A boxer, A villain, and a Dream

It was a trip, 90 miles in length but far-off from the isle of his youth and everything he has ever known.

The shores of South Florida embraced him as he left behind dreams, hopes and the family he was forced to leave behind. As cliché a concept it was a tale of a boxer and a dream, all the while containing the ultimate of villains to the Cuban people. Luis Franco was an amateur boxer who could have been the pride of an Island and wound up fleeing his homeland for vision of a better life for his family and the chance to pursue the career he chose. It is a story, not of the borrowed pain the youth of American born Cuban decedents, but the bona fide pain of a person who was denied his right to freely chase the brass ring in his vista.

As an amateur boxer he led the Cuban contingent to the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece. It was a team of boxers which would include Gold medalist Yuriorkis Gamboa, who would defect not long after the Olympics concluded, also searching for something more. Soon after Gamboa, Odlanier Solis and Yan Barthelemy would also defect in 2006. Each fighter that left the island would prove to be the death knells of his amateur career, as when 2008 reared its head, Franco would be left off of the team heading to Beijing even after qualifying. It was at this point that Franco knew his options, stay in Cuba and succumb to the realization that he would possibly never box again, or leave and find a renewed livelihood waiting in the land of prosperity.

''The moment I was removed from the Cuban team, I knew my career in Cuba was over,'' Franco said.

"I didn't have access to their facilities and workouts. I kept in shape working out on my own, playing soccer.''

It was then that the decision was made, he would leave Cuba in order to fight not only for titles or fame, but for the chance to one day be reunited with his family, the family he was forced to leave behind. After an impressive professional debut, Franco once again steps in the ring at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino, carrying with him the weight of a family he has not seen since leaving, the weight of a countries eyes watching, and the weight of the ones not so lucky as to find the shores if Miami after attempting the same journey.

With all this being said, Franco said, he takes it one punch, one round, one match at a time, fighting until the day his family is sitting ringside to watch him win a World Title.