A Good Article Written By Ice...

EXIGE20y ago

As ever, great memories relived in good detail with description that makes you picture everything thats going on. I am 35 years old and I started Boxing in 1982. I started watching Boxing several years before that, around 1978. I remember watching Sugar Ray Leonard in 1979 against Andy Price and Wilfred Benitez and Ali against Spinks in 1978. But when I hit the 7th grade in 1980, that is when I really started watching the fights and reading the magazines and getting into it more and more, from betting with other kids on the fights right down to organizing our own little neighborhood league (Some of my wins were over the likes of Ron Jensen, Tony Vierra (I outweighed him by 25 pounds and when I pinned him against his washing machine...it was over LOL), Dave Coleman and Greg Szepanski (Greg outweighed me by about 30 pounds but without his glasses his vision was impaired....I boxed from the outside and coasted :) I think I am lucky I came along at the time I did. I consider the 80's the best and most memorable time for Boxing and I was there watching from the very beginning to the very end. (It was a Great time for other things too, right? Madonna came out in 83...Michael Jackson and 'Thriller' in 84...Prince and 'Purple Rain', Pop Rocks, ' Dallas' and 'Knots Landing' (who DID shoot JR??) , My man Lynn Swann retired, The Super Bowl shuffle came out, RUN-DMC, The Space Shuttle Challenger crashing :( .................. I remember Knight Rider on TV, New Kids on the Block, Sheena Easton, Miami Vice (those two guys were the Coolest guys on TV, easy), Hill Street Blues, Leg Warmers and guys walking down the street with Ghetto Blasters on the shoulders up to their ear, (Remember that????) I am sure most of you have your own memories. I started Boxing in the 80's and gave up on all other sports for the most part. Almost all of my best memories from Boxing came from the 80's... here are some u might be interested in... I remember in October 1980 getting up for School one morning and reading that Muhammad Ali got STOPPED by Larry Holmes. I couldn’t believe it, that Ali didn’t finish the fight. I remember being in a daze, feeling sad for My Hero. I had a hard time accepting that he got ' stopped'. It wasn’t until years later that I realized there was and is a very big asterisk next to that result. I remember that the 1980's had some of the biggest fights ever ...and that the build up to them was Soooooo HUGE that it made the pre-fight hype for Tito-Oscar and Tyson-Lewis seem weak by comparison. It seemed to me that the whole world, Boxing fans or not, were waiting to see who won Leonard-Hearns in 1981, Holmes-Cooney in 1982, Hagler-Hearns in 1984 and Leonard-Hagler in 1987. Back then they were not on HBO or PPV either so you knew if you wanted to see those fights you had to go to the Civic Center and watch it with 10,000 other people. THAT was cool. I remember being 15 years old when the first Arguello-Pryor fight happened in Miami in 1982 and I ran the 3 miles from my Father’s apartment to my house that night just to see the fight. How big of a Boxing fan was I?? We didn’t even get HBO!! I ran home just so I could hear it and KIND OF see it thru those squiggly lines you get when you don’t have a certain channel. It SOUNDED like a Great fight and, as I found out later, it was. I also remember when Alexis beat Boom Boom Mancini in a fight that so many sentimental people wanted Ray to win. When Alexis stopped him I remember him consoling him on TV in the ring right after the fight. That was one of the classiest displays ever seen in Boxing. I remember when Sugar Ray defeated Marvin Hagler in 1987. I was at Hagler’s Gym in Brockton the next day getting some sparring in. I remember the Gym was real quiet, like a place in mourning. One of the Amateurs was there in the dressing room with me and he said, "Man, everybody is so depressed here. Everybody is asking me “Aren’t you upset that Marvin lost?” I tell them “Upset, I won 50 bucks off that fight last night! You think Marvin cares if I win or lose in the Golden Gloves? I gotta go where the money is.” I also remember going to Hagler’s Gym there in Brockton and sparring with good fighters like Robbie Sims, Cedric Parsons and Steve Collins. I was honored when Stevie beat Sam Storey for the Irish National title at the Boston Garden and after the fight, in 'RING' magazine, Stevie said that he had been '"sparring with southpaws like Robbie Sims and the great amateur, John Scully, and after them I don’t think Sammy could show me very much". Even though I lived over 2 hours away it made me feel like a part of that Gym. As a matter of fact, about 5 months ago I was in Brockton at the same gym sparring with Richie Lamontagne for his fight with Michael Bennet and Goody Petronelli was telling someone there that I am like a member of his gym. Made me feel good. I remember in 1987 and 1988 at the National Golden Gloves I fought future WBC # 1 Contender Lamar 'Kidfire' Parks and beat him both times by decision. I boxed him, gave him a lot of lateral movement. Later on, as Pros, we sparred at Times Square Gym in New York City and we went 8 rounds one day and 6 rounds the nest day. Lamar was a HEAVY HANDED hitter, man! When we fought I didn’t realize it as much because I boxed and moved more than when I sparred and, also, in a real fight your adrenaline hypes you up more. But, as pros, when you settle down and throw harder shots and pace yourself more, especially in the gym, you see more of a man’s total arsenal. Punch for Punch, Lamar had as much power or more than just about anybody I ever boxed. The same year that I fought Lamar the first time, I saw a kid on the Knoxville team for the very first time. He was in tournaments with me before but I never paid much attention to him. This year, because his home team franchise holder hosted the fights, he was in the papers every day and the crowd was behind him. I remember that what stood out about him was that before the fight BEFORE HIS would even have the winner announced he would get in the ring while the two guys that just fought were waiting and he would loosen up. I remember thinking '"Look at this guy. His home team is the host so they just let him do what he wants. If I tried to get in the ring like that they would kick me out ". Anyway, he wore an all white uniform. White shoes, trunks, shirt, and headgear. Looked real flashy. I remember he moved a lot and in his five fights on the week he hardly got touched on his way to the 156-pound title. He beat Ray McElroy in the Finals. I remember going home and telling my Father " You should see this kid from Knoxville. He is going to make the Olympics. His name is Roy L. Jones Jr. (I didn’t realize at the time he was out of Pensacola. In the Nationals you represent your Golden Gloves franchise. His was Knoxville. The ' L' is for Lee. They always used to announce him back then as 'Roy L. Jones, Jr.) . One year later in the National Golden Gloves in Omaha, Nebraska I saw Roy attempt to win his third straight National G.G. title. He beat Thomas Tate by decision early in the tournament and stopped Future NABF Champ Fabian Williams later on. But it was his third fight of the week that caught everybody’s attention. Too bad nobody filmed it cuz' it was a W-A-R. I was getting ready to go into a different ring in a few minutes (there are three rings going at once at a National tournament) but the fight between Roy and Gerald McClellan was so exciting I hardly had time to warm up. I remember Roy being backed to the ropes a lot during the fight but he would fight off hard with FURIOUS flurries of Bombs. Gerald was strong though, and would retaliate the same way. Nice flurries and combinations of HARD punches for all three rounds. The decision was a close one and hard to call but, in the end, Gerald won the decision that would end up as the Greatest victory of his Amateur career. The fight was so tough, even for the winner, that when I saw Gerald a month later in camp with Sugar Ray he wasn't sparring yet because his jaw was still sore from the fight with Roy. I remember when Mark Breland was the KING of Amateur Boxing in the early 1980's. Nowadays I see a lot of guys come out of the Amateurs and their promoters hype them up and tell of great records like 125 -3 and 212 - 5 etc. And I can tell you that the great majority of those records are not accurate. When you are in top-level amateur competition and you fight so often, the chances are that you will be a highly decorated amateur and you will STILL accumulate 10 or 12 or more losses. I know of future Olympians and Pro Champions that have lost 4 and 5 matches in ONE year. Yet, when they go pro, they are listed as having records like I mentioned previously. Mark Breland was different. He was such a glorified and sought after amateur that his every move was under the spotlight. As far back as 1982, a full two years before he even made the Olympic team, he was in the Movie ' Lords of Discipline' and was featured in ' People' magazine. In 1983 he was the first, and from what I know the only to this day, Amateur Boxer to be featured on the Cover of 'KO Magazine'. Marks record as an Amateur ended up at 110 - 1 with over 70 stoppages. He won the 1982 World Amateur title, he won five NYC Golden Gloves titles and he won the Gold Medal at the 1984 Olympics. He beat the Russians and the Cubans and the Best Americans. Some say Teo Stevenson , Johnny Bumphus or Felix Savon were the Greatest Amateurs ever but, to me, Marks record stands for itself. Only one man beat him ands that was more than 2 and-a-half years before he even made the Olympics. (He avenged that loss to Darryl Anthony with a 3rd round KO as Professionals). Mark Breland dominated his class and beat many of the Worlds best with EASE. Hard to argue with a guy that went 18-0 in International matches...

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EXIGE

I remember, in 1988, after coming home from the Gym one day getting a message on the Kitchen table that said SUGAR RAY LEONARD CALLED. Of course, that is not something you expect to get at 20 years old from one of the Greatest Boxers of all time and a guy you have watched since you were a kid. I remember in 1981, the night of September 16, being outside playing with other kids and all I could think of was that in a few hours there would only be one 147 pound WORLD CHAMPION. A kid at my School, LP Wilson in Windsor, had a shirt that said ' The Showdown ". That fight was BIG. I stayed up real late just so I could get some word from ESPN to see what happened. And now I am getting messages that he called me?? Well, I called and it was actually JD Brown, Ray’s assistant that called to see if I would be interested in going to a Pre-Olympic Trials camp that Ray was having. It took me No time at all to say 'YES'. I went to camp with them in Maryland and I was in camp for a couple weeks with people like Roy Jones Jr., Ray Lathon, Gerald McClellan, Razz Chapin, Michael Ward and David Sewell. The first day there, I was in the dressing room and someone came in and introduced me to Ray. I am talking to him and I am thinking, "THIS is Sugar Ray Leonard talking to me". HaHaHaHa. A week or so later I was invited to his House and I went with my coach. I have a video tape of myself, my Coach and Sugar Ray walking all around his house, talking, laughing, etc. And the whole time I am there I am thinking "I am walking around Sugar Ray Leonard’s house with him.... now I am watching TV with SUGAR....RAY...LEONARD ........I am holding Sugar Ray Leonard’s Gold Medal NOW. " I remember once a few years ago I saw Mike Tyson on the 'Arsenio Hall show' with Ray and Ali. And Tyson was, even as a Champion, still in awe of these two guys. He was telling Arseno something to the effect of ' I don’t know, sometimes I still can’t believe it, that I am here with the Greatest and the Sugar Man." I always thought what he meant was, he grew up watching these guys and now he can’t really grasp that he is here with them in more of a position than as just a fan of theirs asking for an Autograph. And I know what he means... I mean, being a Boxer for all these years I have had the opportunity to befriend many boxers and meet many of them and hang out with them and sometimes I think to myself how cool it is for me, just a kid from Windsor that used to box in his backyard with other kids from the neighborhood, that I became a Professional Boxer that has met some of the guys I read about it and watched as a Boy. I mean, one minute I am fighting Tony Vierra in his basement with K-Mart Gloves as 13 year olds and the next I am in the U.S.Olympic Trials with Sugar Ray Leonard cheering for me from the front row. I am sure you can’t blame me that it is a highlight for me after 20 years of Boxing. Sugar Ray Leonard cheering ME on. Another guy who I read about as a Boy and later became friends with was Mister Archie Moore. It would not seem probable or even very possible that the two of us would become friends but we did and this is how. When I was 15 there used to be a section in Ring Magazine called Boxers Beat and in it they would have addresses of former Boxers and I used to pick out certain guys to ask for Autographs from. I wrote to Tommy Hearns and got back a form letter reply with a nice picture. Artie Levine sent me a signed picture too. Archie Moore though.... Not only did Archie Moore write back to me, but he offered his services to be my "Advisor through the mails ". I said 'Yes' of course and all the way to his passing, Archie Moore and I would write to each other. When I got my first letter from him I had never had a real Boxing match in my life. And Archie Moore ' advised ' me all the way from my first fight in May of 1983 as a 15-year-old Junior Olympian to well into my Professional career. I have many, many letters handwritten by him here at my house as memories. I have also have a short videotape from a Boxing dinner in 1989 in Massachusetts that we both attended. During his speech to the crowd he started telling the story of how this young 15 year old Boy contacted him through the mail and how they have been keeping in touch all these years and how he is 8-0 now as Pro and he is a "Beautiful young man" . Then he called me to the stage, telling me to "Hurry..Hurry up now" as I approached LOL... I have it all on video, him hugging me and me hugging him back. I kind of realized it at the time but not really until now. It is really pretty cool and amazing REALLY when you think about it. One of the Greatest, if not THE Greatest Light heavyweight Champion EVER, and one of the Greatest Legends the game has ever known befriended a 15-year-old kid through the mail that only wanted an autograph. Befriended him in 1983 and called him on the phone and wrote to him and sent him pictures and clippings and advice and love ' through the mail' all those years. He made friends with me when I was a kid, not knowing of course that I would ever really grow up to be a Pro Boxer. For all he knew I was just a kid trying Boxing and after 2 or 3 Junior fights I would be through. But he took the time to encourage me to stay in school, to listen to my parents and my coach. He gave some great Boxing advice, even stuff that was very unorthodox like '"yelling in your opponents ear during a clinch. That will confuse him" :) He called me at my house all the way from California just to say ' Hi' and to see how I was doing. I love the Internet... it has allowed me to make contact with one of the Mongoose' Daughters, J' Marie. I keep in touch with her on here and I feel in a way that it is almost like keeping in touch with him too. Anyone that knows her, knows she talks like her Dad :). I am 35 now and I don’t carry a whole bunch of things in my wallet. I have pictures of the four kids I train (Orlando, Sammy, Greg and Dwayne) , I have some credit cards ( they just GIVE those things away don’t they ??? ), a drivers license and I have a white plastic card with Black letters. It was given to me by one of the Greatest Boxers the World has ever known. He gave it to me and said it was one of the last, and maybe THE LAST card, given out to someone that wasn’t an actual member of his program in San Diego. Archie Moore gave me the rules and the by laws and the guidelines for being in his group. He gave me the Membership card I still carry. The Greatest 175 pounder of All-Time gave it to me himself and he said I deserved it. It says "ABC Club - Any Boy Can". And If they live by the rules and ways that Archie Moore did, they probably can. To close up this trip down the 80's memory lane, I will hit you all with a flurry (trying to steal the round :) of 80's thoughts that will close the show..............Remember - Nino LaRocca going to 58 -0 as a welterweight? The Wars between my Friend Cornelius Boza-Edwards and Bobby Chacon? Remember when Macho Camacho was the young, WICKED FAST, Brilliant, exciting young boxer in the game ? When Roberto Duran, whose career was left for dead 3 YEARS EARLIER AFTER 'no mas' , came on to beat Davey Moore at MSG in New York - remember how the crowd was going CRAZY?? Remember when Salvador Sanchez died in a car crash in the prime of his career? Ray Leonard getting beat by Duran only to come back and humiliate him a few months later......and wasn’t it real cool when Ray Charles sang "America The Beautiful" before the fight...remember that ? And when Marlon Starling came from behind to shock everybody by beating Breland for the WBA Welterweight title? Remember when Donald Curry was beat in a huge upset by Lloyd Honeyghan? Remember John Munduga , Wilfred Scypion , Michael Olijiade , Charlie 'White Lightning ' Brown ? You forget NOW, but do you remember how EXCITING the rise of Mike Tyson really was???? You remember Rockin' Robbie Sims? Murray Sutherland? The ESPN tournament fights? Barry McGuigan, Eusebio Pedroza, James Scott fighting in prison? Remember how good Michael Spinks was as a Light heavy???? Remember...Jose ' The Threat' Baret, Marvis Frazier, Milton McCrory, Colin Jones, John Conteh, Gerrie Coetzee and his Bionic right hand, Wilbur 'Vampire' Johnson, Mustafa Hamsho, Dennis Andries, Bazooka Limon, Sean O'Grady having over 80 Pro fights by the time he was only 23 years old? Randy Shields, Stevie Cruz, Joltin Jeff Chandler?? How’s that for names from the past??? If you remember them, and I know you do, e-mail sometime with your own memories. Until then...Keep Cool ICE Nice one ICE.... :boxing:

20y ago