A Little Friday Self-Indulgence
By Thomas Gerbasi
Funny what a little housekeeping can turn up.
Preparing my files for the great migration to a new PC, what should have been a fairly quick and easy process turned into a long trip down memory lane and what is now approaching 15 years in the boxing biz.
If that won’t make you feel old, I don’t know what will, but at the same time, this little journey through hundreds of files has reminded me of why I still love this sport.
Now I’m as frustrated as the next guy when it comes to the disappointments that seem to regularly crack us in the chops, but what I always tell people is that when boxing is done right, it makes you forget all the bad parts.
Thankfully, I’ve been lucky to see it done right over the years, and maybe more importantly, I’ve had the privilege of covering people both famous and obscure who give this sport the character and color that few athletic endeavors can claim.
To them, I say thank you. It’s been a great ride so far, and I’m revving up the engine for more. But while I’m here and engaging in a bit of self-indulgence, here are some of the moments that will always stick with me.
NASEEM HAMED VS KEVIN KELLEY
Working for the CyberBoxingZone, I finally got a chance to cover a fight live. Not only that, it was going to be the first pro fight I ever attended.
Talk about an early Christmas gift. To put the icing on the cake, I was seated in the seventh row at ringside. For someone fairly new to the game, I was stunned, and I thought that it was going to be like this every night, something I soon found out that wasn’t exactly the case.
But for this night at Madison Square Garden, all the stars were aligned and you couldn’t have written a better script for a first fight card.
I got there bright and early, took all the press releases and free stuff I could, and settled into my seat in time for the first fight of the night between Danny Williams and Derek Amos. You could hear the punches in the empty arena, which stayed that way through most of the undercard, which also featured future world champions Ricky Hatton and Joan Guzman.
But by the time the HBO broadcast began with a great scrap between Junior Jones and Kennedy McKinney, the place had miraculously filled up, and I know its cliché, but the atmosphere was electric. And that’s not even mentioning the main event, which featured Prince Naseem Hamed’s United States debut against Kevin Kelley.
Naz’ 14 minute entrance to the ring was entertaining enough, but once the fight got going, that’s when I realized that, when done right, nothing compares to boxing in the Garden…nothing. I was hooked and I haven’t looked back since.
CLIFFORD ETIENNE VS LAMON BREWSTER
In early 2000, I was working full-time as a maintenance supervisor, and in my spare time I was doing anything and everything I could to get a foot in the door in the boxing business. I wrote for the CyberBoxingZone, did the occasional paid freelance piece, designed websites (poorly) for guys like Shane Mosley, Johnny Tapia, and David Reid, and also did a little publicity work for female fighters Nina Ahlin and Leah Mellinger.
Through my travels, I ran into Les Bonnano, who promoted Ms. Ahlin (and who is one of the true good guys in this game). Les asked if I was interested in doing publicity for an undefeated heavyweight he had named Clifford Etienne. I was definitely interested and spoke to Cliff. We got along, and despite a past that saw him do ten years for armed robbery, I felt I could help get his story of redemption out there, as I had the gut feeling that he did truly turn his life around and was on the right track.
After Etienne won a few fights while I was aboard, it was announced that he would take his first big step up against talented and unbeaten Lamon Brewster on HBO’s KO Nation show. Win, and he’s on his way to a title shot. Lose, and its back to the drawing board.
Also around this time, I got a call from Gary Randall, co-founder of HouseofBoxing.com and someone I had done some work with while working on website design. He asked me how much I was making in the glamorous world of maintenance. Upon hearing my response, he told me could get me ten grand more and I could work from home if I would join HOB.com as a webmaster and editor.
Yep, no brainer, and since I wasn’t writing, I would keep my gig with Etienne (which I did resign from when I started writing for HOB, around the time of his fight with Fres Oquendo).
As it turned out, my wife had invited two of her friends over to the house the day of Cliff’s fight, which was in the afternoon. They knew me, of course, but as the fight got underway and Etienne survived a first round scare to come back and win a decision, they saw a screaming, delirious side of me as my fighter – yes, my fighter – won the biggest fight of his life on national TV. And I had a new job to boot.
Of course, we all know what happened to Etienne and what a poor judge of character I turned out to be. But on that spring afternoon, it was a damn good day.
VERNON
If you listen to the vets of the boxing writing game, they’ll tell you ‘don’t become friends with the fighters you cover.’ For the most part, I listened and followed this order.
Vernon Forrest was the exception.
Before he won the welterweight title, I covered him like any other fighter, no more no less, but after he cut the press off in the lead-up to his rematch with Ricardo Mayorga, some of my colleagues took shots at him for his decision.
In response, Forrest got even more adversarial with the media, so when I gave him a call after the bout, we had quite the heated discussion. After that though, the ice had thawed and we became friends.
As I’ve written before, there was no one who saved me on more deadlines than Vernon did, and when the world had written him off, he knew he could call me to get the word out or just vent. What the readers got out of this was an honest look at a man who had done everything asked of him only to get ignored by the mainstream because he didn’t hit the gossip columns on a regular basis. And when he dealt with the injuries that should have ended his career, he fought back. His comeback story should have been the most compelling to hit the sport in years, but it didn’t get nearly the space it deserved.
He would eventually win a world title back, lose it, and win it back again. He called after he defeated Sergio Mora in their 2008 rematch and - in an off-the-record conversation - he simply said thanks for keeping his name out there in the good and bad times.
The Mora fight was his last, and we would never speak again. In the summer of 2009, Forrest got tragically murdered.
The news was unbelievable and came with the force of one of his right hands to the jaw. At that moment I knew why you don’t become friends with the fighters you cover and it has nothing to do with objectivity or journalistic principles.
It’s because when things like this happen, you are left with no words to describe it.
Vernon Forrest was a good man, opinionated but fair, loyal, and honest. And the best thing you can say about him is that he will always be missed.
ACTION HEROES
Every generation has their fighters that may not end up on the pound-for-pound list, but that punch for punch always delivered the kind of fights you wanted to tape and show your friends over and over again.
I’ve been lucky to cover two such greats in Arturo Gatti and Diego Corrales. Unfortunately, neither of them is with us anymore, both being taken much too young.
In reality, it was never a surprise that both would die before their time, and it was always assumed that they were much too reckless in and out of the ring to end up in a rocking chair talking about the old days when they were 75 and comfortably retired.
Yet when they weren’t engaging in classics with Micky Ward, Jose Luis Castillo, and so many more, Gatti and Corrales were engaging and compelling personalities who didn’t hide who they were, warts and all.
There was Gatti breaking down in tears at the press conference for his 2004 fight with Gianluca Branco after splitting with his longtime girlfriend. There was Corrales quoting Woody Allen movies before his bout with Floyd Mayweather.
Like all human beings, Gatti and Corrales weren’t superheroes, but their honesty in and out of the ring gave us in the media the kind of drama you just couldn’t make up. This was real life, and it never looked and felt more alive than when Gatti and Corrales were living it.
RINGSIDE WITH MERCANTE
Still hanging on my wall is a photo of the first Ali-Frazier fight in 1971 with referee Arthur Mercante leading Frazier to a neutral corner after he knocked down Ali in the 15th round. Mercante signed the photo “To Tommy, my little pal. Best wishes, Arthur Mercante.”
What happened was, my grandmother’s foot doctor was Mercante’s brother, so she got me the picture when I was still “Little Tommy.”
Years and pounds later, I recounted this story to the legendary referee as we sat next to each other at ringside for a 1998 card in Long Island’s Vanderbilt club. The late Mercante was another great storyteller.
Headlining that night was local heavyweight Richie Melito, who was greeted by his hometown fans as if he was the second coming of Rocky Marciano.
He wasn’t.
But what I most remember about that card was Travis Simms’ 12-second knockout of Stuart Daniels. It was Simms’ second fight and I decided to keep an eye on him. He eventually became a world junior middleweight champion.
That just goes to show you that it’s important to show up and watch the ENTIRE card, not just the main event.
TYSON
The Holy Grail.
I joke with people and tell them that if I got a one-on-one with Mike Tyson, I might just walk away from the game, satisfied that I’ve done it all.
Over the last 15 years, I’ve been lucky to speak to the biggest stars in this sport on a one-on-one basis with the exception of Tyson. I’m not proud of this, but I’m just putting it out there in case Iron Mike is reading this and wants to complete my boxing career.
But I digress.
Anyone in my age bracket would know what I mean when I say that I grew up on Tyson and that his reign as the baddest man on the planet came when we were at the age where we also felt invincible. So who cares about the Danny Williams and Kevin McBride debacles; Tyson will always be 20 years old to us.
In an odd way, things might have turned out quite differently for me in the boxing world if not for Tyson.
In early 2002, there was a press conference in New York for the Tyson-Lennox Lewis bout. At MaxBoxing, we were trying to get a membership off the ground so we could afford to cover the sport full-time. Tyson’s now infamous rant after a brawl with Lewis was the talk of not just the boxing community, but the world. We filmed it in its entirety and we were the only ones with the uncensored video footage.
Memberships exploded that day, and within a few months, we were able to fund the site on our own. So thanks, Mike. And you know where to find me if you want to chat for a few minutes…
THE MEN IN THE CORNER
Some of the smartest men in this sport aren’t the promoters or the network execs – they’re the trainers and cutmen, the ones who prepare their fighters for battle or keep them in fights when the odds are closing in on them.
Over the years, having the opportunity to speak to men like Emanuel Steward, Chuck Bodak, Kevin Cunningham, Stitch Duran, Don House, and Teddy Atlas has turned each interview into a history lesson as well as a dip into psychology and sociology as it applies to the sweet science.
If I had to choose one trainer that I could talk to all day about any topic and come up with a laundry list of brilliant insights, it would have to be Brother Naazim Richardson.
Best known as the trainer of Bernard Hopkins and Shane Mosley, Richardson’s compelling story goes way beyond what has happened in the ring, and when you listen to him, it becomes immediately evident that he doesn’t just mold fighters, he molds men.
IN CAMP WITH RICKY HATTON
While in Manchester for UFC 70, my buddy, longtime UK boxing scribe and UFC colleague Ant Evans was able to get me into Ricky Hatton’s Manchester Gym as he prepared for what turned out to be a four round blowout of Jose Luis Castillo.
Of course, being a New Yorker, I was a little (okay, very) lost when it came to traveling around the UK.
Enter Hatton’s strength and conditioning coach Kerry Kayes, who was passing through the city and offered to give us a ride to and from the gym – in his Bentley. From the moment we sat in the car, Kayes, along with Hatton cutman Mick Williamson, treated us like he had known us for years. Kayes gave us a rundown on the history of Manchester, including the best restaurants, and couldn’t be more accommodating - likewise for Hatton trainer Billy Graham and the rest of the crew in the gym that day, which included Hatton’s brother Matthew and up and comer Matty Macklin.
As for the champ, Hatton is as ‘normal’ a bloke as you will find in this business. There is no entourage, no airs, and what you see is what you get.
Needless to say, he was as classy as the rest of his team, and to be in a ‘real’ gym that an American reporter normally wouldn’t see and to have the run of the place, it’s something you won’t soon forget.
As I told a friend afterwards, it was the type of day that can make you forget the business end of this and just be a fan again.
TRINIDAD VS MAYORGA
At the time I called it the “Latino Hagler-Hearns”. Looking back, it was more of a one-sided beatdown, but that night in the Garden, I couldn’t imagine seeing a better prizefight.
To this day it still holds a place in my heart as the best fight I’ve seen live, because a lot of times, it’s more than just the actual fight that makes an event special. It can be the venue, the crowd, the fighters involved, the drama, and most importantly, the butterflies.
The always smiling Trinidad coming back to his second home in New York City to face the trash talking Mayorga was a fight that had my stomach in knots from the time both combatants walked to the ring. And I wasn’t the only one feeling like this.
Then the bell rang and Mayorga dropped his hands and invited Tito to hit him with his vaunted left hook – over and over. It was Hollywood-type stuff for real, and Mayorga took it, only to then get rocked by a right hand.
By the time the fight ended in the eighth round, I was exhausted (in a good way) and struggled to find superlatives to do the fight justice.
Sadly, watching it later on tape just wasn’t the same, but it didn’t matter. For that half-hour, there was nothing better than watching Trinidad and Mayorga go to war.
GERALD MCCLELLAN
Practically all of these events here could definitely be classified as highlights, but when it comes to the plight of Gerald McClellan, how could you not be devastated by what this sport can do to you?
Ever since I saw him lose a classic war to Nigel Benn in 1995, I was ravenous when it came to information on him. Eventually, I was able to get in touch with his sister Lisa McClellan and ace photographer Teddy Blackburn, and over the years I’ve tried to keep his name out there.
In 2002, Teddy was to receive the Good Guy award from the Boxing Writers Association of America, and Gerald and Lisa were going to come to New York City for the awards dinner. I offered to help publicize Gerald’s arrival and get some of the media in town to visit with Gerald before the dinner. But when he arrived in Penn Station the night before, the only reporter who showed up to meet with Teddy and me was Wally Matthews, then of Newsday.
Later that evening, we watched a bittersweet scene as middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins talked with McClellan. You could picture what kind of fight Hopkins vs McClellan would have made, but it was never to be.
They conversed like a couple of old pros though, with McClellan telling ‘The Executioner’, “It sounds like me and you are gonna make a lot of money together.”
The next day, I again tried to get some of the dozens of boxing writers in NYC that night to visit with McClellan, but only a precious few showed up, with some not wanting to see the condition of the stricken ex-champ.
I guess it was okay to talk to the De La Hoyas and Tysons of the world and get the nice ringside seats, but to see the other side of this business is too much for some. And there are two sides to boxing, one good, one bad, and you can’t pretend that the other doesn’t exist.
It disgusted me, but I do respect those who did show up over those few days, especially the fighters like Paulie Malignaggi, Brian Adams, Ricardo Williams, and Mark Breland.
As tough and courageous as boxers are, I don’t think I’ve met anyone in this business who is as strong and who has as much character as Lisa McClellan. Think about it – everyone would probably say that they would put their life on hold to care for a relative who could no longer care for themselves, but how many of us would truly do it.
Lisa stepped up like few would, and she has my eternal respect for that.
ALI AND FRAZIER
For me, like many of my peers, Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were boxing growing up in the 70’s, and I even had the action figures to prove it.
As I wrote in 2005, “Back on 11th Avenue in Brooklyn in the late 70’s and early 80’s, every night was the ‘Thrilla in Manila’. My mother probably still goes to bed at night with the sound of clicking in her head as she recalls her soon to be teenage son re-enacting the legendary trilogy between Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali – daily. ‘Click-click’ slammed the plastic recreations of Ali and Frazier against each other. ‘Click-click’, Frazier is down. He’s up. Ali is down.”
I hate to sound old (despite being 42), but things were different back in the day, and Ali and Frazier weren’t just sports stars, they were mainstream stars and part of our lives.
So when I was told about a press lunch with Ali in December of 2002, I didn’t care about the commute in the snow, I was there.
When Ali walked in the door of Gallagher’s Steakhouse, the world stopped. I even got to ask a question of ‘The Greatest’, and decided to go through photographer and friend Howard Bingham. Bingham turned to me and basically told me that I didn’t have to be shy, that Ali would answer himself. So I asked him whether he was surprised that he could still get a crowd like this to come out for him. He turned to me and said, without missing a beat, “This crowd is too small.” I got chills then, and even now, just writing it.
As for Frazier, when his “Beyond The Glory” special was coming out on Fox Sports Net in 2005, I took a shot at arranging a one-on-one with ‘Smokin Joe’, not expecting much. To my surprise, his manager Les Wolff got back to me promptly and set it up.
By this time, I had been interviewing fighters for eight years and really didn’t get too flustered. For Frazier, though, I was so nervous you would have thought I was fighting him and not just asking him questions. But once the interview started, I was as cool as a cucumber, even though inside, every question was followed by “THIS IS JOE FRAZIER, I AM TALKING TO JOE FRAZIER.”
I made it through though, and probably had a smile on my face for a week afterwards.
IN CAMP WITH ANDREW GOLOTA
I’ve been lucky in my time in this game so far, without question.
Of course, there have been tons of late nights, crappy interviews, and endless press conferences, but to have the opportunity to work closely with Thomas Hauser and Michael Katz during the House of Boxing days was an education few could boast. While neither sat me down and said ‘do this’ or ‘do that’, watching two pros in action with distinctively different styles taught me more than I could ever learn in school (no folks, I never took a journalism class in my life, and my degree from St. John’s University is in Athletic Administration, or Sports Management as it is now known as in most schools).
This was never more evident than in 2000, I was accompanied by Katz and a two man camera crew on a trip to New Jersey to visit with Andrew Golota as he prepared for his fight Mike Tyson.
I wasn’t expecting much out of the surly Golota, but by the time Katz got done with him, the man he dubbed “The Foul Pole” was joking, smiling, and telling stories. It was a revelation, as Katz asked the tough questions, but did them in a way where the fighter didn’t feel like he was being belittled or attacked. It was reporting and interviewing at its finest (a lost art in my opinion), and a day I’ve referred to in my mind many times since when it came to asking the tough questions about the unpleasant times in a fighter’s career or life.
SUGAR RAY LEONARD
Not only was I probably the only diehard boxing fan in my area of Brooklyn growing up, I was probably the only white kid in the borough with a Sugar Ray Leonard scrapbook.
Of course that didn’t go over well with my father, who was a Roberto Duran loyalist, but it was something I brought up to Leonard when getting ready to interview him for the first time.
I immediately received that nervous “uh, security, there’s a stalker here” look, but once he realized I wasn’t going to ask for an autograph on my Sugar Ray Leonard underoos, we were fine and the interview went off without a hitch.
Again though, this was like talking to one of your childhood heroes, something my buddy, former lightweight contender Brian Adams, got a kick out of as I begged him to talk to Ray for me because I was too embarrassed. What a nerd I am.
AN HOUR WITH ALEXIS ARGUELLO
When covering Shane Mosley’s lightweight title defense against Eduardo Morales at Madison Square Garden’s Theater in 1998 for the Cyber Boxing Zone, who did I happen to get seated next to than Alexis Arguello Jr., the son of the legendary three-division champion. We got to talking, and eventually Alexis’ dad came up and I told him how much I’d like to interview him. Alexis Jr. didn’t hesitate and he set up a one on one with the Hall of Famer from Nicaragua.
Of course, not speaking Spanish, it was tough actually getting to Alexis, so thankfully my wife came in handy as she got me past the woman who answered the phone and to the classy former champion.
For the next 30 minutes we covered anything and everything, and Arguello was as gracious as you would have expected him to be.
Then the phone died. For the next hour I tried to get him back, but storms in Nicaragua had knocked the phone out of service.
Having to go to work the next day, I asked my wife to call him to let him know, first that I didn’t hang up on him, and secondly that I was thankful for his time and that I had enough for my story. My wife called, and when I got home she said that Arguello insisted that it was okay for me to call him back, that we “were getting into some good stuff.” I didn’t need to be told twice, and we went on for another 30 minutes that night.
Of course, the two long phone calls to Nicaragua cost me around $130, but they were worth every penny. The interview is still up on the CBZ at http://www.cyberboxingzone.com/boxing/box11-98.htm#alexis and I still get a kick out of reading it.
IN CAMP WITH ‘THE EXECUTIONER’
The site four of us refugees from HouseofBoxing.com founded, MaxBoxing.com, had a little bit of history with Bernard Hopkins, something that a Google search can tell you all about, so I won’t go into it here.
Needless to say, ‘The Executioner’ wasn’t always on the best of terms with us, so when I was invited to his media day at the Upper Darby PAL before his fight with Oscar De La Hoya in 2004, I was a little leery. Hopkins’ publicist, Kelly Swanson, told me not to worry though, and I was ready to take the two hour drive to Pennsylvania.
But just as I got on the road, Kelly told me that the media day was cancelled and that no one else was going to the gym. I told her that I was on the way, and she told me to call James Fisher, camp coordinator and the son of then-trainer Bouie Fisher, to see if it was still cool to show up. James gave the green light, and I made my way to the gym.
There I was, no other reporters but me, and I had the greatest middleweight of my era all to myself. Hopkins came into the gym, shook my hand, and told me we could do the interview as Bouie wrapped his hands before his workout.
As I waited, I looked for our camerman, Bill Emes, who was going to film the proceedings, but there was no Bill. Hopkins comes out and says he’s ready to go. I couldn’t exactly tell him to wait, so I started my interview without Bill. For the next 45 minutes, Hopkins talked about anything and everything (I got a four-part piece out of it, so you can guess how much he talked). Still no Bill. Hopkins then proceeded to his workout, complete with sparring against his nephew Demetrius.
Finally, Bill showed up after being held up over an outstanding traffic ticket. Hopkins comes over after his workout and as we explain the situation, he chuckles. The undisputed middleweight champion of the world then proceeds to give us another 20 minute interview on video so we would have something.
Say what you will about the guy, but he didn’t need to do that.
While all of the aforementioned moments are memorable, I would pick this day in the Upper Darby PAL if forced to choose just one. Like I’ve told people, seeing a future Hall of Famer like Hopkins in the gym is like watching Babe Ruth take batting practice. This is a guy people will be talking about 100 years from now, and to have the opportunity to see him at work and discuss his craft at length is something I won’t soon forget.