by Andrew Paterson

Brin-Jonathan Butler has an amazing story to tell the world, sadly only a handful number of people have actually seen it.  His documentary Split Decision has been shown at the Toronto Film Festival and another showing is expected to premier in New York on December 6, whilst he actively seeks to show his film to a wider audience.

The documentary examines American-Cuban political relations and the economic situation told through the eyes of some the greatest Cuban boxers, past and present, since Fidel Castro came to power back in 1959.

At the heart of the documentary are two amateur legends; the late Teofilo Stevenson who thrice became the World and Olympic champion, along with a host of other titles; whilst the other looks at the extreme sacrifices made by the reigning professional World Super Bantamweight champion and former seven time national champion, and two time World and Olympic champion Guillermo Rigondeaux.

Brin is one of the leading experts when it comes to the Cuban boxing scene and being a former amateur boxer himself, has trained in many gyms on the small island of Cuba.  At one point, he was under the tutelage of another Cuban legend, Hector Vinent, who also racked up the same number of national, World and Olympic Games success as the excessively talented Rigondeaux.

Asking Brin how a former champion like Vinent ended up training someone from New York he responded candidly.  “It is just the nature of communism in Cuba.  For instance, some professionals won’t be making any more than $20 per month including some of these Olympic champions who were relegated to training kids or working with the national team.  I found out that Vinent was available and I didn’t know how much he would have wanted to train [me], it worked out that he took $6 per day, which equated to two weeks’ salary—it was very surreal.”

Brin is the last person to interview Stevenson.  He set out to determine if the “Greatest Fight that Never Was” against, perhaps the greatest professional heavyweight of all time, Muhammad Ali would have seen Stevenson become triumphant.

“I wanted to explore that fight,” Butler said.  “If you look at the Rigondeaux vs Donaire fight [Donaire was the betting favourite], I think Guillermo was fighting on the legacy of all Cuban fighters and he annihilated Donaire, he made him look like an amateur.  These criticisms were levelled at Stevenson when the Ali fight was brought up were identical to what Guillermo had to endure.  My sense of it was Rigo’ could have put on the same performance twelve years ago when he won his first gold medal.”

In 1977 Stevenson was offered the life changing sum of $5 million to defect from his homeland to fight the then World Heavyweight champion.  Stevenson refused to leave stating: “What is a million dollars compared to the love of eight million Cubans?”

Stevenson won his first Olympic gold medal in Munich in 1972, also winning the Val Baker Trophy for outstanding boxer of the games.  After adding the World championships in his home country in 1974 and then another Olympic Gold in Montreal in 1976, the talk began about a showdown with Ali.

If Stevenson accepted the offer he would have been only the second fighter in history to go from the amateur ranks and fight for the World Heavyweight title, the first being the American Pete Rademacher, who was knocked out in six rounds against Floyd Patterson.

However was Stevenson totally true to the communist cause?  Brin explained: “It’s complicated, he lived and died by his decision to stay in Cuba.  On the other hand, he was willing to sit down and talk to me about all the money he turned down provided that I give him $130 under the table because he was so destitute, but I don’t believe he was the hypocrite he was made out to be.”

Former two-time heavyweight champion George Foreman spoke to Stevenson’s class: “Stevenson was the dominant heavyweight of that era, if he had left [Cuba] he would have been the class of that division.”

Brin agrees, he said: “I think that Stevenson would have given Ali all sorts of problems at that time because Stevenson was in his prime [24 years old] and Ali was vulnerable at that time.”

Had Stevenson taken the opportunity to face Ali in the late 1970s then the opportunity of beating him would surely have been more than fifty percent, Brin pointed out that Ali was vulnerable at that time.  Ali was close to losing his title to Leon Spinks and had also been involved in the epic struggle for supremacy against his nemesis Joe Frazier in Manila in 1975.  Sadly, it was never to be and even more sadly was seeing footage some 34 years later of the iconic and handsome looking Stevenson chain smoking and now an alcoholic.

Some 99% of athletes in Cuba do stay.  However the one’s that pluck up the courage to leave are usually past their primes, though this doesn’t discourage foreign agents travelling to Cuba attempting to lure the athletes away from the island by attempting to bribe their families to allow the athletes to make the perilous journey.

In the case of Guillermo Rigondeaux he failed to defect once before successfully managing to leave for Mexico, the most high profile defection in Cuban history.  Rigondeaux has confided in Brin about the night he left his country behind and by his own admission stated that the journey to Mexico was the: “most traumatic experience of his life.”

Holed up in Mexico, some say at gunpoint, Rigondeaux waited until his freedom was bought in what would have been a deeply worrying time for him.  Rigondeaux left everything that he had ever known, except his pugilistic skills, behind, his wife and children whilst his father disowned him his mother was more sympathetic.

During the filming of the documentary Brin had full access to Rigondeaux.  He saw him arrive on the Emerald Isle of Ireland in 2011 to defend his interim WBA title against Willie Casey, it was in Ireland where Brin’s world almost collapsed.

On the night of the fight the van carrying all his equipment was robbed.  “A van pulled up next to us on the night,” continued Brin, “They yanked a gym bag from the back of our van in an attempt to steal Rigo’s championship belt and instead they stole all my camera equipment and all the footage I had shot whilst I was in Ireland.  I was devastated, I had nowhere to turn to.”

At the time Ireland had been hard hit by the global recession and Brin had noticed an abundance of betting shops on the High Streets.  Brin admitted to not being a gambler and down to his last $1,000 decided to check the odds on a Rigondeaux first round knock-out.

“Casey was undefeated,” Brin stated, “but his record wasn’t impressive compared to a two-time Olympic champion.   The odds on the first round stoppage were 20/1.  Everyone in the training camp were begging me not to do it because Rigo isn’t a destroyer.”

Brin went to see the only person who could put his fears to rest over the bet, he spoke to Rigondeaux directly, who had only a few words to say: “Bet your life savings on it!”

Rigondeaux duly delivered and cheekily motioned to Butler directly after the fight with his gloved hands outstretched and said: “Where’s my cut?”

It meant Brin was able to go back to Cuba to interview Rigondeaux’s family and show his wife and two children footage of him.   However, after a second visit to the family Brin began to notice his situation was getting a bit dicey.

“Rigondeaux’s house is the most politically radioactive house in the whole of Cuba,” Brin explained.  “Tthere were two security cameras across the street constantly filming his house and his wife and kids were unnerved by someone from outside Cuba wanting to talk to them.  Shortly after the second visit the authorities were following me.  If you want to cover an important story in Cuba then you have to go through the official channels, the problem is the moment you do you are immediately flagged and you won’t be cleared to talk to anyone.  I’ve heard stories of journalists getting a knock on the door at 4am and escorted to the airport.”

Sensing his time was limited on the island and haven taken one chance too many interviewing some of Cuba’s most famous boxers he managed to finally secure the Stevenson interview in May 2011, it was a chance he couldn’t pass up because he knew that he wouldn’t get another one.

Ironically the interview would never have happened unless Brin had taken the plunge in a Irish betting shop two months previously, in essence Rigondeaux saved the film, and armed with a bottle of vodka he went round to Stevenson’s house in Nautico.

“I knew showing Stevenson in that condition to the world would go over on the island about as well as releasing a sex tape of Michelle Obama in the States,” he said.

A fifteen minute video extract from Brin’s documentary that appears in his article titled Heros for Sale; Tefilo Stevenson, Yasiel Puig & the Agony of the Cuban Athlete shows Stevenson attempting to get money from Brin in order to conduct the interview whilst gathering the thoughts and opinions of George Foreman and Don King.

“Showing that video to the world and filming the documentary may have cost me the chance of ever returning to Cuba,“ Brin concluded, “Though my case won’t be helped by being romantically involved with Fidel’s grand-daughter, but I rolled the dice and tried.  Releasing a print article of Stevenson would have been one thing, but to actually see it was a different thing entirely.”

To find out more about the documentary or to help Brin bring it to a wider audience you can contact him at @brinici.