by Bob Halloran
Neary was born and raised in Liverpool, England, but he was of Irish heritage. In fact, his nickname was “The Shamrock Express.” To Cedric, Sal, and Al, a good old-fashioned bout between two tough Irishmen sounded like a perfect match. More important, HBO concurred, and Micky would get his first six-figure payday. He agreed to fight Neary at the Olympia Grand Hall in Kensington, England, for one hundred thousand dollars, by far the biggest purse of his career. He would fight outside the United States for the first time. He would make his HBO debut, and he would fight for the WBU light welterweight title. He was getting his chance to be a world champion, just as Dickie had promised and boldly predicted. It was all coming together.
“It didn’t make sense for Neary’s people,” Valenti figured. “The minute I called Al Gavin to talk about it, he was just as excited as I was. We could assess the fight fairly accurately. We figured it would be a tough fight, but one that Micky could win. And Micky knew then that if he fought a marginal guy, so what? He wanted to fight the best guy out there. His window of opportunity was closing. He figured Reggie Green’s resume was a lot more impressive than Shea Neary’s, and he’d already beaten Green.”
Team Ward, which included Micky, Dickie, Sal, and the two Als, Valenti and Gavin, traveled to England one week before the fight. They received twenty thousand dollars for training expenses which would cover the hotel for the entire party, food, and sparring partners. According to Sal, “The weather was lousy. The food was bad. The coffee, I hated.” He was miserable, and he was worried that if he couldn’t please himself, he wouldn’t be able to please Micky.
“Part of my job was to make sure everybody was satisfied,” he said. “If I can’t keep the trainers happy, then Micky’s not gonna be happy.”
The odds in England against Micky winning the fight were 5 to 2, and there were betting establishments all over the place willing to take some action. The two Als went out for a walk on Thursday, a day before the weighin, two days before the fight. They went on for about eight miles ducking into gambling halls all along the way. In each place the conversation was the same.
“How much will you take on the Neary fight?” Valenti said with his very American accent. “Will you take a thousand?”
The guy in the betting window would then make a phone call and tell Valenti that they would only take a hundred.
“He could tell I’m from the states, and if I’m looking to lay that kind of cash on Micky Ward, then I must know something,” Valenti deduced. “They got nervous. They’ll take the loss on 5 to 2, but not for a thousand bucks. So, we walked a little bit further and placed a few more hundred-dollar bets at a few different windows.”
As a tough kid who did most of his fighting close to home and on the East Coast, Micky was used to having the crowd on his side. But even though there was a large Irish community in Liverpool because so many people had come over from Ireland during the potato famine of the 1920s, they would not be cheering for Irish Micky Ward. This was Neary’s turf, and the Shamrock Express was a real fan favorite. They would be eleven thousand strong at the Olympia Grand Hall, and nearly all of them would be in Neary’s corner.
“He tried to intimidate me in his hometown,” Micky recalls. “I said, ‘No way.’ I don’t care where I am. You can have the whole country behind you, but it’s only you and me in the ring.”
Micky was first to enter the ring with the sound of Whitesnake’s “Here I Go Again” blaring over the sound system. He was sporting a goatee for the first time in his career, and wearing yellow boxing gloves and white trunks with black trim. He stood and watched Neary come out with musical accompaniment from the Wild Irish Rovers. Green lights flashed throughout the Olympia, and Neary, wearing green gloves, pounded himself in the head with surprising force. This was as big a night for him as it was for Micky. He was a national hero performing for the first time on an international stage, and he was putting his undefeated record to the test.
“We think that’s an empty record,” Dickie told HBO. “He hasn’t fought anybody.”
Micky went forehead-to-forehead with Neary as referee Micky Vann delivered the pre-fight instructions with a thick cockney accent.
“Come out when you hear the bell. And don’t mess about.”
The fighters obeyed and as the fight began, they immediately went back to standing forehead-to-forehead. This time, however, they were exchanging blows. There would be no graceful movements around the ring in this fight, no Ali shuffles, no stinging jabs. These guys were prepared to lean on one another, plod around the ring, and pound away with power shot after power shot. It was how Micky liked it, and how Neary liked it.
Neary was nearly Micky’s twin. The two men were built the same and had similar short, reddish hair. And they fought the same. They threw hard punches and they took hard punches. In many respects, Neary was the perfect opponent for Micky. He wasn’t especially fast with his feet or his hands, and he stood right in front of Micky, which allowed Micky to be extremely accurate with his punches. It was an odd strategy for Neary, because he had invited Reggie Green to England to spar with him before the fight. Green had used the “stand in front of the guy and take those body shots” style, and it didn’t work. Now, Neary was doing the same thing.
“All right, if we take him out early, we take him out early,” Dickie said after the second. “Knock him out. We don’t need to go to a decision. All right, keep your hands up. None of this moving around like that. Pump the double jab. It’s been good for you. Jab him. Jab him. Double jab!”
Neary’s cornerman, Judas Clottey, offered the same advice, saying, “Keep working the jab. You’re looking great, but you’ve got to keep that jab going. Don’t let him dictate the pressure.”
Back on the other side of the ring, Dickie blessed himself and took the stool out of the ring with him. As he stepped off the apron, he handed the stool to Sal, and they sat down together.
“Sal wanted to be in the corner for the Neary fight,” Dickie said. “We didn’t need him. Al Gavin’s there. I’m there. What do we need Sal for? He’s clumsy and in the way. I banged into him once going up to the apron, killed my knee. I don’t need that when I’m trying to get to Micky.”
Although Sal was admittedly nervous and struggled to keep his hands from shaking when Gavin asked him to unscrew the top of the Vaseline jar, he maintains that there was a perfectly valid reason for an inexperienced man to be in the corner during a championship fight.
“I was there to cope with Dickie,” Sal said. “He’s crazy. I have to be a calming influence. Plus, I put myself in the corner, because being a manager, it goes to the chief second. Micky wanted me there to make sure Dickie didn’t throw in the towel. That’s a tough decision for his brother to make.”
That decision was almost necessary in the third round. According to the punch stats for the fight, Micky had connected on half of his punches through the first two rounds, an inordinately high percentage for any fighter, and especially high for Micky. Neary was an easy target. But that changed in the third. Micky, who had already switched to a southpaw stance twice in the fight, did so again. This time he paid for it. The lefty position left him open to a right-hand lead, and Neary connected with it. Micky was hurt.
“Ward wobbled there by a right cross from Neary,” HBO commentator Jim Lampley exclaimed. “Neary goes to the body and to the uppercut as he tries to finish Micky.”
Micky lost his balance like someone who has forgotten there’s another stair. He almost fell down trying to figure out how to get both feet on the canvas at the same time. He immediately covered up on the ropes, and Neary went into full attack mode. He pressured Micky and pounded him with vicious body shots. Micky’s instincts told him to fire back, but he took several more shots to the head. Finally, Neary missed on a wild right cross and an equally inaccurate left cross. After the two whiffs, Micky leaned back against the ropes. His reaction said, “Whoo! That was close!” Those punches could have done serious damage, not only to Micky’s brain, bu
t also to his career. Getting knocked out in the third round against the English Irishman would be another major setback.
As Micky worked his way off the ropes, he raised his hands with pride and some sense of relief that he had regained his senses. The signal was to himself, his corner, to Neary, and to the crowd. He was letting everyone know he had survived. Neary needed to know it, too, so that he would worry about what kind of man stood in front of him. Who takes shots like that and celebrates only a few seconds later?
Micky backed Neary up with a couple of shots, but then late in the round, he dropped his gloves and Neary connected with a hard left hook. Neary dropped his hands, and Micky hit him with a short right hand on the ear.
“This is like a movie fight. This is like Play It to the Bone,” Lampley said.
It was an amazing round, and when the bell sounded, Neary stared at Micky in disbelief. Micky looked back and smiled. He put both his hands on Neary’s head with respect, and turned away still smiling. But as he returned to his corner, he heard this from his brother.
“Listen, Mick, don’t take unnecessary punishment. You’re not a punching bag. This guy, you can tear his head off if you keep your hands up. Why are you letting him abuse you? Defense. All right. If you can let him hit you with your hands down, you can destroy him with your hands up.”
There was more close-range fighting in the fourth. Each man took the other’s shots. First, Neary to the body and the head, then Micky with an uppercut to the chin.
“They are trying to hurt each other with every punch,” HBO’s Larry Merchant observed. “This is a test now of will, strength, and conditioning.”
In the fifth, Micky worked his way off the ropes by landing four consecutive uppercuts, two with each hand, popping Neary’s head. Another body shot from Micky reminded Neary of just how much the last one hurt. Then another one. Ward’s left to the body was laying the groundwork. Those are the shots that take a fighter’s legs away.
“You’re in there close, short punch. Short punches,” Dickie encouraged his brother. “You know what I mean. Head, body, head. Remember that in your mind. Head, body, head. This kid’s gonna go! But if you let him hit you, you’re gonna get banged up. You don’t need to get hit. You’re not a punching bag for nobody.”
“Your hands are much faster than his,” Gavin added flatly while he worked on a small cut on the bridge of Micky’s nose. Gavin never raised his voice, but Micky could hear him. He stood and stared across the ring. Neary stood, too. He was bleeding from the mouth. His cheeks were red and swollen. Both fighters had red welts all over their sides and midsections. The punches they had thrown and the punches they had received had taken a lot out of them. But Neary was winning on the judges’ scorecards.
“The way this fight is going,” Merchant began. “Ward is going to have to do something dramatic late in the fight as he has before, because it’s going to be very difficult for him to get a decision in Neary’s home country and hometown.”
Dickie and Gavin concurred, and they admonished Micky in the corner.
“You’ve got to remember, Mick, you’re in his country,” Gavin cautioned.
“That’s right,” agreed Dickie. “We’ve got to take him with a knockout. We’ve trained hard for this, Mick. Don’t let him punch you when you don’t need to. He’s tireder than you.”
Micky started throwing punches with more force and aggression, and in the eighth round, he found what he was looking for.
“Oh! Big uppercut by Ward!” Lampley screamed as Neary tumbled over backward. “I told you he was putting more mustard on the uppercut, and that one lands Neary on his butt. First time in twenty-three professional fights that Shea Neary has been down.”
Micky had hurt Neary with another shot to the ribs, and as Neary bent over from the force of the blow, Micky hit him cleanly on the chin. Neary stumbled backwards until his ass hit the canvas and his legs flipped up over his head. He was up immediately, but his eyes were glazed over.
The referee, Micky Vann, gave him a standing eight-count and then invited Micky over to try to finish the job. Micky approached lackadaisically and then unleashed a hard left-hand uppercut. Direct hit. A left cross. Direct hit. A left hand to the body. Neary was backpedaling the whole time.
“Ward lands a huge left hook and another uppercut, goes to the body with the left hook, lands the uppercut again. Neary down for the second time. Micky Vann’s gonna stop it right there. Irish Micky Ward with a big eighth-round TKO,” concluded Lampley.
“He’s done it again,” Merchant said respectfully. “He’s done it again.” The last shot sent Neary sprawling out of control until he landed with his head crashing low on the belt buckle in Micky’s corner. Dickie jumped over the fallen warrior, ran out to the center of the ring, and lifted Micky in his arms. When he finally let Micky down, he grabbed his head with both hands and said, “You’re the world champion. You’re the champion of the world.”
Micky circled the ring looking for an empty space. He found it in a neutral corner where he knelt to say a quick prayer. Dickie joined him there, and the two brothers thanked God together. Their dreams had come true. Micky was a world champion, and Dickie had helped get him there.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” ring announcer Michael Buffer said. “A round of applause for two Irish warriors who put on one helluva show here in London. The official time 2:55 of round number eight. Referee Micky Vann calls a halt to the fight. The winner and new WBU light welterweight champion of the world, Irish Micky Ward!”
Micky heard it and let it settle in his mind for a moment. What a long hard road it had been to get here. Every boxer makes sacrifices, spends hours in the gym, and feels the pain of blows to the head and the stomach. And almost every boxer does it without reward. For every champion, there are thousands more who try and fail. Only the rare and extraordinary get to wear the belt of a champion. Many people credit Micky’s heart.
But Teddy Atlas disagreed. “Heart is a word for the uneducated and uninitiated when it comes to boxing,” Atlas scolds. “It’s confidence. It’s mental toughness. It’s discipline. It’s something that’s developed. Micky didn’t want to take the punch. He tried to block it, but when he had to take it, he had the temperament of a fighter. He was going to behave like a fighter. He wasn’t going to allow taking a punch to stop him. If that’s what he had to do, that’s what he would do. Taking a punch, the physical part, you want to have a strong neck, a shock absorber so to speak, but the mental part is the most important part. You have to make up your mind that you’re going to deal with it in the proper way, and that is to not allow it to bring you to a point where you can’t go on. It takes tremendous concentration. It takes tremendous understanding. It takes understanding and to be in that mindset that when you get buzzed, which everyone does, that you’re not going to allow yourself to drift, not to allow yourself to go to a place where you can’t come back, where you’re gone. You have to understand that and be willing to make that stand. Micky was always willing, more than willing. It was part of his makeup that he’d make that stand.”
Micky took that stand when he was out on his feet against Reggie Green and again when Neary hurt him in the third round. Taking that stand was the difference between Micky and almost every other boxer. It may even have been the difference between him and a champion like Neary. The Shamrock Express had never been asked to take that kind of stand before.
“The saddest part of that night is that Micky literally destroyed Neary as a fighter and as a man,” Al Valenti says. “He was 22 and 0 and a heckuva fighter, but after Ward, he only fought two more times. Both were European guys, one from Northern Ireland and the other from England. And he was done. Micky broke him that night. I remember how devastated he was.”
George Foreman said during the fight that Neary was the better fighter, that he moved better and had a better jab. But the better fighter lost, perhaps because the tougher man had won.
“I won it. I trained hard for it. It was long overdue
,” Micky told Merchant in the post-fight interview. “I started in 1985 on ESPN shows. I thank Teddy Brenner. He’s passed away. He gave me my shot. He started me off at Top Rank, and I just kept going. But it was all that combined, all the stuff I went through, the losses. It was just heart. I fought the best in the world. When you fight Zab Judah, ain’t nobody better than that. I don’t care what anybody says, there ain’t nobody better than that man . . .”
I’ve taken a lot of punches from a lot of guys, and I knew I could do it. . . . I hit him with a lot of flush right hands and some double jabs, and then bang over the right. I have to thank Dr. Margeles from the Lahey Clinic for getting my right hand back.”
Micky closed out the Merchant interview, saying: “This is what it’s about. It took longer than I wanted, but I got it. I just hope it puts me into better things. He’s a great fighter. I’m not saying I’m a better fighter. I’m not better than anybody. I just come here to do my job. I do the best I can do. I was the better man tonight. I take nothing away from him. I want to say ‘Hi’ to my daughter and to my Mom who couldn’t be here. ‘I love you, Ma.’”
Back in Lowell, Alice Ward smiled and waved at the television. “I love you, too, Micky,” she said.
Micky returned to the locker room with his WBU championship belt draped over his shoulder. He held the belt high over his head and gazed at it. It was beautiful. And it was gone a few minutes later.
“They put the belt on Micky,” Sal recalled. “And we went to the dressing room, and we all took turns taking pictures with it. Then the belt disappeared. There were supposed to be two belts there, but the WBU president, John Robinson, only had the one belt. So, they gave it back to Neary and told us they’d send us one of our own.”
