Mickey Ward: "I think about him(Arturo Gatti) almost every day."(USATODAY ARTICLE)

Mickey Ward: Friend, rival Arturo Gatti would have liked 'The Fighter' By Bob Velin, USA TODAY Micky Ward remembers the last conversation he had with his friend and former foe, Arturo Gatti, with whom Ward fought one of the great trilogies in boxing history in 2002-03. "I was coming back from Mark Wahlberg's house; we were out there training with Mark, getting him ready for The Fighter, me and (half-brother) Dicky (Eklund) were coming home," Ward said by phone Monday night. "Arturo called and said he was leaving to go to Brazil to get his kid, or something like that. He said, 'Micky, when I come back, I'm going to come to Lowell (Mass.) and hang out.' We were getting ready to shoot the movie. "Unfortunately, he never made it back. It's sad that we can't enjoy the aftermath of our fights. We could've been doing a lot of things together, you know? We were just great friends, and it got cut short, tragically. ... I think about him almost every day." Gatti, who died in Brazil under questionable circumstances in July 2009 — it was later ruled a suicide — will never get to see the movie about his friend's struggle to become a pro boxer amid Gatti's complex relationship with Eklund and his family. That's too bad, says Ward, who figures Gatti would've liked it, even though the movie does not touch on the trilogy. "I was very happy with it," Ward said of the movie. "Mark (Wahlberg) and Christian (Bale) did a hell of a job. I'm very proud of how they portrayed it." Ward chuckled when asked if Bale nailed his portrayal of Eklund, an ex-fighter who went the distance with Hall of Famer Sugar Ray Leonard and who trained his brother before succumbing to an addiction to crack cocaine that landed him in prison. "Oh, yeah. He did Dicky better than Dicky, if that's possible," Ward said. "He dove into that (role) like crazy." The movie means a lot to him, Ward says. "I mean, there's a million fighters out there, and they did something on me and my brother," he said. "It's a story about both of us. I'm very fortunate and thankful that it was me." Ward, 45, still lives in Lowell, owns a gym where he trains kids and is part owner of an outdoor hockey rink. He also drives trucks for the Teamsters union, Local 25 in Boston.