by Bob Halloran
“We’ve got a guy from Philadelphia,” Katz said as he rushed into the locker room of the Resorts International Hotel.
“Who is it?” Dickie asked.
“Mike Mungin.”
“Didn’t he just get out of jail?” Alice asked.
“Yeah, but you remember him. He fought on the card right here back in May. He lost to John Meekins. Really, Micky, this should be an easy win. You take him out, and we’ll move into position for a title fight later this year.”
In an effort to increase his foot speed and durability, Micky had begun training more with Nautilus equipment and came into this fight a little lighter than usual at 136 pounds, not a concern if he were to fight another junior welterweight. And since Mungin had been approved by Katz and the boxing commission, Micky had every right to assume that Mungin would come in at an appropriate weight.
But just a few hours before the fight, Mungin arrived weighing 154 pounds. Micky and his advisors, such as they were, were in quite a bind. Micky was the main event. If he backed out, the entire fight card would be canceled. Nobody would be paid. Micky had the option to turn down the fight, and who could blame him if he did? Weight divisions were established in boxing for a reason. Someone weighing eighteen pounds more than his opponent had a distinct advantage. The difference in size and strength could actually be dangerous for Micky, but as a former street fighter who routinely took on kids sixty pounds heavier than himself, Micky didn’t seem too concerned.
“I’ll fight him,” Micky said.
A more astute manager might have attempted to talk Micky out of the fight. Even he concurs several years later.
“I shouldn’t have fought Mungin,” Micky says now. “I wish I had somebody around to tell me not to. I just told my mom and Dickie that I was gonna fight. What could they do?”
Matchmakers, managers, and promoters are in control of a boxer’s career. Without them, boxers would spend an awful lot of time shadowboxing and perfecting their work on the speed bag. Alice could have stood up and said, “There’s not going to be a fight unless you get somebody in here who qualifies as a junior welterweight.”
Instead she renegotiated for more money, upping Micky’s purse from fifteen thousand to seventeen thousand five hundred, and the fight was on.
Katz, Dickie, and Alice, all in good conscience, probably had every reason to believe that Micky would beat Mungin. That was a reasonable belief, and they probably held on to it right up until the time they saw Mungin with his shirt off.
He was huge—a tank, only stronger.
“Mungin’s the strongest guy I ever fought, just because of the size,” Micky recalls. “He could really punch hard. He was a strong kid. That was the first time I ever got knocked down.”
With Mamby watching from ringside along with heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, Mungin stepped into the ring, and it was announced that he weighed in at 145 pounds. Micky and his family knew better. Micky weighed in at 136 pounds.
Mungin appeared to be in outstanding physical condition. He was cut. Bulging biceps, big shoulders, and abs of steel. Clearly, he’d been working out in jail, and training since his release. He was two inches shorter than Micky, but loomed much larger.
The plan was to stay away from Mungin for as long as it took for him to get tired, and then try to take him out. Dickie believed that Mungin, despite the physical appearances, would be out of shape and would get tired sooner. It was a sound strategy. But it didn’t work.
There were too many times when Micky didn’t jab enough, and Mungin was able to get on the inside where he could use his strength to his advantage. In those instances, Micky wasn’t just getting hit. He was getting hurt.
“I think Micky is making a tremendous mistake by not trying to use the jab,” Al Bernstein said during the ESPN broadcast. “Micky Ward’s a good inside fighter, but he’s facing a man who weighs a lot more than him. One forty-five is what he’s listed at. Mungin could be at 150, and he’s much stronger on the inside.”
As Micky stood for the start of the fifth, Dickie started to leave the ring, but turned back for one final instruction, “Mick, the first thirty seconds, run! All right!”
They were still waiting for Mungin to show fatigue, but it only happened in spurts, then Mungin would appear revitalized and would begin to take control of the fight.
“Micky Ward is making this a really tough fight,” Bernstein observed. “He’s standing there taking those shots from Mungin. I’m not sure why. He’s shown the ability to move. He’s going to look back at this fight and realize the reason it was so difficult is because he didn’t use his jab.”
Micky’s nose was bleeding intermittently throughout the fight. His cutman, Ed Aliano, known as “The Clot,” was doing a good job keeping it under control between rounds, but each time Mungin connected, the blood would begin flowing. In the sixth round, a cut opened over Micky’s left eye. Micky was trading punches too often. In one exchange against the ropes, Mungin popped Micky’s chin with a couple of uppercuts, snapping Micky’s head upward like a Pez dispenser.
Late in the sixth, Micky made a crucial mistake. He pushed Mungin against the ropes preparing to trade blows on the inside, but then he thought better of it. He stepped away to regroup, dropping his hands just a bit, and Mungin sprang off the ropes and landed a fully extended straight right that sent Micky sprawling across the ring. Micky took three off-balance steps backward before falling to the canvas on his backside. It was the first time he’d been knocked down in his professional career. He popped up quickly, but he was clearly hurt.
As the round neared its conclusion, Micky tried to tie Mungin up, but Mungin broke free of the clinch and tossed Micky across the ring like a rag doll. Micky flew across the ring, landing face-first into the turnbuckle.
There wasn’t much said in Micky’s corner, nor was there much time to say it. Aliano had to tend to Micky’s bloody nose and the cut above his eye. Dickie had to explain to the ring doctor that Micky was fine, and Micky had to confirm that by nodding his head and saying, “Yes, I can continue.”
Despite Aliano’s best efforts, Micky appeared for the seventh round still bleeding from his nose and eye.
“This would be an upset of major proportions if Mike Mungin could win this bout,” Bernstein said. “Micky is taking a real beating at this stage.”
Micky made it to the final bell. He made it through a fight in which he was knocked down for the first time. But Micky had never been so beaten up, not on the streets, and not in the ring. In the last round, another cut opened up. It was a nasty, deep gash high up on his left cheekbone just under his eye. It was swollen and wide open. In the end, Micky’s face was bleeding from three different places. He looked awful, and Mungin didn’t have a mark on him.
Waiting for the decision was a formality. Micky knew he had lost. Mungin knew he had won. The three judges were less certain. All of them scored the fight for Mungin, but two of them had it 95-94, and the third scored it 96-93. They were the only three people who witnessed the fight who thought it was that close.
Back in the locker room after the fight, Micky received a surprise visit from Carmen Graziano, a well-known trainer from New Jersey. Graziano offered Micky his business card right in front of Dickie and offered to train him.
“Give me a call if you ever want some help,” Graziano said. “And by the way, that was bullshit. You should never have fought that kid. You should have just took your money and went home.”
But not taking the fight was never an option for Micky.
Micky’s second loss in the last twelve months wasn’t much of a setback. Promoter Bob Arum saw it for what it was—a mismatch. Micky was a junior welterweight, and he had lost to a middleweight.
“They shouldn’t have fought,” Arum was quoted as saying in the Boston Globe. “Losing in this case is no big deal.”
Then he confirmed that Micky would be headlining at the Boston Garden in November against a highly ranked perennial contender named Harold Brazi
er for the North American Boxing Federation (NABF) junior welterweight championship.
“That’s an important fight,” Arum said.
But that fight didn’t happen. The problem with Micky’s right hand had been exacerbated during the Mungin fight and got worse during training. He couldn’t hit the heavy bag two consecutive days without his hand swelling up. There was no way he could be ready on November 15. He was, however, ready for a quick tune-up a month later.
It was a mere three months after his loss to Mungin that Micky was back inside the same ring at Resorts International taking on the Brazilian junior welterweight champion, Francisco Tomas Da Cruz.
Micky entered the ring with his white robe and trunks, the robe still reading MICKEY WARD with the incorrect e in his first name. Mickey efe, whose name is spelled with the e, and who had trained Micky a dozen years ago in the Silver Mittens, joined Dickie in the corner for this fight. O’Keefe had been assisting Micky and Dickie at the gym for the past couple of months, and Dickie was impressed with his contributions in such a short time.
The referee, Ted Pick, brought the fighters to the center of the ring, voiced the customary instructions and said, “Give me a nice clean fight. Good luck to both of you.”
Da Cruz came out and landed beautiful body shots, but they weren’t punishing like Micky’s could be, and Micky was starting to land a few.
“Micky taps you here,” O’Keefe explains pointing to his head, and then to his ribs. “Then he taps you there, and then he steps. Then it’s harder. Then it’s faster. And that’s how it wears you down.”
Sometimes the wearing-down process took a little longer. They call it chopping down a tree. Usually that takes a lot of swings with an axe, but that tree eventually falls. Tonight, Da Cruz fell in the third round.
The crowd was quiet until Micky switched to his southpaw stance and tapped Da Cruz with a soft shot to the head. Micky immediately followed it up with a left hook that he slipped below Da Cruz’s right elbow, nailing him in the ribs. The fans knew right away that that shot did some damage.
Da Cruz bounced away from Micky and fell back into the ropes, but the ropes propelled him back toward Micky, who had now returned to his orthodox, righty stance. Unable to strike the flailing target, Micky returned to the body. Da Cruz dropped to both knees. He was able to rise quickly, but while Pick began counting, Da Cruz indicated that he was in too much pain to continue. With fifteen seconds to go in the third round, the fight was stopped, and Micky was back. He was a winner again.
“Micky’s got a gift,” O’Keefe says. “God gave him a gift. He’s got little hands. It’s like he’s got a woman’s fingers. I shit on him about it all the time. But when he puts that glove on, it becomes a part of him. . . . And when he hits with that hook to the body, it’s like being shot. It feels like it comes out the other side. And when you see guys with that delayed reaction, and then they fall. That’s what it is.”
O’Keefe knows firsthand what he’s talking about. Micky cracked O’Keefe’s ribs during a sparring session once.
A month later, Micky faced the biggest fight of his career—a title fight—for the USBA’s junior welterweight champion. All he had to do was beat Frankie Warren, a task far easier said than done.
At thirty years old, Warren was considered a seasoned veteran whose age had yet to significantly slow him down. He was hard to hit, and he hit hard. With that style Warren had won his first twenty-five fights before dropping a lopsided decision to Buddy McGirt in a battle for the vacant IBF title. Warren won his next two fights and the USBA title along with it. Now he was putting it on the line against an up-and-coming Irish kid from Massachusetts.
Granted the USBA title wasn’t as prestigious as the WBC (World Boxing Council), the IBF, or the WBA, but it was a title, and it could lead to another one. This was the shot that could give Micky a series of bigger and better shots.
Micky was only twenty-three, preparing for a championship fight, and soon to be a father. Laurie was pregnant. It was joyous news for both of them. Though they weren’t married, they were living together, and they were happy. As one of nine children, Micky was excited to be starting a family of his own, and he was confident that boxing would provide his child with a good home and a sense of security. Things were happening very quickly now.
It was a CBS Sports Sunday telecast when Micky Ward met Frankie Warren at Caesars in Atlantic City on January 15, 1989. By this time, Micky was ranked number ten by the USBA. Warren was the champion. He was also ranked fourth in the IBF and number nine in the WBA. Micky was stepping up to the big time.
More than a hundred people from Lowell came to New Jersey to see Micky’s championship bout. Among them were his mother, father, and seven sisters. They were all ringside. Dickie was in the corner along with O’Keefe. The fight took place three days after Dickie had been arrested for drunk driving.
O’Keefe had been there off and on since Micky’s days in the Silver Mittens, and it was O’Keefe who kept Micky training long after Dickie would say, “That’s enough.” O’Keefe had watched several tapes of Warren’s fights, and he told Micky:
“Right now, Frankie Warren is in the gym. He’s in there right now, and he’s on that heavy bag going bop, bop, bop, bop. . . . He’s gonna come after you, and he’s not gonna stop throwing punches.”
So, Micky and Mickey continued their long days of training. If Micky was going to lose this fight, it wasn’t going to be because he was unprepared or not in good enough shape.
Warren was tiny, and he was huge at the same time. He stood only 5-foot-3, and possessed squatty little legs. But he had broad shoulders, a thick chest, and rock-solid arms. He stayed low and lunged forward with his jab, and that’s how he got himself within range to land his vicious body blows. He threw with everything he had and was relentless in his pursuit of Micky.
Early on, Micky was taking a beating. It was as if he knew Warren couldn’t hurt him, so he didn’t worry about the punches that were landing. Most of them were landing on his arms anyway, but he wasn’t even trying to avoid them. He didn’t move his feet much, and he didn’t make Warren worry about return blows.
Micky finally landed a good body shot with his left hand in the fourth round. He followed that up with a solid right and a big left-hand uppercut. Another body shot, and a left hook to the head that rocked Warren. The fight was turning in Micky’s favor.
“He does have a beautiful left hook to the body,” CBS analyst Gil Clancy said. “I hope he utilizes it.”
But Warren was able to retreat and jab his way out of trouble. Soon, Warren was back on the attack, once again throwing nonstop punches. The fight resumed its original pattern. Warren was perpetual motion, by far the busier fighter, and Micky tried to be economical and efficient. It wasn’t working.
Alice Ward left her seat after the sixth round and went over to speak with Micky. She told him what Dickie and Mickey O’Keefe had been telling him all night long.
“You have to fight back, Micky,” she said. “This is for the title, honey. Look at him. He just keeps punching. You do that, and you’ll win.”
Her words of encouragement went unheeded. The next six rounds were identical to the previous six. Micky was pounded to the body with wide, looping punches. When he engaged and fired punches in combinations, he got the better of Warren. When he stood there and let Warren beat him like a heavy bag, he lost the rounds.
“Frankie Warren does leave himself open,” Clancy said. “But Micky just doesn’t punch at all. With Warren, the shoulders are coming at you, the head is coming at you. The punches keep coming, and he always gets off first.”
Before the decision was announced, Clancy concluded, “Even if Micky Ward loses this fight, he’s going to learn what it takes to be a top-ten contender.”
Micky lost on the scorecards of all three judges. Lynne Carter scored it 117-111. Al Morris had it 116-112. And Joseph Pasquale saw a slightly more even contest, but gave it to Warren, 115-113.
Micky had
lost his first title shot. In order to reposition himself in the junior welterweight division, he had to take a small step backwards. The opponent chosen for him was twenty-five-year-old Clarence Coleman. It was Coleman whom Frankie Warren had beaten for the USBA light welterweight title in July 1988, only six months before Warren defended that title against Ward. That made Coleman a perfect match. He was eminently beatable, but he still represented a quality opponent. Beating him would put Micky right back on track, and losing to him wouldn’t completely derail Micky’s career. So, with Laurie eight months pregnant, Micky returned to Atlantic City to fight “Classy” Clarence Coleman at the Showboat Hotel on May 23, 1989.
Micky jogged to the ring in his white silk robe. Dickie led the way. Richie Bryan was right behind them. Micky’s robe had his name, MICKY WARD, on the back. Dickie’s shirt still read MICKEY WARD.
Micky needed a win. He entered the ring as a hungry fighter, and he was met by a man equally starved for a victory. Coleman had followed up his loss to Warren with a loss to Tony Martin, so he needed to win to be considered a contender.
In the fifth, it looked to be over.
“A big right hand again by Ward drives Coleman back into the ropes,” play-by-play announcer Barry Tomkins exclaimed. “That hurt Coleman. An uppercut! And another right hand. And Coleman’s in trouble. A left hand drives him back into the ropes, and down goes Coleman.”
It had as much to do with the pressure as the punishment. Micky’s punches were coming from all directions, and all Coleman could do was dodge and duck and flail with his back against the ropes. The assault was so fast and furious that Coleman wasn’t able to throw anything back. He finally collapsed to the canvas. Perez jumped in to protect him, and Coleman bounced right back up.
