El Torito

Like the earlier podcast "Didn't Die Soon Enough..." this is an excellent biography of a man who was a monster in the ring and an even bigger monster out of it, although unlike the former it does not attempt to inject a nanogramme of humour into its 46 minutes. It does though contain some excellent footage for boxing fans - the people for whom it is made.

While Ayala's alcohol and drug problems are well documented, we have only his word for it that between the ages of 9 and 11 he was sexually abused by someone close to him. Certainly, there was never a prosecution nor even a hint of one, and it is most likely that Tony Ayala simply invented this claim to explain away his substance abuse, and his abuse of women. And since when did boxers smoke cigarettes?

Curiously, there is no suggestion that he ever abused his wife - who divorced, remarried, then divorced him again - but the girls and women he did abuse more than made up for that.

If there is anything to be learned from this documentary it is that some men can be forgiven almost anything. Some celebrities have had their careers, even their lives trashed by far less serious and often false allegations, Rolf Harris comes to mind for one, yet a world class boxer like Ayala (or convicted rapist Mike Tyson) get a free pass. Is it solely because they make big money for their backers? Whether or not that is the case, Tony Ayala Junior was given chance after chance, and blew them all, dying if not broke then far from wealthy at just fifty-two, a man who is best forgotten but will be remembered when countless better men are.