For Olympic silver medalist Virgil Hill, his return to North Dakota in October to promote the pro debut of Jose and Rafael Lopez is an opportunity to return to familiar surroundings, to a state “where I never lost a fight” according to Virgil.
Virgil is 61 years old now, but he was only 19 when he made his pro debut “right after the Olympics. Those were the best days of my life” Virgil continues “and I think the Lopez kids are going to be a lot like me. They’ll have the entire state of North Dakota cheering them on when they take the ring that night.”
Virgil and his wife, Denine, now live in California. For Virgil it’s a bit of history repeating itself. “It takes time to get started, and that’s what we are doing. We need people to come and see them (the Lopez twins) because really they are the stars of the card that night. We’ll have the best boxers in North Dakota on the card with them, but people are going to be excited to see these two young guys fight in their pro debut.”
And the potential? “Yeah, they have a lot of potential. They are certainly better than the average North Dakota boxers, and that’s a tribute to their father for getting them out and in the ring with other boxers” says Hill. “They’ve had different types of training and they faced a lot of different types of boxers, and that’s’ important.”
As Virgil and reminisced a bit about some of the fights that were held in North Dakota, Virgil said that the big networks liked staging and covering fights in the state because “the crowds were big and the crowds were enthusiastic. A couple of times when we fought in Bismarck we had 5,000 people in the stands. The promoters just loved coming here and I loved fighting in North Dakota. Even though it was a state of only 750,000 people, it was 750,000 people who were all pulling for me. It was amazing. It was the best time of my career!”
The Hills will be in North Dakota a couple of weeks before the October 25th event at the Minot Auditorium “just to make sure we have all of our t’s crossed and our I’s dotted” says Virgil “and I’ll probably spend a lot of time at the gym watching kids fight. I’m a gym rat at heart. I love just watching, and I’ll certainly answer any questions that people have for me.”
And for the Lopez twins, they are standing on the threshold of what could prove to be careers very much like Virgil Hill. North Dakota is their home, and in North Dakota sports fans are quick to become fans of local talents like the Lopez brothers.
And in their corner they will have arguably the most talented boxer that North Dakota has ever produced. Once a kid from North Dakota, and then an Olympic Silver Medalist and pro boxer from North Dakota, and now a fight promoter who loves coming back to his home state, Virgil “Quicksilver” Hill returns to perhaps start the Lopez twins on their dream journey, to the top.
