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Bob Santos, 2022 Sports Illustrated and The Ring magazine Trainer of the Year, is a busy guy. On February 1, fighters under his tutelage will open and close the show on the main leg of the four-fight Prime Video PPV event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Jeison Rosario continues his comeback in the lid lifter, against Jesus Ramos. In the final, former Cuban amateur standout David Morrell will attempt to saddle David Benavidez with his first defeat. Both combatants in the main event have been chasing 168-pound kingpin Canelo Alvarez, but this fight will be contested for a share of the light heavyweight title.

When the show is over, Santos barely has time to exhale. Before the month is out, you’ll likely find him working the corner of Dainier Pero, Brian Mendoza, Elijah Garcia and perhaps others.

Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) turned 28 last month. He is at the peak of his career. But many people rate Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) as a very lively dog. In the end, Benavidez was a consensus 7/4 (minus-175) favorite, a price that suggests a very competitive fight.

Needless to say, Bob Santos is confident his guy can upset the odds. “I’ve worked with both,” he says. “It’s a tough fight for David Morrell, but he has more ways to win because he’s less one-dimensional. He can go forward or fight back and his foot speed is superior.”

Benavidez’s big edge, in the eyes of many, is his greater experience. He captured the vacant WBC 168-pound title at the age of 20, becoming the youngest super middleweight champion in history. As a pro, Benavidez has answered the bell for 148 rounds compared to just 54 for Morrell, but Bob Santos believes that angle is largely irrelevant.

“Obviously I’d rather have professional experience than amateur experience,” he says, “but if you look at Benavidez’s record, he fought a lot of soft opponents as he climbed the ladder.”

Genuine. Benavidez, who turned pro at age 16, had his first seven fights in Mexico against a motley assortment of opponents. His first fight on American soil took place in his native Pheonix against an opponent with a 1-6-2 record.

While it’s certainly true that Morrell, 26, has yet to fight an opponent of Caleb Plant’s caliber, he began boxing at roughly the same tender age as Benavidez and made his mark in the notorious Cuban amateur system, where he eventually defeated elite amateurs in international tournaments.

“If you look at his (pro) record, you’ll notice (Morrell) has hardly lost a round,” Santos says of the fighter who captured an interim title in just his third pro fight with a 12-round decision over it Guyanese veteran. Lennox Allen.

Bob Santos is something of a late bloomer. He was around boxing for a long time, helping such notables as Joe Goossen, Emanuel Steward and Ronnie Shields before becoming recognized as one of the sport’s top trainers.

A native of San Jose, he grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood, but not in a Spanish-speaking household. “I know enough now to get by,” he says modestly. He attended James Lick High School, whose most famous alumnus is Heisman-winning and Super Bowl-winning quarterback Jim Plunkett. “We worked in the same apricot orchard when we were kids,” says Santos. “Not at the same time, but in the same field.”

After graduating, he followed in his father’s footsteps in construction work, but boxing always beckoned. A cousin, the late Luis Molina, represented the United States as a lightweight at the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne and was good enough as a pro to appear in a main event at Madison Square Garden, losing a narrow decision to the notorious Puerto Rican hothead. Frankie Narvaez, a future world title challenger.

Santos’ cousin was a big draw in San Jose during the era when the San Jose/Sacramento territory was Don Chargin’s mayor. “Don was a beautiful man and his wife Lorraine was even more beautiful,” says Santos of the husband/wife promotional team inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Don Chargin was inducted in 2001 and Lorraine posthumously in 2018.

Chargin promoted Fresno-based featherweight Hector Lizarraga, who captured the IBF title in 1997. Lizarraga turned his career around after a 5-7-3 start when he joined San Jose gym Miguel Jara. It was one of the most successful reclamation projects in boxing history, and Bob Santos played a part in it.

Bob hopes to achieve the same turnaround with Jeison Rosario, whose career was on the upswing when Santos got involved. In his most recent start, Rosario held heavily favored Jarrett Hurd to a draw in a bout between former IBF 154-pound champions on a ProBox card in Florida.

“I consider it one of my greatest achievements,” Santos says, noting that Rosario was stopped four times and effectively sidelined for two years before resuming his career and now on the verge of winning yet a title shot.

The boxer with whom Santos is most closely identified is former four-division world titleholder Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. The slick southpaw, the pride of Gilroy, Calif., the self-proclaimed “Garlic Capital of the World,” retired after a bad loss to Omar Figueroa Jr., but had second thoughts and is currently riding a six-fight winning streak. “I’ve known him since he was 15 years old,” notes Santos.

Years from now, Santos may be more closely identified with the Pero brothers, Dainier and Lenier, who aspire to be the Cuban-American version of the Klitschko brothers.

Santos describes Dainier, one of the youngest members of Cuba’s Olympic team in Tokyo, as a bigger version of Oleksandr Usyk. That might be stretching it, but Dainier (10-0, 8 KOs as a pro) certainly hits harder.

Dainier Pero

This reporter was a fly on the wall when Santos put Dainier Pero through his paces on Tuesday (January 14) at Bones Adams gym in Las Vegas. Santos held on to a punch shield, in boxing parlance a doughnut, as the Cuban practiced his punches. On several occasions, the trainer was knocked off balance and the look on his face as his body absorbed some of the aftershocks said plainly, “My God, what the hell am I doing here? There’s got to be an easier way to live.” It was a task Santos would undoubtedly have preferred to hand over to his young assistant, his son Joe Santos, but Joe was busy coordinating David Morrell’s camp.

Dainer’s brother Lenier is also an ex-Olympian and, like Dainier, was an amateur super heavyweight. With a record of 11-0 (8 KOs), Lenier Pero’s pro career was on a parallel path until it was stalled by a management conflict. Lenier last fought last March and Santos says he will soon join his brother in Las Vegas.

There is little to choose between the Pero brothers, but Dainier is considered to have the biggest advantage because, at 25, he is the younger sibling by seven years.

Bob Santos was again this year in the running for The Ring magazine’s Trainer of the Year, one of six nominees for the honor awarded to his good friend Robert Garcia. Given the way Santos’ career is going, it is certain that he will be showered with many more accolades in the years to come.

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