Former champ wants boxing revival in Korea

Hong Soo-hwan, a boxing world champion in the 1970s, sees both frustration and hope for the sport in Korea. By Park Jong-geun

Hong Soo-hwan, a former world champion boxer, has a lot to say. The moment this 58-year-old retired boxer stepped into the gym named for him in southern Seoul, he began talking about how boxing here is “almost in a coma.”
Gym staff played a videotape of Hong’s 1974 battle against Arnold Tayor, in which Hong first won his bantamweight championship belt.
The fight launched him to stardom. His mother remembers the phone call she got from Hong after the victory.
“Mom, I’m the champion!” he cried out, and his mother replied, “Yes, dear. Long live the Koreans!”
After the 1974 victory, Hong went on to win another belt in 1979 against Hector Carrasquilla in Panama.
Hong was knocked down four times in the match, but came off the deck to knock out Carrasquilla.
Koreans back home followed the match with great enthusiasm. Hong even got a parade in a car sent by the Blue House.
The match reran 27 times on mainstream television networks.
That, however, was the 1970s.
Today, Hong’s gym is populated by people who want to lose weight, not by boxers hungry to make a name for themselves or earn a shot at a title. The gym is also where Hong used to meet the late boxer Choi Yo-sam, who died earlier this year after a match.
“I still see him strolling into the gym and saying hi to me,” Hong said. “All I have now is regret that I should have taken better care of him. His death granted a chance for us to think deeply about ways to revive boxing.”
Following the tragedy, Hong could sit still and let Choi’s memory die. He flew to Japan last month.
“I was fed up with some people saying boxing is a dying sport in Korea because the country is better off economically. I wanted to see Japan, which is even better off than Korea, and where people still love boxing. I had to find out why.”
In Japan he sat in a packed 1,800-seat Gorakuen Hall in Tokyo, and closely observed the ring and the audience.
After four days in Japan, Hong returned on Jan. 25.
The first thing he did was to gather some 300 fellow boxers to establish the Association of Korean Boxers.
“Korean boxing did not die suddenly,” Hong said. “It has died out slowly but steadily. This is why it is even harder to revive the past glory.”
Hong also gets frustrated with the current Korean boxing culture.
“Boxers are underpaid. All a boxer gets is about 280,000 won [$297], and fights rarely happen. Even if there is one, people won’t pay money to buy tickets. I don’t understand this. Boxers risk their lives to fight. Why don’t people want to pay the due price for watching such a match?”
Hong is also frustrated by Korea’s lack of a national boxing gymnasium.
Yet amid the frustration, he also sees hope.
Hong himself embodies hope, as his poverty-stricken mother single-handedly raised him. “All I could do then was box with my bare fists,” he said. However, the sport taught him about pain and sacrifice.
“The weigh-in was the hardest part. I had to spit in order to make weight,” he said.
The hardship paid off in championship belts.
But wins and fame and money didn’t fill the hole inside.
“You know what, after victory happiness doesn’t find you. In my case, there was a sense of deep frustration and solitude. But I had to go on fighting and making challenges.”
In 1982 Hong retired for good.
Then he divorced his wife, singer Ok Hee, and flew to the United States to make a new life. There, he worked as a taxi driver and street vendor.
“Once in Alaska, a Korean passerby recognized me at a hotel. That was the most embarrassing moment in my life,” he said with a bitter smile.
In 1992, he returned to Seoul and suffered several business failures.
But Hong fought back.
He began to make a name for himself as a boxing sportscaster and opened his gym.
He reunited with his divorced wife. He also became a motivational speaker, drawing lessons from his life and boxing.
His calendar is now packed with speaking engagements for companies.
What makes him such a motivational speaker?
“I share the things that I learned after 39 years in boxing, like I see hope in words that start with ‘C,’ such as confidence, challenge and champion,” he said.

By Chun Su-jin Staff Reporter [sujiney@joongang.co.kr]