BY NICK GIONGCO
Former world champion boxer Rodel Mayol isn’t struggling to make a living in the US even in these hard and trying times.
But to say that Mayol is living the American dream is premature.
Still, Mayol, who briefly held the World Boxing Council (WBC) light-flyweight crown in the late 2000s, is doing good even as the coronavirus pandemic has sidelined his career as a fast-rising trainer.
Now based in Los Angeles, Mayol is the lead trainer of some of the Philippines’s best and brightest boxers, including a fellow former world champion in Marlon Tapales.
Aside from Tapales, who jetted back to the Philippines to avoid being stranded there, Mayol also calls the shots in the corner of lightweight hitter Romero Duno, and an American toughie engaged in mix martial arts.
With boxing on the freezer, Mayol has found another way to compensate for boxing’s temporary lull.
The 38-year-old native of Cebu has agreed to work as caregiver in a facility owned and operated by someone who has close ties to Manny Pacquiao.
“He is from Sarangani and is a friend of Sen. Manny and he has given me the chance to work in a nursing home,” said Mayol, who retired from boxing in 2012 after losing a bid to win the International Boxing Federation super-fly title.
From Monday to Friday, he drives to his job that runs from 12:30 am until 8:30 am.
“Graveyard shift,” said Mayol, who logged a 31-6-2 win-loss-raw record with 22 KOs. “I look after five patients who are not elderly but males who have the level of intelligence of two-year olds.”
Mayol admits that he never expected he would wind up entering this line of work but maintains that it a decent way to earn a living.
For somebody who used to work as a cashier at Rite Aid and a stockroom boy at Island Pacific, a grocery specializing in Filipino and Asian products, Mayol’s new job isn’t something to loathe about.
“My main duty is to watch over them,” said Mayol, who started his career with
ALA Boxing of Cebu where he became an accomplished amateur, winner of two Palarong Pambansa tournaments and several other prestigious events.
“They are like little kids and sometimes they hit me with punches when they are getting frustrated,” he said.
Good thing is Mayol is used to getting whacked as his pro career spanned more than 12 years, featuring stops in Mexico City, Guadalajara, Los Mochis, Tuxtla Gutierrez and Cancun all in Mexico and in Yokohama, Osaka and Tokyo in Japan, across the US, Puerto Rico and a few times in Jakarta.
“I am used to getting hit so it doesn’t bother me at all,” he said while driving down the freeway en route to a daycare center where he is dropping his two-year-old kid.
With Filipino boxers in-demand in the US, Mayol dreams of operating a gym that will cater to fighters from the Philippines with Pacquiao as his main backer.
“I would love to run a gym that will become the home of Filipino boxers, those who won’t have a place to stay but are determined to make it big in America,” said Mayol, who also has four vending machines that churn out $1,200 a month.
“The profit from these machines goes a long way,” said Mayol, who is being helped out in providing their growing family’s needs by a wife who works in an accountancy firm in the downtown area.
Although they’re not exactly sleeping on a bed of roses, the Mayols are surely not on survival mode.
