By Jake Donovan
The blow that causes the most damage is the one you never see coming.
It’s a phrase that has become clichéd amongst recent boxing generations, but still rings true in the ring.
Arturo “Thunder” Gatti absorbed thousands of blows over the course of his 16-year career. However, the final sequence of punishment he suffered took place outside of a boxing ring, and in a hotel room in Porto de Galinhas, Brazil, where he was found dead on July 11, 2009.
He was 37 years young, two years removed from retiring from the ring with a record of 40-9 (31KO) and alphabet title reigns in two separate weight classes.
Details are still coming out as obituaries are being written. For the moment, his wife Amanda Rodrigues is being charged with first-degree murder by Brazilian police, after discovering numerous inconsistencies in her testimony upon the discovery of Gatti’s dead body in their hotel room.
The couple was in Brazil on their second honeymoon, perhaps a last-ditch effort to save their troubled marriage.
As is the case with far too many athletes and celebrities, the ability to enjoy as much success in real life as they do in their chosen field rarely if ever pans out. If it were true, Gatti would’ve found a way to once again snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.
That, and not how he lived beyond the ring, is how most boxing fans will always remember the all-action brawler.
There are groups who will remember the teenaged amateur standout who was on the verge of fighting for the 1992 Canadian Olympic boxing squad, but instead opted to turn pro in 1991.
Those who solely judge a man’s career by what they see in person or on television will be more familiar with the version who relocated to Jersey City in the early 1990’s, and received his comeuppance on the now-defunct USA Tuesday Night Fights circuit.
Everyone else remembers him for his huge role in reviving the East Coast boxing scene and becoming a staple of cable giant HBO’s boxing program.
Though of Italian descent and Canadian citizenship, all but four of Gatti’s professional contests took place in the Northeast. In an era where Las Vegas was deemed the boxing capital of the world, Gatti was deemed a boxing superstar despite playing Sin City just once in his career, and that in a one-sided losing effort against Oscar de la Hoya.
The de la Hoya fight was just one of an astonishing 22 performances he would enjoy on either HBO or its pay-per-view arm. His first appearance on the self-proclaimed Network of Champions coincided with Madison Square Garden re-entering the boxing business in December 2005 after closing its doors to the sport for nearly three years.
It was on that night when Gatti would win his first major title, scoring an early knockdown of Tracy Harris Patterson and withstanding a strong second half rally by the defending junior lightweight titlist to escape the Mecca of Boxing with a close unanimous decision win.
While the night would immediately serve as the highlight of his young career to that point, it was his very next fight in which the boxing world would forever fall in love with him.
Another old boxing axiom is “every newly crowned champion is entitled to an easy first title defense.” Main Events, the Jersey-based promotional firm whom guided Gatti throughout his entire career, thought they lined up a cakewalk in fringe contender Wilson Rodriguez for his first defense in March 1996.
They were probably never so happy to be so wrong.
The defense against Rodriguez took place in The Theatre, directly below the very MSG building that crowned Gatti a champion. It was the second headliner of HBO’s newly developed “Boxing After Dark” series, and given the daunting challenge of attempting to live up to its premiere, a scintillating battle between Marco Antonio Barrera and Kennedy McKinney.
Whether or not it matched or even surpassed that bout is still open to debate, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a fan in The Theatre that evening that didn’t leave the arena breathless when all was said and done.
After just two rounds into the contest, Gatti already suffered a knockdown and had both eyes swollen shut. Twice over the next three rounds, the ringside physician threatened to stop the fight, but Gatti fought back enough to avoid having to retire on his stool.
Two minutes into the sixth round, he fought well enough to avoid a loss altogether.
“DOWN GOES RODRIGUEZ; WHAT A LEFT HOOK!”
So came the call from HBO’s lead blow-by-blow man Jim Lampley, shortly preceding what would go in the books as a sixth round knockout and Gatti’s first Fight of the Year entrant.
He’d fall just short of having a part in such honors that year, but would have his name engraved on the Fight of the Year plaque in each of the two following years. An October ‘97 knockout win of Gabriel Ruelas topped everyone’s list that year and also proved to be Gatti’s last win for the next 22 months.
Gatti would go 0-3 in 1998, but all three fights regarded as among the year’s best fights, including his August ’98 thriller with Ivan Robinson that topped everyone’s list. Michael Katz quipped while writing for the Daily News that Gatti was one of the few fighters who could go 0-for in a year yet still be in the running for Fighter of the Year honors. The comment was obviously tongue-in-cheek, but speaking volumes of the fighter’s ability to entertain.
Wins, controversy and even thoughts of retirement would come of the next three years. Among a four-fight win streak that began in August 1999 was his brutal second-round knockout of Joey Gamache, though tainted by questionable circumstances surrounding their pre-fight weigh-in, the basis for which a lawsuit against the New York State Athletic Commission was launched, one in which Gatti was actually scheduled to testify this week.
Talks of retirement first surfaced following a fifth-round stoppage loss in a one-sided yet typically Gatti-like spirited battle with Oscar de la Hoya. By his team’s own admission, the fight represented a payday more so than an opportunity to return to or at least near the top.
Rather than quit the game altogether, Gatti instead took off the rest of 2001, gathering his thoughts before rededicating himself to the sport. In came new trainer and former two-time champion Buddy McGirt, who was instrumental in turning around the fighter’s career.
A bond was formed and another title was eventually claimed, though this chapter of his life would ultimately be defined by the emergence of another Fight of the Year entrant that would eventually develop into one of the most memorable trilogies in recent boxing memory.
The date was May 18, 2002. Gatti was riding a whopping one-fight win streak but still came in as the considerable favorite against longtime spoiler Micky Ward. The New England brawler was himself on the winning end of the preceding year’s best fight, an unforgettable ten-round slugfest with Emanuel Augustus on ESPN2’s Friday Night Fights. Ward pleaded at night’s end for just one major payday, having earned respectable paydays but often in bouts in which his entertainment value far exceeded his net pay.
HBO would step up to aid his cause, first bringing him back early in 2002 for a bout with Jesse James Leija, one in which Ward suffered a controversial cuts-induced technical decision loss. The network obviously ignored the result, preferring instead to bring back Ward for a big score in what was thought to be one final payday when he met Gatti at the Mohegan Sun in May.
For seven rounds, it appeared as if such would be the case. Most objective observers had Gatti well in control to that point, though in a thoroughly entertaining bout.
Scorecards have proven to be inconsequential in several of Ward’s past bouts, managing come-from-behing knockouts of Reggie Green and Alfonso Sanchez in separate televised bouts. Another major rally would be required if Ward was to pull this one out.
He did so by out-willing one of the game’s most willing competitors, enjoying a strong comeback eighth round before engaging in a highlight-reel ninth round that still ranks as one of the decade/21st Century.
It began with Ward charging out of his corner, forcing Gatti to take a knee following a delayed reaction to a wicked left hook to the body. Gatti stayed down for as long as possible before rising to his feet in time to beat referee Frank Cappuccino’s count. Ward was relentless in his efforts to finish the job, unloading with a follow-up attack that seemed to last an eternity, but in reality only spanned 40 seconds.
Cue up the Rocky music.
Gatti turned the tide at the two-minute mark, desperately trying to will himself back into a fight that was beginning to slip away. His heroic comeback only lasted a minute, with Ward piling on in the final 60 seconds to ensure a 10-8 round, and on some cards even a 10-7 tally.
It proved to be the difference on the cards when all was said and done, as Ward managed a majority decision for the final victory of his career. But it was enough to provide the long elusive million dollar payday he forever craved, which came in their highly anticipated rematch later in 2002.
Part two would land at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, where Gatti would headline for the first of nine straight times before ending his career in 2007. Gatti won the rematch with relative ease, though suffered a busted right mitt in the process. He reinjured the hand in their June ’07 rubber match, which would serve as the final fight of Ward’s career.
Nobody would’ve been terribly upset had Gatti opted to also call it a career, given the tremendous amount of punishment he’d already endured, the memories he provided and the millions he had earned.
But there was more money to be made. Gatti was presented with a lucrative exclusive contract from HBO following the rubber match with Ward, but a piece of his career seemed to have disappeared the moment his friendly rival hanged up his gloves.
Wins over Gianluca Branco, Leo Dorin and Jesse James Leija were entertaining in the grand scheme of things, but barely another day in the office by Gatti standards. The win over Branco – the last time any of his fights would go to the scorecards – earned him a vacant junior welterweight strap, one he’d defend twice before handing over to Floyd Mayweather Jr in one-sided fashion.
His lone pay-per-view headliner was a smashing success at the box office, selling out the Boardwalk Hall in mere minutes and pulling in 375,000 pay-per-view buys in earning a career-high payday of well over $3 million. He also received what should’ve been a career-ending beating, winning nary a minute before being forced to retire on his stool after six rounds.
Talks of retirement once again surfaced, but three more appearances would follow before his career came to a close in July 2007. His January ’06 comeback win over Thomas Damgaard would mark the last time the sport’s favorite action hero would have his arm raised in victory. Knockout losses to Carlos Baldomir and Alfonso Gomez provided an emphatic statement that he no longer had any business lacing ‘em up, calling it a career following the Gomez debacle.
Rumors of a comeback surfaced in 2008, but Gatti’s fans weren’t biting, and Gatti himself even dismissed the talks as rubbish, insisting that he was content in life after boxing, largely spent in the real estate market in his native Montreal.
But while the fighter was removed from the game, the game wasn’t completely removed from the fighter. His out of the ring life was often sullied by tales of wild partying and run-ins with the law. Such black marks didn’t escape him in the boxing after life, arrested earlier in 2009 for assaulting the same woman he’d eventually marry.
That same woman would go on to reportedly plunge a kitchen knife into the back of his head sometime after he had passed out following his latest encounter with alcohol. The knife was enough to wound him, but it was strangulation with the strings of her purse that would snatch the life of one of the most exciting fighters of our generation.
The sequence was enough to ultimately take his life, but nothing can ever remove the memories he provided in the ring over the course of the past two decades.
As tragic as was the sequence that led to his removal from Earth, may Arturo Gatti rest in peace, after a career and life that proved to be anything but tranquil.
CALL TO THE HALL?
There was always tremendous debate surrounding Gatti’s chances of making the International Boxing Hall of Fame. There is no question that such discussions will resume, as it’s often commonplace for fans to discuss any athlete’s place in history in the wake of their death.
Those who argue that he’s eventually Canastota-bound will quickly cite the number of otherwise unqualified entrants already enshrined. “If so and so is in, why not Arturo,” or so would go the logic offered in pleading his case, never quite specifying his credentials, other than being an exciting fighter who kept boxing alive on the East Coast.
It reads here that in ignoring the illogic of voting based on declining standard and instead determining his worth at face value, Gatti’s overall achievements fall short of his name and stats occupying its own section in the bungalow sized museum just to the right of Exit 34 on the New York State Thruway.
While was consistently thrilling to watch, lacking from his resume is a signature win. Victories over Tracy Harris Patterson, Micky Ward and “those versions” of Gabriel Ruelas and Jesse James Leija are respectable, but hardly confirmation of his being a truly great fighter.
It’s easy to dismiss losses to Mayweather and de la Hoya, even if neither was particularly competitive. But Hall of Fame fighters don’t lose to Ivan Robinson in the prime of their careers, much less twice in a row. They don’t go life and death with Wilson Rodriguez (the same journeyman that John John Molina easily handled 16 months prior), and somewhere along the way, they manage a win over the best fighter in their division.
Gatti lacks that.
There’s also consideration of who is already waiting to get in, along with those whose last fight came in 2007. It’s tough to argue that he goes in ahead of Diego Corrales, another warrior who died way too young, or even Fernando Vargas, the latter whom was just as much of a draw on the West Coast as Gatti was 3,000 miles the other way, though also ultimately infamous for coming up short in the fights that mattered most.
Corrales obviously isn’t coming back. Considering Vargas is now twice the size he was even in the twilight of his career, there stands a great chance that the loss to Mayorga was the last time he ever again punches for pay.
For the moment, Erik Morales’ last fight came in 2007, though rumors of his return continue to swirl. Floyd Mayweather’s last official fight was December 2007, though – barring another injury - September 19, 2009 should remove his name from the list of eligible candidates.
Should end-of-year 2012 leave his name still on the ballot, the list of awaiting candidates will only grow stronger.
But rather than one man’s opinion igniting a slew of feedback, the boxing public deserves to have its say. Feel free to plead your case why Gatti should or should not find his way to boxing’s Hall of Fame. Select responses will publish on Boxingscene.com later in the week, with the posted replies proportionate to how the voting goes.
Jake Donovan is the managing editor of Boxingscene.com and an award-winning member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Contact Jake at JakeNDaBox@gmail.com.