On September 7, 2003, Warren Zevon died. For those who remember his song about breathing polyvinyl chloride in a factory, it was not a surprise that his death was caused by mesothelioma. “Some get the awful-awful diseases…” he sang in another song, pre-diagnosis.
On September 7, 2016, Bobby Chacon died from a fall while in hospice care. For over a decade, his awful-awful disease was dementia, the result of all the incredibly violent battles he fought against the likes of Ruben Olivera and Bazooka Limon, Alexis Arguello, Cornelius Boza Edwards, Art Frias and…immortalized in a Zevon song, Boom Boom Mancini.
Back then most boxing matches were free on ABC’s afternoon series “Wide World of Sports.” So, yeah, “hurry home early, hurry on home: Boom Boom Mancini’s fighting Bobby Chacon.” I was probably already home, since it was a Saturday and I had no job. Years later, Ray signed my copy of the Zevon CD.
Out of the ring, Chacon was well known for spending his money fast, and indulging himself in every way possible. It seemed his lifestyle might change once he got married. His wife not only wanted a stable home life, she begged him to quit boxing before he got seriously hurt. He refused. She shot and killed herself. This would not be the only gun tragedy in Bobby’s life. About a decade later, his son was murdered. A decade later, and he was slowly becoming brain-dead from the effects of all his fights.
A famous song by a certain Paul McCartney asks, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64.” The answer in Chacon’s chase was not really, and without much enthusiasm. At 64, he was just another hospice patient, with some of the nurses probably not caring much of he lived or…fell down and died. Which is what happened to him. How do you fall down and die? Probably nobody even asked that question, figuring the main thing was that Bobby was out of his misery and everyone else’s.
Bobby Chacon (November 28, 1951 – September 7, 2016) was a macho guy, one of the great fighters of his day. Below, a live performance from Zevon, who, as the title suggests, was chronicling another great, tough competitor, Ray Mancini. One of the reasons people still think so highly of Ray, is that he faced off against dangerous Bobby Chacon.
WARREN ZEVON in Paris, February 5, 1988
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