Like many people who end up in Durango, Legends Boxing Foundation Vice President Mike Cooley had a connection here. His cousins’ aunts and uncles used to live here. They used to own a GM dealership here. Cooley used to visit and fell in love with Durango.
So when Cooley was approached about having a title fight in Durango to bring professional boxing back to Durango for the first time in nearly 100 years. It was an easy decision.
He remembered going to El Rancho Tavern in 1990 and receiving so much love for his connection with legendary boxer Muhammad Ali. More recently, Cooley traveled through Durango and met with the current owners Chris and Chip Lile and developed a relationship.
Then, when Good Fight Boxing Gym founder Katy Kopec talked with Chris Lile about having a professional fight in Durango, Lile knew Cooley was the man for the job.
Fast forward to today and Kopec, Cooley and Lile have prepared Legends on the Animas: The LBF Middleweight Championship between Andrew “Hurricane” Hernandez and Jeremy “The Boxer Barber” Ramos on Oct. 12 at the La Plata County Fairgrounds.
“It’s coming together fantastic,” Cooley said. “The unity of the Durango patrons and all the people is just fabulous. The support they’ve given her (Kopec) and future support I see coming in. There are people that called on Friday that wanted to support that didn’t offer it before. It’s amazing because I’ve been in a lot of places. I’m 66 years old now and I’ve been around the block. I’ve been a bodyguard for Muhammad Ali, I’ve fought in the ring and I’ve been to many pro fights, the biggest fights ever. How the people come together in this community amazes me. I wanted to be a part of it.”
Cooley became a part of the LBF in 2019 in Las Vegas after he was nominated for the vice president position by president Eva Rolle. The LBF liked Cooley’s experience training and managing champions. He has connections with some of the top fighters in the sport.
Since Cooley has been involved with the LBF, the sanctioning body has seen steady growth. Cooley knows his connections are a big part of his role in the LBF. He also knows the four major boxing-sanctioning bodies (WBO, WBC, WBA, IBF) have a lot of politics involved since they’ve been around for so long.
“They’re all fighting with each other,” Cooley said. “As a fighter, why would you want to be mixed up with that? We can have big money too.”
Cooley had his first interaction with legendary boxer Muhammad Ali long before he became his bodyguard. Cooley was 17 years old and Ali spoke at a college in 1977. He wore his golden gloves jacket to get Ali’s attention and got Ali to sign it. Cooley told him that someday they’d hang out.
It took 11 more years, but Cooley was a man of his word.
In 1988, Cooley had an amateur gym in St. Louis, Michigan, and funded it by selling vacuums door-to-door. Cooley invited Ali to come to the grand opening and to Cooley’s surprise he did, along with thousands of spectators and lots of media.
After that, Cooley got a call about a month later at 6 a.m. to come to Las Vegas to be Ali’s bodyguard at the Sugar Ray Leonard Donny Lalonde Light Heavyweight Championship in November of 1988.
“I stayed with him at the Golden Nugget for four days in a joining room,” Cooley said. “We just hit it off. We were really kindred spirits and really tight.”
Cooley remembers having dinner in Caesars Palace with Ali when former NFL MVP Washington quarterback Joe Theismann nervously came up to Cooley to see if he could introduce Theismann to Ali. Cooley did and Ali immediately asked Theismann to have dinner with them and he did.
After Ali passed away in 2016, Cooley was surprised how many young fighters coming up don’t know about Ali. He said all they need to do is watch some of the footage of his fights and his life and they’ll be attached to him like they’ve never seen before.
Ali is always in Cooley’s heart and remembers the great moments the two of them had together.
With his decades of experience in the highest levels of boxing, Cooley used his connection with Hector Camacho Jr. and Aaron Pryor Jr. to get them to come to Durango and help Kopec out and fight in the Legends on the Animas event.
Camacho Jr. was supposed to fight Hernandez but suffered an injury while training in Durango in September which forced him to resign. Ramos was quickly brought in to replace him.
Cooley called Durango, “the perfect town” for this and hopes to have a continued relationship with Kopec and The Good Fight Boxing Gym where the LBF can put on fights in Durango every five or six months. That’ll help the fights here continue to grow and turn Durango into a little mecca of boxing.
Other famous boxing names like Butterbean and BoneCrusher Smith are coming to Durango as special guests after just a phone call from Cooley. He sold the historic aspect of the fight to them with the story of Jack Dempsey and world-class professional boxing out of Durango for the first time in 100 years.
Cooley has been a part of many special boxing events. Cooley, Kopec, Lile and many others are hoping the Legends on the Animas card will spark more historic boxing events in Durango.
bkelly@durangoherald.com
