It’s hard enough to get up at 6 in the morning. It’s even harder when you know that you’re going to be running for the next hour.
Gerardo Alvarez starts his day—every day, seven days a week—just like this. He wants to be able to breathe while his opponents are trying to clean his clock. And when he’s done with his run, he still has two hours of training to look forward to.
Not content with stereotypical astronaut or firefighter ambitions, Alvarez has wanted to be a boxer.
“Since I was little, I used to train and stuff,” he said. “And I wanted to be trained by a trainer, so I just ended up going one day [to Infinite], and I liked the sport.”
At 17 years old, Alvarez has direction: He intends to be the champ.
“My long-term goal is to train hard and one day go for the world title,” he said.
He’s got support from family, especially Dad.
“My mom, she doesn’t really like it, but she supports me,” he said.
Although he’s only been boxing for a year, Alvarez doesn’t come to the sport with a blank slate. He’s a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, which he says helped him with his boxing by giving him good basics. He didn’t have to learn how to stand or how to punch.
He won his first fight in Santa Maria against an older, more seasoned opponent. Since then he’s fought just about every month, missing his most recent opportunity due to stomach problems.
Alvarez has gone on independent study so he can focus on his boxing. Where Rocky had the great, dirty outdoors and Drago had the sterile tech gym, Alvarez has the happy medium. The garage at his house is clean and empty, and the backyard has a nice homemade setup including two hanging bags, a dummy arm, and a double-end speed bag.
He said the constant training is the hardest thing about boxing. And the easiest?
“Nothing’s easy about it,” he said.
Alvarez has a restricted diet aimed at keeping him down to his lightweight status. Breakfast consists of eggs, toast, and orange juice. Lunch is corn, rice, and fish. Dinner’s a salad. Meanwhile, Alvarez’s mom, dad, and brother can eat whatever they want—though that may change for Little Bro, as he’s also started to train.
Keeping the title in his sights, Alvarez has got a lot of work ahead. Right now, he knows that to improve as a fighter he needs to work on his range. One of his two losses came against an opponent who took advantage of Alvarez’s inexperience.
“He was just circling around the ring and just giving me shots and circling, and I was not used to fighters just going around the ring,” he said.
Alvarez is happy, though. He likes what he’s doing and doesn’t miss the high school scene too much. He’s been invited to spar with some seasoned veterans, but doesn’t get swept away in the excitement of it all.
He expects to be fighting an exhibition match at the Chumash Casino on Sept. 30—a rematch from his first fight.
This article appears in Sep 22-29, 2011.