Brazilian Boxer Gives Up Olympics to Try Career in Las Vegas

02/23/2015 - 09h44

"Today I am a product. I am no longer Esquiva Falcão." At the age of 25, that is how the Brazilian boxer who reached the highest position in the Olympics representing the country defines himself – without flinching.

Esquiva has no hesitation in getting married or buying a bicycle – he did both in 2015. One month ago he paid US$ 100 for the bicycle at a store in Las Vegas, where his fiancée and his son are likely to go in the coming months to join him - he has been living there for 13 months.

At the 2012 Olympic Games in London, Esquiva and his brother, the pugilist Yamaguchi, 27, put an end to the 44-year period in which no Brazilian boxer had set foot on an Olympic podium.

Yamaguchi won the bronze medal in the light heavyweight category. And Esquiva won the silver medal in the middleweight division, the highest position a Brazilian boxer has ever reached.

But neither of them is likely to participate in the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Both Yamaguchi and Esquiva have decided to give up competing in the first Olympics to be held in Brazil to participate in the circuit of commercial fights (those who "go pro," in the jargon of the sport, cannot fight in the Olympics). "It wasn't a difficult decision," said Esquiva, after practicing for 90 minutes at a gym in Las Vegas.

"The Olympic Games gave me nothing, just a medal. They gave me neither a house nor a car." But fighting in casinos in front of TV cameras has given him much more. "I left my first professional fight with enough money to buy a house." Since then, he has had six fights and six victories - four of them by knockout.

He now aims to be the number one in professional boxing - also known as prizefighting. His next fight will take place in Florida on February 28 against the U.S.'s Mike Tufariello.

The mentor of the idea to create the Esquiva factory was Sérgio Batarelli, 54, a former fighter and currently a fight commentator on TV and the inventor of the International Vale Tudo Championship, a slapstick show which once attained the highest rating on Brazilian TV in the 1990s.

Batarelli met Esquiva in Azerbaijan at the end of 2013, while Esquiva was participating in an international tournament, and convinced him to talk about changes in the direction of his career.

When he arrived in the U.S., Esquiva says he found that he could "make more money than I expected" and signed a contract with Top Rank, an American company which has managed the careers of stars like Muhammad Ali.

Yamaguchi, who had already chosen to "go pro" months earlier, signed with Golden Boy, the team of pugilist Oscar de la Hoya, without having to move from Brazil.

Translated by THOMAS MUELLO

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