New faces: Cloud's silver lining
Posted Nov. 25, 2008 at 05:19pm
By Joseph Santoliquito
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The nights used to be the hardest. On the head. On the back. But mostly on the mind, with the recurring thought that at any moment a large black roach would crawl over his fingers or a small rodent would sniff near his half-shut eyes as he pretended to be asleep.
Everyone has personal fuel. It’s what gets them going, what drives them to go somewhere far from where they used to be. For Tavoris Cloud, his drive to somewhere else is ongoing, but it’s his back story that serves as his firewood, steaming him up each time he’s about to enter the ring.
Cloud’s early years were spent living in a cramped, two-bedroom apartment in Quincy, Fla., near Tallahassee, that was home to 10 people. The memories of those nights sleeping on a concrete floor, padded thinly by a worn rug, amid the fear he might swallow a bug while he slept won’t go away that easily. Life then was like “digging out of a crater hole with a spoon,” Cloud likes to say.
Life as an undefeated fighter is taking on a different form. The light heavyweight moved a big chunk of earth in his boxing career, stopping Julio Gonzalez for the first time in the former contender’s career in early August in Chicago. What’s more, the victory came on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights. Cloud (19-0, with 18 knockouts) now finds himself in a nice situation, as the No. 1 challenger for IBF titleholder Chad Dawson.
It’s taken a while for the 26-year-old to get there. He wasn’t an Olympian. He had to work his way up.
“The Gonzalez win was very important for me,” the 5-foot-10 boxer-puncher said. “I looked at that fight as something I had to do to set up to a world championship fight; that’s my ultimate goal. That fight was all or nothing. The way I saw it, I was fighting for my life. Gonzalez was a very durable opponent. That’s why I believed I was the underdog. Gonzalez and his people were saying a lot of things going into the fight, like I wouldn’t be able to last and he’d take me into the deep waters and drown me. But I always knew I could beat someone like Gonzalez. All I needed was the chance. Now I wait for Tarver or Dawson and to get back into the ring in early 2009. Hey, I’ve been through hell already. I survived that; now here I am.”
As opposed to where he once was, passed around as a child, bouncing from one relative’s home to another, as his mother, who had Tavoris when she was 15, was raising five children on her own without any job skills or education. Getting into the ring with someone like Gonzalez wasn’t going to rattle Cloud, not with the hellish childhood in his memory.
“I’m a grown man now, but there are just some things you never forget,” Cloud said. “I was 8, 9, 10 years old living with eight, nine other kids. I slept on the floor with the roaches and the mice. That stuff burns in your head and never leaves. Believe me, it happened 17, 18 years ago and I still remember that. My mother was working, but she could only do so much. For me, that was hell.”
That’s what Cloud thinks of before each fight. He flicks on a switch in his head and any fear that could be lingering in the corners of his mind during his ring walk-up is extinguished. It’s a personal vow he keeps whispering to himself: “My daughter will never sleep on a concrete floor like I did.”
“This may sound strange, but I wouldn’t change any of it,” Cloud said. “I came up hard, but it also made me who I am.”
The boxing mold was first shaped by one of Cloud’s co-trainers, Alonzo Johnson, who works Cloud’s corner along with Rodolfo Aguilar. Johnson initially met Cloud when his mother, Emma Smith, brought him to the Lincoln Community Center in Tallahassee, Fla. At first, Smith wasn’t too crazy about her 16-year-old son taking up boxing. She had visions of the Parkinson-ravaged Muhammad Ali dancing in her head, and there was no way she wanted to subject her son to that.
But Tavoris kept pushing, and his mom finally relented, making the 60-mile roundtrip haul from Quincy, Fla., to Tallahassee and back five days a week. The first time her son sparred and got his nose bloodied, she ran out of the gym.
Smith was working two jobs at the time, as a waitress and cleaning rooms in a hotel. The 14-hour daily grind was often overwhelming, and she wasn’t always able to drive Tavoris to the gym.
Johnson came up with a solution.
“I moved Tavoris in with me,” he said. “Tavoris’ mother really didn’t want him to box. It just became too much for her to go back and forth all of the time. She didn’t object when I proposed he move in with me. I already had a few kids living with me.”
In a month, Cloud went from a level one fighter, on Johnson’s growth chart, to a level six. Cloud was eager to learn.
“By the time Tavoris was 18, he was the best 18-year-old in the country,” Johnson said. “His power was something that was always there. But it’s something we preach here. We have a very strenuous training regimen where we go on whup-ass missions. We were just getting warmed up after the sixth round in the Gonzalez fight.”
Cloud’s biggest concern is not getting too intoxicated with his punching power. Prior to Gonzalez, the longest Cloud had ever gone was five rounds.
“Everything that happened in that fight I already knew I could do, especially if I had to go the distance,” Cloud said. “People see a dude with a lot of knockouts, and they think automatically that’s all I can do is go for the knockout. With me, that’s not the case. I can box when I have to.”
A week later, Cloud was still savoring his victory over Gonzalez in his Tallahassee home when his 3-year-old daughter, E’lisha, came in from the backyard. He was spending an afternoon playing Mr. Mom as his wife, Eileen, a junior at Florida State University, was at class. He recounted how misfortune struck his family when his older brother, Ricky Sweet, who had been in and out of trouble throughout much of his young life, was sentenced to life in prison at age 21.
“We were raised in the same house by the same mother, but he didn’t think there were many choices,” Cloud said. “I wasn’t doing too well in school, and the other option was to sell dope and get involved in criminal activity. That was pretty much what everyone else around me was doing.
“But what I learned from Ricky’s situation was to stay focused and push hard for what I wanted to get; you make right decisions and your life will be better. I knew when I was 16 that I wanted to be a professional fighter. It’s given me a better life, and helped me provide for my family. It made a better environment for everyone around me.”
The screen door slammed shut again in the background, and Cloud said, “No more sleeping on floors and no prison cells for me.” Then he paused to call out to E’lisha, “Daddy is comin’ out to play in a second.”
Tavoris Cloud: Fight-by-fight professional record
2004
April 2 Luis Reyes, Ocala, Fla. KO 3
Oct. 9 Taryll Carpenter, Raleigh, N.C. KO 1
Oct. 23 Kevin Thompson, Greensboro, N.C. KO 1
Nov. 20 Curtis Mullins, Greensboro, N.C. KO 3
Dec. 11 Ronald Moore, Greensboro, N.C. KO 1
2005
May 6 Reggie Strickland, Indianapolis, Ind. W 4
July 13 Joseph Hill, Gary, Ind. KO 3
Nov. 3 Ron Krull, Hammond, Ind. KO 2
2006
Jan. 27 Roosevelt Johnson, Indianapolis KO 4
March 17 Anthony Dennis, Chicago KO 2
July 21 Mitch Hicks, Chicago KO 1
Sept. 15 Tim Shocks, Chicago KO 4
Nov. 10 Douglas LaFontsee, Cicero, Ill. KO 4
2007
Feb. 16 Aaron Norwood, Cicero, Ill. KO 2
May 11 Jim Strohl, Cicero, Ill. KO 1
Aug. 24 Jose Luis Herrera, Chicago KO 5
Dec. 14 Jacob Rodriguez, Cicero, Ill. KO 3
2008
March 28 Mike Wood, Chicago KO 1
Aug. 8 Julio Gonzalez, Chicago KO 10
FIGHTS: 19
WON: 19
LOST: 0
DRAW: 0
KOS: 18
Everyone has personal fuel. It’s what gets them going, what drives them to go somewhere far from where they used to be. For Tavoris Cloud, his drive to somewhere else is ongoing, but it’s his back story that serves as his firewood, steaming him up each time he’s about to enter the ring.
Cloud’s early years were spent living in a cramped, two-bedroom apartment in Quincy, Fla., near Tallahassee, that was home to 10 people. The memories of those nights sleeping on a concrete floor, padded thinly by a worn rug, amid the fear he might swallow a bug while he slept won’t go away that easily. Life then was like “digging out of a crater hole with a spoon,” Cloud likes to say.
Life as an undefeated fighter is taking on a different form. The light heavyweight moved a big chunk of earth in his boxing career, stopping Julio Gonzalez for the first time in the former contender’s career in early August in Chicago. What’s more, the victory came on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights. Cloud (19-0, with 18 knockouts) now finds himself in a nice situation, as the No. 1 challenger for IBF titleholder Chad Dawson.
It’s taken a while for the 26-year-old to get there. He wasn’t an Olympian. He had to work his way up.
“The Gonzalez win was very important for me,” the 5-foot-10 boxer-puncher said. “I looked at that fight as something I had to do to set up to a world championship fight; that’s my ultimate goal. That fight was all or nothing. The way I saw it, I was fighting for my life. Gonzalez was a very durable opponent. That’s why I believed I was the underdog. Gonzalez and his people were saying a lot of things going into the fight, like I wouldn’t be able to last and he’d take me into the deep waters and drown me. But I always knew I could beat someone like Gonzalez. All I needed was the chance. Now I wait for Tarver or Dawson and to get back into the ring in early 2009. Hey, I’ve been through hell already. I survived that; now here I am.”
As opposed to where he once was, passed around as a child, bouncing from one relative’s home to another, as his mother, who had Tavoris when she was 15, was raising five children on her own without any job skills or education. Getting into the ring with someone like Gonzalez wasn’t going to rattle Cloud, not with the hellish childhood in his memory.
“I’m a grown man now, but there are just some things you never forget,” Cloud said. “I was 8, 9, 10 years old living with eight, nine other kids. I slept on the floor with the roaches and the mice. That stuff burns in your head and never leaves. Believe me, it happened 17, 18 years ago and I still remember that. My mother was working, but she could only do so much. For me, that was hell.”
That’s what Cloud thinks of before each fight. He flicks on a switch in his head and any fear that could be lingering in the corners of his mind during his ring walk-up is extinguished. It’s a personal vow he keeps whispering to himself: “My daughter will never sleep on a concrete floor like I did.”
“This may sound strange, but I wouldn’t change any of it,” Cloud said. “I came up hard, but it also made me who I am.”
The boxing mold was first shaped by one of Cloud’s co-trainers, Alonzo Johnson, who works Cloud’s corner along with Rodolfo Aguilar. Johnson initially met Cloud when his mother, Emma Smith, brought him to the Lincoln Community Center in Tallahassee, Fla. At first, Smith wasn’t too crazy about her 16-year-old son taking up boxing. She had visions of the Parkinson-ravaged Muhammad Ali dancing in her head, and there was no way she wanted to subject her son to that.
But Tavoris kept pushing, and his mom finally relented, making the 60-mile roundtrip haul from Quincy, Fla., to Tallahassee and back five days a week. The first time her son sparred and got his nose bloodied, she ran out of the gym.
Smith was working two jobs at the time, as a waitress and cleaning rooms in a hotel. The 14-hour daily grind was often overwhelming, and she wasn’t always able to drive Tavoris to the gym.
Johnson came up with a solution.
“I moved Tavoris in with me,” he said. “Tavoris’ mother really didn’t want him to box. It just became too much for her to go back and forth all of the time. She didn’t object when I proposed he move in with me. I already had a few kids living with me.”
In a month, Cloud went from a level one fighter, on Johnson’s growth chart, to a level six. Cloud was eager to learn.
“By the time Tavoris was 18, he was the best 18-year-old in the country,” Johnson said. “His power was something that was always there. But it’s something we preach here. We have a very strenuous training regimen where we go on whup-ass missions. We were just getting warmed up after the sixth round in the Gonzalez fight.”
Cloud’s biggest concern is not getting too intoxicated with his punching power. Prior to Gonzalez, the longest Cloud had ever gone was five rounds.
“Everything that happened in that fight I already knew I could do, especially if I had to go the distance,” Cloud said. “People see a dude with a lot of knockouts, and they think automatically that’s all I can do is go for the knockout. With me, that’s not the case. I can box when I have to.”
A week later, Cloud was still savoring his victory over Gonzalez in his Tallahassee home when his 3-year-old daughter, E’lisha, came in from the backyard. He was spending an afternoon playing Mr. Mom as his wife, Eileen, a junior at Florida State University, was at class. He recounted how misfortune struck his family when his older brother, Ricky Sweet, who had been in and out of trouble throughout much of his young life, was sentenced to life in prison at age 21.
“We were raised in the same house by the same mother, but he didn’t think there were many choices,” Cloud said. “I wasn’t doing too well in school, and the other option was to sell dope and get involved in criminal activity. That was pretty much what everyone else around me was doing.
“But what I learned from Ricky’s situation was to stay focused and push hard for what I wanted to get; you make right decisions and your life will be better. I knew when I was 16 that I wanted to be a professional fighter. It’s given me a better life, and helped me provide for my family. It made a better environment for everyone around me.”
The screen door slammed shut again in the background, and Cloud said, “No more sleeping on floors and no prison cells for me.” Then he paused to call out to E’lisha, “Daddy is comin’ out to play in a second.”
Tavoris Cloud: Fight-by-fight professional record
2004
April 2 Luis Reyes, Ocala, Fla. KO 3
Oct. 9 Taryll Carpenter, Raleigh, N.C. KO 1
Oct. 23 Kevin Thompson, Greensboro, N.C. KO 1
Nov. 20 Curtis Mullins, Greensboro, N.C. KO 3
Dec. 11 Ronald Moore, Greensboro, N.C. KO 1
2005
May 6 Reggie Strickland, Indianapolis, Ind. W 4
July 13 Joseph Hill, Gary, Ind. KO 3
Nov. 3 Ron Krull, Hammond, Ind. KO 2
2006
Jan. 27 Roosevelt Johnson, Indianapolis KO 4
March 17 Anthony Dennis, Chicago KO 2
July 21 Mitch Hicks, Chicago KO 1
Sept. 15 Tim Shocks, Chicago KO 4
Nov. 10 Douglas LaFontsee, Cicero, Ill. KO 4
2007
Feb. 16 Aaron Norwood, Cicero, Ill. KO 2
May 11 Jim Strohl, Cicero, Ill. KO 1
Aug. 24 Jose Luis Herrera, Chicago KO 5
Dec. 14 Jacob Rodriguez, Cicero, Ill. KO 3
2008
March 28 Mike Wood, Chicago KO 1
Aug. 8 Julio Gonzalez, Chicago KO 10
FIGHTS: 19
WON: 19
LOST: 0
DRAW: 0
KOS: 18
