by David P. Greisman (Photo by Richie Maldonado)
How can you mend a broken Arturo?
It may not be the exact question posed by The Bee Gees, but the answer is essential to the prospects of Arturo Gatti’s career “Stayin’ Alive.”
Gatti could have opted for retirement after last June, when Floyd Mayweather Jr. embarrassed him through six rounds of a one-sided slaughter. As his trainer, Buddy McGirt, cradled the swollen, beaten Gatti in his arms, and told a longtime warrior that the fight was over, the cameras captured an upset, broken man.
Television had been in love with Gatti, and by extension so, too, were the fans, who saw a man give his all, take ample punishment and then claw back, digging deeper into his reserve of heart and triumphing with explosive hooks, a never-quit attitude and a boundless amount of fortitude. He had numerous comebacks in fights, as well as multiple resurrections of his career.
So how would Gatti come back from the drubbing that Mayweather handed him? Could he?
He could, and he would, with the assistance of careful matchmaking, a fantastic trainer, and the ingredients, the intangibles that had motivated Gatti over the distance of his time in the professional ranks, kept him afloat when the situations were sink-or-swim.
Boxers, by nature, are brave souls that chance crippling injury or death every time they step between the ropes, but there are also the special sorts, like Danny Williams and his dislocated shoulder against Mark Potter, that will fight through pain while using years of experience and crafty improvisation to overcome adversity.
The exemplification of this trait had become a regular occurrence for Gatti before he even stepped into the ring this past weekend to face Thomas Damgaard, Arturo’s first welterweight fight in nearly five years. Gatti had broken has right hand in the latter two fights of his trilogy with Micky Ward, and injured it again while outpointing Gianluca Branco in his first post-Ward match.
In the rubber match with Ward, Gatti slammed his right hand into his opponent’s hip during the opening moments of the fourth round, causing pain so considerable that when the bell rang to signal the end of the stanza, Gatti got to his stool and doubled over, leaning his head onto Buddy McGirt’s shoulder.
“What do you want me to do?” McGirt asked twice.
“I gotta keep going,” Gatti replied, and that is precisely what he did. With wise instruction from McGirt, Gatti spent the remaining six rounds boxing, relying mainly on his left hand while throwing the occasional right to keep Ward honest, wincing with each shot from that side.
The Damgaard fight would follow a similar pattern, although this time, Gatti’s fourth-round injury was something revealed by the occasional shaking out of the hand, and not by a corner conversation with McGirt. With Gatti’s career on the line, his team was secretive, giving instruction that acknowledged the pain, but hiding any blatant mention of it, as well as a rib injury that Gatti suffered in training camp.
Yet although Gatti worked his way to an impressive eleventh-round stoppage of Damgaard, indications are that this should be Gatti’s final run, a swan song that will culminate in a title shot, and perhaps going out on top.
Damgaard was an undefeated, ranked contender, but his 37 wins and 27 knockouts all came in his home country of Denmark. He hadn’t fought anything but scheduled eight-rounders since mid-2002, and his only major wins had come off of recognizable names whose careers were already on the down slope.
Nevertheless, Damgaard was an opponent who had spent essentially his whole career at welterweight, a foe who was getting up in age and needed to beat Gatti in order to enhance his reputation. As a come-forward, pressure fighter, Damgaard was the perfect man to allow Gatti to test the 147-pound waters, and the styles allowed the possibility of another entertaining battle.
No longer draining to make junior welterweight, Gatti retained his fluid combinations and carried north some of his power. But gone was the one-punch tide-turner, the Hail Mary that Gatti could pull out like a Hold ‘Em poker player getting the winning card on “the river.”
Instead, the punishment Gatti delivered was cumulative, effective as Damgaard was there to be hit the whole night. In the last rounds, Damgaard was obviously feeling Gatti’s force on the inside as well as out, his bleeding being joined by a vacant stare, one that cried for a mercy stoppage before a serious catastrophe occurred. When the referee saw Damgaard’s prolonged stumble following a short right hand from Gatti, the waving of the arms to halt the bout and give Damgaard his first loss was absolutely proper.
Still, Gatti is there to be hit, as shown by the CompuBox estimate that Damgaard landed approximately 49 percent of his power punches.
Thus taking into consideration Gatti’s string of hand problems, his lessened offensive capabilities and a still-porous defense, it may be time for this phoenix that has reincarnated his career so often to finally fly off into the sunset.
The talk is that Gatti will next face Carlos Baldomir for a shot at the true welterweight title, quite an ironic occurrence since it was supposed to be the Mayweather, the man who beat Gatti, meeting Zab Judah for the distinction. But Baldomir upset Judah, Mayweather-Judah will still go on for the pay-per-view dollars and it is Gatti and Baldomir reaping the benefits.
Baldomir-Gatti has the potential for another war, and it guarantees another near sell-out of Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. The paychecks will be cashed for the duo, and no matter the winner, Baldomir can take advantage of the financial windfall. The Argentine had stated previously that he wanted a couple of defenses and then retirement, and thus a win against Gatti could set-up a meeting with the winner of Judah-Mayweather. A loss would stifle those plans, but his pockets would still be lined healthily with cash.
As for Gatti, the Mayweather bout exposed his limitations against the faster counter-puncher. Unless he desires a farewell run against carefully chosen opponents, he should say goodbye, even if he were to win, preventing a repeat of last year’s embarrassing beatdown.
Avoiding a challenge may not be the courageous path befitting Gatti, but in an industry where observers ponder why so few refuse to go out on top, choosing to prolong their career while shortening their lifespans, a swan song is the right course of action.
The 10 Count
1. Marco Antonio Barrera is no longer in limbo, with his March 25 fight against Jesus Chavez finally official, excellent news for those who enjoy entertaining action bouts. Although Diego Corrales-Jose Luis Castillo III was pushed back because of an injury to Corrales, fans have so far been treated to excellent fights between Manny Pacquiao and Erik Morales, as well as Martin Castillo and Alexander Munoz. Add in Chavez-Barrera, and you get three early contenders for Fight of the Year.
2. The undercard of Chavez-Barrera, and possibly the televised co-feature, appears to be a title fight involving Jorge Barrios, Barrera’s fellow junior lightweight beltholder, defending against undefeated contender Janos Nagy. The question remains, however, if this is just an inclusion of a good fight on a broadcast, or if the powers-that-be at HBO and Golden Boy Promotions are attempting to set up a fight between the winner and Barrera, who is contending for Chavez’ lightweight title.
3. If it is true that Fernando Montiel and Daniel Ponce De Leon are also having their own separate fights on the undercard, then HBO should toss the movies to the back burner and break ground with a four-card program. Montiel and Ponce De Leon appeared on the four-card “World Cup” event on HBO Latino last year, and including them would help build the titlists’ careers while also working as a goodwill measure to fans upset at the quality of HBO’s programming in 2005.
4. Speaking of undercard bouts that deserve television time, perhaps Showtime could treat viewers to the rematch between Bobby Pacquiao and Carlos “Famoso” Hernandez, to go along with Edner Cherry’s fight with Jose Armando Santa Cruz and the Jose Luis Castillo-Rolando Reyes main event. Pacquiao-Hernandez I was controversial, and the settling of the score should thus be made into a public proceeding.
5. Roman Karmazin-Kassim Ouma II. Start demanding it, and hopefully it will come, a junior middleweight match far more important than February’s Fernando Vargas-Shane Mosley pay-per-view.
6. In an occurrence that will do no good to the cause of convincing Evander Holyfield to retire, Virgil Hill won the “regular” WBA cruiserweight title by outpointing Valery Brudov.
Hill, 42, and Holyfield, 43, won medals at the 1984 Olympic games, yet more than two decades later they are still attempting to compete in divisions where the punches are hard and slowed reflexes can get a pugilist seriously hurt.
7. Humberto Soto, the WBC interim featherweight titlist, will be facing Takashi Koshimoto for the actual belt.
Koshimoto won a split decision over Injin Chi, taking the belt and adding another chapter to the saga of what was originally supposed to be a fight between Chi and Rocky Juarez. The two had been prepared to fight last year, but Chi got injured, Soto stepped in as a late replacement, the fight became sanctioned for an interim belt and Soto upset Juarez.
But first, Soto has to get past his February defense against Oscar Leon, a longtime contender with split decision losses to Chris John and Derrick “Smoke” Gainer. If Leon wins, will Koshimoto-Leon be televised in the same place that Chi-Juarez was once destined for?
8. Just how long do these interim belts last for anyway? Jorge Arce has already defended his three times, and may be setting up a fourth, while Pongsaklek Wonjongkam, the actual WBC beltholder, is off retaining against other, lesser opponents.
Arce had stopped Hussein Hussein last March in an eliminator for the chance to face Wonjongkam, but when the July bout with Wonjongkam fell through, Arce knocked out Angel Priolo for the interim title. Arce gave a second whooping to Hussein Squared in October, and then stopped Adonis Rivas in December and again this past weekend.
Now it seems that Arce may be readying himself for Rosendo Alvarez, a bout that would come more than a year after “El Travieso” won the elimination bout for the title shot.
Interim belts are designed to force beltholders to defend or be stripped, or at least that is the blueprint in a perfect world. In a business run by sanctioning bodies, though, it seems more like the interim belts are tools for extra sanctioning fees.
9. I hope the discussions for Nikolay Valuev-Owen Beck fail, to be blunt. In his two steps up in competition, Beck was knocked out by Monte Barrett and lost a decision to Ray Austin. Since then, he won an eight-rounder against Darnell Wilson, a former light heavyweight and cruiserweight making his first venture to heavyweight. This is the best that Don King can produce? Were Evander Holyfield and Andrew Golota not available? Obviously, Oliver McCall is busy with legal problems. What about the 61-year-old security guard Valuev allegedly punched? And does Larry Donald, who in the view of some was robbed in a decision in his fight with Valuev, not have enough favor with the wildly coifed one? King has a huge stable of heavyweights, but by selecting Beck, the reaction is nothing but a repetition of Beck’s nickname: “What the heck?”
10. Rest in peace, Jack Fiske, another in a long line of boxing writers to have passed away in recent times. Fiske and the rest of his cohorts blazed a path and set the standards for us journalists currently covering the sweet science, and the least we can do is honor their numerous accomplishments and do our best to follow in their footsteps.
