30.11.06 – By Gabriel DeCrease: Upon the retirement of Arturo Gatti immediately after his painful knockout loss to Carlos Baldomir, many fight fans were forced to confront the notion that despite all the thrills “The Human Highlight Reel” provided over the span of his blood-soaked, swollen, drama-drenched fifteen-year career, he will likely never be among those inducted at the International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHoF) in Canastota. Moreover, the more realistic of those Gatti-worshippers came to realize that, all-things-considered, Gatti probably does not rightly belong in The Hall alongside Joe Louis, Willie Pep, and Carlos Monzon.
In fact, he falls more than a little short of the marks set by less legendary enshrines such as Khaosai Galaxy, Eder Jofre, Eusebio Pedroza, and even guys like Antonio Cervantes. Sadly, there is no blood-and-guts hall of fame where men are formally inducted into a club for the crazy-brave, hard-knocked, hard-nosed, and hard-headed.
If there were, Gatti’s credentials, the left-hook answer to a pounding from Gabriel Ruelas, the brass-balls trilogy with Mickey Ward, and his hard-fought, and slugging comeback to overtake Wilson Rodriguez would be more than enough to guarantee him a parade and a trophy room.
Floyd Mayweather may not give a lot of boxing fanatics a fix of what they crave. He may duck-and-move when the crowd roars for him to stand-and-fight. He may not walk through a hellstorm of punches to go looking for a knockout just to prove he is the harder or stronger man. He is a finesse fighter who dominates whatever division he chooses. He is the fighter of his generation—a phenomenally gifted athlete. He makes no apologies to anyone, and complains about not getting enough money or enough media exposure. And he is bound to end up glorified in Canastota.
He belongs there, and regrettably, Gatti does not. For my own part, I don’t like Floyd Mayweather. He does not remind me of why I started fighting, or why I will put a pair of boxing gloves in my son’s cradle. He is pound-for-pound the best boxer in the world. But he is no gladiator (despite his most recent entrance attire), and does little to create unforgettable, gut-wrenching drama, or to nourish the underdog’s dream, or even to compel fans with an unorthodox set of eccentricities.
Look back now—with me—at just a few of the fighters who you simply should not ignore—guys that by brutality, gluttony-for-punishment, wild-antics, impossible comebacks, or a little of each ought to make you stand up and cheer.
Julian Jackson: “The Hawk” does not get much exposure these days. Widely considered to be one of the hardest punchers of all-time, Jackson started making great fights very early in his career, and had the unique ability to inject fifteen-rounds of action, excitement, and pure pugilistic entertainment value into fights that sometimes did not even make it out of the early stanzas. His 1984 three-round destruction of Ron Warrior is an early example of such a fight. Two years later he was stopped in two in a similar scrap by a prime Mike McCallum after giving the champion fits in the opening minutes. Jackson was never the unbeatable.
He was a murderous puncher. But he could go out on the seat of his pants too. He was only ever one good punch out of a fight. Hell, considering the evil in his mitts, he was often only one half-hearted punch out of a fight, but, then again, he never threw a half-hearted punch. He always swung for the fences, haymakers even on the retreat. That was the fun. He was never boring. The ones to watch definitely include his vicious knockout of Terry Norris, a four-round seesaw slugfest with Herol Graham, the utter destruction of Ron Collins, and his two knockout losses to Gerald McClellan are action-packed and showcase the most hard-punching you will see from middleweights outside of Marvin Hagler highlight-tapes.
Mickey Ward: It is a tragedy that “Irish” Mickey, is best known—and frequently only known—as the lesser-contributor to a legendary trinity of wars with Arturo Gatti. Mickey Ward was, in his days as an active fighter, never charismatic, suave, or one to cast clever insult or pun with interviewers. The book on Mickey Ward reads like this: All business, all grunting, huffing, swearing, teeth-gritting, true-grit, all straight-ahead, liver punching, steel-jawed, never-say-die determination that came on hard and honest from bell-to-bell or until he dropped from impossible punishment.
Ward dropped every round to a determined and slick Alfonso Sanchez before he got that old-familiar, enough-is-enough look on his face and folded Sanchez in-two with a Mexican-body-shot (right on top of the guard with enough steam to plow through). He fought every round courageously forgetting he hadn’t a chance in hell against a particularly sharp Zab Judah in 1998.
In the end, Judah nearly shut him out, but Ward went the distance, which was generally his singular preoccupation. In 2001, Mickey took on Emmanuel Augustus in what turned, from the first bell, into a war—of wills and attrition. Ward won the fight, and seemed less satisfied that he had won than that he had taken part in a rare and remarkable display of brutal courage. Oh yes, and there were also those murderous, back-and-forth bloodbaths with Gatti. I can say little about them that has not already been repeated to excess. Just watch them…it is like heavy-bag training for the soul.
Alfredo Escalera: There were two things that made “El Salsero” a source of pure fistic entertainment: his ability to take scores of clean, crisp, murderous punches and keep moving the only direction he knew…forward, and his unconventional, goofball fashion-sense. It is not often that one of the ring’s hardest heads and biggest hearts also belongs to its class clown. Escalera gave a number of impressive performances including wins over Kuniaki Shibata, Ray Lunny, Sigfredo Rodriguez and Tyrone Everrett. Escalera won the WBC Junior Lightweight Title and defended it ten times. But, again, the history books are full of champions with paper trails that equal or exceed Escalera’s mark.
Escalera was especially watchable in his defeats. In them, he shined with a rugged unwillingness to be broken, even if he was to be beaten. For proof look to his loss to tough future title-challenger Miguel Montilla, and pair of hard-lost fights with legendary hard-man Alexis Arguello during which Arguello’s formidable fists were all but attached to Escalera’a head. Somehow, the iron-jawed Alfredo pressed on and on, actually finding places in the late rounds of both fights to land meaningful punches on the way to defeat. In a post-professional-wrestling comeback, Escalera even shined in dropping a fight to future welterweight champ Gene Hatcher.
A few words on his wardrobe…“El Salsero” often was seen at black-tie affairs wearing designer tuxedos—sans shoes, socks, or both. He often wore bizarre masquerade costumes to highbrow social events, and had a penchant for neon colored accessories. Frequently, he entered the ring with snakes coiled around his neck. By comparison, DeMarcus Corley’s habit of wearing Victoria’s Secret lingerie under his fight trunks seems somehow less provocative.
Randall “Tex” Cobb: Much could be said to expand Cobb’s mythological status, but why bother? What is obvious is enough. You really only need to know one thing. The man has become a blue-collar, blood-and-guts god for his tireless work on one terrible winter’s night in 1982. On that night, Cobb was pounded unmercifully for fifteen-rounds by a particularly sharp Larry Holmes. Cobb was not a great fighter, but possessed a chin that is rivaled historically maybe only by Joe Grim. So Holmes did not need to fight in top form, but he did. Larry’s trademark jab went to work with sinister intent opening up holes to land those thudding right crosses—and opening up holes in Cobb’s face.
Holmes stuck-and-moved all night, and Cobb did all he knew how to do, survive, dig his heels in and take the best the other guy had while waiting for a chance to answer back. His chance never came. So the fight became a contest. Could Holmes, with all his considerable might, knock Cobb out, with all his considerable jaw? He hit the canvas, but, as he says, “When I got up I stuck to my plan—stumbling forward and getting hit in the face.”
Such a quip, because it is too true, is worthy of respect and admiration. At one point Holmes encouraged Cobb to quit and thus spare everyone the ugliness of the macabre spectacle. Cobb simply grumbled some expletive-ridden taunt and the beating continued. Cobb lasted the duration, and Howard Cosell, who had called the fight, was so disgusted—boxing lore has it—that he quit his post as fight commentator forever.
Let’s hear it for the hard-cases, the weird, the long-suffering, bleeding bastards who came off the canvas for one more round, but who there is no place for in the halls of Canastota.
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