Irish Thunder

by Bob Halloran

  “He ain’t hurting ya!” Dickie yelled in the corner. “But you’re standing there and he’s getting points on you!”55

  As the fourth round opened, play-by-play man Tim Ryan said, “The unbeaten Micky Ward, so far has been unimpressive. You can see he has some natural skills and sharp punches, but he has not used them to any real effect so far.”

  Moments later, Micky pounced. He seemed to spring forward from his haunches and landed a hard right hand that knocked Koble to the canvas. The punch was a beautiful right-hand counter over a jab, and the result was a flash knockdown. Micky backed away immediately, and Koble shot right back up to his feet. Referee Richard Steele directed Micky to one corner and brought Koble to another. Koble indicated that he was fine, and the fight continued.

  “Koble wasn’t hurt by it,” Clancy said. “But it sure got his attention. It built Ward’s confidence and changes things around a little bit. He’s much more alive, and throwing combinations now.”

  That one punch changed everything. Micky went on the offensive. He landed a straight right hand and two left hooks that stirred the small crowd up. He was initiating all the action. A big right hand found its mark. Two big lefts to the body were followed by two more shots to the body. By this time, Koble was bleeding badly from his right eye. Blood had smeared all over Micky’s chest, and shoulders, and even his back. As the fourth round came to a close, Dr. Donald Romeo went over to Koble’s corner to take a look at the gash over his right eye. It was deep. Too deep.

  “That’s all,” Romeo said. And the fight was over. Micky was awarded a fourth-round technical knockout. He had walked through the first three rounds without a hint of urgency. His record went to 13-0. His right hand was raised by Richard Steele. He spit his mouthpiece into Dickie’s hands, and the brothers walked out of the ring together, Dickie’s arm around Micky’s shoulder. A decade ago, Micky had sat in the audience and watched Dickie fight Sugar Ray Leonard. Tonight, Dickie sat and watched Micky fight on the same card as Leonard. And that night the two Massachusetts brothers watched Leonard make millions fighting another Massachusetts kid named Marvin Hagler.

  Leonard won a controversial split decision over Hagler. It was the last time Hagler ever fought. He and Leonard split just over twenty-three million dollars that night. Micky and Kelly Koble left with just a few thousand dollars each. But the seeds had been planted. This was the world of big-time boxing, and Micky proved he belonged in it. He walked the streets of Vegas as comfortably as he walked the streets of Lowell. He was not impressed with the glittering lights. Vegas offered him nothing more than a place to ply his trade.

  When the Leonard-Hagler fight was over, the night was over, at least for Micky. He celebrated quietly in his room. Dickie’s night didn’t end until morning. Vegas did lure him; it suited him better than Lowell.

  The next day, Dickie spotted Sugar Ray getting out of a limousine at the Las Vegas airport. He yelled to Leonard and started walking over to him, but a bodyguard intervened. When Leonard acknowledged Dickie, the bodyguard stepped aside and the two men shook hands. Nine years earlier they had touched gloves. For that moment in time, they were equals. Ten rounds later, three judges determined that Leonard was the better man. On this day, no one would dispute that. Dickie stood there still smelling of alcohol. Leonard stood there smelling of the finest bath products. They spoke casually for a few moments, Dickie congratulating Leonard on his big victory the night before, Leonard wishing Dickie and his brother the best of luck. Then they parted ways and flew as they had always traveled, in different directions.

  Three weeks later, Dickie was in the middle of the fight at the Cosmo.

  As part of his probation Dickie was ordered to enroll in an alcohol rehabilitation program, and he told friends that he was thinking about making a comeback. The rehab never happened. The comeback never happened, either. What did happen is that Dickie continued going to the local pubs, but was a little more careful about getting into fights. Some progress was made. Dickie was only arrested three times in the next three years, once for possession of cocaine, once for drunk driving, and once for being disorderly in public.

  Two months after the Cosmo incident, Micky and Dickie spent another night drinking inside the Cosmo. This time they met Ian Thompsen, a writer for the Boston Globe, outside at two o’clock in the morning to show him where the violence had taken place.

  “The fight began here,” Dickie told the newspaper man.

  “Then it came around the corner over here,” Micky said. His words were slurred. “They threw Dickie on the ground, boom! Then I came over and they started hitting me—crack, crack, crack! There was blood right here.”

  “There was a lot of blood,” Dickie added.

  A few months after the Cosmo incident, in August 1987, Micky’s hands had healed enough so that he felt confident about getting back into the ring. Returning to Atlantic City, he needed just four rounds to dispose of Derrick McGuire.

  Micky was now 14-0 with ten knockouts. Teddy Brenner, the chief matchmaker for ESPN on the East Coast, was crazy about him and was looking to make a Micky Ward-Vinny Pazienza match at the Boston Garden. Pazienza was a white Italian kid. Another New Englander, from Cranston, Rhode Island, he was skyrocketing up the ranks with a 27-1 record. Two months before Micky maintained his unblemished record with his win over McGuire, Pazienza won the IBF (International Boxing Federation) lightweight title with a unanimous fifteen-round decision over Greg Haugen. It was a perfect time to get Ward and Pazienza into the ring together, perfect for Micky. For Pazienza, Ward was a bit of a step backward. Pazienza was three years older, and had already fought for and won a title. There was tremendous risk in fighting Micky and very little to gain, other than New England bragging rights. So Pazienza headed to a rematch with Haugen. Pazienza spent the final thirteen years of his career fighting between 154 and 171 pounds. He went from being figuratively “too big” for Micky to being literally too big for Micky. Micky would have to wait to get his chance to duke it out with a white Italian kid who could fight. It would be fourteen years later, and well worth the wait.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Micky continued to enjoy success inside the ring. He’d been a professional fighter for twenty-six months and won all fourteen of his fights, most of them by early knockout. But the knockout he was most interested in was Laurie Ann Carroll. Laurie was only twelve when she started dating the fourteen-year-old boxer with a wild streak. It was an on-again off-again childhood romance that ended after three years. By then, Micky was seventeen, out of high school, and heartbroken. He moved in with his friend Tony Underwood, who says Micky could have had any girl he wanted, except for the one girl he wanted most.

  “He loved Laurie, and could never get over her,” Tony says. “We had girls over all the time, two single guys, but he couldn’t get another relationship started without having Laurie in the back of his mind.”

  So, after a four-year breakup, Micky and Laurie started dating again and eventually moved into an apartment together. Micky had his personal life right where he wanted it and there were no bumps in the road regarding his career path—until he squared off against Edwin Curet.

  “I knew Micky loved going to the body,” Curet would say years later. “I just kept bringing that hand down, blocking that body shot. He might have hit me in the head, but he wasn’t getting me with that.”

  He was right. Micky was never able to land enough effective body punches on Curet. His left hand was swollen so much and so often, it had become more difficult to train and even more difficult to land his left with authority. Micky landed a few hurtful, stinging blows to the body and the head, but not nearly enough of them. He couldn’t knock Curet out, and he wasn’t nearly busy enough to win on points. Micky wasn’t beaten up, but he lost a ten-round decision.

  He returned to his hotel room with Richie Bryan, who had worked the corner that night in Atlantic City. The room was quiet for several minutes. Richie wasn’t sure what to say, and Micky was staring at the car
pet. Finally, Micky looked up and said, “What do I do now?”

  Richie welcomed the opportunity to lighten the mood and responded, “Call your Uncle Gerald and see if you still have a job paving. Looks like you’re gonna need a job.”

  Micky laughed, “I can’t believe you just said that to me.” But he knew that’s what friends were for, and he kept laughing. “Everything was going to be all right,” he thought. “Yes, this was a setback, but only a minor one.”

  Having suffered his first defeat to a non-title contender, it was important for Micky to have an impressive win, and soon. He got it against a Philadelphia welterweight named Joey “Bugsy” Ferrell. Ferrell had only won half of his fourteen fights, but one of them was against the previously undefeated Mike Mungin. He also went the distance against such ranked opponents as John Meekins, Buddy McGirt, and Tony Martin, and he had beaten Johnny Rafuse. This was a fight that Micky should win, but it wouldn’t be easy even under the best of circumstances. Considering that Ferrell had never been stopped, Micky could expect it to go the distance, which was never a good idea because of the shape his hands were in.

  Micky stepped through the ropes wearing a white robe and weighing just over 138 pounds. Ferrell was 7 pounds heavier. Micky, who felt he blew the Curet fight because he wasn’t busy enough in the early rounds, came out firing several hard overhand rights, each one missing. But after one miss in particular, Micky found himself on the inside. Boom, a left hand to the body! That one hurt Ferrell. It was classic Ward. He tapped Ferrell on the head with a short left and then went downstairs with a vengeance. Ferrell should have dropped to a knee. Instead, he crouched and backed away toward the corner with Micky trying to tee him up.

  Micky reached him and started to land several lefts to the body and rights to the head. The referee, Vinny Rainone, stepped in, and Ferrell, grateful for the reprieve, took a moment to rest on both his knees, then rose and paced around the ring. He grimaced in obvious pain. Rainone gave him a standing eight-count and rubbed Ferrell’s gloves on his shirt.

  “Can you continue?” Rainone asked, receiving a head nod in return.

  With forty-seven seconds to go in the first round, Rainone signaled for the fighters to meet back in the center of the ring. Micky wasted no time. He knew his opponent was hurt, so he started throwing left hands to Ferrell’s aching right side. Ferrell had no choice but to block those shots by dropping his right elbow down to his side. That opened him up for the head shots. And Micky delivered. Ferrell’s hands went back up, and Micky went back down to the body. One more shot to those ribs was all it took. Ferrell dropped to his knee again. Rainone jumped in and Micky had his first first-round knockout since David Morin got this ride started two-and-a-half years earlier.

  Ferrell returned to his corner, holding his side in agony. The fight doctor entered the ring and poked Ferrell in the side, causing him even more agony. The ringside diagnosis was that at least one rib was broken.

  “The hand didn’t hurt at all,” Micky said after the fight. “I went to the body because I knew he was coming in heavy. I didn’t want to go to his head right away. I thought I could wait for a later round. I tapped with the hook to the head, and then Boom! I put all my power downstairs. It gives me a lot of confidence to know I can stop a guy who’s never been stopped before.”

  Dickie added, “I’m happy. He listens good. He came in at 139. Last time he fought Curet at 133. He was too light. Now he feels great. He’s going all the way this time.”

  Micky did have his sights set on a rematch with Curet. He wanted to avenge the only blemish on his record. He readily admitted he lost that fight, but he believed that he gave it away in the first five rounds and was certain he could remedy that mistake if given another opportunity. The fight was made and scheduled for ESPN on March 30. But before he got there, he had to get through the Pasadena Kid, Joey Olivera. Olivera had proven five months earlier that he could stand in there with one of the best fighters in the junior welterweight division. Olivera had gone ten rounds with former USBA (United States Boxing Association) junior welterweight champion Terrence Alli, ultimately losing a unanimous decision. Alli was ranked in the top ten, a place where Micky could find himself with another impressive win. Olivera stood in the way, and he was confident that he could beat the rising star.

  “Micky’s only loss is to Curet, and that’s the only real class fighter he’s been in with,” Olivera said. “I’ve been in with a lot of them.”

  True enough, but he had also lost to each and every one of them. Micky squared off with Olivera on February 19. It was Micky’s first time back in Las Vegas since the Koble fight, but this time he was at Bally’s Casino Resort. Despite undergoing back surgery just nine days prior to the fight, Dickie was in Micky’s corner. He was wearing a button-down dress shirt, dress slacks, and dress shoes. He never looked better. Also in Micky’s corner was Freddie Roach. He was an important addition to Team Ward because he had fought and lost to Olivera three years earlier. It was Roach who devised the fight plan, and it was Micky who executed it perfectly.

  There was nothing subtle about the plan. It was obvious from the opening bell that Micky intended to outbox Olivera. Micky was light on his toes, sliding quickly around the ring. He was a moving target that Olivera couldn’t catch. Micky used his jab effectively and kept his opponent at arm’s length as much as possible.

  “This is as much movement as we’ve seen from Ward in any of his fights,” Al Bernstein commented. “This is more like the style of Dickie. We’ve seen Micky slug it out more, but they must have decided this is the way to beat Olivera. Micky goes inside a few times, lands some shots, and then backs away. For an aggressive fighter like Micky, that is tremendous discipline and a willingness to listen to advice. Micky lands combinations and then gets out quickly.”

  Micky was sticking and moving, darting in, landing a few substantial body shots, and backing out quickly. He showed tremendous foot speed and boxing skills. He was putting on a clinic, and Olivera could see the fight slipping away from him. “All right, Mick,” Freddie spoke in the corner this time. “Let’s go with the hook upstairs and the double hook down. Double down is there for you. You’re hurting this guy to the body. Okay? Good combinations and quick out, okay?”

  Micky listened again. He held his street-fighting instincts in check and spent the entire ten rounds moving gracefully and scoring with quick bursts and flurries. This was not the kind of fight that made him a favorite of the ESPN audiences, because there just wasn’t enough blood or confrontation. Both fighters escaped without any real evidence of having been in a ten-round fight. But Micky was back on track. He won the unanimous decision by scores of 98-93, 98-92, and 97-94, and he improved his record to 16 and 1. He also showed everyone that he was capable of doing whatever was needed to get the job done. On this night, that meant working from the outside.

  “This has been the most disciplined effort Micky Ward has had as a pro, by far,” Bernstein said. “All he has to do is keep fighting better fighters. At twenty-two, he’s developing the skills he needs.”

  Micky returned to Lowell to prepare for his rematch with Curet, but the fight never came off. Micky hurt his right hand against Olivera, and he just didn’t have enough time to let it heal. Micky pulled out, and Curet fought Livingstone Bramble on March 30 instead. Bramble knocked him out in the eighth round, and Curet’s career spiraled downhill from there.

  After canceling the bout with Curet, Micky grabbed a fight with a New York kid named David Silva in May 1988. It was nothing more than a chance to keep busy and make a quick buck. Silva had never won a professional fight, and he never would. Fourteen tries, fourteen losses. He did manage to take Micky the full ten rounds, but Micky, who was still bothered by two bad hands, was simply another class of fighter.

  Two months later, Micky needed only two rounds to knock out Philadelphia’s Marvin “Machine Gun” Garris. That was in July. In August, Dickie was arrested back in Lowell for cocaine possession and fined 375 dollars.
It didn’t slow him down, though. He continued doing drugs and training Micky. In September, one month after Dickie’s arrest, Micky fought another boxer from Philly with the nickname “Machine Gun.” Machine Gun Mungin altered the course of Micky’s career and offered him an important life lesson, specifically: “Nobody else is looking out for you. So, you better look out for yourself.”

  Micky had returned to Atlantic City to fight Saoul Mamby on September 9, 1988. “Sweet Saoul” Mamby was a black Jew who turned pro after serving in Vietnam. He began fighting in 1965 and won the WBA junior welterweight title from South Korea’s Sang-Hyun Kim in 1979. Three years earlier, he had lost to the great Roberto Duran on points in a non-title fight. By 1988, he was forty-one years old, had fought in eight title fights, had just upset Glenwood “The Real Beast” Brown, and was ranked eleventh among junior welterweights. He was still a well-respected fighter, and a pretty big name to put on Micky’s resume. He also was known for his willingness to fight anyone anywhere, if permitted.

  Unfortunately Mamby was too sick too fight. Despite his protestations that included prolonged shouting and creative cursing, the fight doctor would not permit him to enter the ring with a fever. Either the fight would have to be canceled or a substitute fighter would have to be found on extremely short notice. No one involved wanted to cancel the fight. There was too much money to be made. Ron Katz, the matchmaker for this bout, frantically went about the business of making a new match. Dozens of phone calls were made to various managers, promoters, and boxing gyms within a radius of ninety square miles. There had to be someone available, someone respectable, someone with a credible record. Even a criminal record would do.

  Enter Mike “Machine Gun” Mungin. Mungin hadn’t fought much in the past three years, and that’s because he had been in prison. Upon his release, he fought on the undercard of Micky’s fight with David Silva four months earlier. Once upon a time, he was considered a potential title contender, and his record now stood at 17-2. Katz thought that he had found his match, but he had to run it by Micky, Dickie, and their mom.