“This guy was another Marciano, Graziano, all rolled into one.” LOU DUVA
LEESBURG, N.J. – Fog gathered over the coils of barbed wire just before dawn, encasing the quiet dread Bayside State Prison seems to circulate at this eerie hour. Soon daylight would rule over the weedy land not far from the southern New Jersey shoreline that houses this medium-security penitentiary. Not sun. Just a faint awakening of the day through thick, gray clouds, heavy with burden.
The sky appeared angry on the morning Tony Ayala was to embrace the outside after 16 years of penance. Chatty seagulls flocked over the administration building where the ex-fighter’s release papers were being prepared. What were they saying? That the cold and dampness made for a deep chill to the bone, like the one that comes when you think of what Tony Ayala did to that school teacher from West Paterson in the early hours of New Year’s Day 1983?
Ayala was 19 when – high on heroin and tormented by inner rage – he raped her. He was 36 when – high on hope and the idea of rehabilitation – he finally emerged from the prison’s doorway at 9:37 a.m. yesterday, his wife on his arm cotillion-style, his mother, father and brother a teary step behind on the way to a white stretch limousine.
“I’m real happy to be out,” said Ayala, who was 22-0, with 19 knockouts, and the No. 1 junior middleweight contender before surrendering to demons.
“I’m anxious to put this behind me. I just want to be with my family right now. I been away a long time. I’m looking forward to my future.”
A Future.
This is what Ayala spoke of, his return to the gym “sometime before the month’s out” to begin training, his new start.
“It’s a beautiful day,” he said. It wasn’t. But it was. And for the occasion, he wore a patterned sport jacket, with a white T-shirt, jeans and cowboy boots. He looked trim and fit. His black mustache was neatly groomed on a face with few wrinkles, belying the years he spent in Trenton State Prison, Rahway and finally Bayside.
“I feel good, man,” he said, starting to choke up. “It’s been a long 16 years.”
“That’s a good man sitting there,” Ayala’s brother, Sammy, proclaimed.
What’s a brother to say? This is family, blood. Of course, Sammy Ayala believes his brother’s vow of change, of finding God, of being a different person than the junkie and disturbed teen who earned his spot behind bars only after the carpet finally became full of bones. He can forget two days before Christmas 1978 when a 15-year-old Tony Ayala gave a San Antonio College woman a ruptured bladder during an assault in the restroom of a drive-in movie theater. He can say with a grudge that his brother served every hour of his 30-year sentence (he earned a shorter sentence by good behavior, not by parole).
What about the victim? Can she forget the past like Tony Ayala Sr. can? Does the fact that Tony Jr. paid his court-ordered debt compute like it’s supposed to in our society?
“I just welcome him back to my family,” Ayala said of his son. “It’s been hell for 16 years. All I can say is, God willing, everything will turn out all right.”
God willing, is boxing. Ayala was a fighter who came around once in a trainer’s lifetime, Lou Duva said. Duva trained “Torrito” (Baby Bull), treated him like a son and eventually had to forget him. “This guy was another Marciano, Graziano, all rolled into one, for chrissakes,” he said. “As a fighter, nobody was better than him. But the other stuff I couldn’t take care of.”
Duva’s voice is sullen. “I’ll never forget the time he fought Mario Maldonado on a Sugar Ray Leonard undercard. They’re going toe to toe, and all of a sudden Tony falls down. He pulls himself up by the ropes, the bell rings and he comes back to the corner cursing. He says, ‘I’ll kill that SOB.’ Well, the bell rings and he runs over to him and hits him with this left hook. I thought his head went into the third row. The guy just collapsed.
“That was nothing compared to the time in Texas against Robbie Epps,” Duva added. “He destroyed the guy. I had to jump on Ayala’s back and push him to the ground. He had pushed the ref out of the way. He kept holding up [Epps] and hitting him with his left hand. He was just vicious.
“I once asked Sugar Ray, ‘How ’bout boxing with Torrito?’ He said, ‘Are you crazy? I wouldn’t go by this kid [on the street].’ You know, back then there was Duran, Hearns, Hagler, Leonard, Alexis Arguello – and he would have walked through every one of them.”
Duva has spoken to Ayala only once in the last 16 years. “I have a lot of respect for the guy as a fighter,” he said. “He was my idea of a fighter. If I had to pick one guy out of all my guys, he’d be the one. But I just lost my love for him. A lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff that went on was wrong. I wish him well in his comeback.”
This is no typical boxing comeback story. This is a comeback to the outside.
Five other inmates also got released from Bayside State Prison yesterday. Since an inmate is not allowed to walk off the mushy grounds, they were ushered in a van to the nearest public transportation stop. Tony Ayala left in a white stretch limo. They drove past a man in an orange jumpsuit with jealous eyes on a riding mower.
Freedom, finally, thankfully. What will they do with it?