Fort Worth boxer survives COVID and a wreck before winning national Golden Gloves title
He’s too young to determine which was hardest to overcome, the COVID, the car crash or the pain in his neck that would not let him turn his head during a fight.
German Lopez contracted COVID in June of 2020. “It was bad. I lost my taste and smell. I was tired and lazy,” he said. “And I had these headaches for six months.”
Then he hurt his back working a construction job with his dad around the first of the year.
And one week after winning the Texas Golden Gloves in May, he was in a car crash. He’s lucky to be alive.
“The oncoming car hit me on the side and I spun out,” he said. “I got really lucky. I was blessed nothing happened to me.”
Between the seat belt, and the air bag that deployed to the side of his head, it kept him intact whereas the car was totaled. He came away with a sprained right wrist.
A few months later, the recent graduate of Arlington High School raised his right hand for a victory Fort Worth has not had since 1989.
Over the weekend in Tulsa, Lopez won the title belt in the national Golden Gloves tournament in the 125-pound weight class.
During Lopez’s final fight, he took a shot that he noticed after the first round caused considerable pain when he tried to turn his head.
“I really couldn’t turn my head at all to the left,” he said.
After he won, the pain went away.
Lopez became the first Golden Gloves winner from Fort Worth since Sergio Reyes and Kevin Ford in 1988, and Eric Griffin in 1989.
This has been a seven-year process for Lopez, 19, who began his athletic career playing soccer before stepping into the ring where he has been a natural fit.
“My mom put us into soccer and Taekwondo when I was 7, but I really didn’t like it,” he said. “I liked soccer.”
He was introduced to boxing by his brother, Gerardo Jr., and he took some classes at Paulie Ayala’s gym in west Fort Worth.
Ayala, a former bantamweight champion, has worked out youth boxers for years. Young boxers come and go, but he noticed Lopez almost immediately.
“He took to it automatically, but I didn’t really know if he wanted to fight,” Ayala said.
It’s one thing to take a boxing class and do a boxing workouts for fitness and conditioning. It’s quite another to step into a ring to spar, and fight.
Not everyone is built to take a punch to the face.
In Lopez’s first tournament, the Golden Gloves, he won his first fight and lost his second.
Ayala kept him busy and traveling around to various tournaments in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Oklahoma. Just to see how Lopez would handle it.
He never complained, and he continually made the trip from Arlington to Fort Worth to workout.
“He’s talented, he’s athletic, he’s very disciplined and he trains a lot,” Ayala said. “If you come here he’ll be training and you won’t even know it.
“He’s not scared, but my deal was I wanted to see him think more in the ring because he’s so aggressive.”
Lopez likes to emulate current star boxer Errol Spence of DeSoto. Lopez is willing to take chances and make himself vulnerable in the hope of landing a big shot.
All of it has worked to the point where Lopez beats older fighters, and he is now seriously consider turning pro. He currently works with his dad in construction, and plans to become a firefighter.
Ayala has conferred with some promoters and managers about Lopez, and they have discussed the possibility of pursuing the Olympics. That’s a difficult path full of political potholes, and the pro route may be better.
But there is one more major amateur invitational tournament through USA Boxing coming up in December that Lopez is eyeing.
If that goes well, then it sounds like he will turn pro.
“The sooner the better, but he has to believe in it as much as we believe in him. He has to believe in himself,” Ayala said. “Now, having won the Golden Gloves, he knows he can handle the best guys in this division.”
After COVID, a car crash, a back injury and an inability to turn his head during a championship fight, German Lopez can handle most guys.
This story was originally published August 19, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
