By Michael Katz
Photo © Chris Cozzone/FightWireImages
When the rejuvenating evening at the fights was over, Oscar de la Hoya asked rhetorically, “Is boxing dead?” and happily answered, “Not at all.”
As Jorge Linares, the Japanese-based Venezuelan featherweight would understate his Stateside debut, “A new star was born.”
Or as Michael Katsidis, whose face looked as if it stopped a freight train, would note, “I said I was going to bring new blood to the sport and I guess you got it.”
And then Bernard Hopkins, in his second coming as a light-heavyweight, would prove that old blood, too, could play this young man's game, even if the not always strictly by the rules.
Hopkins, new body by Shilstone - Ponce de Leon should have been seeking the legendary conditioner, Mackie Shilstone, and not some watery myth - spilled some of Ronald Wright's blood, turning Winky into Blinky, and leaving the younger man (a stripling of 35) gasping down the homestretch.
Seated next to me at Mandalay Bay was Nigel Collins, who noted how Wright seemed to be weakening. At the same time, it was Hopkins inhaling the proverbial fountain. Between the eighth and ninth rounds, he could be seen on his stool, happily breathing in deeply of whatever magic elixir that apparently is bottled in Philadelphia. Wright won the eighth round on all three official scorecards; he did not win another.
What may be more remarkable is that Hopkins's powers of recuperation are reflective of the sport's. Only the week before, on a wide tapestry that included coast-to-coast welterweight contests, the game obviously lost one of its great attractions, especially to the blood-thirsty, with the demise of Arturo Gatti.
Yet, here on the Hopkins-Wright undercard was an Australian from Toowoomba who could assure the Larry Merchants that all is not lost. Katsidis, who is more difficult to spell than to hit, By the time I wended my way slowly to ringside, it was the second round and Katsidis' left eye was blackened and reddened. His face, as rearranged by Czar Anonsot of the Philippines, was something straight out of Picasso's Guernica. A nasty cut under the right eye was soon added - the cuts, said Katsidis, “came from a head butt, elbow and then a punch” - but you should have seen the other guy in this junior lightweight “title” bout. Maybe not as messy, but Amonsot had to be hospitalized with what seemed to be a non-life-threatening, thankfully, subdural hemotoma.
As much fun as these two warriors from the other side of the Equator provided, it didn't seem to dent the crowd's sensitivities. After enough exertion was spended to have some ringsiders talking about fight-of-the-year nominations, Katsidis took a momentary breather. The crowd booed as if John Ruiz had just entered the ring.
No, the announced paid attendance of 8,626 - plus a lot more casino guests, one would presume - did not include too many boxing sophisticates. In the semifinal, while young Linares was winning a vacant featherweight championship by mastering a tough old pro in former 122-pound title-holder Oscar Larios, I turned to the gentleman scribe on my right, Carlos Arias, one of California's best, and presaging Linares's own comments, said “a star is born - and nobody's watching.”
“And nobody cares,” said Arias.
Oscar de la Hoya cares. He is more promoter than boxer these days and is naturally concerned about the game's talent supply. Linares, with an elegant jab and lightning bolt left hooks to the body, is the goods.
“This kid is special,” said de la Hoya. “He reminds me of me, of my coming-out party against John-John Molina.”
Linares was more accomplished against Larios than was de la Hoya against Molina. Oscar struggled enough for his promoter, Bob Arum, to bring in the Professor, Jesus Rivero, one of Mexico's greatest trainers, to work with the Golden Boy's defense. What goes around…Linares's nickame is “El Nino de Oro.” That translates into “Golden Boy.”
It would seem that the continuity evidenced in the ring was matched by that in the stands. Boxing fans, and you know I'm not talking about you but about the schmuck seated next to you, are the lowest common denominator in sports. I am forever reminded of my favorite boxing movie, “The Set-Up” with Robert Ryan, when director Robert Rossen turned his cameras into the audience to show the howling masses, foaming at the mouth with blood-lust. There is an ugliness to rooting for knockouts, to wish to see a human being rendered unconscious, to see his eyes closing and the blood flowing.
Yes, without the real risks, we would be unable to appreciate the valor and courage of heroes like Gatti and Katsidis. If there were no dangers, there could be no bravery. Boxing needs to do a better job of marketing its sweetest scientists, the Benny Leonards, Willie Peps, Pernell Whitakers and Floyd Mayweather Jrs. in order for the public to appreciate the Hopkinses and Wrights as well as the Basilios and DeMarcos.
The Mandalay Bay crowd was difficult to read. Booing Katsidis in the 12th round was beyond my meager comprehension. So was the silence that greeted the heated action between Linares and Larios. There were other strange examples of mob behavior. During the earlier bouts, the big screens around the arena flashed pictures of Wright in his dressing room. There was no reaction from the crowd. Then de la Hoya, sitting at ringside, was flashed on the big screens. Again, no reaction. Even the ringcard girls elicited no hoots. Pete Rose, introduced by Michael Buffer as someone “who should be in the Hall of Fame,” was cheered; Floyd Mayweather Jr. was booed (and so should Buffer).
Maybe Dandy Dan Rafael, when he invented boxing a couple of years ago, also created the new fan - what he calls his “freaks” who talk more of Quizno's over-rated brisket sandwich than of the ladies of whom the French would say, and I shall translate, have plenty of people on their balconies.
Or maybe it's just Vegas and many so-called boxing writers decided a tactical struggle between Hopkins and Wright was not worth the trip to the desert in mid-July. So who did schlep out to the 110-degree environs?
Gamblers, of course. Maybe that's why Wright, the overpriced 2-1 favorite, was cheered on the way to the ring and Hopkins, the plus $1.70 underdog, was booed. Of course, the chalk players were silenced by Hopkins's brilliant tactical performnce and at the end, all you could hear were the cheers for “Hop-B, Hop-B.” Or maybe it was “B-Hop, B-Hop.”
In any case, the fight was not as boring as the “experts” predicted. Of course, these “experts” couldn't appreciate the finer points as displayed by these two veterans of the pound-for-pound lists. It's their loss, not ours. Wright, whose tight defense had Hopkins dub him “The Turtle,” has been fighting much more aggressively in recent years, going forward behind his shell, somewhat like a tank.
But he kept firing blanks at Hopkins, who was able to counter with right hands from the first round on. It was anyone's fight on the scorecards after eight rounds, but Hopkins had already broken down the barricades.
Down the stretch, it was all Hop-B. And at 42, he wasn't looking for the finish line. “I could fight another four years if I wanted to,” he said. “I'm cut from the same cloth as Jersey Joe Walcott, Ezzard Charles and Henry Armstrong.”
The twilight of some gods is as bright as the newest stars. Olivier could probably do Hamlet from the grave. Beethoven was just getting warmed up. Picasso could have had a few gray periods.
“I'm the same Bernard in a way,” said Hopkins, “but in a different body.”
Body by Shilstone makes you wonder maybe Hopkins should have forgotten about making 20 middleweight defenses and abandoned the 160-pound division long before Shilstone turned him into a much more muscular, and apparently much stronger, light-heavyweight.
Big fights make bigger fights, of course, and Hopkins was now calling out Joe Calzaghe, the longtime 168-pound ruler, for a Yankee Stadium match. This, of course, begs the question whether Calzaghe gets past Mikkel Kessler on Nov. 3. There are few “experts” around on Wales-Denmark pairings in boxing.
Thankfully, Hopkins made no mention of Roy Jones Jr., a rematch long past its time. Calzaghe, or Kessler, would be a fine addendum to his still blossoming career.
Wright, meanwhile, will return to middleweight where he should be No. 1 for the winner of the Jermain Taylor-Kelly Pavlik title fight. The problem there is that Taylor has said this would be his last fight at 160 and he would have to move up to 168. We know Wright can compete with Taylor - he was robbed by their draw at 160.
Carlos Arias asked if I thought Wright was still an automatic hall of fame selection. Of course he is. See Sugar Shane Mosley. Twice.
For eight rounds, he was elbow and butt with Hopkins. But he is no 170-pounder and he might have been better served by coming in a bit over 160 and spotting Hopkins a few pounds rather than weighing in at the contractual limit of 170 and slowing himself down. He was not only soft,” but sluggish. At 160, he is of course a major player, and he thought he could still compete at 154 though with de la Hoya, refusing to meet him, there seemed little point in giving up his Krispy Kreme donuts,
But in a short span of two weeks, with Hopkins and Wright both remaining among the game's elite, and the same holding true for Antonio Margarito in the red-hot welterweight division, with Paul Williams and Kermit Cintron fleshing out the 147-pounders, and the happy additions of Linares and Katsidis, there is suddenly much reason to look forward to the fall and beyond.
PENTHOUSE: Hopkins kept ducking the question: How did he neutralize Wright's terrific jab? Oh, he “explained” that the Wright stuff, the best right-handed jab in the game and the great defense, had to neutralized. “They've all seen me take a guy's weapon and use it against him,” he said, adding that taking Wright's jab and defense left him “helpless.” De la Hoya said Hopkins will “fight you and frustrate you,” and “explained” that “the jab of Winky Wright wasn't there tonight.” Jack Mosley, Shane's father and trainer, said Hopkins “took him completely out of his game - the jab, he smothered it, he parried it, he was holding and crowding him….”
Yes, but HOW?
John David Jackson, once a Hopkins knockout victim but for two fights in a row now as a special assistant trainer, the man who plays the opponent in sparring, finally showed how the old master did it. Jackson, once one of the slickest boxers in the world, said “Wright was a natural right-hander so his jab and his right hook are his best punches, but he doesn't step in with his jab, so if you go back and fight off your back leg, he's going to be short with it.” After a while, Jackson explained, Hopkins not only rocked back to make Wright short with the jab, he then rocked forward and kept catching him with right hands over the jab.
As de la Hoya, who speaks from harsh experience, said, Hopkins “knows how to neutralize every game plan you have.”
Nominally, Freddie Roach was Hopkins's chief second since the Philadelphian's regular trainer, Nasim Richardson, was hospitalized during camp. Hamed, recovered from the heart attack, was in the corner, along with Jackson and Roach.
Hopkins, who said he appreciated Roach, as a former Eddie Futch fighter, bringing in some new insights. Then he joked to him, “I must admit I didn't know what the hell you were talking about the last four, five weeks, but it worked.”
Kudos, by the way, to Golden Boy. No one was watching, maybe, but there was a terrific undercard that made for a terrific evening.
OUTHOUSE: Randy Neumann seemed frozen in nostalgia, unable to act because of the memory of so many Arturo Gatti miracle comebacks in the past. The normally reliable referee allowed Gatti to take frightening punishment from Alfonso Gomez and was still counting to ten even after an overhead right hand sent the human highlight reel in slow motion slithering down the ropes to the floor. It was kind of the way Tom would melt in a cartoon after getting flattened by Jerry. New Jersey commissioner Hap Hazzard, never camera shy, jumped in the ring to signal it was over. No kidding.
Gatti's career has long been over. He has been the cash cow led to the slaughterhouse, over and over again by Main Events and Pat Lynch and, especially, HBO, his only purpose in life to entertain the blood-thirsty. He was a pretty fair country boxer with proverbials the size of Jupiter and on this last night in Atlantic City, he was trapped in his own history. It was as if Neumann was waiting to see Gatti mount another improbable comeback.
No, as a boxer he does not belong in the hall of fame. He was not good enough, winning two of three from Micky Ward, losing twice to Ivan Robinson. But Gatti was not simply a boxer. Old measuring rods do not apply to him. He came to represent those elements that raise the game above sheer physicality, above mere brutality. For that, of course he belongs in Canastota - but only until they also enshrine Freddy Brown and disenfranchise Don King, Bob Arum and, especially, Jose Sulaiman. Until then, Canastrota does not deserve Gatti.
MUSTARD ON THE CATCHUP: Amazingly, two judges - but not Steve Weisfeld, who correctly had it a shutout - had Gatti winning two of the six completed rounds against Gomez. It was clear from the first round that Gatti's reflexes were completely shot….Anyone else think Alfonso Gomez, a sturdy no-nonsense journeyman, looks like a young Don Elbaum? Or maybe Elbaum was never young…..Gomez would like now to take Gatti's place in a match against Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. Sounds like a good opening match on a pay-per-view show.
Before Gatti's “hasta la vista, baby” on the HBO welterweight show, Kermit Cintron said hello again. The paper champion - Floyd Mayweaher Jr. is the real titular head of boxing's best division - added some starch by starching Walter Matthysse in the second round. Okay, he won't get much credit because of the opposition, but it took Paul Williams ten rounds to stop the Argentine and he never had Matthysse down. Cintron is another shiny example of why Emanuel Steward is a great trainer, getting the poor lost soul who was embarrassed two years earlier by Antonio Margarito to believe in himself.
Kudos also to Max Kellerman explaining to his HBO colleague-teacher the “Kronk catch and counter” technique that Cintron used against Matthysse, though in the opening moments I thought the Reading-based Puerto Rican was using his face to do some of the catching. Once he nailed Matthysse with that big right hand, it was over.
“This is the real Kermit Cintron,” said the winner. “That fight with Margarito was not him. The fight with Margarito should be erased.”
The real star of the evening, of course, was Williams, the lanky southpaw who showed character, chin and cujones in standing up to the tough Margarito. He built up an insurmountable lead - on my card, anyway - and when Margarito's heavy hands began hurting him, especially in the 11th round, he sucked it up and won the 12th going away.
Yet, I was somewhat disappointed in the undefeated Williams. He showed right away he was much faster than the Tijuana Tornado - “tornado”? tornado's don't move in slo-mo - and able to land straight punches inside the wide-arcing shots favored by the tough man. Maybe he needs to sit down more on those punches and trust his chin, although of course Margarito doesn't have great power.
Williams acknowledged the second half of the fight was “real hard - he was hitting me with a lot of shots, you have to have the heart of a warrior.” Margarito said he thought the decision “was a robbery.” Hardly. I had it 116-112 for Williams and those at ringside who thought otherwise were again scoring with their ears - listening to the crowd over-react every time Margarito threw something, even when it didn't land.
Margarito said the reason he was smiling during the early rounds was because he was “ducking” the punches. Yes, he ducked a lot. And he blocked a lot more. But while he was playing such great defense against a guy throwing over 100 punches a round, his own output suffered greatly. Margarito, according to CompuBox, averaged well over 100 punches a round in his nine previous contests. Williams cut that number almost in half by making Margarito go on the defensive.
Williams should improve with the confidence this performance gives him. The problem is where does he go from here. He called out Miguel Cotto “and if I can't get Cotto, I'll take a shot at Mayweather.”
Don't expect either Cotto or Maywether to jump up and clap their hands at the prospect of facing a 6-foot-2 southpaw. The plots are thickening in 147-pound land.
Bob Arum was counting on a big Cotto-Margarito pay-per-view show in the fall and, saying he scored the bout 116-112 for his left coast guy, why not go ahead with those plans? Arum, of course, if he had been Italian, would have had Italy winning World War II. In any case, Cotto-Margarito is hardly a must-see show now and putting his right coast guy, Cotto, in with Sugar Shane Mosley must frighten the promoter.
De la Hoya seems to be angling to help his Golden Boy “partner,” Mosley, get Mayweather, by cutting off Floyd's preferred customer, Ricky Hatton, with promises of meeting the Mancurian candidate himself. Hatton figures to lose to either Mayweather or de la Hoya, but there's more money for him against the latter.
Unless he wants to face someone like Williams or Cintron, tall welterweights with pop, Mayweather's choice seems to come down to “retirement” or Mosley. Unless he wants to face Cintron, Williams's choice may be giving Margarito a rematch.
Or, where is Zab Judah when you need him?
If I were king for a day, I'd line up the welterweights this way: Mayweather-Mosley, De la Hoya-Hatton, Cotto-Williams and Cintron-Margarito II. The beauty anyone can be king for a day if he mixes and matches these eight guys.
I did not see Roy Jones Jr. defeat Tony Hanshaw so, luckily, I don't have to comment on it. And why isn't Jones taking the kind of heat Michael Vick is from PETA?
APPLES AND ORANGES: The Hopkins-Wright bout will be replayed on regular HBO this Saturday before the live telecast of a strange “title” fight. With Mayweather giving up the WBClowns junior middleweight title that he won iin May from de la Hoya to remain the “retired” welterweight champion, Sulaiman and his gang have authorized the match between Vernon Forrest and Carlos Baldomir to be for their vacant 154-pound title and so what if Baldomir has just moved up from welterweight after a one-sided loss to Mayweather…..HBO probably could have done a lot better, I mean, Juan Diaz is looking for a date, but Forrest -Baldomir isn't the worst offering the network has proposed. And while few colleagues will be going to Tacoma for the biggest boxing match in the state of Washington's history, it is a WRITING fight. The storylines are wonderful. Baldomir was the latest Cinderella story, upsetting Judah in January, 2006, to win the undisputed 147-pound title, then knocking out Gatti a few months later before turning back into a pumpkin and losing every round to Mayweather….Forrest was fighter of the year in 2002 when he ended Mosley's unbeaten streak with two solid victories; the next year, though losing twice to Ricardo Mayorga (the second by majority decision in a contest I thought the Viper came back to win), he was voted the Marvin Kohn Good Guy Award for his work with Destiny's Child, the company he co-founded to help disadvantaged kids.
Mayorga is the only blemish on Forrest's 38-2 record with 28 knockouts. But while the 1992 Olympian outclasses Baldomir, he has been sidelined by recurring arm injuries and his left jab is not as straight and hard as it was when upsetting Mosley. He has turned over his training to Buddy McGirt and that should be a good fit.
Baldomir, 43-10-6 with only 13 stoppages, should be a large underdog in this matchup of 36-year-old former welterweight champions. But he's gone around the world upsetting fighters, even undefeated ones, in their home towns. He's an earnest plodder, but if Forrest is anywhere near healthy, he should prevail.
PENTHOUSE FOR ME: In case you hadn't noticed, in more than 3,500 words, I have not mentioned a heavyweight. Okay, I quoted Hopkins who cited two dead ones, Jersey Joe Walcott and Ezzard Charles, but if boxing is to do more than survive, it must learn to pull its weeds.
