The Silent Fight of Forrest and Baldomir
By Mitch Abramson
Photo © Ed Mulholland/FightWireImages.com
In the minutes following his curiously one-sided win over Winky Wright on Saturday, Bernard Hopkins made a surprising confession. He came clean regarding his pre-fight mischief. He admitted his palming of Winky’s head at a press-conference was a calculated stunt intended to inspire ticket sales, spike pay-per-view buys.
Smiling, almost preening for the HBO cameras, Hopkins admitted, that, hey, you know, he did it to whip up interest, sell tickets, make SportsCenter. "I hope the commission understands that I had to promote a good fight," he said to Max Kellerman. "It was nothing but promotion, baby."
"Just business, baby," he seemed to say.
Hopefully, crunching numbers won’t be at the heart of Saturday’s match between Vernon Forrest and Carlos Baldomir, who meet for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title in Tacoma, Washington.
It may have all the intrigue of a school play, but there’s a sense the fight will be more about throwing punches than the bottom line.
After all, this is a contest between two prideful veterans, literally, fighting to stay relevant in a junior middleweight division that has recently lost its luster.
If the event lacks buzz, which Forrest admitted, at least it will be handled without the whiff of impropriety.
During a recent news cycle in which an NBA referee is alleged to have bet on games and to have mob ties, an NFL player is indicted for illegal dog fighting, and the Tour de France is postponed by cyclists protesting the rash of doping problems in racing, a boxing match between two standup individuals seems almost tame by comparison.
"I understand that we’re athletes and entertainers, but I’m not knocking anyone in the head [at a press-conference] to get people to watch this fight," Forrest, 36, said in a cell-phone interview before the fight. "I’m not going to compromise my integrity by doing crazy stuff just to get on TV. I’m not going to do that. I’m not going to berate this guy, Baldomir, who is fighting for his family, just to get a buzz going. I’m not going to insult him. That’s not how I operate."
For those who like boxing plain and simple, bereft of trash-talk and bluster, this might be the fight for you. Call it: The silent fight of Forrest and Baldomir. Or call it the opposite of De La Hoya-Mayweather, which was bathed in so much pre-fight PR, the future of the sport [or was it western civilization?] was said to hang in the balance.
After hearing the bluster of Hopkins, the boy-next-door cooing of De La Hoya and the conceit of Mayweather, it’s almost refreshing not to hear the fighters say much at all.
A conference call was not even set up to bang the drums, though Forrest (38-2, 1 no-contest, 28 knockouts) said he’s been doing around five interviews a day since last Thursday.
The News Tribune, the daily newspaper in Tacoma, Washington, will cover the fight, but not too many others figure to be there. Kevin Iole of Yahoo!, Steve Sneddon of the Reno Gazette-Journal, and the Associated Press are the only mainstream outlets to apply for credentials. There is also media flying in from Argentina, where Baldomir is from, and Ring Magazine will be in attendance.
For you news junkies: Forrest has also done interviews with Tim Smith of the New York Daily News, George Willis of the New York Post, Keith Idec of the Herald News, Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Matthew Aguilar of the El Paso Times, all for this fight, according to a public relations official.
Nonetheless, the fight will have a hard time cracking the mainstream consciousness because it may not be "edgy" enough.
"I’m not sure why this fight hasn’t caught on with the public," Forrest said. "But after I become junior middleweight champion on Saturday, if the public doesn’t catch on by then, it’s out of my hands."
It wasn’t that long ago that Forrest and Baldomir were fan favorites equipped with the types of interesting and poignant back stories that made them appealing.
Now, however, it may be hard to remember why we rooted for them in the first place.
Forrest hasn’t fought since last August when he narrowly defeated Ike Quartey. He has spent the last five months in virtual seclusion in Vero Beach, Florida, with trainer Buddy McGirt, trying to maintain his sanity and resume his career.
"I peeked three times for this fight," Forrest said, "because the fight was rescheduled three times."
Gone from the corner is trainer Mark Breland and in is Al Mitchell, but perhaps a more startling change, at least to his personal narrative is that Forrest is no longer affiliated with Destiny’s Child, the company that provides housing and assistance to mentally challenged adults and gave his fans a built in reason to cheer for him.
Who can forget Forrest, a 1992 Olympian, bolting into the stands and embracing several of the residents, a tear-jerking moment chronicled by HBO, after his second win over Mosley?
After his second loss to Mayorga in 2003, which remains, along with a no contest, the only blemishes of his career, he decided it was time to sever ties with the company.
"I don’t do that anymore," he said of Destiny’s Child. "I needed to sit myself down and ask myself what I wanted out of my career, and I decided that I wanted to be the best I could and I couldn’t be that while concentrating on other stuff. Destiny’s Child will always be near and dear to my heart, but I had to go back to what I do best which is fighting. At the end of the day, I want to make sure I did everything humanly possible to be the best that I could be. I want to be happy with my career."
Eventually, he wants to move up to middleweight and win a title, a jump that doesn’t seem terribly difficult given his 6-foot frame. He has no regrets concerning the meandering nature of his career, from beating the consensus pound-for-pound king in Mosley twice, to missing two years from July of 2003 to July of 2005 because of arm injuries, to never following his performances against Mosley with an encore. He was perhaps the first boxer to have a physical therapist in his corner when he stopped Sergio Rios in two rounds in his comeback fight.
While fighters such as Mosley, De La Hoya and Mayweather have stolen the headlines with big fights recently, Forrest is content to go his own, plodding way.
"I look at guys in my generation who’ve had big fights, and I say, ‘good for them’ because I know how tough this game is," he said. "I had to wait a long time before I got my shot, and I’m not overly concerned about how others view me. I’ve always fought for myself. I’m still working to accomplish the goals I had as a kid."
If Forrest is to be commended for his independence, then Baldomir (43-10-6, 13 knockouts) should be applauded for his sheer nerve and rags-to-riches life story. Baldomir rocketed to fame after stunning Zab Judah last year. Judah turned off many fans by offering a litany of excuses for losing the fight, but Baldomir hit an emotional nerve with tales of selling feather dusters on side roads in Argentina to support his family.
"Fans who are working class can relate to Carlos because he’s like them," said Glenn Quiroga, president of Sycuan Ringside Promotions. " He’s the kind of guy who comes forward and doesn’t mind getting hit to throw punches. When I was in Vegas [for the Mayweather fight] people kept coming up to us to speak to Carlos because they appreciate the way he fights."
He knocked out Arturo Gatti last July, but after losing to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in November of last year, it was time for a break.
He made around $3 million during his last two fights and bought his family a new home. He engaged in one of his favorite pursuits: fishing.
"He loves to fish," Quiroga said.
The atmosphere surrounding their fight isn’t totally innocent. The WBC junior middleweight title is at stake, a quirk that has Baldomir suddenly fighting for a title, though he has rarely fought at 154 pounds.
Explaining how this could happen, Quiroga said: "We won the WBC title against Zab Judah at welterweight, and I guess it was a matter of courtesy for the WBC to have us ranked high a few pounds higher [for the WBC title]. It’s a good fight, really a do-or-die match for both fighters."
Although Mark Breland was somewhat miffed he wasn’t asked to join Forrest’s training camp, he’ll be glued to his television on Saturday, watching what he expects to be a "good action fight."
"Baldomir is a tough guy," said Breland, who is training the undefeated Bronx prospect, Jorge Luis Teron. "He’s slow but he’s strong. I think Vernon’s going to have to box him, use his jab and move around the ring. Vernon is going to have to make him commit to his punches, and then counter-punch. It should be a good fight, and a lot more action than people think."
They don’t have to save boxing or convince us that mixed martial arts doesn’t matter. They don’t have to cause a melee at a press-conference. All Forrest and Baldomir have to do is give fans a spirited, professional, clean fight in the ring. Is that enough?
Mitch Abramson has covered boxing for The New York Times and the Village Voice and is currently a staff writer at Newsday.