By Cassandra Cousineau for LVSportsBiz.com
The Las Vegas transplant by way of California, Philadelphia, New York, and Mexico, calls it a series of unfortunate events. “One day I was living in a mansion in Beverly Hills and the next thing you know it I’m in Mexico and something bad has definitely happened. I was 15-years-old, my mother died, my grandmother died, and my father was on the run from the FBI. We were all fugitives.”
By the time Blair “The Flair” Cobbs makes his way into the ring as a featured fight on the Canelo Alvarez vs Sergey Kovalev card taking place at the MGM Saturday on DAZN, the welterweight will have already traveled through a thousand miles of adversity. Tens of thousands to be exact.
Cobbs is still uncomfortable sharing his back-story and does so in a parentally protective way of his own father. “He’s paid his debt and will come back stronger than ever. He’s more than what his record says he is.” The story of how in 2004, his father, Eugene Cobbs, crashed a self-piloted plane in West Virginia headed to Philadelphia is indelibly part of what defines the fighter. The aircraft was filled with over 500 pounds of cocaine worth upwards of $25 million. His father miraculously walked away from the crash, but found himself on the radar of federal agents.
But they had to move immediately. The family was forced to flee to Guadalajara, Mexico, without knowing a complete sentence of Spanish, and most importantly, without a support system. His mother had died in a very strange incident shortly before the family absconded to Mexico. She passed away at a yacht party due to a carbon monoxide leak. His grandmother then died of cancer leaving Blair and his sister at the mercy of their father’s risky business ventures.
When the plane crashed so did the world of the Golden Boy Promotions rising star and his younger sister. Just one year separates the two, and their new found adversity would draw them even closer. “If it wasn’t for my sister I might not have made it. Suicide entered my thoughts a few times during those years,” Cobbs told LVSportsBiz.com.
In Mexico, Cobbs had to blend in. Something you have to think went entirely against his internal hardwiring. “I was always a lonely person,” Cobbs said. I tried really hard to make friends and blend in at the same time.”
Part of his blending in was teaching himself to make the popular Mexican donut churros to share with his classmates. One of those classmates invited Cobbs to come to a local gym. “I had created a fake name for my self, Romero, and told people I could box all along. So, I jumped at the chance to make it official.” Like many who have laced up the gloves, boxing would become an escape from the harsh reality of the life the teenage Cobbs was living.
In 2008, the Feds finally caught up with Eugene Cobbs and sentenced him to 12-years behind bars forcing Blair and his sister to be uprooted again to live with a woman he was told was his stepmother in New York. “When my dad stopped paying her take care of us, she kicked me out first, then my sister. I had to fend for myself on the streets and tried hard to make some money in the local boxing gyms, back alleys, and wherever I could get action.”
Cobbs, his desperate grip on basic survival, and his signature wild mane would become a formidable foe in the street circuits. “Nobody wanted to fight me in New York or Philadelphia where I went next. I had to leave with my young family.” Cobbs made another middle of the night exit to redefine his life. Except this time he traveled across the country instead of away from it from the East Coast and relocated in Las Vegas
“ I was fortunate enough to have a family member who would let me crash in one of those rooms until I got on my feet.” Instead of “The Flair” perhaps Cobbs should be renamed the Phoenix. His set of unfortunate occurrences turned into true fortune when trainer Clarence “Bones” Adams had an encounter with one of his Blair’s cousins while Adams was doing his own bid in a Clark County prison. It was more than a serendipitous meeting. The house Cobbs was living in was just down the street from where Adams would reside after serving his sentence.
The self proclaimed “baddest, most exciting man in boxing” will put his 12-0-1 record on the line against Carlos Ortiz (11-4, 11 KOs) on Canelo’s undercard. Yet, it won’t be the first time the two have been in the same ring. “Canelo and I fought on the smoked filled room amateur cards in Mexico.”
At 29, Cobbs has to up his gamesmanship as a a much older prospect who perhaps is at his make or break moment. He arrived a bit late to the big stage. Still, this phase of his journey has really just begun.
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