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The best part of this job is access. A regular chance to converse with heroes about what makes them different. Or the same. Somewhere in that intersection -- how normal prizefighters consider themselves; how different the rest of us think they are -- is a comment on the human condition.
Making comments, of course, is the job. Except when you are with a prizefighter. Then, listening is much more important because writers who tell fighters things worry about what they're going to say more than they listen to what is said. Just like in life.
But there are those occasions when a writer is justified in saying something to a fighter. That's what this is about.
Early last week I got a press release from Desert Diamond Casino. It gave a general summary of the upcoming week's activities and included an unexpected treat. Israel Vazquez would be in Tucson as part of Golden Boy Promotions' fight week program.
Friday came and so did the drive to Tucson. The Sonora Desert doesn't change much over the 100-mile stretch between Phoenix and Desert Diamond, and there was plenty of time for reflection.
That returned me to a significantly colder place: Home Depot Center in March. Southern California is not the Arctic, but in March it was not warm. After the best fight we might see for 10 years, Vazquez-Marquez III, the media assembled in a conference room beside the tennis stadium -- as much for its warmth as what the participants might say.
Some of us needed a quote for our ringside reports, others material for a column. What we got was Team Marquez storming the room. Gary Shaw's permascowl and Jaime Quintana's ugly petulance. Rafael Marquez's dwindled sportsmanship could be forgiven -- he had taken hundreds of blows, after all. But his promoter and manager were a different story.
That night Israel Vazquez, when he was allowed to speak, set a new standard of decency.
As I drove toward Tucson four months later, I looked forward to measuring Vazquez. I wanted to know if he was as noble, alone, as he looked by contrast in March.
I arrived and took my seat at ringside. From Arizona to California to Nevada to Texas, there's not a better media section than at Desert Diamond. The cast of characters is always the same -- a bunch of young, witty scribes. A few of them had talked to Vazquez at Thursday's weigh-in. I was curious what they thought of him.
"You're going to like him," one volunteered. "Ask him a question, and he talks and talks," another answered.
In the night's co-main event, Jhonny Gonzalez needed less than a round to go through Leivi Brea. Since Gonzalez and Vazquez made the best fight any of us actually saw in 2006, and since Gonzalez has often said he wants a rematch, I shuffled back toward the dressing rooms with Vazquez on my mind.
He was on Gonzalez's mind too.
(click the link to read the whole article)
http://www.sportsline.com/mmaboxing/story/10918836/1
Making comments, of course, is the job. Except when you are with a prizefighter. Then, listening is much more important because writers who tell fighters things worry about what they're going to say more than they listen to what is said. Just like in life.
But there are those occasions when a writer is justified in saying something to a fighter. That's what this is about.
Early last week I got a press release from Desert Diamond Casino. It gave a general summary of the upcoming week's activities and included an unexpected treat. Israel Vazquez would be in Tucson as part of Golden Boy Promotions' fight week program.
Friday came and so did the drive to Tucson. The Sonora Desert doesn't change much over the 100-mile stretch between Phoenix and Desert Diamond, and there was plenty of time for reflection.
That returned me to a significantly colder place: Home Depot Center in March. Southern California is not the Arctic, but in March it was not warm. After the best fight we might see for 10 years, Vazquez-Marquez III, the media assembled in a conference room beside the tennis stadium -- as much for its warmth as what the participants might say.
Some of us needed a quote for our ringside reports, others material for a column. What we got was Team Marquez storming the room. Gary Shaw's permascowl and Jaime Quintana's ugly petulance. Rafael Marquez's dwindled sportsmanship could be forgiven -- he had taken hundreds of blows, after all. But his promoter and manager were a different story.
That night Israel Vazquez, when he was allowed to speak, set a new standard of decency.
As I drove toward Tucson four months later, I looked forward to measuring Vazquez. I wanted to know if he was as noble, alone, as he looked by contrast in March.
I arrived and took my seat at ringside. From Arizona to California to Nevada to Texas, there's not a better media section than at Desert Diamond. The cast of characters is always the same -- a bunch of young, witty scribes. A few of them had talked to Vazquez at Thursday's weigh-in. I was curious what they thought of him.
"You're going to like him," one volunteered. "Ask him a question, and he talks and talks," another answered.
In the night's co-main event, Jhonny Gonzalez needed less than a round to go through Leivi Brea. Since Gonzalez and Vazquez made the best fight any of us actually saw in 2006, and since Gonzalez has often said he wants a rematch, I shuffled back toward the dressing rooms with Vazquez on my mind.
He was on Gonzalez's mind too.
(click the link to read the whole article)
http://www.sportsline.com/mmaboxing/story/10918836/1
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