By Thomas Gerbasi
Every fighter has a story. Sadam Ali’s truly began in the Coney Island Boxing Gym on 25th street in Brooklyn. He started boxing at eight, and by the time I ran into him before the Jesse James Leija-Hector Camacho Jr. fight in 2001, he was a four-year veteran of the sport who had so much success already that he couldn’t tell me how many of his 40 amateur fights he lost.
“Six, I think," he said, all 85 pounds of him.
More than 14 years and 62 pounds later, Ali’s story continues on Saturday when he faces Jessie Vargas for the vacant WBO welterweight title in Washington, D.C.
At 27, Ali still may be a year or two away from his prime, but there’s always been this feeling that this fight should have happened years ago. Even when the unbeaten Brooklynite soared into the mandatory challenger’s spot, a fight with champion Timothy Bradley went by the wayside when Bradley decided to fight Manny Pacquiao, forcing Ali’s wait to go even longer and limiting him to just one fight in 2015.
“Timothy Bradley is a world champion and a great fighter,” Ali said during a recent media teleconference. “That opportunity would have been amazing. But I look at it like this, everything's in God's hands. Whatever happens is meant to happen. I don't blame the decision that Bradley had to make. I understand. And in his position I would have made the same decision. So I don't knock anybody for that.”
Ali has always been a pragmatist, well aware of the pitfalls of the business, and not one to be screaming for something that didn’t have a realistic chance of happening. At the same time, time has been his enemy, as too much of it has been spent waiting.
Among his teammates from the 2008 U.S. Olympic team, Deontay Wilder and Gary Russell Jr. are current world champions, Demetrius Andrade is a former world titleholder and Rau’Shee Warren has challenged for a belt. Ali spent much of his early post-Olympic career in limbo as he worked as a free agent and even promoted himself on the way to a 16-0 record. It was an admirable effort, but he didn’t have the machine behind him to get big TV dates and the right promotional push.
That changed in 2013 when he signed with Golden Boy Promotions, which navigated him through six fights, got him some good television time, and put him in position to win the fights that put him in the spot he’s in today.
That’s the real story. The kid from Brooklyn does good, makes the Olympic team, turns pro, sits in no man’s land for years, then finally gets his time to shine. It reads a lot better than most, but that wasn’t as soothing for Ali as he waited for his shot against Bradley.
“It was a little frustrating, a little hard to get the fight going and figure out everything that's been going on,” he said of 2015. “But I've been in the gym. I've been ready. I never took off and stayed out because I didn't have a fight. So I've been ready. For some people they might think I haven't proved to be on the top elite. But this is why I'm here. This is why I'm here to prove that. Jessie Vargas is a great fighter, but I am a great fighter.”
Vargas, 26-1, is coming off a decision loss, one only made controversial by the last round sequence where the Las Vegan rocked Bradley and had him in trouble, only to see referee Pat Russell call the bout 10 seconds early, apparently because he thought he heard the final bell. The bout went to the scorecards and Vargas had his first loss. Now he gets another shot, and after his performance against Bradley, he is somewhat dismissive of Ali’s chances. That doesn’t bother the New Yorker, whether the words come from an opponent, the fans, or the media.
“People are going to doubt me or people are not going to think too highly of me,” he said. “There's going to be people like that. But that's up to me to change their minds. That's my job to do. I don't blame them. There are different kinds of fighters, different types of attitudes. This is me. This is not an act. This is how I'll always be. This is who I am. And as I'm fighting, I'm going to run into whole different types of personalities, and this is just one. It's no big deal to me at all.”
Not much has changed for Ali since he was hitting a heavy bag that could have crushed him when he was a 12-year-old hopeful in Brooklyn. He’s still a fighter, he’s still got big dreams, but the difference is, unlike most of those kids who walked through the Coney Island Gym, fought alongside him on the amateur circuit, and currently ply their trade in the hardest game, he’s got the chance to make those dreams come true on Saturday night. And he doesn’t care what you say about it because it’s all in his hands now.
“If anybody wants to underestimate me, then that's fine,” he said. “I'm just ready to go out there and show why I shouldn't be underestimated.”
End of story.
