Dainier Peró’s existential moment came on a rock somewhere near a remote island in the Bahamas. He sat there wondering, “I can’t believe this is where I’m going to die.” It was the fifth time the Cuban heavyweight tried to escape Cuba and the fifth time he was captured. He was under 25 who hauled in the Cuban Coast Guard. Only this time, Peró and the group were banished to an isolated island instead of a prison.
It was no resort. There were no gentle rolling waves on soft white sand, no hissing water as the tide rolled back. His ceiling was a black starry sky to curl under in nothing but a t-shirt and shorts and everything he owned stuffed into a backpack.
On Saturday night, 25-year-old Peró will take on 2020 Cuban Olympic super heavyweight Willie Jake Jr. battle on the undercard of the Premier Boxing Champions main event on Amazon Prime between IBF junior middleweight titleholder Bakhram Murtazaliev and Tim Tszyu, from the Orange County Convention Center, in Orlando, Florida.
Does Peró (8-0, 6 KOs) have any major concerns? Think any heavyweight in the world can stress him out like the 10 attempts it took him to escape Cuba? Don’t his eyes turn on himself and see the vision of a skinny Dainier on a beach reduced to bugs eating and drinking from a rusted oil drum washed up on the shore?
Peró was caught nine times when he tried to escape. He got out on his 10th attempt.
Dainier Pero with manager and trainer Bob Santos (Photo courtesy of Team Pero)
“Oh, I think back,” said Peró through an interpreter, Diana Santos, the wife of Peró’s trainer and manager Bob Santos, The Ring’s 2022 Trainer of the Year. “It’s motivation because if you come from the bottom, you want to come out on top and you’re grateful for anything. Remembering what I’ve been through gives me that strength to move forward. I learned many things. One: The poor don’t get sick. I had to push through.”
Pushing through meant getting out of Cuba.
On his fifth attempt in late 2021, the Cuban authorities thought they would fix Peró and the group he was with. He was under 25, which included women and small children. They were not brought back to Cuba to be put behind bars. Instead, they would be punished on an island for five days without food, water or medical supplies. Without shelter, the blazing sun took its toll, but the group had palm trees to hide behind. What they did not have was enough food and water that they had brought with them to last more than two days. So they decided to drink rainwater from an oil drum, with the sticky residue stuck to the bottom. Food became so scarce that they were forced to eat bugs. Peró, at 6-foot-5, 235 pounds, began to get desperate, even eyeing the large rats on the island.
For days, Peró hoped a passing plane would spot them, or counted on the Cuban authorities to come back for them.
“You could taste the petroleum in the water,” recalls Peró. “I never got sick. I just remember being thirsty all the time. We ate bugs. We ate everything we could get our hands on. There was a point where we thought about catching a big rat and eating it. We were picked up (by the Cuban authorities) before we had to. But it makes you think. The water could help. By the fourth day we thought they were going to leave us there.”
He went to a deserted part of the island. He drifted into the water towards a group of rocks near the shore. He went up and sat on the rocks, looking out to sea and asking himself if he would ever get out.
If not for Peró, a respected Cuban Olympian, the Cuban authorities would have abandoned the group on the island.
“I still had more to go on, but seeing three young children suffer bothered me,” says Peró, who despite the unbearable hardships he endured has the disposition of a jolly giant. “It can’t be worse than when I was 12 when my mother (at 36) died of leukemia. They took me out of school to tell me my mother (Luisa Justiz) had died. It wasn’t shocking news because I knew she had cancer. I didn’t see her until the funeral. But it was still a very difficult time for me, the worst time of my life, even worse than being on that island.”
Peró was raised by his paternal aunt, Daimi Peró. His father, Eunice Peró, still lives in Cuba. Peró says he talks to his father a few times a week.
The fight against Jake (11-5-2, 3 KOs) will be an eight-round fight. The longest Peró has ever gone as a pro is four rounds. The two times he went the distance, he didn’t train for those fights.
“Peró is bigger than (heavyweight world champion Oleksandr) Usyk, he has faster hands than Usyk, but the biggest thing is how much he wants it and wants success when he gets paid,” Bob Santos said. “Right now his work ethic is excellent. It will all come down to how he will handle success. He has all the tools in the shed to be the first Cuban heavyweight world champion. He is a bigger version of Usyk. He has the speed of a middleweight. He has no real wear and tear on him because Cuba didn’t let him fight for two years. With heavyweights, they do not mature until they are about 32 years old. He is 25. He is very young for a heavyweight. He is a baby for a heavyweight.
“If he wasn’t an Olympian, the Cuban government would have left his ass out there on that island to die. Boxing saved his life in more ways than one.”
A few days after his 22nd birthday, Peró finally came out on his 10th attempt. If he didn’t make it, he swore to himself, he would never try again. Cuban coast watchers were in the water. They spotted him in the boat, though for whatever reason they never stopped him.
“It was like a miracle,” said Peró, who is working on his US citizenship and lives in Las Vegas. “Every day I am so grateful to be in this country.”
Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter who has worked for Ring Magazine/RingTV.com since October 1997 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
Follow @JSantoliquito
