by David P. Greisman (photo by Ed Mulholland/FightWireImages.com)
In his dressing room he sits, a fighter alone in his thoughts, an artist deliberating over an empty canvas, a writer whose story is still being told.
He has a setting: 400 square feet, more or less, an elevated stage in a coliseum where the masses gather, seeking either his triumph or his demise. That desire – victory or defeat, success or failure – is the driving force, the conflict, internal and external. There is a man who will punch him hundreds of times that night, sending forth hundreds of pounds of forc e cushioned only by eight or 10 ounces of leather and padding.
He sits, alone in his thoughts. What is to come soon. What has come before.
Each fight, at most, may last 47 minutes a night. Many fighters, at most, will have but four of those nights a year. In-between, their finely sculpted forms balloon, their bodies heal, their minds find distractions and their lives continue. But each punch is absorbed forever.
Miguel Cotto has taken 267 punches with him for the past seven months, 267 bruising uppercuts, thudding hooks and pounding crosses that left his lips swollen and his mouth agape, that brought crimson streaming from his nose and spattered about his face.
Kelly Pavlik has carried 148 shots with him for four months, 148 blows that came accurately and efficiently, that came faster and harder than expected from an old man not quite too old to give a young man a beating, a humbling.
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Cotto and Pavlik had been hit before. But with those 415 punches, Antonio Margarito and Bernard Hopkins gave them something neither had experienced before: a loss.
That first blemish on their professional ledgers took away their momentum, their confidence, their auras of invulnerability. For months, each carried one night with him. Their bodies healed. Their minds went elsewhere. Their lives continued. But their losses are forever.
Eventually, they returned. Back to their dressing rooms, alone in thought. Another chapter for stories still being told. This chapter about redemption, about beginning again, about a farewell, as best as is possible, to harm.
Cot to came to Madison Square Garden in New York City, to an arena in which he had fought four times before, to assembled masses numbering more than 11,000, nearly all of whom had come to see him triumph.
Pavlik came to the Chevrolet Centre in Youngstown, Ohio, to his hometown, where 7,200 of his friends and neighbors gathered in support of a man who, physically and spiritually, was one of them. They came from an industrial city that in recent years had seen hard times. He, like them, would fight back when that proverbial going got tough.
They were in comfortable places, against safe opponents. Cotto faced Michael Jennings, a welterweight who had never met another top name in what is a talented division. Pavlik met Marco Antonio Rubio, a no-nonsense fighter who had spent much of his career in the 154-pound weight class and n ow was competing at middleweight.
Jennings was mobile from the outset, focusing more on moving his feet than moving his hands. Jennings landed just four punches in the opening round. Cotto tracked Jennings down enough to land 12.
Ultimately, Cotto closed in, putting Jennings on the mat in the final minute of the fourth round, then doing so again 30 seconds later. Jennings made it to the bell, but his time left in this fight was ticking away. The third and final knockdown came as the fifth stanza came to a close. The referee had seen enough. It was over.
Rubio would be there for Pavlik to hit throughout the night, far less elusive than Hopkins had been. Pavlik punished Rubio with hard shots, turning the fight into a glorified sparring session. In one corner, the middleweight champion. In the other, a heavy bag. After nine rounds, Rubio sat on his stool, done taking punches, unable to offer enough in return. It was over.
Cotto and Pavlik returned to their dressing rooms, returned to their thoughts. Their stories are still being told.
Cotto earned a vacant welterweight title, putting him back toward the top of a division in which Antonio Margarito is now absent. Margarito had been caught with tampered hand wraps just before his fight last month with Shane Mosley. That bout would end with Mosley stopping Margarito, ending his aura of invulnerability just as Margarito had done to Cotto.
Many have speculated that this was not the first night Margarito had hardened wraps. They wonder whether he had done the same against Cotto, a question Cotto has likely tried to answer even though he may never know the truth. But Cotto cannot rewrite history. Those punches, that punishment, is still within.
Pavlik is still the top name at 160 pounds, having returned to that weight class after moving 10 pounds north to challenge Hopkins. Pavlik looked sluggish that night, and afterward stories came out that he was sick. Pavlik said little, making no excuses for why he had taken those lumps. He could console himself with knowledge that he had lost to one of the best fighters in history. That loss, however, would now be part of his own history.
Losing to Margarito and Hopkins had been steps back. Beating Jennings and Rubio was movement forward. Those bouts were their first exercises in exorcism – fitting for Pavlik, really, that “The Ghost” would be haunted himself by “The Executioner.” Cotto, meanwhile, was picking up from wreckage left behind by “The Tijuana Tornado.”
Whether either will rebuild, renewed, is not yet known. There will be more nights, more chapters, more punches, more pain – conflict, internal and external, until they can no longer turn the page on the past, for their stories will have reached the end.
The 10 Count
1. Just as I found it classless when presumably British boxing fans booed “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the December 2007 fight between Ricky Hatton and Floyd Mayweather Jr., I found it in poor taste on Saturday night when presumably American boxing fans booed “God Save the Queen” prior to the main event at Madison Square Garden between Miguel Cotto and Michael Jennings.
2. On a side note, I loved that Jennings came out to the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the U.K.” Still doesn’t top mixed martial artist Christian Wellisch at UFC 94, who showed his sense of humor by approaching the Octagon to the tune of Culture Club’s “Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?”
3. Speaking of pain, we have an early candidate for Bite of the Year thanks to the lightweight fight between Breidis Prescott and Humberto Toledo on last week’s episode of ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights.”
Prescott is a Colombian prospect who garnered considerable buzz last year when he dispatched of touted Olympian silver medalist Amir Khan in less than a minute. His first appearance since then put him against Toledo, a measuring-stick fight against an opponent with losses to Stevie Johnston, Lamont Peterson and Humberto Soto.
With about a minute to go in the 10th round, Prescott walked a clinching Toledo toward the ropes. Toledo put his head down and, um, apparently had a gnawing desire to tear flesh from between Prescott’s shoulder and neck.
Toledo drew blood and earned himself a disqualification loss.
4. The contractually mandated but otherwise unnecessary rematch between Chad Dawson and Antonio Tarver has been postponed after Dawson suffered a hand injury during training camp, according to the Associated Press.
Dawson easily outpointed Tarver this past October to pick up a light heavyweight world title and another foothold as the present and future of the 175-pound division. Alas, it isn’t that the old guard won’t go down without a fight – it won’t even go in without a rematch clause.
So we now must wait even longer to be done with the box office poison that will be Dawson-Tarver 2, pushing back the timeline until Dawson is back in with an opponent who matters. Unless, of course, Tarver proves us wrong. “The Magic Man” is undefeated in rematches so far, having taken revenge against Eric Harding, Glen Johnson and Roy Jones Jr.
5. Alfonso Gomez and the promotional company behind boxing reality competition “The Contender” parted ways this past week, ending a relationship that began in the show’s first season.
Gomez was a natural welterweight within a middleweight tournament, yet he gutted his way out to a third-place finish. His high point since then was retiring Arturo Gatti. His low point and last appearance was a brutal drubbing in April 2008 at the hands of Miguel Cotto.
Gomez was one of the few under the Tournament of Contenders promotional banner to get any sort of push20once his season was over. The company that said it was supposed to change boxing rarely put on its own cards. More often, it fed its fighters as lambs to lions, giving Gomez to Cotto, giving Peter Manfredo Jr. to Joe Calzaghe and giving Steve Forbes to Oscar De La Hoya.
At least they got paydays. Others waited out contracts or asked to be released while their so-called promoter kept them in limbo.
6. The fourth season of “The Contender” ends this Wednesday, with the live finale on Versus (the third network to air the show after NBC and ESPN canceled the series). This year decided the best of 16 cruiserweights – the final two are Troy Ross (20-1, 14 knockouts) and Ehi Ehikhamenor (15-3, 7 knockouts).
Though the show was filmed in Singapore, the finale is back in the United States, taking place at the Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn.
7. This was the first season I didn’t watch all the way through. I still hope the fighters who appeared will be able to get some sort of bounce for their careers. And I still wonder what “The Contender” would look like – and where its fighters would go – had it been done by the minds behind “The Ultimate Fighter.”
8. A female model who took up boxing has been banned from amateur competition because of concern her breast implants could end up damaged, according to British tabloid The Daily Mirror.
Sarah Blewden, 25, had surgery in 2003 that took her from a 32B bra size to a 32C. She started boxing two years ago, but the country’s Amateur Boxing Association recently told her that her breasts could contract or distort if hit.
“It is ridiculous,” Blewden is quoted as saying in the newspaper. “My surgeon said they make me no more vulnerable than any woman. They are not enormous, and they are gel so [they] won’t burst.”
9. Okay, so we can’t have a boxer with breast implants, but we can have a fighter named Chris Arreola…
10. “Her lips look pretty fake, too,” a lady friend said, looking over my shoulder at a picture of Blewden. “Would those explode if she got hit?”
I need add nothing…
David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com