Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [23]
In Eleta, Old World gentility met New World vigor. Meticulous in dress and grooming, with neat, receding white hair and a slim, athletic build, he could talk with kings and beggars with equal ease. He was as friendly with contacts like the Kennedy political dynasty and sports stars like Joe DiMaggio as he was with boxing trainers and stable grooms. But his charm and grace hid a ruthless side, especially when it came to business, and like any successful man he made enemies. Some hinted darkly at his ulterior motives and cunning nature. He hated being pressured and was known for his frugality and willingness to end friendships on a whim. What he wanted, he usually got.
“After the Mendoza fight, [Roberto] recognized me from the day at my house and asked me to handle him,” said Eleta. “He had another fellow managing him. I talked with Vasquez and told him I didn’t want to interfere with him and Duran. He said he would give me Roberto for three hundred dollars.”
Duran, however, remembers that Eleta actively pursued him. A skilled boxer named Eugenio Hurtado, the husband of Duran’s aunt Gladys, had recently lost a close bout and went to see Eleta to ask for a rematch. He asked Duran to accompany him. “I went with a writer named Papi Mendez to talk to Eleta, but I didn’t pay any attention to him. Hurtado asked me for a favor, and said he would give me twenty dollars to go with him. For twenty dollars, I was there. Eleta started talking to me and not Hurtado. I wasn’t even paying attention to him. He kept saying over and over that he could help me. I realized he was talking to me, but I played the fool. Hurtado finally signs the contract to fight, and Eleta gives me twenty dollars. Now, twenty dollars and twenty dollars and I have forty dollars.”
It says everything about Duran at that time that he was more interested in having forty bucks to spend in a bar than he was in an offer to manage his career by the most influential businessman in the country. He was in good company; Hurtado had a penchant for blowing his boxing purses and never thought about the future. “Once he won a bout and earned $3,000, and was lost for four days with nothing for the house,” Duran told a reporter from La Aficion.
However, Carlos Eleta would not be denied. “The next day, Eleta calls me and tells me that he wants to help me with my career. And Eleta wanted to know if I wanted to sign a contract or just a handshake deal. I was [only sixteen] and I told him, however he wanted to do it. Eleta tells me that real men either sign the contract or shake on it. We shook hands and that’s how he became my manager.”
The well-connected Eleta could offer far more than the jockey Vasquez. “Vasquez couldn’t support me because he was always asking to borrow money,” said Duran. “The only reason I started with Eleta was because he would pay media members to try to persuade me to let him become my manager. A lot of people told me not to mix with him because he was a thief.”
For all his natural talent, Duran was raw, a volatile mass of energy. “He was a fellow who couldn’t read and write,” said Eleta. “And he had very little attention. It was very difficult to sit him down. We tried to take him to school and that was impossible for him. He was like a wild animal. Duran never kept anything inside, never. He liked to go see animals but he never had attention for anything.
“Before his wife was in the picture, he never told me about other girls. He was afraid to tell me these things. He was not the type of person who was easy to get to know. Before Roberto ever became a champ, he would tell me he wanted to be like Robin Hood. ‘I will give it all to the poor,’ he said. Nobody thought he was going to be so great. They knew he would be good, but not that great