Before winning the ring, Maguila faced hunger and the harshness of life as a construction worker in Sao Paulo.
Maguila, one of the biggest names in the history of Brazilian boxing, he died this Thursday (24) and lived moments of extreme difficulty before imposing himself in the ring. Long before accumulating victories and titles, José Adilson Rodrigues dos Santosborn in Aracaju, Sergipe, had to face starvation while working as a construction assistant in Sao Paulo. He arrived in the capital São Paulo at the age of 14, looking for a better life, but collided with a harsh and cruel reality.
Hunger in the streets of Sao Paulo
In a statement to the documentary “Maguila”, directed by Galileo Garcia and released in 1987, the former boxer revealed the desperate scenario he faced in his early years in the big city. There were three months of fighting outside the ring, during which the young Maguila survived with what he had at hand. Homeless, without clear prospects and with an extremely precarious diet, he worked as a bricklayer’s assistant, a profession which, although respectable, did not provide him with the livelihood he so badly needed at the time.
“I became yellow, pale. It was three months [comendo] bread with bananas. My address was an abandoned truck in Butantãof those carrying rubble. When the owner found out I was sleeping there, he took the truck away and I stayed [dormindo] on the pole”, he recalled, with whom he regretted never having dueled Mike Tyson.
“Every now and then I would do a remodel. The homeowner saw my situation. She said, ‘Didn’t you bring a packed lunch?’. I said, ‘I forgot.’ I didn’t even have a packed lunch at the time. It was banana bread…
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Source: Terra
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