LORD OF THE RING : Albert Davila Will Be in Seventh Title Fight Monday When He Faces Lora for WBC Bantamweight Crown

If someone were to jot down the names of all the boxers 30 and over who still perform at the world-class level, it would be a short list. Maybe not even double digits.

One of those few, though, lives on Sheridan Street in Pomona, in a house he bought 10 years ago and where he lives with the same woman he married 13 years ago. In a sport in which heavily promoted stars rise quickly and flame out early, Albert Davila endures.

“I’m lucky, in a lot of ways,” he said the other day. “For one thing, I’m not only small, but I’m small boned. Making 118 (pounds) has never been a problem for me. I eat cheeseburgers, Mexican food, anything I want. Between fights I never get any heavier than 126 or 128.

“When I’m preparing for a fight, I’m back down to 118 after just a week of hard training. Also, I ran track at Garey High in Pomona (he once ran the 2-mile in 9 minutes 30 seconds), so I have a natural running stride and I can do a lot more high-quality road work than a lot of fighters.”

Albert Davila is back down to 118.

Another title fight is coming up.

So this is news?

He was 40 minutes early for a Los Angeles news conference the other day, seated by himself on a couch near a hotel meeting room. He had just returned from Rosarito Beach, Mexico, where he’d spent eight days running on the beach and sparring in a gym.

He looked almost lost on the big green couch. In tennis shoes, jeans and a sweater, he could have passed for a jockey, except for one distinguishing feature. He has a classic boxer’s nose. What’s more, Miguel Lora, whose title he will be seeking Monday night at the Forum, is the guy who put the dent in Davila’s nose.

This championship fight, for the World Boxing Council’s bantamweight title, is Davila’s seventh. And Davila, who will turn 34 Aug. 10, is 2-4 in title fights.

His first bout against Lora, in 1986, before 50,000 at Barranquilla, Colombia, went the distance, but Davila’s nose didn’t. In the fourth round, a straight right by Lora broke Davila’s nose, and the injury affected his concentration the rest of the way.

Affected his concentration? Hey, it hurt , too. Especially when Lora kept hitting it.

So why does a 33-year-old guy continue in a sport that can cost you more than just a straight nose? You can die, too. And no one knows that any better than Davila.

The few lines of type about two-thirds of the way down Davila’s page in the record book look cruel in their brevity:

1983

Sept. 1--Kiko Bejines, Los Angeles KO 12)

(Won vacant WBC bantamweight title.)

Yes, it was a knockout, but that wasn’t all. Kiko Bejines of Guadalajara, Mexico, died at USC County General Hospital four days later.

Davila was asked about it. His brow furrowed at the memory of that awful night at the Olympic Auditorium.

Images: The shouting, the commotion, the blinking red lights, the siren, the nightmarish struggle of the stretcher bearers, fighting their way through the crowds to reach the ambulance, carrying the near-lifeless Bejines.

“I still think about him a lot,” he said, almost in a whisper.

“I’ll read something . . . and when I see the word death, I think of him. He will always be in the back of my mind.”

As great a tragedy as Bejines’ death was to his own family, it was also a cruel turn of fate for Davila. His game is style, stealth, technique, slipping punches, defense and movement. A master boxer and an even better defensive fighter, no one has ever called Davila a slugger. In 65 fights, he has knocked out only 25 opponents.

As Bernhard Schwartz, the ringside doctor that night, put it several days later: “Neither one of those guys was much of a puncher. How can you explain it? You can’t.”

You can’t explain several other setbacks in Davila’s career, either.

One summer afternoon in 1984, for example, Roberta Davila asked her husband to move a shrub growing next to their house to the front of their lawn.

“I’d dug the hole out around the shrub, to the roots,” Davila said.

“When I pulled up on the plant, something snapped in my lower back. It hurt at first but not too bad. But within two days I was stiff as a board. I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t even get out of a chair or get out of bed.

“Of all the tough fights in my career, and that includes my 1980 loss to Lupe Pintor, I never felt pain in the ring that was even close to that back pain.

“I went to chiropractors, back doctors--I even tried acupuncture. Nothing worked. At that point, I was not only worrying about never boxing again, I was wondering if I’d be miserable the rest of my life. Finally, I went to a neurosurgeon, and decided to have surgery.

“He took out a herniated disk, and he came out of the operating room and told Roberta to tell me that I could go back into training in six months. That was the best news I’d ever heard.”

Before the surgery, Davila’s lower back pain was made more acute by the daily realization that a lousy shrub had sent a $150,000 payday--which would have been his largest to date--fluttering away.

Davila was the WBC bantamweight champion at the time and not only had to relinquish his title, but a scheduled defense against--who else?--Miguel Lora.

Davila turned pro in 1973, after a successful amateur career in Pomona. He was a national amateur champion in 1972.

He was a busy pro fighter through 1982, but has not fought more than three times a year since 1983. He’s a Southern California original. Of his 65 pro fights, 42 have been in Los Angeles or Inglewood.

Several times, he has almost packed it in. For several stretches, he drove a beer truck and earned $700 to $800 a week.

“In the summer, when people are thirstier, and if you work overtime, you can make a thousand a week with a beer truck route,” he said.

He almost quit boxing after Bejines’ death. Then there was the long layoff with the bad back. But, of course, he couldn’t quit. After all, he’s a Davila.

Davila’s father, Joe, was a carpenter when Albert was born in Olton, Tex., in 1954. The family lived in Dimmitt, Tex., until moving to Pomona when Albert was 12.

Five Davilas boxed--Albert, Edward, Pro, Gilbert and Oscar. And Joe Davila, at 58, is now a house painter.

And until some pug comes along and shows Albert Davila he doesn’t have it anymore, he’s still a fighter.

“I’m a very experienced fighter, and my experience has pulled me through some tough fights and because of that I’m a very confident fighter,” he said.

Davila will earn $25,000 Monday night, a mid-range purse for him in his 1980s title fights. He earned $75,000 in Miami in 1984, when he won the WBC bantamweight title against Enrique Sanchez. And he made $57,000 when he lost to Pintor in 1980.

He was asked what Lora would be making Monday--it’s $75,000--and Davila responded: “I have no idea.”

Albert, you’re not even interested?

“No. All I’m interested in is my family--everything I do, I do for my family. I’ve got a lovely wife, two wonderful daughters and a son, and my goal Monday will be to win the championship, because as champion I could start bringing home some serious money.

“My only goal in boxing is to secure a future for my family. They’ve been very supportive--especially when I had a bad back--and shown me a lot of love. I’m happy to have this opportunity do things like provide for my children’s education.”