
wasn’t much going on in women’s boxing. And as hard as my sister
wanted to, my father wouldn’t let her. So, she missed her calling.
But
I got inspiration from everybody in my family. My father, my brother, my
sister, my mother . . . My brother was a real hard worker, and my father,
a disciplinarian; my mom, she’s the diplomat of the family. So I took a
little bit from everybody. In the ring? It’s hard to say where I drew my
inspiration. My dad was a fierce competitor and so was my brother. I think
we both got that from my father.
My
amateur career started when I was 7 or 8. My second or third fight was
with the legendary middleweight champion Gene Fullmer’s son, Bart. We
fought over here at Williams Gym at NM State University, and it ended up a
draw. At the time, my boxing career was sporadic. I was doing other
sports: Little League baseball, football
. . . Boxing was something I picked up because my father would take
me to the gym. The gym served as a cheap babysitter at the time, but I got
into boxing that way.
I
didn’t take amateur boxing seriously until I was 14 or 15. Then, I went
on to win the Silver Gloves state championship. I lost at Regionals but
also won several Golden Gloves and AAU championships. I never did win a
national championship but I was ranked as high as #3 in the nation. I did
the Western Olympic trials in 1980, but lost there. I guess it wouldn’t
have made any difference anyway, for that was the year the U.S. boycotted
the Olympics. We had some good fighters but none of them got to go.
Six
months later, I turned pro.
I
was a little indecisive in the beginning. I’d started going to college
and I’d been working. My family had a billboard company and I spent my
summers digging post holes. I was tired of the manual labor and I thought
there had to be an easier way to make some money to put myself through
school. So, I decided to turn professional. The money I made supplemented
my education. Ironically, I was so successful with boxing that I had to
put my education on hold.
The
New Mexico boxing scene back then was at a lull. There wasn’t a whole
lot going on here and I had to travel out of state. I was fighting in
everybody’s backyard, always the underdog coming in.
My
first two fights were in San Antonio; I fought on the undercard of Randall
Cobb-Ken Norton; the semi-main was Michael Ayala, Tony’s brother, he was
the NABF champion at the time. So, I started off fighting on big cards,
but all my fights were out of town, up until my 18th fight when
I fought in Las Cruces.
What
made people notice me was that I was knocking the local guys out. My first
12 out of 13 fights were won by KO. Everybody started to take notice of me
and I went to Vegas to fight. Then I fought on ESPN for the first time,
winning a 1st Round KO. Everybody said, “Hey maybe this kid
could do something . . .” Here was this kid out of the little town of
Las Cruces—from a state where there wasn’t anything happening in
boxing.
Things
started happening for me. I had a few fights on the USA Network when it
first came out, and then I got my first big break in 1983: I got to fight
Freddie Roach for the ESPN Lightweight championship. It was a 12-round
fight at the Showboat, my 14th pro fight. At the time, Freddie
had 33 fights; he was 30-3. And I was 14-0, undefeated.
It
was a hell of a fight. We fought a war . . . they said it was one of the
best fights of the year that year. When it was over, I’d won the
12-round decision and the ESPN lightweight championship. I got a lot of
exposure from that and it escalated my career.
Later
that year, I had the rematch with Freddie on the undercard of the Hagler-Duran
fight at Caesar’s Palace. Those two fights with Freddie Roach were
classics. Freddie was one of the toughest guys around.
Tommy
Cordova came on the scene about 2-3 years after I started fighting. He,
too, won the ESPN championship by beating Freddie Roach. I think it was
about 2 years later. There was talk of the two of us fighting, somewhere
down the line, but at the time, I was fighting on a different level than
Tommy. When he won the ESPN championship, I would’ve had to go down for
less money to fight him. And at the time, I was working on getting a shot
with Julio Cesar Chavez. I was looking ahead at the time. Eventually,
I’m sure it would’ve happened. We would’ve had to meet, and
it would’ve been something like a Tapia-Romero fight of the ‘80s.
In
July of 1984, I got to fight Charlie “White Lightning” Brown, here in
Las Cruces. It was my 18th fight—and the first time I got to
fight in New Mexico. We were both undefeated. I was 17-0 and Brown was
23-0.
I
lost a very controversial decision. (What’s ironic is, two of my three
losses happened in New Mexico.) A lot of the same factors were into play
when Johnny Tapia fought Paulie Ayala: Brown had the same promoter, the
same circumstances. They couldn’t afford to have Brown lose that night.
I won’t elaborate more, but let’s just say a lot of people were
very disappointed on the decision and I felt I won that fight. (Charlie
Brown’s next fight after me was with Harry Arroyo for the IBF
Lightweight Championship—he was TKO’d in Round 8.)
My
next big fight was in 1985, when I went up against Hector Camacho.
It
was my toughest fight so far, but I think I gave Camacho the toughest
fight he’d had at that point. But, he’s such an exceptional
athlete. He had such tremendous speed. He was catching me coming in and he
swelled up my eye. If it had gone ten rounds, I would’ve had a better
chance. My forte was the distance. I never got tired. I could go on
throwing a million punches. But I got stopped in the 6th round
with the swollen eye. At the time it was stopped, it was a close fight . .
.
It’s
funny because I’ve seen that fight maybe 5 times in the last 16 years,
and I used to hate watching it. I saw it maybe two or three times just
recently and one of the guys I work with got a hold of that tape. My
co-workers kept asking me for that tape but I’d never give it to them.
But finally, someone had a copy. They put it in one day at work and I sat
down and started watching it. It’s a lot easier for me to see it now
than way back in the ‘80s. I realized that I didn’t do such a bad job
against this guy—this guy was one of the best fighters of his time and I
gave him a hell of a fight. Now, I’m pretty proud of what I did. Before,
I was ashamed. I had that competitive edge. I wanted to win. It was win or
nothing.
Looking
back, I went in that fight probably a little too aggressive. I had
the attitude: I don’t care how bad he is, I’m gonna be badder.
And to beat me, he’s gonna have to kill me. Unfortunately, they
thought he was gonna kill me, because they stopped the fight.
I
had one more fight: Roque Resindiz from Guadalahara, Mexico. It was pretty
much a tune-up fight. I mean, I didn’t take anybody lightly, but I’d
fought a lot tougher opponents before and I felt I could beat this guy. It
was a 12-rounder for the Continental Americas title. But I’d trained
hard for this fight because it was a tune-up towards Julio Cesar Chavez.
What
ended up hurting me was myself: my lack of eating and drinking liquids. I
was trying to make 130. Being
a top ten contender in the 130 & 135 weight classes ended up being my
downfall. Instead of moving up to 140 like I should’ve done, I stayed at
the 130-135 range because you have to be rated in your class to get a shot
at a title—and we were talking about a fight with Chavez. Problem was, I
hadn’t legitimately made that weight for two or three years, since
Freddie Roach. I’d grown out of it. I was 25 years old and had naturally
grown into a man’s body, yet here I was trying to weigh less than I did
as an amateur. But they were talking about a world championship,
which was big money, too. A world title was a dream I’d been striving
for throughout my career, all my life. I thought I could make that
sacrifice and somehow make the weight. That was my demise.
It
almost killed me—literally killed me.
During
the fight, I collapsed from dehydration. I had uremic poisoning, and my
heartbeat had gone down to 12 heartbeats per minute. A priest came and
gave me my last rites. I was in bad shape, but I somehow made it.
Previous
to my fight with Roque, I’d had eye surgery. I had a fractured eye
socket from the fight before. It wasn’t the first time: the first year
I’d turned pro, I had the same surgery done with my other eye. So,
between the two eye surgeries and almost dying in the ring, I decided to
hang up the gloves. I was tired of getting beat up.
Did
I quit too early? I was 25 years old, right at my prime. I was sparring
with world champions, and believe me, they weren’t getting the best of
me. I was stopping some of these guys in the gyms who were bigger than me.
But coming close to dying had put something in the back of my mind that
made me doubt that I could fight with the same intensity anymore. I had
that question. And I always believed, if you have that question going into
a fight, you’re going to get hurt. Before that, my attitude had been,
“You’re gonna have to kill me to beat me.” Maybe it scared me that I
thought that if I was gonna lose again, I was going to have to die.
If
I could go back in time, would I have retired at the same time? Probably
not. I think I would’ve stuck it out a little bit longer. I think I
could’ve been world champion. According to the trainers I had—Angelo
Dundee and Jesse Reid—I could have been world champ.
My
final record stood at 20-3, with 13 KO’s.
I
still loved the sport and I wanted to stay involved. I wanted to get in as
a manager and a trainer. Training was something I always enjoyed doing. I
started training kids when I was an amateur. My father always told me that
if you want to become a better fighter, get a kid and train him from
scratch. Only then do you truly understand why you have keep your hands
up, why your balance is so important, and a million other things.
I
was committed to coming back to Las Cruces. I worked at a bar I’d bought
before my last fight, and enrolled in school again. It was hard to make
that transition from a world class athlete to a normal working guy. It’s
different. I was used to a lot of people asking me, “Hey when’s your
next fight?” and saying, “Hey, good luck . . .” And getting all that
attention.
In
a sense, this is where my father really played an important role in my
life, even though he’d passed away. My father kept me grounded. He was
such a good humble guy, he’d always say, “Don’t get too big. Because
there’s gonna be a day when you’re gonna have to come back home. You
want to make sure people respect you for who you are. Not what you did. If
you treat them bad going up, they’re gonna treat you bad coming down.”
So
because of that, my transition was easier. But still difficult . . .
The
bar eventually became a headache and I was able to sell it after seven
years. Then I got an offer to train fighters professionally so I went to
Houston to work for Ron Weathers who at that time, was managing and
promoting George Foreman for his comeback career. I also hooked up with
Joe Costello who had Frans Botha at the time. That was ’91.
The
electricity was still there and I still loved the sport. I was still
training, still traveling, and I was still involved. What was hard was
when I had to quit training professionally and come back to Las Cruces a
few years later to get a real job. The reason? I came back to raise
my daughter, Samantha.
I
take my hat off to the guys who have to go out everyday to jobs they
don’t like, just to support their family. These guys are the real
heroes. Athletes? They don’t realize what they’ve got. Professional
athletes are doing something they’ve dreamt about since they were kids.
They have a God-given talent and they’re able to capitalize on it and
make tons of money, and get all this glamour. The guys I respect now are
the guys who have to go and clean yards, or go up on a garbage truck to
make a living for their family. And it’s probably something they don’t
want to do but they have to because they’re putting someone ahead
of themselves. When I came back to raise my daughter, I cleaned toilets
for a year. So, real work I learned to appreciate.
In ’94, I called a buddy of mine
who was involved in Toughman contests and we started a promotion company.
For a year, we were putting on boxing shows—small club
fights—regularly in El Paso, and running the Miss Hawaiian Tropic
franchise, concerts, and all kind of promotions. But there was too much
traveling involved and I had to stay here to take care of my daughter. I
told my partner, “Hey, this isn’t working out. I have to be a dad,
also.”
A job with the Fire Department came
up and I thought I might like to do that. Sure enough, I got in and
learned what it’s all about. It was like learning how to walk again. I
never thought I’d want to be a fireman, and all the sudden, I had the
chance to become one. I liked the adrenaline rush because it reminded me
of what I had to go through in the ring. And what really made me feel good
was that I was able to give back to the people of Las Cruces and that made
me proud.
Someone asked me whether I’d want
to see my daughter get into boxing. She’s only six now but she wants to
box and I don’t want her to. I admit, I still have a hard time with
women’s boxing. I’ll be honest, I don’t feel it’s feminine. I want
my daughter to be feminine. I may admire the girls who get into it, but
I’m not totally comfortable with it. As far as my daughter doing it, I
want her to be a princess—she’ll always be a princess to me,
anyway—but I have a hard time thinking about someone hitting her in the
face.
If
she comes to me when she’s 15 and says she’s gonna do it whether I
like it or not, it’d be a different matter. I’d have to help
her out. Because boxing is something I know about. There’s not a whole
lot of things in this world I know a lot about, but I know a lot about
boxing.
 My
daughter is my priority right now. Her, and a fighter named David
Rodriguez. I think everything happens for a reason. And when I had to come
back to Cruces to raise my daughter, I think I was also meant to meet and
train David.
I
was training a kid for the Toughman contests a few years ago and I needed
sparring partners. I met David and I could see he had a lot of
potential—a lot of speed but no basics . . . he was a kid who was very
raw. He had determination, he had physical attributes that could make him
a good fighter, but he needed basic work, a lot of work. So, at that time,
the guy I was working with, Rocky Galarza, a trainer out of El Paso, asked
me if I’d help him out with David. Shortly afterward, David started
coming up to train here in Cruces. Unfortunately, Rocky was murdered in El
Paso, but David and I developed a close relationship. He’s more than
just a fighter to me; he’s more like a younger brother. I think he’s
gonna go places. I strongly feel that. I wish I’d had his natural talent
when I was younger. I’m convinced he’s going to be Heavyweight
Champion of the World. That’s exciting for me, because I see a lot of me
in him. I don’t want to see him make the same mistakes I made. I made a
lot of mistakes when I was young, in the business aspect as well as the
physical part of it.
That’s
what I want out of boxing right now. My main focus is David Rodriguez.
There’s
a lot of talent here in the Southwest. In New Mexico, the fight scene has
picked up. I’m talking about the grass roots of boxing, the club fights
. . . we need them. There’s more activity now than in a long time. There
was a period last summer when we were having fights every month. And then
Johnny Tapia and Danny Romero would come in and do some big shows
occasionally. The boxing scene has picked up, and I have to contribute a
lot of that to Tapia and Romero. They’ve made boxing exciting again in
New Mexico. A lot of kids—they don’t probably realize it—they’re
starting to getting noticed now. It used to be that New Mexico kids were
just cannon fodder, like some of the fighters you hear about out of
Mexico. They used to have to fight in everyone else’s backyard, like the
way I started. We actually have some talent and some tough kids. And now
we’re beginning to get people who can move ‘em. Before, you were the
underdog going in and it was very hard to get a decision. That’s what
motivated me to knock out so many of my early opponents. I knew I wasn’t
going to get a decision in their hometown. Unfortunately, that’s
been the case in New Mexico for so many years. I think because of Johnny
and Danny, they opened up boxing here and made people realize that we’ve
got some talent.
In
addition to training fighters, I’ve also served 10 years on the New
Mexico State Athletic Commission. But there’s a two-term limit in New
Mexico, and my term ran out in July of last year. Since then, I’ve
worked as the interim events coordinator with the state, helping put the
fights together, checking out the fighters, whether there are good
match-ups or not, and on safety aspects. I also applied for that position
but it went to Max Abeyta.
 At
this time, the Commission is a very green commission. They have a lot of
enthusiasm which I admire, but they don’t know boxing. It’s a
different sport . . . it’s a brutal business. It’s not an ethical
business and you have to know who you can trust in the sport. That’s
where I have a leg up on everybody. You can’t believe what you read on
paper—sometimes even records are very deceiving. Take a guy like Quirino
Garcia. He started off 0-18. If that guy would try to fight in the U.S.
nobody would allow him . .. but he’s turned his record around and
fought, and beat, some good opponents and former world champs. He’s a
world contender now, not only a worthy opponent, rated 6th in
the world in the WBC. Sometimes you get guys who are 40-0, who fight no
one but tomato cans found off the street. A boxing person has a big
advantage over someone who wants to be involved but who don’t know the
ins and outs.
Boxing
in New Mexico has a long way to go. Boxing, in general, does, too.
There’s too much influence from the big promoters. They influence the
judges, they influence the TV, and they’ve turned Boxing almost into
Wrestling. You almost know who’s gonna win beforehand. I think that
needs to be regulated. The different organizations: they need one
champion. We don’t need 5 Super Bowl champions. No one would recognize
them. It waters it down. Loses legitimacy. If you have one champion that
everyone recognizes, you’re gonna get Joe Public back into boxing. The
public can’t keep up with 10 different organizations. You got what? 4
major organizations now? Just too much. If you get one organization, you
get one legitimate champ. You can have regional champions. I could go for
that. That’s a good idea. But world champs? Just one
Another
thing that needs some changing: Bad decisions. People are turned off by so
many bad decisions. You need something like you have in the NFL or pro
basketball: a group of top notch judges who are always regulated, always
going through tests, always going through seminars. Pay ‘em good money
but base it on their performance level. That determines whether they do
major fights or not.
The
people know. They say boxing’s so subjective. Well, let me tell you
something—they are just insulting the public’s intelligence. People know
who won a fight. You get someone who keeps screwing up like that, hey,
send ‘em back down to the minors, or the 4-rounders. Or the amateurs.
Send ‘em back to school. Let’s keep a good solid group of officials
out there who aren’t intimidated or influenced by the big promoters or
big TV or big name fighters.
Start
at a national level and let it trickle down. If the US can adopt a
system like that, the world will adopt it. The influence and the
money and the TV, it’s all here.
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