A Cuban Boxer's Journey: Rigondeaux, from Castro's Traitor to American Champion

A big publisher in New York has just published a book about Guillermo Rigondeaux, and wow, some crazy stuff on there, a must buy.

http://www.amazon.com/Cuban-Boxers-Journey-Guillermo-Rigondeaux-ebook/dp/B00ID8G848

Excerpted from the book

It was as if a Cuban version of Mr. Kurtz had stepped out of his own version Heart of Darkness to pop into the gym for a visit.

That day, back in 2007, the first time I was introduced to Guillermo Rigondeaux Ortiz in Havana, the thing was, I had little way of knowing who or what I was looking at. I had only seen Rigondeaux's face not obscured by headgear once. The trouble that evening was that his face was instead obscured by the photograph of Fidel he was holding aloft after having been declared the victor of a tournament. All I saw now was a solemn, 5-foot-5-inch kid, dressed in a Nike ball cap and jeans, with a fake Versace shirt that had the sleeves ripped off.

Without realizing it I started toward Rigondeaux. As I approached him, in the shade under the bleachers of the entrance to Rafael Trejo, my first impression was that his was the saddest face I had ever seen on the island. One of the few things not in short supply in Havana is sadness. Rigondeaux's sadness distinguished him from his countrymen nearly as much as his boxing pedigree.

I reached out a hand and introduced myself and he did what he could, under the strained circumstances at the gym, to muster a smile. Up close I noticed his right eye showed damage, slumping slightly from his left. Rigondeaux's attempt at a polite smile betrayed the gold grill over his front teeth for a brief moment as he took another drag of his Popular cigarette.

"So where did you get that gold on your teeth?" I asked him.

Rigondeaux snickered, dropped his head and smirked, taking a last long drag on his cigarette before flicking it on the ground and stamping it out with his sneaker. "Oh you know, I melted down both my gold medals into my mouth. I used to fight in this place ..."