By "Hail" Cesar Garcia from Punchnews Magazine

The longer I sat and listened the more and more I would realize that Librado Andrade was a born fighter. He’s not one of those trained fighters, not one of those who fights for fame or riches and until recently, not even for belts. In fact, his 2-14 amateur record is probably the best indication of where boxing was on Andrade’s priority list.  Instead, Andrade just simply loves to fight claiming to have started the craft as a hobby, and it is that love that has now made Andrade the most feared challenger for supremacy in the Super Middleweight division, despite not having fought since February of last year. Now Andrade is set to face the well respected and WBC #1 Otis Grant for a shot at the WBC crown. Andrade is ranked #3 whether he believes it or not.

            “It just happened,” says Andrade in a matter of fact tone. “For seven years all I did is work at Jack in the Box, go train and then go home. I was blinded by that. Work, go train, go home. I never thought about rest. I never thought about anything until now. It’s just something that takes me out of life. I don’t have to deal with life so much…but I don’t know what really drives me. I just like to fight, I really feel like I belong in the ring. When I get there I get so happy, I honestly do. I feel the crowd. I like being there. I mean, its something that is just so natural to me, to be in the ring.”

            What! ? No me-against-the-world attitude that runs rampant in boxing or trying to prove that he belongs in a division where arguably the next best Mexican ever is the virtual unknown Marcos Lopez who is rated as the 42^nd all time best Super Middleweight by Boxrec.com (in a 25 year career, Lopez compiled a respectable 60-28-1 record with 42 knockouts)?

“I didn’t look at anybody, I didn’t really want to be like anybody. It’s not like this big drive I have of fighting, it’s just what I do and I feel good about it”

And if that’s the case then how hard must it have been for boxing’s best kept secret to not do what he does for 12 months, and maybe even more depending on Grant, who already postponed a December date due to a well documented abdominal injury that might not even be healed by the tentatively scheduled date of March 8.

And just like an NFL kicker before kicking a crucial field goal the unwanted time out has perhaps forced Andrade to think too much.

“It does get me a little bit. I’m a little more concerned, I get a little more nervous than I used to when I was in the fights,” admits Andrade. But just like a clutch kicker Andrade has used his time out to make final calculations to ensure success. “ I’ve learned a lot.,” says Andrade, “I’ve learned more, I’ve seen my mistakes, I’ve corrected them and I’ve had more time to rest to make another run…A championship run.” 

“All this time that I’ve been laid off I don’t see it as a waste of time because good things happened to me.”

It’s difficult to imagine how Andrade who was born in Mexico but grew up in Southern California and is well known in boxing circles but virtually unknown in the mainstream would remain under the radar for so long. After all he has everything necessary to achieve superstar status. For one, his style is somewhat unheard of in a weight class dominated by Americans and Europeans. A weight where the skilled bigger fighters usually escape the traditionally smaller Mexicans rough and rugged style that often runs over skilled tacticians in the smaller divisions.

 Andrade fights what he says is “the classic Mexican style.” A plus when one is trying to capture an audience.

“I give lot a pressure,” says Andrade without thinking twice. “I pressure and I counter punch a lot. That’s mainly what I do. I’m not a very fast guy, its not like I have a fast style. I make it exciting by putting a lot of pressure and making the other guys fight…usually the way I fight, they’re [opponents] always surprised with how I fight, I’m always in front of you. I seem so far away but I’m always in front of you.”

So while hopefuls with less than stellar ring records are more common in the public eye due to National team exposure or just plain high expectations because of family bloodlines, Andrade has toiled in obscurity, but quietly building momentum on the strength of an impressive 22-0 record with 16 KO’s. His last three victories by impressive knockouts in the 3^rd, 4^th and 2^nd rounds.

So where have you been Librado?

Well as is too often the case in boxing a bad contract caused Librado to be on the backburner for the last 9 months of 2005.

According to Librado, when he was originally signed by Golden Boy, they, as well as himself didn’t see Librado as more than a club fighter. He would get booked to Golden Boys local events where they would pay Andrade peanuts to sell tickets to mainly friends and families of the fighters on the card. Problem was that Librado got too big for his britches. He dominated the competition and slowly began too impress the games decision makers into a top ten ranking.

“I’ve been fighting for six years professionally and I never expected to get this far. I never worried about who was taking care of my money, who was taking care of my contracts. We were just doing it how it was happening (we being him and his brother Enrique who also boxes and is hoping to make noise at 160),” a more serious Andrade says.

“Somebody should be taking care of us and it wasn’t happening. Not to take away anything from our previous management but we were in a position where we could get better.”

So while some media members knocked on Golden Boy for not keeping

 Andrade more busy, it was actually Andrade keeping himself out because the risk outweighed the reward. It was Oscar who made Andrade realize he was not a ‘minimum’ fighter.

 “Here we were fighting for fights that are ranking me and I was getting paid the minimum…The way the contract was, it was no good to Golden boy and it was no good to me.”

            “I was getting five thousand for ten round fights,” said a perplexed Andrade.

            So while a student driver  drove the race car that is Librado, in stepped a bona fide championship driver to take the wheel.

Manager Al Haymon.

“He’s fixed all my paperwork, he’s fixed all my contracts. He’s gotten me where I needed to be, financially and in life…that was what we needed.”

And more importantly his frame of thought has changed as he turned down an offer to spar and prepare with Bernard Hopkins for his loss against Jermain Taylor this past December. An opportunity he would have jumped at in the past, heck, seven months ago.

“He [Haymon] told me, ‘ I don’t want you to go. From now on you’re not going to be treated as a helper, a sparring partner, you need o be treated differently and from now on we should see you like that.”

So perhaps in April will be Andrade’s coming out party, after all most of the world, boxing and mainstream, will be watching as they main event is tentatively scheduled to be Pretty Boy Floyd Mayweather against Zab Judah. A perfect stage to showcase his skills and to propel his run in 2006, where he plans to fight hopefully four times.

“Before it was my hobby, now it is my job,” explains Andrade. “My life depends on this now, my future. Economically it’s my business. Now I see it as my job.”

  So now that it is 2006 how often will we actually see Andrade punch in? For him possibilities abound. If Grant cannot be ready in March,  Andrade will automatically be the next mandatory challenger to WBC champ Markus Beyer, then perhaps there’s  Mikkel Kessler (WBA champ), there’s Joe Calzaghe (WBO champ) or  Jeff Lacy( IBF champ), although Lacy and Calzaghe already have a unification bout scheduled. Regardless he would fight Grant as his first mandatory should Librado win the championship.

Golden Boy Vice-President and Matchmaker Eric Gomez also would like to keep Andrade busy in ’06.

“If we could fight him four times we’ll do it four times [this year], but now he’s getting to these big fights,” says Gomez, “ but our main goal is to make him an HBO fighter. The sky is the limit for him. He looks great, if he wins the title and is knocking all these people out, HBO is going to be very interested.”  Definitely a far cry from Jack in the Box.  But then again Golden Boy hierarchy might not be quite convinced to Andrade’s drawing power as they lost the purse bid to Gym Promotions who bid $161,500.

            And of his potential opponents who does Andrade feel is the most dangerous? “Lacy,” says Andrade, “ He’s a power puncher with both hands. With him you’re in danger the whole fight.”

But regardless Andrade knows he has an advantage. If he wins he goes on, he losses and he probably joins Mike Tyson in ‘bolivion.’

“I’ve sacrificed so much for this sport. They come out from the Olympics.Jeff Lacy, he never had to work he’s always had good back up, good management, he never tasted real life. Some fighters are privileged, I have to worry about my family, worry about my work, worry about my bills. They don’t.”