Irish Thunder

by Bob Halloran

  There was a hot young prospect from Worcester named Jose Antonio Rivera who, like Micky several years before, had won his first fourteen professional fights. Rivera was on the rise, and two weeks before his fifteenth pro fight, he traveled to Lowell to get in a few rounds with Micky. He never seemed to fight more than a few rounds anyway. Among his fourteen wins were twelve knockouts before the end of the third round. In fact, three months after Micky had knocked out Genaro Andujar in the third round, Rivera knocked Andujar out in the second.

  “I’m not gonna hold him back,” Rivera’s trainer, Carlos Garcia, told O’Keefe. “I’m gonna let him go all out and see what he can do, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Sure, that’s all right,” O’Keefe said. “If you’re sure that’s what you want.” Garcia looked over at Rivera and smiled, “Jose, he sounds like he wants to know if you can handle Micky Ward. Can you handle Micky Ward, Jose?”

  Rivera nodded. His nickname was “El Gallo” which is Spanish for “The Rooster,” and even if he wasn’t cocksure he could handle Micky Ward, he wasn’t about to show that to anyone in the gym.

  “There you go,” Garcia turned and said to O’Keefe. “I’m gonna have him come after your guy.”

  Now, it was O’Keefe’s turn to smile. “I’ll tell my guy the same thing.” Then O’Keefe clapped his hands together with authority and shouted over to Micky, “Bring it on, Mick. This is for real.”

  O’Keefe took a position next to Garcia. Both trainers were leaning against the canvas looking up through the ropes. Garcia looked at O’Keefe and then at Rivera as if to say, “Wait ’til you see what my boy can do.” O’Keefe responded with a wink. He already knew what Micky could do, and soon, so would everybody else.

  “I’m just gonna say this so there are no surprises,” O’Keefe said to Garcia. “Micky’s a seasoned veteran. He’s gonna pop your guy once, and then he’s gonna hit him a little harder, and then a little harder. If Jose drops his elbow to avoid the body shot, Micky’s gonna drop him.”

  “Don’t you worry,” Garcia said. “He’ll be fine.”

  The bell rang and thirty seconds later it was over. Brian Meade, a childhood friend of Micky’s who’d been boxing at the gym to stay in shape, was there that day.

  “It was a head shot,” he says. “Micky just dropped him. Rivera’s eyes were in the back of his head somewhere. He was out for quite a bit of time. They didn’t have to call any medical people, but it was a while before he got his senses back. People who were there realized that Micky’s hands were good again, and that he could still hit.”

  Two weeks later, Rivera won the Massachusetts State welterweight title. Four months after that, he knocked out Clarence Coleman in the third round. And eight years after that, he won the WBA welterweight championship, but he didn’t last thirty seconds with Micky Ward that day in a dusty old gym in Lowell.

  Unfortunately, that was Micky’s last “real” fight for a while. His protracted negotiations with Johnny Gags took several months, and it was a few months more before Micky and Mickey met with Al Valenti again. This time Valenti was interested. In November 1995, Valenti sat down with Micky and Mickey at Joe Tecce’s Ristorante, a short walk from his Canal Street office, and explained how things could work.

  “Look, Micky,” Valenti said. “They’re doing these fights over at Wonderland Racetrack now, and these fights are a great thing. They’ll let you get back into the game. I can make matches that are the right matches for you. I won’t put you in there with a killer. We’ll build up your confidence and get you back into the game.”

  Wonderland Greyhound Park in Revere, Massachusetts, is a racetrack that regularly doubles as a low-scale boxing venue. The ring is set up in the middle of the room opposite several betting windows. Gamblers filter in and out to place their bets, and while waiting in line, they can be distracted for a few moments by live boxing going on behind them. The racetrack also offers a 1-percent promotional fee for every dollar bet on the boxing matches. Valenti knew that when he promoted fights at Wonderland, the track would help him market the event, and the promotional fee would be just enough money to make sure that he had a cushion. These fights weren’t going to be moneymakers for anyone involved, but they could be an investment with a big payoff for anyone on board from the beginning.

  “As a local promoter, you know you’re not going to make a lot of money on these local fights,” Valenti said. “But you’re looking for someone you can grow with. In the meantime, you don’t want to lose money. You’re really looking to break even. So, I found a nice middle ground there. I knew a couple of hundred people from Lowell would show up, and I’d be fine. I’m looking at this as an opportunity. I’ve got the momentum, and now I can look at a guy like Micky, and I say, ‘Look, I can get you two or three wins and you’re back in the game plan.’ I’m looking at Micky further down the road.”

  Micky and Mickey also enlisted the help of Joe Lake, a trainer working out of the World Gym in Somerville, Massachusetts. Lake had trained or managed a lot of fighters such as Jon Mercogliano, Johnny Rafuse, and Dana Rosenblatt and frequently set up fights with Al Valenti.

  “All I’m looking for is a chance,” Micky told Lake. “I was thinking maybe you could get me on some of Dana’s cards. You know, if you can help get me a fight, and then get me on the card, I’ll fight anybody. I’m ready to go anytime.”

  Lake was impressed by Micky’s willingness to humble himself. Micky had been the diamond in the rough, the TV star fighting on ESPN all the time, and now he was willing to deprecate himself by letting someone else be the main event. Lake wanted to help, but he knew that getting involved with Micky meant getting involved with everyone in his family. That was something he couldn’t stomach.

  “I’ll tell you this, Mick,” Lake said. “I can’t do this if your mother’s going to be telling me what to do all the time. I’m not gonna get involved if this whole thing is gonna be a fuck!”

  Micky and Mickey knew what Lake meant, and they wanted what he wanted.

  “What I will do is let everybody know I’m making the decisions,” Lake continued. “If that can’t be abided by, then I’m out. I’ll step back.”

  “That’s not going to be a problem,” O’Keefe said. “We’re doing this together. I get him in shape. He works his ass off. And you get him the fights. Nobody else will be in the middle of this. That’s what Micky wants. And that’s the way it’s gonna be.”

  Lake was pleased, but unconvinced. He called Alice Ward directly and waited to hear her give the same assurances. Alice stepped up and volunteered to stay out of it.

  “This is Micky’s turn,” Alice said. “He wants one more go-round. He’s watching those kids out there, and he knows he can beat them. He can, you know. He can still beat them.”

  “I know that, Alice,” Lake said. “And now that I know everyone’s going to be on the same page, we’ll see where this thing goes.”

  A month after lunch at Tecce’s with Valenti, Lake and Valenti were able to put Micky on a fight card at Wonderland Greyhound Park. In fact, Micky was scheduled to fight even before he had an opponent. Only days before December 30, 1995, Micky learned he’d be fighting Edgardo Rosario from Springfield, Massachusetts. Rosario was making his professional debut. It was a match. But it was a severe mismatch.

  Micky bounded out of his corner and knocked Rosario down with the first punch he threw. Rosario got up only to be knocked down two more times and the fight was over. The audience may or may not have gotten its money’s worth, but according to Lake, Micky never got his money at all.

  “In that first comeback fight we were supposed to get four hundred dollars,” Lake says. “But Valenti, who promoted the damn thing, says he doesn’t have enough cash on him. So, he hands me a hundred and fifty bucks in cash, and then writes a check for two hundred and fifty dollars. The check bounced, and we never got another dollar back.”

  There were two more fights at Wonderland, two more knockouts, and two more four-hundred-do
llar paydays. The fights were coming quickly now, but the money was not. Micky fought Rosario in December, Alberto Alicea in January, and Alex Ortiz in March, knocking them all out by the third round. Alicea wasn’t much more than a masochist who must have enjoyed pain and losing. He had lost thirty-one of thirty-seven fights when he faced Micky. Ortiz never won a professional boxing match, despite seventeen attempts. It had been nearly two years since Micky began his comeback, and he had only fought five times and made a grand total of two thousand dollars. Things were as Valenti had promised. Micky was being put in front of guys he could beat. There was a plan in place. He was essentially starting his career over again. As a twenty-year-old, Micky came out of the gate fighting inexperienced kids, and he knocked them all out. Now, as a thirty-year-old, he was doing the same thing. The difference, however, was that this time, Micky wouldn’t have to wait as long to catch a big break.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Micky’s big break went by the name of Louis “The Viper” Veader. He was a real up-and-comer from Providence, Rhode Island. Veader was unbeaten in his first thirty-one professional fights. It was the kind of a record reserved for only the best in the game. Nonetheless, Veader had only fought unknowns. “I was in a position where I had to take it,” Micky says. “C’mon, if I didn’t take it, I wasn’t going to get any other shots at a title. It was my shot to get back on ESPN and get up there in the rankings, into the top twenty. . . . I look at it like this, it’s pressure, but it’s opportunity. I controlled my own destiny. It was all up to me. Boxing is in your control. A fighter can do that.”

  That’s true inside the ring. Outside the ring, Micky’s life had been frequently out of control. The same was true for Veader. Just another tough kid growing up in a housing project in Providence, Veader wasn’t introduced to boxing until he was sixteen years old. That introduction was made by Carl Prout, the stepfather of one of Veader’s friends. Prout did most of his boxing in prison, but his brother, Don Prout, was a heavyweight in the 1960s who had two memorable fights with Tom McNeeley. In 1962, a month after McNeeley lost a heavyweight championship fight against Floyd Patterson, he also lost to Prout at the auditorium in Providence. McNeeley won the rematch two months later at the Boston Garden.

  Carl Prout was training fighters at Grundy’s Gym in Central Falls, Rhode Island. He recognized potential in Veader, who had shown some talent as a football player. After several tries, he finally convinced Veader to give boxing a try. Veader didn’t expect anything from boxing other than a good workout. He ended up with much more.

  “I never wanted to be a boxer,” Veader says. “I loved football. I fell into boxing and got good at it pretty quick. When that happened, I just wanted to take it as far as I could take it.”

  Most of the kids Prout picked off the streets to come into his gym left when the work or the punches got too hard. Veader stayed, and Prout stayed with him. Three years after he had thrown his first punch, Veader just missed making the 1988 United States Olympic team. He won three Golden Gloves championships and then turned pro in 1990. His career didn’t follow the same path as Micky’s had. Micky became a regular on ESPN and fought most of his fights in Atlantic City. Veader never got a sniff of the big time and spent most of his ring time in places like the Windjammer Inn in Westerly, Rhode Island, or New Bedford High School and the Teachers Union Hall in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He was a victim of bad management.

  “Ring magazine called me the most protected guy,” Veader says. “That just pissed me off. I’ll fight anybody. But my management guys wouldn’t make any fights. And when they did, it would fall through, or it wouldn’t be the guy I was training for. I don’t think they had the connections.”

  Veader’s first manager was Vito DeLuca, and two years into Veader’s career when he was still fighting six-and eight-rounders against guys who could barely stand up on their own, DeLuca was preoccupied with his own legal problems. DeLuca was a reputed soldier in the Patriarca crime family. His criminal record included gambling and extortion convictions, and he was charged with the gangland-style slaying of Anthony Mirabella in May 1982. DeLuca, it was said, controlled the docks in Providence. He also dabbled in the fight game, and wound up with control of Veader’s career. In February 1992, however, he was arrested by federal agents, convicted of insurance fraud and weapons charges, and sentenced to more than three years in prison. Just as with Micky and Gagliardi, that conviction put Veader’s career on hold.

  “I had a lot of fights with Vito,” Veader recalls. “He had me locked up in a contract. He had legal issues. I wanted out. He was trying to manage my career while he was in jail. I wanted to break free from it. It was a contract issue. I couldn’t fight. Nobody would touch me. Nobody would work with me.”

  For that reason, Veader didn’t fight from May 1993 to June 1994. When he did start fighting again with the help of Rhode Island lawyers Mark Pass and Richard Dion, nothing much had changed. Veader was still fighting stiffs in back rooms, racetracks, and bars. It went on that way for eight more fights and two more years until Al Valenti got a phone call from Mark Pass. The two men had spoken a few times when Veader had fought on Valenti’s card at Wonderland two months earlier. Micky had been on that card as well. Pass and Valenti met at a small deli not far from Valenti’s office on Canal Street in Boston.

  “Are you still handling Micky Ward?” Pass asked.

  “Yeah, for what it’s worth,” Valenti answered. He was immediately intrigued. The guy managing Veader was asking about Ward. It was obvious where this conversation was headed. And Valenti liked the idea right away. Veader was a terrific boxer, but not a big puncher. He was a rising star, and Micky was either rising or fading. Either way, two New England kids with a solid fan base could sell tickets.

  “There’s not a lot out there for Micky right now,” Valenti continued coyly. “He’s kind of in limbo right now. He’s not a contender. So the ranked guys don’t want to fight him. And the young guys are looking for sure things, and they don’t know what to make of Micky. It’s just been tough to find a good match for him.”

  “What about my guy?” Pass said, getting right to the point. “Look, we’re ready to move him. He’s been lingering at the bottom of the division for too long. A fight with Micky should be worth something, both in terms of money and credibility. We want the fight. Can you get it for us?”

  Valenti wasn’t certain. He’d had several conversations about Micky Ward with Ron Katz and ESPN’s Top Rank promotions, but there was no interest. Now, he had both Ward and Veader. That just might pass muster. He called Katz.

  “Ron, I want to talk to you about making a Micky Ward fight.” Click.

  Katz hung up. So, Valenti dialed again.

  “Ron.”

  Click.

  Katz had done it again. Valenti wasn’t angry. He knew Katz was legitimately uninterested in promoting any more Micky Ward fights. Micky was old news to him. Micky had no future, and he had no moneymaking potential. It wasn’t worth his time to discuss Micky Ward. Valenti persisted.

  “Ron, don’t hang up. Just hear me out. If you don’t listen to me, shame on you.”

  “What is it?” Katz said impatiently.

  “Look, I’ve got a great match. We’re gonna make Louis Veader-Micky Ward.”

  There was dead silence on the phone for several seconds. Katz hadn’t hung up. Valenti knew he had a chance.

  “Here’s the bottom line, Ron. The kid, Veader, is 31 and 0. It’s a great local fight. One kid’s from Providence. The other kid’s from Lowell. I’m telling you it will work.”

  Katz was listening.

  “Plus, we’ve got the show at the FleetCenter the weekend of the Boston Marathon. We’ve already got Dana Rosenblatt going up against Howard Davis. This gives us another local fight. Can’t you just see those seats filling up?”

  Katz paused and said, “Let me think about it.”

  Katz thought about it long enough to improve the idea. He called Valenti back and said, “Let’s make it the co
-feature with Rosenblatt. And we’ll make it a twelve-round fight for the WBU Intercontinental light welterweight title.”

  That was little more than a fictional title to give the fight some prestige. The negotiations were quick and easy. After expenses, and cuts going to promoters, managers, and trainers, Micky and Veader would both walk away with a little less than ten thousand dollars. O’Keefe would be receiving his first check of any kind since he began working with Micky. The money was right for everyone involved, and Micky’s team was brimming with confidence.

  “I went down to Foxwoods with Cleo Surprenant to see Veader fight once,” O’Keefe remembers. “Micky was with us. To me, that was good, because Micky never liked to watch tape on any of the fighters he faced. So, at least we knew he’d already seen Veader. And we knew that Micky was confident he could beat him.”

  Confidence was crucial, because it was a lack of it that had contributed to the end of Micky’s first career. Now, even more than ever before, Micky was in the fight of his life.

  “I have to win, or that’s it,” Micky told Ron Borges of the Boston Globe a week before the fight. “That’s 100 percent for sure.”

  Micky’s assessment was dead-on accurate. Veader could give Micky credibility or he could take it all away from him. A win for Micky could show people that he was back and ready to be a factor in the welterweight division, but a loss would prove that his best days were long behind him. Some people in boxing may have thought of him as a dinosaur, too old and too slow to survive. But Micky was only thirty. He wasn’t old. He was experienced. “My whole career, I fought the best,” Micky said. “It’s time [Veader] fought someone like me. There’s a hell of a lot of pressure on him now. I remember what that was like. He has everything to lose. He’s in the position I was in years ago when I fought Harold Brazier and Charles Murray back-to-back. If he wants to go up, he has to get by someone like me. There’s no pressure on me now. I’ve been on the bottom. The only place I can go is up. I really don’t think he has any idea who Micky Ward is, but if he’s watching the old tapes like against Murray, he’s not seeing who he’s going to be in with. That guy didn’t care anymore. I was burned-out. I’d lost my self-confidence by then. I’d lost all faith in my ability. It was a combination of my hand problems and my personal problems and just being burned-out after taking too many tough fights in a row. After I lost my big fights, I just felt like I was getting used. But I’m mentally ready for this fight. He’s never been hurt and had to fight back to win. He’s never been hit and felt like he was in Disneyland for three rounds and come out of it standing. I know about that. It seems like a lifetime since I walked into the West End Gym with my brother. It’s so long ago, I don’t remember if I liked it or not, but I must have because I kept coming back. I been through a lot since then. For a while, my mind wasn’t there and it wasn’t fun no more. I kept asking why I was there. Saturday I’ll know why I’m there.”