‘El Rebellio’ Perez ready to bring glory to Ireland
On Saturday — before settling into his new Cloyne home — he had been put through his first training session by the legendary Cuban coach, Nicholas Cruz Hernandez.
Hernandez, a central figure in Ireland’s historic medal haul at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, greeted his fellow Cuban when he arrived with Cork promoter and businessman Gary Hyde and he predicted Perez will be a world champion.
“Back in Cuba he is already something of a legend and now he is going to make history for Ireland,” he said. “I think he has the talent to do as much as Ali, Mike Tyson or Sugar Ray Leonard, and he has the charisma too.”
His Cuban nickname — “El Rebellio” — is fitting and Perez promised to be a true Cork rebel.
“I want to win the world title for Cork and for Ireland,” he said. “I am looking forward to meeting all the boxing fans in Cork over the coming weeks. I am told I will be visiting a boxing club in Cork each week to train and I am looking forward to that. Gary tells me Cork has a great boxing tradition and I know Ireland has a big tradition in the past. I am very proud to have represented Cuba and I love my country and I will never turn my back on it but I am looking forward to representing Ireland as a professional. I’ll fight with an Irish flag on one side and a Cuban flag on the other.”
With professional boxing banned in Cuba, Perez is the latest in a growing number of boxers leaving the country in search of fame and fortune.
The exodus meant Cuba did not send a team to the world championships in Chicago and their participation in the Olympic Games remains in doubt.
Perez is one of the boxers to lose out in such a climate. Cuban senior coach, Servillio Fuentes, tipped him to win a gold medal in Beijing and follow legends like Teofilio Stevenson and Felix Savon. He won a gold medal at the world junior championships in Korea in 2004 when he boxed as a light heavyweight, stopping his first three opponents before beating highly rated Russian, Nikolay Pavlyukov, (38-16), in the final. The following year he won a silver medal at the World Cup in Moscow.
Hyde met him in Liverpool when Cuba boxed a team from the Four Nations and he defeated Ireland’s eight-time national senior light heavyweight champion, Kenneth Egan 36-12.
“I was looking for a heavyweight — someone who could represent us on the world stage,” Gary Hyde said. “Mike caught my eye immediately. I knew he was more suited to the professional game than any amateur I had seen because he was throwing punches for devastation and not for points and he could move around the ring as quick as any middleweight. I decided there and then he was the one but it has taken a long time.”
Without throwing a punch, Perez, got a huge reception from a packed house at the National Stadium on Friday night and Cork fans will see him in action on the undercard when Billy Walsh takes on Jamie Gorman for the vacant Irish welterweight title at Neptune Stadium on January 26 — an undercard that will feature three other undefeated Irish prospects, Lisburn heavyweight Scott Belshaw, Dublin featherweight Patrick Hyland, and light-heavyweight Alo Kelly from Milltownpass, Co. Westmeath.
“We need to keep him active,” Cruz insisted. “It is a new challenge for me but it is one I am looking forward to. I came to Ireland in 1988 and I love it. I have had numerous offers from other countries but I would not leave Ireland. I enjoyed my years working with the Irish boxers. I have been working for the prison service for 12 years and I have got great joy and satisfaction from that too.”
