Prominent Cuban trainer Ismael Salas, who will be in Joe Joyce’s corner this weekend, accompanies Declan Warrington through his journey from Cuba to Asia, Australia and the United States of America.
The son of a middle-class Cuban-American engineer and a Cuban mother, Ismael Salas was one of six brothers born and raised in the southern city of Guantánamo, and his talent gradually took him from there to Havana, then to Asia and Australia. before in the US, as another successful Cuban export, he guided the careers of Guillermo Rigondeaux, Yuriorkis Gamboa and Jorge Linares.
“What happened in Cuba at that time was so beautiful,” Salas told Boxing News of his first steps in a career he has pursued individually. “It’s normal to come home with bruises, like a war medal. We’ve been cultivating that mentality: ‘If you go to the street, don’t come back crying.’ That is why Cuba has so many fighters. [My parents] They were very harsh and very strict. My father, at 7 at night, everyone had to sit at the table for dinner; not at 7:05 p.m. It is a discipline that I bring with me.
“I grew up in the neighborhood; Cuban society then played a lot in the street, fought in the street, survived on a daily basis. The only boxing gym there was was two blocks from my house. One day, when I was eight or nine years old, I started to see the fights there; every Tuesday and Saturday they had cards. I started to love it, I didn’t know why, the adrenaline was pumping, and I said to myself: ‘This is my choice.’
“Boxing, at that time, was only for the lower classes. My parents wanted me to be an engineer like my brother, father, grandfather; They hoped that one day I could be a worker on the American base, but I took a different path.
“My mother couldn’t understand that I loved boxing. Still I kept fighting and hiding [it]; my mother started hitting me. But she once told me: ‘If that’s what you like to do, there’s one condition: if you stay in school, I’ll let you do what you love.’
“I graduated from school [in Santiago de Cuba] at 20, and my coach there saw my potential as a coach. I was lucky to train [as a fighter] around the best trainers in the south of Cuba, where the true quality is. José María Chivas, a legendary coach in Cuba, is the one who really saw my potential.
“I went to college and did my masters [in sport and science], but at the same time he was asked to work with the team in Guantánamo, already working with Olympic gold medalists. I started training them. I have worked with Felix Savon, Joel Casamayor and many more. Everything got serious from then on.
“It was [soon] giving boxing seminars all over the world. The Cuban government used this as a kind of propaganda in the 1980s. After the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, because Cuba didn’t go – they killed a lot of dreams, it was the cold war and it was bad for the Cuban fighters – Cuba tried to sell your system, sending us.
“I started going to Mexico, to Venezuela and then in 1986 to North Korea. We spent 18 months in North Korea working with the national team [in Pyongchang] – it was very difficult. The system; what I learned in that time, Cubans complain, but I realized that we lived free. North Korea was crazy, and I guess that hasn’t changed. I couldn’t refuse; no way. But it was a challenge for me; I’ve loved the challenge, all my life.”
Upon Salas’s return to Cuba, he was relocated to Pakistan, where from 1989 he spent three years in Islamabad and Karachi preparing the national team for the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, after which he unexpectedly and finally began working with professionals. and he truly became his own man.
“Working with Pakistan, I went to Thailand many times and met my [former] my wife there in Bangkok after the Olympics,” said Salas, who is fluent in English, Spanish, Thai and Japanese. “After that, the Thai government requested my services, but the Cuban government said ‘No.’
“I defected to Thailand, from Barcelona to Bangkok. I was offered a job at a boxing gym; I had been very honest about defecting and told them that I had never seen a professional fighter in my life. They gave me a house and I started to work like crazy.
“I suffered a lot. She did not have a passport and was in Thailand illegally. When my fighters had to fight in Japan or the United States, I could never go. the thai government [after being recruited to work with the Thai national team] he asked Cuba for help with different sports, not with boxing. They said, ‘If you have Salas, we won’t help you,’ so I lost my job. I had three children in Thailand. [Salas also has four children living in the US and another in Cuba]and he had no job.
“My case went to the UN human rights [council] – I did not return to Cuba until six days last year – and they pressured the Cuban government to give me a passport, because at that time I was not Cuban, not American, not Thai, nothing.”
Opportunities gradually arose first in Japan, where while living in both Tokyo and Osaka, Salas met his current wife, Kocomi, and then in Sydney and Perth with Danny Green before, almost inevitably, he gradually worked his way west and began to train not only some of his compatriots, but in Odlanier Solis, who as an amateur defeated David Haye [with whom Salas would briefly work].
“In 2008 I went to Hamburg in Germany, when they suggested I work with Gamboa, Solís and [Yan] Barthelemy, and I divided my time between Australia, Bangkok and Hamburg”, explained the coach. “Then in 2009 I went to Miami and worked with Gamboa, [Erislandy] Lara and Solís, then with Rigondeaux, and then they divided time between Miami and Germany.
“After this, I decided to stay in the United States and not move anymore. I was very successful in Asia, but if someone wants to be successful as a boxer or a trainer, they have to get recognition in the United States. I’d look at a lot of coaches: Freddie Roach, Robert Garcia, Virgil Hunter, Manny Steward, Buddy McGirt, ‘I can kick their ass.’ It’s a mindset, right? I am very competitive.
“After [the late] Rafael Garcia, a friend of mine for many, many years, was his advice. Halls, come to Vegas; I can introduce you to many people. At that time it was of no use to me financially, but I went to Las Vegas, and then many fighters began to come. I live from boxing, it’s the only thing I do.
Of the best he has worked with, he recalls: “When [Rigondeaux] hit me with the first punch, ‘Oh amazing’. When we started camp, he didn’t like to train. ‘Are you fucking crazy? Are you going for a title without sparring? You have to train. He sparred him, and in the fight, from rounds one to five, he didn’t want to do anything. He likes to play a game; he is a great, great fighter, but [could have been a lot more].
“I hated the Gamboa guys, I hated them, the egos. I like to always be in the back seat. Gamboa was an incredible fighter. Amazing. Unfortunately, great fighter, great, great fighter, and we had such a good connection, but I can’t control your personal life. They make their own decisions.
“Savon is not human. He is like a machine, he is like Joe Joyce, he is so powerful, so big and so many things at the same time. If Cuba had gone to the ’88 Olympics, it would have gotten a fourth [gold medal]. The first punch he ever threw in his life was with me. I was the one who made Savon.”
