A champion is someone who gets up when he can’t
Jack Dempsey
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Manuel Massó (65) turns his life around and his boxing pupils – he’s in his twenties – listen to him fascinated. Xavi, one of the last to reach the Club Pro Box, in Mahón.
Xavi writes to The vanguard and he tells us:
–You have to listen to the stories of Manuel Massó. He was a great boxer.
And here we are, listening to Massó, someone whose deep voice and well-articulated speech fill the time, someone who fights against prostate cancer, a disease that has just been diagnosed.
Manuel Massó, in a current image (LV)
–I sometimes visit the History Museum of Menorca. I was her security guard for 17 years. It is in an old convent and has a beautiful courtyard with a well in the center. I go there and sit for a while and find tranquility –he tells me.
So, too, remember.
(…)
Manuel Masó he was 16 years old and thirteen brothers when he left his job as a carpenter and went to Barcelona, to seek life in boxing.
–He had a briefcase and 500 pesetas (three euros). I looked for the Santa Fe bar, where all the coaches met. It was on Floridablanca Street, next to the Gran Price Room.
In boxing you don’t feel anger or hate the rival: it is your job, how are you going to hate someone who is working like you? ”
Clemente, a technician who knew him, saw him.
–Clemente asked me: ‘Do you have a place to sleep?’ I told him no. And he installed me in his gym, on Reina Amalia street, with two other boxers from Melilla. I spent a month there.
-I’m thinking about Million Dollar Baby -I observe.
–Ya, ya …
His opportunity soon came, in Mataró, against Antonio Rubio.
–It was a good fight but he had more experience and beat me on points. Luckily, the rival was not a great puncher and his punches did nothing to me. I left with the same face with which I had entered …
The reviews were good and things went further.
Manuel Massó fought in Camprodon, in winter, and left without showering because the hot water did not work.
Manuel Massó, in 1977, during the match against Nino Jiménez that elevated him as champion of Europe (LV)
He partied with Horta with his neighbor Antonio Guinaldo, also his friend, and the next morning both were fighting, against each other, in Reus.
–We gave ourselves a good beating but it came out null. We decided that we would never face each other again.
Once he released a crochet to the canary Jiménez del Pino and the man went to the canvas, his jaw clenched and his gaze lost, and gone he spent five minutes.
Jiménez del Pino got rid of it, but did not box again.
I charged 1,500 euros for the title and 3,000 more for advertising: I gave the money to my family ”
Manuel Massó won 70 of his 76 bouts.
And his big moment came in 1977, when he snatched the European featherweight title from Nino Jiménez:
“Were you afraid?”
-Fear…? I was concentrating on my thing: getting in, hitting and leaving.
–And anger against the rival?
–In boxing there is no room for hatred or anger. You do not seek to harm. It’s your job. How are you going to get mad at someone who does the same job as you?
“And did they pay you well?”
–As a worker of the time: 600, 700 euros. You box and you live. When I left, I had to work a thousand things: gardener, warehouse boy …
–And the money of the European title?
–There I paid well: 1,500 euros for the title and 3,000 for showing advertising. Although the money was kept by the family. You had to help.
