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Good read for all you fellow Gatti maniacs.... and yes, this kid as the same heart and desire. We'll see how far he can go.
IS KATSIDIS THE NEXT ARTURO GATTI?
by Ron Borges
To the crowd it looks like a prop but to Michael Katsidis it is a transforming moment. When he slips on the gladiator's iron helmet before he leaves his locker room he is taken to the place of his ancestors. To Olympus, and to a time he was perhaps better suited for.
"The moment I put on the helmet I don't care if I get carried out,'' the undefeated Australian lightweight champion said recently after 10 rounds of sparring and a massage at his southern California training base, where he was preparing for the biggest fight of his life on March 22 against RING magazine champion Joel Casamayor.
"That becomes my mindset. That's why I hated the amateurs. They're all running and dodging and slapping and moving about. Real fighting is what I was born to do. Nobody pointed me to this. Boxing was something that chose me.''
It chose the right man. Although having made only one appearance in the United States, Katsidis is already becoming a cult hero as a throwback to the days when the world was black and white and so were the pictures of its bloody warriors.
When the WBO's interim lightweight champion arrived in Las Vegas last July to face Czar Amonsot few beyond boxing aficionados knew much about him. Katsidis had just won that title in February by stopping a British lightweight named Graham Earl in a bout that would later be nominated for both fight and round of the year because of the way both went down, got up and battled through pain and the fog of semi-consciousness that arrived after Earl's corner threw in the towel and referee Mickey Vann threw it back out.
Distracted for an instant, Katsidis let his guard down and Earl put him on the floor. As is becoming his trademark he did not stay there long.
"We knew in England we weren't going to win on points,'' said Brendon Smith, Katsidis' trainer and manager. "Michael had to be very aggressive. He was but his mind wandered for a second and he went down. It happened but he was well prepared for that. "He has always had the heart of a lion. Where he gets it from I'm unsure but whoever he fights is in for a hell of a night.''
On Katsidis' website, Katsidisthegreat.com, there are an assortment of telling clips that show him in battle but perhaps the most chilling is one in which the voice of a phony Australian "gladiator,'' the actor Russell Crowe who won the Academy Award for his portrayal of such a man, is heard to say in a low, rumbling voice "Now they will know why they are afraid of the dark. Now they will learn why they fear the night.''
On the screen, in black and white, are the faces of some of boxing's best fighters - Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Diego Corrales, Miguel Cotto. After them comes the image of the Australian gladiator who is stalking them. After them comes Katsidis, fists and blood flying. "A fighter is something born within someone,'' Katsidis (23-0, 20 KO) said. "Things have been against me a lot in life but something in me just says to get up and fight. I'm realistic. The reason I'm here now is I got up and made sacrifices other fighters might not make. I don't blink. Every fight is the fight of my life.'' Certainly his last one could have been. Katsidis and Czar Amonsot were supposed to be preliminary entertainment before Bernard Hopkins and Winky Wright squared off at the Mandalay Bay Events Center but what they did to each other for 12 rounds was so startling and gruesome it made the main event an after thought.
Katsidis sustained a terrible gash over his left that bled like a waterfall for much of the fight. He had similarly deep cuts around his right, both above and below. Yet he kept coming forward, constantly pressing Amonsot until he dropped him twice and won a unanimous decision so savagely brutal that Amonsot may never fight again after suffering a brain bleed. When it was over, the crowd stood and roared its approval, the sound washing over the bloody Katsidis as he held his fist aloft in the middle of the arena.
Immediately he began to be compared to a man whose battles were just coming to an end. Arturo Gatti would fight his last fight that same month, leaving behind big and bloody boxing shoes to fill.
Most fighters would want no part of that. Although Gatti won world titles and made millions, the price he paid was often settled up in emergency rooms in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, where he was on a first name basis with more doctors than was good for him. On the night of a Gatti fight, the emergency rooms in fight towns put on extra staff. They knew what was coming.
Few would willingly seek to follow such a route despite the rewards. Only a latter-day warrior would even entertain the thought. Yet when Katsidis' name comes up, Gatti's quickly follows.
"He's a throwback like Arturo Gatti,'' admits Golden Boy Promotions matchmaker Eric Gomez, who made the Casamayor fight after first thinking he'd landed Katsidis a lightweight unification with Juan Diaz only to watch promoter Don King refuse to allow Diaz to face him.
"There's not too much defense. He relies on his punching power. He's a crowd pleasing fighter. He get's cut. He gets up. He hits like a mule. Fans love the excitement.
"Now HBO is giving Katsidis this great opportunity to break through and please the public. He's got the perfect set-up. He's fighting an aging champion with a big reputation who's been in a lot of wars. It's the history of boxing - the young undefeated kid against the old lion. Now it's up to him to deliver. If he can't fight he'll get exposed by Casamayor. If he can he'll become a star after this fight.
"Excitement wise I'm sold on him 100 per cent. If he can stop Casamayor any non-believers, including myself, will become believers. If he can pull this off I'm excited about all the possibilities for him. Juan Diaz. David Diaz. Manny Pacquiao. Could you imagine a fight between him and Ricky Hatton down the line?''
Ask Katsidis or Smith and they will talk only of Casamayor however, focusing on the fact he is the only man in position to cause them misery at the moment. Yet misery is so much a part of what Katsidis does he barely seems to notice.
This is not to say he does not feel pain because every warrior does. It is what he does once the pain begins that has begun to stop the hearts of people who pay to watch him.
"Michael has been through a lot at a young age,'' said Smith, who trained him briefly when he was an 11-year-old amateur only to move on to exclusively handling professionals soon after. Nine years later they were reunited after Katsidis lost in the quarter-finals of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and they've been together ever since. "He's the most determined fighter I've seen in a long time.''
IS KATSIDIS THE NEXT ARTURO GATTI?
by Ron Borges
To the crowd it looks like a prop but to Michael Katsidis it is a transforming moment. When he slips on the gladiator's iron helmet before he leaves his locker room he is taken to the place of his ancestors. To Olympus, and to a time he was perhaps better suited for.
"The moment I put on the helmet I don't care if I get carried out,'' the undefeated Australian lightweight champion said recently after 10 rounds of sparring and a massage at his southern California training base, where he was preparing for the biggest fight of his life on March 22 against RING magazine champion Joel Casamayor.
"That becomes my mindset. That's why I hated the amateurs. They're all running and dodging and slapping and moving about. Real fighting is what I was born to do. Nobody pointed me to this. Boxing was something that chose me.''
It chose the right man. Although having made only one appearance in the United States, Katsidis is already becoming a cult hero as a throwback to the days when the world was black and white and so were the pictures of its bloody warriors.
When the WBO's interim lightweight champion arrived in Las Vegas last July to face Czar Amonsot few beyond boxing aficionados knew much about him. Katsidis had just won that title in February by stopping a British lightweight named Graham Earl in a bout that would later be nominated for both fight and round of the year because of the way both went down, got up and battled through pain and the fog of semi-consciousness that arrived after Earl's corner threw in the towel and referee Mickey Vann threw it back out.
Distracted for an instant, Katsidis let his guard down and Earl put him on the floor. As is becoming his trademark he did not stay there long.
"We knew in England we weren't going to win on points,'' said Brendon Smith, Katsidis' trainer and manager. "Michael had to be very aggressive. He was but his mind wandered for a second and he went down. It happened but he was well prepared for that. "He has always had the heart of a lion. Where he gets it from I'm unsure but whoever he fights is in for a hell of a night.''
On Katsidis' website, Katsidisthegreat.com, there are an assortment of telling clips that show him in battle but perhaps the most chilling is one in which the voice of a phony Australian "gladiator,'' the actor Russell Crowe who won the Academy Award for his portrayal of such a man, is heard to say in a low, rumbling voice "Now they will know why they are afraid of the dark. Now they will learn why they fear the night.''
On the screen, in black and white, are the faces of some of boxing's best fighters - Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Diego Corrales, Miguel Cotto. After them comes the image of the Australian gladiator who is stalking them. After them comes Katsidis, fists and blood flying. "A fighter is something born within someone,'' Katsidis (23-0, 20 KO) said. "Things have been against me a lot in life but something in me just says to get up and fight. I'm realistic. The reason I'm here now is I got up and made sacrifices other fighters might not make. I don't blink. Every fight is the fight of my life.'' Certainly his last one could have been. Katsidis and Czar Amonsot were supposed to be preliminary entertainment before Bernard Hopkins and Winky Wright squared off at the Mandalay Bay Events Center but what they did to each other for 12 rounds was so startling and gruesome it made the main event an after thought.
Katsidis sustained a terrible gash over his left that bled like a waterfall for much of the fight. He had similarly deep cuts around his right, both above and below. Yet he kept coming forward, constantly pressing Amonsot until he dropped him twice and won a unanimous decision so savagely brutal that Amonsot may never fight again after suffering a brain bleed. When it was over, the crowd stood and roared its approval, the sound washing over the bloody Katsidis as he held his fist aloft in the middle of the arena.
Immediately he began to be compared to a man whose battles were just coming to an end. Arturo Gatti would fight his last fight that same month, leaving behind big and bloody boxing shoes to fill.
Most fighters would want no part of that. Although Gatti won world titles and made millions, the price he paid was often settled up in emergency rooms in Atlantic City and Las Vegas, where he was on a first name basis with more doctors than was good for him. On the night of a Gatti fight, the emergency rooms in fight towns put on extra staff. They knew what was coming.
Few would willingly seek to follow such a route despite the rewards. Only a latter-day warrior would even entertain the thought. Yet when Katsidis' name comes up, Gatti's quickly follows.
"He's a throwback like Arturo Gatti,'' admits Golden Boy Promotions matchmaker Eric Gomez, who made the Casamayor fight after first thinking he'd landed Katsidis a lightweight unification with Juan Diaz only to watch promoter Don King refuse to allow Diaz to face him.
"There's not too much defense. He relies on his punching power. He's a crowd pleasing fighter. He get's cut. He gets up. He hits like a mule. Fans love the excitement.
"Now HBO is giving Katsidis this great opportunity to break through and please the public. He's got the perfect set-up. He's fighting an aging champion with a big reputation who's been in a lot of wars. It's the history of boxing - the young undefeated kid against the old lion. Now it's up to him to deliver. If he can't fight he'll get exposed by Casamayor. If he can he'll become a star after this fight.
"Excitement wise I'm sold on him 100 per cent. If he can stop Casamayor any non-believers, including myself, will become believers. If he can pull this off I'm excited about all the possibilities for him. Juan Diaz. David Diaz. Manny Pacquiao. Could you imagine a fight between him and Ricky Hatton down the line?''
Ask Katsidis or Smith and they will talk only of Casamayor however, focusing on the fact he is the only man in position to cause them misery at the moment. Yet misery is so much a part of what Katsidis does he barely seems to notice.
This is not to say he does not feel pain because every warrior does. It is what he does once the pain begins that has begun to stop the hearts of people who pay to watch him.
"Michael has been through a lot at a young age,'' said Smith, who trained him briefly when he was an 11-year-old amateur only to move on to exclusively handling professionals soon after. Nine years later they were reunited after Katsidis lost in the quarter-finals of the 2000 Olympics in Sydney and they've been together ever since. "He's the most determined fighter I've seen in a long time.''
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