It
has been nearly 11 months to the day since we last saw Alfredo “Perro” Angulo
ply his trade as one of the top junior middleweights in the world. In that time,
his story has been told by everyone except him. Reports have poured out of the
boxing community like whispers and shouts from the pages of websites to the
quiet corners of gyms across Southern California. For 11 long months, Alfredo
Angulo has remained largely silent and invisible, hidden away from his growing
horde of adoring fans in the United States and the fights that could take this
burgeoning talent to the heights of boxing fame and fortune. All during this time,
whenever I would run into Angulo’s promoter, Gary Shaw, or his trainer,
Clemente Medina, I would ask “Where’s Perro?”
“I
don’t know” would always be the reply. Later, I would hear he was living in
Mexicali.
“He’s
doing fine,” another mutual acquaintance recently told me.
Two
Sundays ago, on a cell phone from the closest point to the US border on the
Mexico side, I received a call from Angulo that would answer my question. For
45 minutes, I listened and recorded- through my translator Z- Angulo’s tale of
where he has been, what brought him there, and where he was hoping to go. Over
the course of the next week and more, I would piece together as best I could
the whys and the hows of it all. The following is what I found out.
The
tale begins in early August of 2010. Angulo, fresh off a win on HBO over
Joachim Alcine, has long erased the memory of his May 2009 defeat at the hands
of Kermit Cintron in Hollywood, Florida with a four-fight winning streak. What
was a thought of as a disastrous loss that cost him a shot at then-WBC junior middleweight
titleholder Sergio Martinez had just 14 months later earned him a shot at
Martinez, who is now the lineal middleweight champion.
On
August 12, 2010, Maxboxing.com’s Steve Kim, in a story entitled Shaw Says He Has a Lost “Perro”, reported, as told to him by Shaw, that Angulo had turned down $750,000 to fight
Martinez the day before, which just happened to be Angulo’s 28thbirthday. In the deal, according
to Shaw and later corroborated by his attorney Leon Margules (who is also the
promoter of record for Warriors Boxing), Angulo was guaranteed another fight on
HBO, win or lose. In addition, the WBC would keep him in his number one
contender spot at 154, in the event of defeat. In the story, Shaw claimed had
turned down the 750K and asked instead for a million-dollar payday.
"I
don’t believe in offering something and then that being negotiated up because
all it means is that I’m screwing fighters out of the money,” Shaw told Kim. “For
instance, why offer $500,000 if I can really pay $750,000? Because if I’m the
fighter’s management, I’ll say, ’Well, if you had 750, why didn’t you just
offer it?’ People do business differently. I try not to negotiate; I try to
give the fighter as much as I can possibly give him."
Shaw
went on to say that he called Angulo on his birthday and that Angulo did not
answer or return his calls.
"Today
is his birthday and I’ve been calling him and he isn’t returning my
calls," Shaw told Kim. "I’m not sure what I’ve done wrong but
obviously he’s not a happy dog right now."
As
told to me this morning by a source familiar with the negotiation such as it
was, the answer to Shaw’s uncertainty may lie in Shaw’s version of the story.
According to this source, Shaw made the offer through Mike Criscio, Angulo’s
manager at the time. The initial offer was given to Angulo, who said it sounded
good but wondered if perhaps the fight was of the million-dollar variety. This
was pivotal, considering the risk involved for a fighter already with one loss
facing Martinez, who had just shellacked Kelly Pavlik to lift the middleweight title.
Criscio
went back to Shaw, who was said to have stated quite angrily that 750K was all
that available of the $900,000 purse being offered to Angulo. The rest would be
a promoter’s fee. Angulo’s end would take a 33% bite from Criscio per their
management agreement.
Criscio
went back to Angulo and gave him Shaw’s reply. Angulo then countered with an
offer of anything between 750K and 900K. Even 850K was acceptable, a figure
later given to Sergiy Dzinziruk to fight Martinez just this year. Dzinziruk,
unlike Angulo (who had had been on HBO many times), was making his HBO and
middleweight debut that night.
Criscio
went back to Shaw, who declared- according to this source- “The fight is off!”
From
this point forward, Angulo and Shaw ceased all communication. No more counter
offers. No more visits to Shaw’s home. Gone was the relationship Shaw would
describe to me this week as like a father and son.
Soon
after, other media outlets would pick up the story, including Examiner.com’s
Michael Marley, who would get this quote from Shaw regarding the back-and-forth
with Angulo (in his story If “Perro”
Alfredo Angulo Slips Collar, Big Dog Gary Shaw Will Sue):
“I
told Alfredo maybe we could [deal for] more, maybe $800,000 or even $850,000,
but first, he demanded $1 million and then said he would agree to $900,000. But
the money just wasn’t there,” Shaw told Marley in his August 16, 2010 story,
which also mentioned rumors of Angulo being courted by Golden Boy Promotions.
This rumor would persist through the following January.
On
September 21, 2010, Marley would print the same story with two different
headlines on two separate websites. On Boxingscene.com, it would called Alfredo Angulo’s US Career Crumbles; HBO
Walks. On Examiner.com the title was Exclusive:
Alfredo "Perro" Angulo's Illegal Status Ends Career in America.
In the article, Marley wrote, “I learned through several sources, including Top
Rank promoter Bob Arum, that HBO's legal department has advised Angulo promoter
Big Gary Shaw that because the action fighter is in America illegally, the
prime cable network will not use him on its airwaves.”
In
the article, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum (Shaw nor Criscio could be reached for
comment on the article, according to Marley) told Marley, "Nobody is going
to touch this guy. Nobody is interested now because of the huge legal problem.
He picked the wrong time to be an illegal immigrant in our country; that's for
sure."
The
article’s anonymous sources, one “a veteran boxing man” claimed that Angulo had
illegally come to the United States once before “and then brazenly snuck back
into the U.S."
Other
sources began to run with the story without checking with Angulo or his new
legal team to see how true any of it was. Reports came out both on websites and
message boards that Angulo was now banned from HBO airwaves.
On
Monday, an HBO spokesperson refuted that claim, stating, “When we were made
aware in this case that Alfredo did not have a work permit, in effect, we sent
a letter that asked that the issue be cleared up. It could be no issue. Or ‘Well,
make sure it doesn’t happen again.’”
The
spokesperson went on to tell me this letter was neither a warning or a threat. “There
is no ‘banned’ list or ‘He is barred from HBO.’”
At
the time, however unfortunate for Angulo’s reputation, the story was poorly
researched and while some stories had multiple sources cited- both on the
record and off- none had Angulo or his new legal team’s side of things. In his
silence, the rumors and innuendo became the official story. In the eyes of the
media and the boxing fans who scour over every word they write, Angulo was now
simply an illegal alien who had snuck back into the US after being deported
once before. What’s more, as the story went, Angulo was being deported once
again and now banned from appearing on HBO.
With
Angulo in Mexico, away from the US media, his silence at first was deafening,
then it became part of the scenery as the boxing world moved on without him.
It
would not be until May 10, 2011, when Scott Hale of Halestormsports.com
interviewed Angulo, that he would get a chance to go on record with the US
media and set his record straight. The months of hearing the rumors had piled
up on Angulo and he was ready to talk. A month later, he would tell me his side
of things as well.
“Well,
first of all, I have never been deported,” Angulo told me when I asked of his
recent deportation rumors. I was unaware of his 2006 issue until after this
interview and therefore did not ask him about it in our one conversation for
this article. “Gary is the petitioner of my visa and when the difficulties
started between Gary and I, I asked Ronzio, who is the attorney from the law
firm, for my documentation. He said he needed to ask Gary for permission to
give me the ruling on my papers because his client was Gary. I did not know how
serious the situation was.”
Angulo
would seek the help of Michael Miller to handle his boxing and business
dealings, who in turn hired immigration attorney Kelly O’Neill. It was O’Neill
who quickly assessed the dire situation Angulo was in and recommended Angulo
leave for Mexico immediately.
“When
I sought assistance on my own, I sought other lawyers to ask for ruling and all
that, things got a bit complicated,” Angulo explained. “My lawyers told me I
had to leave [the country] because they were doing things wrong, that I had to
be out, that Gary Shaw and his lawyers were not doing things correctly. That is
why I made the decision to leave the United States.”
Within
48 hours of that assessment, not a week after Angulo had sat ringside at the
September 18, 2010 fight between Shane Mosley and Sergio Mora in Los Angeles’
Staples Center, Angulo returned to his mother’s home in Mexicali, leaving
behind his five-year-old daughter and her mother, who is a US citizen, behind.
Angulo
had had a P-1 Visa issued to him on December 3, 2007, that extended to March 22,
2010. The Visa’s petitioner (in other words, the man legally vouching for
Angulo’s time and conduct in the US) was Gary Shaw. The paperwork was handled
by Frank Ronzio, an immigration lawyer widely used and respected throughout the
boxing community.
Just
exactly how and why did a rising boxer’s visa expire is a matter of debate.
“I
don’t know. I think it fell through the cracks,” Miller told me. “I don’t think
Gary did it on purpose. It wouldn’t make sense that Gary did it on purpose. I
just think that somebody fell asleep at the wheel and let it expire. I mean,
Angulo probably should have been aware but he is probably not reading the
minute details of his paperwork. He is just a fighter and Gary being the
petitioner had probably not been a petitioner before and didn’t realize the
duties that come with being a petitioner and signing on the dotted line that
you are going to sponsor the kid when he is here. Part of that is making sure
that the kid returns [To Mexico] before the visa expired to renew it. It didn’t
happen. So from what [O’Reilly says] a major part of Angulo’s problem is he has
overstayed his visa. So you know, that is where we are. We are trying to fix
it.”
When
asked about why the visa was allowed to expire, Margules explained that
everything would have been fine if not for the sudden reemergence of this 2006
immigration issue.
“Gary
got him [the original P-1 Visa],” explained Margules, “and then he went to get
him an extension and that was granted but they never got it issued because they
couldn’t because they found out about this thing that he had done before Gary
was his promoter.”
Margules
asserted that the responsibility to get a renewal does not necessarily fall all
on the petitioner of the visa, Gary Shaw. Angulo shares some blame for not
understanding his paperwork.
“When
did it become the obligation of the promoter to get a guy a visa?” Margules
asked me. “And it was granted. Ranzio got him a visa but then they wouldn’t
issue it because they found out about his conviction.”
However,
Angulo told me that he was discouraged from worrying about legal paperwork. His
job was to train and fight. Everything was to be seen to by his promoter,
manager, and lawyer.
“I
wouldn't know what to tell you because I had my document where my P-1 Visa was
approved and I was told not to worry about any of that,” Angulo told me.
“Ronzio, the lawyers, they all told me to worry only about fighting, that they
would take care of all of that but I have a document where my visa petition was
made and where it is approved. That is why I never…I did not know that I had a
problem.”
Shaw
and Margules explained to me that Ronzio was hired to see to the renewal around
the time the letter from HBO about Angulo’s status was received. However,
Ronzio, according to Shaw and Margules, was unable to get a renewal for Angulo
due to the prior deportation cited by Marley’s anonymous source.
“There
was a visa. The visa was in effect. When the visa was running out, Gary applied
to get him a new visa,” Margules explained to me. “The visa was granted.
Frank Ronzio was [Angulo’s] lawyer. [The visa] was granted but then it was
never issued because the government found out about the conviction. In other
words, [the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services] found out
that they shouldn’t have granted it because of the fact of this conviction. In
other words, for some reason, the conviction fell under the radar during the
first visa period.”
The
“conviction” Margules refers to is an April 24, 2006 “Notice to Appear” before
an immigration judge issued to Angulo by the INS for being in the US illegally.
“Alleged”
is an important point of legal distinction. Immigration law is considered a
civil matter not criminal. However, there are criminal and civil violations of
immigration law. Civil violations can include illegal presence and failure to
depart after an expired visa, although the government has to prove that the subject
“willfully” failed to depart after their visa expired. A criminal violation
might include illegal entry, re-entry after deportation and failure to depart
after an order of removal. If the person is unaware that an order of removal
has been issued for him, the offense can be deemed a civil violation.
The
documents in question, parts of which were obtained by Maxboxing.com, alleged
four things:
1) Angulo
was not a citizen of the United States of America.
2)Angulo is a native of Mexico and a citizen
of Mexico.
3) Angulo
arrived on or around April 23, 2006 in the US
4) That
“on or around April 23, 2006, you knowingly encouraged, induced, assisted,
abetted, or aided” six aliens to enter or try to enter The United States.”
The
other document, which Margules referred to as a “conviction” [Writer’s note: it is fair to note that Mr. Margules
is not an immigration lawyer and has not been retained by Shaw or anyone else
for this service. That was Mr. Ronzio’s job. As such, Mr. Margules may unknowingly
be using the wrong term of law in this case], which is labeled as a “Warning
to Alien Ordered Removed or Deported,” states: “In accordance with the
provisions of section 212 (a) (9)of the Immigration and Nationality Act, you
are prohibited from entering, attempting to enter, or being in the United
States:”
And
here, the box “For a period of ten years from the date of your departure from
the United States because you have been found, another box checked here,
“deportable under section 237 of the Act and ordered removed from the United
States by an immigration judge in proceedings under section 240 of the Act.
Section
212 (a) (9) of the Immigration and Nationality Act:
Section 212(a)(9) of the Immigration and Nationality
Act renders certain aliens inadmissible based on prior violations of U.S.
immigration law. Section 212(a)(9) of the Act has three major subsections.
Under section 212(a)(9)(A) of the Act, an alien, who
was deported, excluded or removed under any provision of law, is inadmissible
if the alien seeks admission to the United States during the period specified
in section 212(a)(9)(A) of the Act, unless the alien obtains consent to reapply
for admission during this period.
Under section 212(a)(9)(B) of the Act, an alien is
inadmissible if the alien has accrued a specified period of unlawful presence,
leaves the United States after accruing the unlawful presence, and then seeks
admission during the period specified in (either 3 years or 10 years after the
departure, depending on the section 212(a)(9)(B)(i) duration of the accrued
unlawful presence).
Under section 212(a)(9)(C)(i) of the Act, an alien
is inadmissible if the alien enters or attempts to enter the United States
without admission after having been removed or after having accrued more than
one year (in the aggregate) of unlawful presence.”
Section 237 of the Act has many possible violations
an alien can be deported ranging from a health risk, to a criminal past, to
criminal conduct committed while in the US illegally, as well as the charge of
Alien Smuggling.
The
Order of Removal issued to Angulo in 2006 does not specify which offense he was
being deported for. That he was illegally in the US in the first place was
enough for him to be deported. What’s more, as Angulo’s attorneys Mike Miller
and newly-appointed immigration attorney Kelly O’Neill pointed out to me this
week, had Angulo been found guilty of alien smuggling, especially for any sort
of profit, he would have faced criminal charges. Had he been found guilty,
would have served up to five years in a federal penitentiary while his civil
immigration case was put on hold. After his release, he would have ultimately been
deported.
As
Angulo put it, “I think that if I was helping other people to cross illegally,
I think I would still be under arrest.”
Angulo
was immediately deported to Mexico. In the next year, the former Mexican
Olympic team boxer who was not with a US promoter would sign with Gary Shaw,
who in turn, through the legal expertise of Ronzio, secure the P-1 status work
Visa for Angulo issued on December 3, 2007 and valid through March 22, 2010.According to the US Immigration
website, A P-1 entertainment visa “is a nonimmigrant visa which allows foreign
nationals who are athletes, artists and entertainers to enter into the US for a
specific event, competition or performance” given to “internationally
recognized artists, entertainers, or athletes [so that they] may enter into the
US to participate in a performance for a US employer or an international
employer working through a US agent. The performance must require a performer
of international quality.”
So
how did a “convicted” alien smuggler (Shaw and Margules claim) get a P-1 visa a
mere eight months later with no one, including the veteran immigration attorney
Ronzio, knowing about his past violation? If Angulo’s deportation did in fact
come from that particular violation, it is hard to believe in the post-9/11 age
that such a high profile athlete’s transgression would so easily fall through
the cracks? Common sense says that he was in fact deported for simply being
illegally in the US and when it was time to get the P-1 Visa, the allegation
was simply a non-issue.
O’Neill,
who is now handling Angulo’s current visa case, would tell me this week that
had this ‘06 deportation been an issue serious enough to come back and cause
all these alleged problems, he would not be wasting Angulo’s time or money.
“If
he was guilty of alien smuggling, we wouldn’t have taken the case,” said
O’Neill. “I wouldn’t take the job.”
On
September 24, 2010, Mike Marley ran a story onExaminer.comthat claimed Criscio was now
attempting to rectify Angulo’s visa issue. Shaw and Margules would tell me they
hired Ronzio, with Shaw footing the legal bills, to hold an emergency session
with Angulo to fix his legal status.
However,
a hotter story would emerge from Shaw on September 30, 2010, in aBoxingscene.cominterview conducted by Ryan Burton,
entitled Gary Shaw Claims Top Rank Ratted
Angulo Out. In it, Gary Shaw claimed “Arum dropped the dime on ‘Perro.’
That was a sh**ty move by them.”
Shaw
opined that “Arum dropped a dime on Angulo to protect [Miguel] Cotto 100%, as
HBO asked Bob to have Cotto fight ‘Perro.’ They would have continued to
pressure Bob into making that fight.”
While
the article is not clear whether Shaw is alleging that Top Rank or Arum called
the INS or HBO about Angulo’s legal status, Shaw would reiterate his point in a
live radio interview I conducted three weeks ago. He would also alter the
details of his story, citing a different fighter HBO was pressuring Arum to
match with Angulo.
When
guesting on the radio show Leave-it-in-the-ring.com, Shaw told me and my
co-host David Duenez “Top Rank turned [Angulo] in, not Gary Shaw. Top Rank
turned him because [HBO] were trying to force [Julio Cesar] Chavez [Jr.] and
Angulo. I am telling you 1000% that Top Rank called HBO.”
Angulo
believes differently.
“Yes,
yes, I did hear,” Angulo told me. “I heard about it but I want Gary to say how
he believes that Bob Arum knew. Presumably, the only people that knew about
that were [Gary] himself, my manager, and [Ronzio] that was taking care of things;
and when it is a matter among lawyers, it is confidential. They cannot, they do
not have the right nor the power to disclose those types of things.”
It
should be noted that Ronzio, though he is no longer Angulo’s immigration
attorney, declined to comment for this article, in regard to Angulo’s legal
status and 2006 case citing the attorney/client privilege.
Angulo
also cited a more personal reason why he believes Bob Arum did not turn him
into the authorities or HBO.
“Another,
very important thing is that I think when all this happened, unfortunately, Bob
Arum suffered a very big loss, which is the loss of a son,” said Angulo,
referencing the disappearance and tragic death of Arum’s eldest son, John,
whose body was found on September 3, 2010 following a mountaineering accident
in the North Cascades National Park outside of Seattle, WA. “So I do not think
he was going to be paying attention to which fighter had or did not have a
legal status. What he cared about was to search for his son and find him; hence,
I don't think he would worry about those things when he had a problem as big as
not finding a missing son.”
When
asked about the rumor that Bob Arum “dropped dime on ‘Perro,’” the HBO
spokesperson informed me that my question was the first they had heard about
the rumor. To their knowledge, no one had said as much at the HBO offices,
though they did concede if that was a confidential call, perhaps the info was
not privy to just anyone.
Regardless
of who told who or what, as of March 22, 2010, Alfredo Angulo’s visa had
expired. While he would not leave the country until late September to begin his
legal fight to return to the US, what happened from the time his visa expired
to the time he left is another interesting question.
How
is it that Angulo, with an expired visa, fought two more times on HBO? And is
it proof that Angulo was truly in the dark about his legal status? Angulo
explained to me that around the time of the Joel Julio fight in April 2010, he
began to worry about his visa status and asked Shaw and Criscio for a status
update. According to Angulo, his request was rebuffed.
“When
we fought Joel Julio was when I started to pressure them because time was
passing by and I wanted to know what was happening,” said Angulo. “I normally
do not know about those things; my lawyers are the ones who know but I started
to worry some. I just continued to receive the same response: to not worry, to
continue fighting and to worry only about training, being well for the fights,
and that they would take care of that, to not worry. But that's when I looked
for another lawyer and my lawyer asked them to give him the papers. They took
almost two months to give him the papers and [only then could] my lawyer realize
everything that was happening.
Now
either Angulo is playing the ignorant foreigner or he is incredibly bold and
calculating. It’s one thing to sneak into the US under cover of night and hide
out in doing off-the-beaten-path cheap labor like many illegal immigrants. It
is quite another to remain in the US illegally and fight not once but twice
live on HBO where the whole world can see you.
How
could that happen?
“I
don’t know,” answered Margules. “How does anything? How does the IRS show up
sometimes and not all the time?”
When
asked if he thought HBO knew about his expired visa but chose to ignore it,
Angulo answered, “No, first of all, I thank HBO and I know that…I don't think
HBO knew beforehand because not even I knew. On the contrary, I think that both
HBO and I were deceived; one can say it that way. HBO perhaps does not take too
much care because it is the promoter who should be in the know. It is the
promoter's work [to make sure] that any fighter who fights, be it on TV or not
on TV, is in the United States legally. So I think HBO did not know.”
The
same HBO spokesperson told me that “HBO contracts with promoters to buy fights.
The network assumes that the fighters have visas, licenses to perform, etc.
Like a fighter makes weight, the promoters needs to have the licenses and
permits. How could you bring us a fighter that isn’t licensed to fight?”
The
way HBO sees it, the fighter is the employee of the promoter, a subcontractor
of sorts. The network cuts a check to the promoter and the promoter gives the
fighter his cut. His legal status, license to fight, and payment
responsibilities fall to the promoter, not the network.
With
his relationship with Shaw fragmented following the Martinez negotiation, I
asked Angulo if he felt his visa situation was leaked to HBO and the media out
of animosity from Shaw or some other member of his team. After all, Angulo’s
visa had expired the previous March, yet the news broke two months after his
second visa-less HBO fight.
“Well,
that I will leave it to each person's own criteria,” said Angulo. “I think it
is something pretty noticeable. The fact that we did not reach an agreement on
the fight with Martinez and I created a lot of conflict and I do not understand
it. Sincerely, up until now, I just can't understand why the anger was so much
or Gary's annoyance.”
For
his part, Shaw told me loved and treated Angulo like a son during their time
together. After one fight, Shaw kissed Angulo on the lips. He bought him a
several thousand-dollar, diamond-encrusted necklace. Angulo would stay at
Gary’s house and was present at Shaw’s father’s funeral prior to the Joel Julio
fight, by Shaw’s account. Angulo even bore Shaw’s father’s name on his trunks
for the Julio fight.
“Above
my desk,” explained an emotional Shaw, “I have a picture of me, my wife, my
son, and ‘Perro.’ I tell you what; I am having a lot of trouble taking it
down.”
Shaw
still seems baffled by ‘Perro’s’ silence. He does not understand why his
fighter will not talk to him. On Angulo’s side, after looking at the press
quotes, it is not hard to understand.
“There
was never an official negotiation for a fight,” Angulo told Scott Hale back in
May on Halestormsports.com. “I got one phone call. The next thing I knew,
boxing news articles were quoting my business representatives, who were calling
me “greedy” for not taking the money. It is not just about the money. Can you
imagine Kobe Bryant’s agent speaking to the media badly about him?”
Angulo
also denied a rumor that Mike Criscio was the one who turned him into
immigration authorities after an angry encounter at a restaurant after the
Alcine fight.
“No,
he does not work with me anymore,” said Angulo. “Mike Criscio does not work
with me; but no, after the Alcine fight, I went to my room to rest and did not
see Mike Criscio. I did not see him again.”
As
noted, Criscio is no longer Angulo’s manager and Mike Miller is not currently acting
in that capacity.
Another
rumor Angulo addressed was a story that, depending on who tells it, is just a
little different each time. Before his fight with Kermit Cintron in May 2009,
Angulo was set to go to Florida on a plane, according to Gary Shaw. Angulo
instead drove to Florida with members of his team and subsequently took ill. Some
blame it for his loss to Cintron.
“Mike
[Criscio] and I said we would get him a camper, a sleeper,” Shaw told me in a
conversation this week, which included Margules. “[Angulo] said he was going to
fly. He got to the airport; we didn’t know this and he got caught. For whatever
reason, the people at the airport who had him detained decided to let him go.
He talked his way out of this and he went and rented a car. That is how he got
there and when he went [to Florida], he got lost and wound up back in
California and got [back to Florida] hours before the weigh-in.”
Angulo
tells it differently.
“I
have a very large team and I wanted all my team to be with me in this fight,”
said Angulo. “Gary asked me to depart three weeks before the fight. I consulted
it with my trainer, who told me it was impossible to leave like that because I
could not stop boxing [and training]. We departed a week before [the fight],
driving. Unfortunately, something I ate on the way didn't suit me well; that's
why I wasn't at 100% in the fight. If my visa had expired, I don't know. It
wasn't until year 2010 that I started to pressure, asking what was happening
with my things and why I was not being told anything. That was all. I was not
at 100% and unfortunately, what happened happened but it is all about falling,
getting up and keep going.”
If
Angulo’s visa was still valid until March of the following year, why would he
be worried at all about flying?
“So
what I am telling you is that they were looking for him even when he had a
valid visa,” said Margules. “He couldn’t get on an airplane.”
In
his account of the story, Angulo never mentioned flying or having a ticket paid
for him by Shaw at the airport, much less magically escaping the authorities
who detained him. I asked Angulo why the plan would be for him to drive instead
of fly. Was it convenience or frugality on Shaw’s part?“I think that everybody, most people know
Gary and that he likes to save a bit,” answered Angulo.
It
is hard to say who to believe here. Did Shaw know his visa expired? Who turned
Angulo in to HBO? Did Angulo and his promotional and management team at the
time knowingly keep him fighting in the US with an expired visa? These are all
near-impossible questions to answer without more data.
You can email Gabriel at maxgmontoya@gmail.com, follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/gabriel_montoya and catch him on each Monday’s episode of “The Next Round” with Steve Kim or tune into hear him live on Thursdays at 5-8 PM PST when he co-hosts the BlogTalk radio show Leave-It-In-The-Ring.com. Gabriel is a full member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. * Special Thanks
ToMaxBoxing.