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By Lyle Fitzsimmons - The grave marker says he died long before the opening bell.
But I for one happen to know that Johnny Sample was alive and well Saturday night.
Because he was sitting on my living room couch.
Oh sure, the former Super Bowl winner’s decomposed carcass was being channeled more vibrantly by my friend Marquis Richardson, but as Bernard Hopkins was dominating round after round against Kelly Pavlik in Atlantic City, it was Sample’s voice I was hearing from Marquis’s mouth.
“C’mon now, you’re forgetting who he’s in there with. That’s B-Hop,” my visitor repeatedly insisted to=2 0me and my three fellow non-believers, each of whom had joined me in picking Pavlik by KO or wide points win. “He’s not normal like the rest of us. He’s a living legend.”
The voice got louder as the night went on.
And after a while, it was 2001 all over again.
I first met Mr. Sample seven years ago, when, with a haze of dust and smoke still hanging over Lower Manhattan, former newspaper colleague Todd Thorpe and I headed to Madison Square Garden to see Hopkins meet Felix Trinidad for the WBC, WBA and IBF middleweight title belts.
Todd and I had debated the likely outcomes for the duration of our New Jersey Transit train ride into Penn Station that evening, with me forecasting a decisive win for Tito and him expecting a much closer fight that in the end could go either way based on circumstance and good fortune.
We saw - or, more appropriately, heard - the other side when we got to the press table.
Camped out amid a pile of notes, pads and pens was the 64-year-old ex-New York Jet, studiously prepping for his role as a post-fight radio commentator and, after the requisite introductions, more than happy to share a litany of pre-fight opinions with a pair of card-carrying “Executioner” cynics. [details]
But I for one happen to know that Johnny Sample was alive and well Saturday night.
Because he was sitting on my living room couch.
Oh sure, the former Super Bowl winner’s decomposed carcass was being channeled more vibrantly by my friend Marquis Richardson, but as Bernard Hopkins was dominating round after round against Kelly Pavlik in Atlantic City, it was Sample’s voice I was hearing from Marquis’s mouth.
“C’mon now, you’re forgetting who he’s in there with. That’s B-Hop,” my visitor repeatedly insisted to=2 0me and my three fellow non-believers, each of whom had joined me in picking Pavlik by KO or wide points win. “He’s not normal like the rest of us. He’s a living legend.”
The voice got louder as the night went on.
And after a while, it was 2001 all over again.
I first met Mr. Sample seven years ago, when, with a haze of dust and smoke still hanging over Lower Manhattan, former newspaper colleague Todd Thorpe and I headed to Madison Square Garden to see Hopkins meet Felix Trinidad for the WBC, WBA and IBF middleweight title belts.
Todd and I had debated the likely outcomes for the duration of our New Jersey Transit train ride into Penn Station that evening, with me forecasting a decisive win for Tito and him expecting a much closer fight that in the end could go either way based on circumstance and good fortune.
We saw - or, more appropriately, heard - the other side when we got to the press table.
Camped out amid a pile of notes, pads and pens was the 64-year-old ex-New York Jet, studiously prepping for his role as a post-fight radio commentator and, after the requisite introductions, more than happy to share a litany of pre-fight opinions with a pair of card-carrying “Executioner” cynics. [details]
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