Abraham Perez, who nearly drowned last year, eager for return to the ring

Apr. 14—That which did not kill Abraham Perez, he steadfastly believes, has made him stronger.On Saturday, 260 days after he nearly drowned in his family's swimming pool and 257 days after emerging from a coma at University of New Mexico Hospital, Perez is scheduled to resume a highly promising career as a professional boxer.

It was an eventuality he never doubted, he said, even as he lay in a hospital bed barely able to move — muscles atrophied, ribs broken by his sister's desperate application of CPR, anemic from blood loss when a life-saving tube inserted in his throat inflicted a cut on the way down, his heart weakened, his lungs impaired.Yet, just eight days after losing consciousness while doing underwater breathing control exercises, Perez was back in his family's gym on Edith SE. Yes, he had to take the steps up to the front door one at a time, with breaks in between.



And yes, he had to crawl, not climb, into the ring, pulling himself under the bottom rope.But there he was."That was me pushing it," Perez, 25, said in a recent interview at the gym before a training session in preparation for his return bout against Mexico's Jose Roriguez Montemayor.

"Being determined and saying no to no."Physically, Perez said, he has long since made a complete recovery — so much so that doctors had cleared him to fight on a card in January that failed to materialize. The heart that had stopped beating is once again strong.

The lungs are fine, potassium, iron, etc., all fine."I've been sparring, and I'm doing very good in sparring," he said.

"My reflexes, my reactions, my timing, everything is still there."But sparring is different than fighting."When the incident happened, Perez was eight days away from what would have been the biggest fight of his career — a scheduled 10-round bout against fellow Albuquerque unbeaten Matt Griego-Ortega on a nationally televised (ESPN) card at Tingley Coliseum.

But while it will have been 270 days after the near-drowning on Saturday, it will have been almost 13 months since his last fight.Accordingly, Aaron Perez, co-promoter of Saturday's card and (by the way) Abraham's father, is not putting his son in the ring against an opponent with the resume of a Matt Griego-Ortega. Montemayor, a late replacement for an originally announced opponent who is said to have backed out, has a listed record of 7-9.

He does have six wins by knockout.The bout is scheduled for eight rounds, not the 10-round distance that was planned for the Griego-Ortega bout.Perez's training for Saturday has not strayed from the process that won him a national amateur title and victories in his first 10 pro bouts, five of those by knockout.

When interviewed, he'd just returned from sparring in Colorado.He's experienced few aftereffects from an ordeal that, in a sense, was more harrowing for his family — not knowing whether their son/brother would ever wake from the coma — than for him. He remembers nothing from the day of the incident and says even the preceding two weeks are hazy.

"And then while I was in the coma, you know how people see things? I didn't see anything. It was just black. It was just peaceful.

"When I woke up is when everything started hurting. The (first) thing that came back to me was that I had a fight that week."The Griego-Ortega fight, of course, didn't happen — though perhaps it will in the future.

Perez's superb fighter's conditioning, which undoubtedly played a role in his survival, helped him rapidly regain his strength.On the Tuesday after his discharge on Aug. 9, a physical therapist came to his home.

The therapist was shocked, Perez said, that he answered the door himself.The previous day, Perez had been at the gym, shadow boxing and putting in 30 minutes on a stationary bike.His boxing workouts, it turned out, was all the physical therapy he needed.

"Just keep doing what you're doing," the therapist told him.His burning desire to get back in the ring, he said, was all the mental therapy he needed."Mentally, I think I'm a lot stronger because of what happened," he said.

"I feel like not a lot of people go through (anything like) that for the love of what they do."The only form of PSTD he's experienced, he said, was difficulty sleeping."It was hard to lie down," he said, "because it would feel like kind of getting submerged in water.

That sucked, but eventually I got used to lying down and I've been able to sleep a little bit more comfortably."Has he gone back into the pool? Yes. Does he still do the breathing-control exercises, holding his breath underwater for extended periods?"Yeah, of course," he said.

"I just make sure someone's (watching)."As he prepares to resume his career, Perez expressed gratitude for those who were there for him — family, friends, fans and the doctors, nurses and paramedics who saved his life."They did a damn good job," he said.

But Perez said he's troubled by the presence, or better said, the absence, of people in his sphere who he feels have not been in his corner."There are people that don't want to see you succeed at some point, and it sucks," he said. "That's the kind of vibe I got from some people.

"The vibe one gets from Perez, though, is pure positivity. Since the moment he awoke from the coma, there have been no doubts.Throughout his ordeal and his recovery, he said, "I ever had that thought like, eeeeee, maybe this is it.

"I have my health, and I have boxing to thank.".