Editor’s note: This article was first published in November 2011, about his situation at the time, which is described in the present tense. Perico Fernández is reported to have died in Zaragoza in 2016.
This is the story of Federico Fernández, a story that, up until 1974, could have been an example of resilience, courage and mastery. The boxer Federico Fernández (Perico Fernández) was dealt a bad hand from birth, what we might call cards for losing the game: he grew up in an orphanage, with no support of any kind. When he left, he had no academic education and no particular preparation for the working world, so he had no choice but to make his way in a tough profession: boxing.
Boxing experts at the time insisted that Perico Fernández wasn’t a good boxer. Even in his first fights in 1970, people said he beat his opponents with a few “lucky punches”, until in 1973 he beat the Spanish champion, Kid Tano, in a great fight. Even then, people said he had been very lucky.
Perico showed that luck only exists for those who believe in it. A year later he became European lightweight champion and, that same year, in a great fight in Rome, he beat a far superior opponent to become world super lightweight champion, a title he defended against several challengers until it was taken from him in Bangkok in 1975, which led to his retirement from boxing.
Up to that point, we could say this is a success story about a man who worked hard, made the effort and achieved his dream. He may even have lacked the natural talent of boxing’s greats, but thanks to his determination and courage, he kept winning. The problem Federico Fernández faces today is that he has discovered that life’s blows are far more devastating than the ones you can take in a ring: this world champion is now practically a vagrant who has lost everything.
He sleeps in a brothel, because the owner lets him use the prostitutes’ rooms once they’ve finished work, and he eats thanks to people who know him and buy him a meal.
How does someone end up like this?
Federico Fernández is not an isolated case of failing to handle the price of fame. If it’s hard to succeed in life, it’s even harder to stay at the top. And perhaps the hardest thing of all, in careers with a relatively short professional life like this one, is knowing how to use the capital you generate during your working years.
Perico Fernández is said to have earned a total of 20 million of the old pesetas over his short professional career, a sum that was a great fortune in the 1970s. Behind a ruin like this there’s always one of two factors, or both: poor management or a life of excess.
Some say people took advantage of Perico Fernández’s fame, since he really was a good person and could easily have been tricked into making bad investments. Others say Perico went through a few years of excess in every sense, spending more than he could afford. Be that as it may, stories like this are a useful reminder that once you achieve success, or come into a large inflow of money even temporarily, that’s exactly when you need to be alert and ready to channel that money and turn it into support. Very often, instead of support, it becomes a burden for people who aren’t used to managing their own finances.
Featured image: Bryan Furnace, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
