Irish Thunder

by Bob Halloran

  “I was just visualizing [the fight] all night,” Quinonez said. “I could see him in the first round . . . coming after me, and starting the first punch with that big left hook, and I make him miss. And I could see his head going down after missing, and I throw in the uppercut and hit him over the head and scoring that first knockdown. I just kept previewing it in my mind over and over.”

  Micky did come out and fire the big left hook, and Quinonez did make him miss, but there was no uppercut, and no knockdown.

  Quinonez was a southpaw content to box from the outside. His feet were active. His jab fairly crisp. When Micky moved inside, Quinonez tied him up, and Micky’s only option was to throw the left hand to the body. So, he did that several times. Then Micky switched to southpaw, and this time he didn’t have to worry about a big right hand. Quinonez didn’t have one. Now Micky could fearlessly slip his feet into position where he found himself staring at Quinonez’s ribs from close range. Boom!

  The shot seemed to literally lift Quinonez off the ground. Micky followed the first one with a second and a third. He was chopping away at the body. A minute later, with eleven seconds to go, Micky landed another shot to Quinonez’s side.

  “That was to the liver!” Teddy Atlas exclaimed as Quinonez dropped to both knees. “Devastating punch!”

  And it was a punch that Sal LoNano missed seeing. He remembers walking in, and as he made his way to his seat, his son, Frankie, shouted, “He’s down.” Sal’s first thought was that Micky was down, and he immediately said to himself, “Oh, my God! What have I done? I was trying to bring Micky back and now he’s down?”

  But as Sal turned to face the ring, he could see Micky standing patiently in a neutral corner and knew everything was all right.

  It was amazing to witness. Micky threw with everything he had and landed his left square on Quinonez’s ribs. Quinonez took two steps in the opposite direction, not yet feeling the pain, and then he collapsed. To indicate it wasn’t a low blow, Referee Steve Smoger yelled, “Good shot! Good shot!” and sent Micky to a neutral corner. Then Smoger began to count Quinonez out while the fallen fighter writhed in pain.

  “. . . eight . . . nine . . . ten . . . Body shot. Good shot, good shot!” Smoger repeated. Later, Smoger would tell the Patriot Ledger, “That was a classic solar-plexus punch. He was paralyzed. Even though I gave him the count, I knew he was not getting up. He dropped like he’d been shot.”

  Quinonez was unable to rise for several minutes. The punch took the breath right out of him and put the fear of God into him.

  “I thought I was going to die,” he said. “As a boxer, I was used to feeling pain, but that was like someone putting a knife into you and turning it. It was the hardest punch I’d ever been hit with. You get hit a thousand times and then you get hit in that one spot. It was more like I was hit with a stun gun. It just froze me. The pain was so intense. I fell to my knees, and I just couldn’t get myself back together in time.”

  The body shot has a lot to do with leverage. Micky was able to step to the side and deliver the punch with incredible force.

  Ron Borges summed up Micky’s talents this way, “He’s a smart fighter in that he understands what people are trying to do against him, and he understands to some degree what needs to be done to combat it. But he’s limited by his skill set. If he, for example, brought a bigger gun to the party, he’d have been champion for a long time. But if he didn’t nail you to the body, he didn’t knock out a lot of guys by hitting a guy in the face.

  “Most people would rather get hit in the face than the body. It sounds absurd. I mean, who wants to get hit in the face? But between a big shot to the face or a big shot to the floating rib, hit me in the face. I don’t care who you are, when you get hit in the body, you’re going down.

  “What happens is it takes a minute for all the air to get out of your body, and when it happens, you can’t breathe. And it’s not like you get the wind knocked out of you in the classic sense. It’s completely different. You can’t breathe, but the pain is unbelievable. Plus, you’re paralyzed by fear.”

  The ring doctor put a light in Quinonez’s eyes while he remained prostrate on the canvas. Meanwhile, Micky paced around the ring accepting congratulations from Sal, Dickie, and Gavin. When he saw that Quinonez was finally sitting up on the canvas, Micky went over to see if he was all right. Quinonez was now able to smile, but it was a painful one. He had just been victimized by the most devastating body puncher in boxing.

  “What made Micky’s body punch so good is that he committed to it,” Teddy Atlas concluded after watching Micky for years. “He was going to find a way to get there. He didn’t go away from it. The second thing is he found a way to make it happen. It’s not by accident. He developed a technique, an art, a way that works for him that gave him an advantage over someone else to make it happen more than anyone else. He had a mechanism, a private genius. He would tap you on top first, with more of a snap in it than a full body commitment, so that he would be in position to quickly bring it back to the body.

  “The conventional way is for people to go to the body first and then the head, but Micky turned it around. His technique was not to overcommit to that punch, just make it a little lighter, more of a snap punch, where he could quickly recoil it and go to the body. That’s why he would get it in and get it in clean when he needed to. Micky developed this technique and it became his trademark, his forte, and it won a lot of fights for him. It put him in position to have the success later in his career.”

  Another win for Micky, and the same old questions: Where’s the money? and What’s next? It was Micky asking the first question, and he was asking it of Sal.

  “I got accused of stealing Micky’s money,” Sal says. “Everybody on the outside thought Micky should have been making millions. His family got into Micky’s head. I don’t blame him. They were always telling him how I was screwing him. After the show, he challenged me. Am I supposed to get bitter? No, I said, ‘I’m glad you challenged me. The only sad part is that you believed them.’ And Micky said to me, ‘I don’t know what to believe, Sal. I’m hearing this from my mother and my sisters. I don’t know what to think.’”

  Tensions were eased and Micky’s suspicions assuaged when Foxwoods opened the books and showed Micky where all the money went. Micky saw a detailed itemization, and according to Sal, “It proved that everything I friggin’ told him was on that paper. I think I made five grand on that show. People told him I was making a hundred thousand. Fuck them! It never entered Micky’s mind again that I would betray him. The family, however, remained unconvinced.”

  “That’s the thing with family,” Micky confirmed. “You just don’t know who to trust. I love Sal, but when they take things out of you, you don’t know what to think.”

  Meanwhile, the answer to the second question, what’s next, was another day at the beach. He still didn’t have an opponent, but Sal and Al were planning another end of the summer bash at the Hampton Beach Casino, and Micky would be their headliner. For Micky, who only had three fights in the last fourteen months, the summer couldn’t get there soon enough.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Boxing is a risky business, and it was time for Micky to take another risk. It had been two years since his epic comeback against Reggie Green. And in the past year, he’d lost to Diaz and thrown one incredible punch against Quinonez. HBO wasn’t calling, Cedric Kushner wasn’t calling back, and the champions of Micky’s division, Zab Judah and Kostya Tszyu, were preparing to fight each other. Micky needed to make some noise in order to make some money. The best fighters still recognized that Micky loomed as a dangerous threat, so they weren’t about to tussle with him unless there was serious cash on the table.

  Micky was thirty-five years old. He couldn’t waste any more time on guys like Quinonez. He needed to take on a well-respected, well-known opponent at whatever the price. He recognized that probably better than anybody.

  “Micky, look, there’s a handful of potential
fights out there,” Sal said to him in late June 2001. “I want you to pick one of the guys from this list, and I’ll go after him whoever it is.”

  Micky looked at the list and pointed to Emmanuel Burton.

  “Him.”

  “Micky, are you sure? There are some easier fights out there. We’re not gonna make the money, buddy. You don’t need a fight like that.”

  “Yes, I do,” Micky corrected Sal. “How do you expect me to get back on HBO? Emmanuel Burton is the best. I want the best.”

  It was a risk, but the decision was made. For twenty-five thousand dollars Micky made his record-breaking twenty-sixth appearance on ESPN against hard-punching journeyman Emmanuel Burton, who took the fight on two-weeks notice.

  “I expect another war,” Ward told the Globe. “Burton has a walk-in style. I won’t back up, and he won’t back up. That’s okay with me. I’d rather have a banger in there than a runner. I don’t care about getting banged up. As long as I’m in shape, I can handle that.”

  The fight was Friday, July 13. It was approaching a hundred degrees inside the Hampton Beach Casino that night, and tempers were even hotter.

  “First, we’re in the locker room, and Dickie’s calling me a fucking asshole,” LoNano remembers. “He says, ‘My brother’s sweating his fucking ass off in here. You did this to him! And for what? Where’s the money?’”

  Sal tried to keep his cool, but he was sweating his ass off, too. When he walked away and entered the arena, he noticed a skirmish at ringside. His wife, Darlene, was in the middle of it along with Micky’s mom and sisters.

  “Why the hell do you get to sit here?” Micky’s drunken sister Gail screamed as Sal approached.

  “What’s the problem here?” he said.

  “You! You’re the problem,” Gail yelled. “You’ve got her sitting in the front row, and you throw us all the way back over there. Why does she get better seats than us?”

  It wasn’t the first time Sal had to deal with a hassle over seating arrangements. He didn’t stay long enough to try to explain. He simply turned and walked away. As he did, one of the women doused him with what was left of her beer. Sal stopped. He didn’t react, only paused and thought to himself, “What did I ever do to deserve this?” And he continued on his way. He regretted that later, because soon after he left, Gail cold-cocked Darlene with a straight hard right that would have made her brothers proud. It was the first punch of the night, and there would be twenty-one hundred more.

  Micky entered the ring in white trunks with black trim, WARD spelled out in red lettering on the waistband. Burton was in red trunks with white trim. He came in with a pedestrian record of 24-17, but he began his career by losing more than half of his first twenty-three fights.

  “Burton wasn’t a hard puncher, but he threw a lot,” Micky would say later. “That kid can fight like no tomorrow. He’s probably the best fighter I ever fought in my life with that many losses. He could take a punch, too. Tough kid. A lot of his losses happened early in his career when he didn’t train like he should.”

  On this night, both men appeared to be in excellent shape, and they would need to be in order to go ten rounds in this heat. In the opening moments, Micky got Burton on the ropes and began to slug away. This was Burton’s plan—a courageous and potentially foolhardy strategy. He wanted to test Micky’s strength. If he believed that Micky couldn’t hurt him, he intended to slug it out with him on the inside. To that purpose, Burton spent the entire round in the corner with his back to the ropes. Micky wailed away at him. Burton threw only a few cursory flurries to keep Micky off and spent the rest of the time covering up. When the bell rang, Micky stepped back and smiled at Burton. Burton smiled back. The contract was made.

  Burton returned to the ropes for the better part of the second round. Micky was throwing more punches than ever before and landing with increasing regularity. Burton responded with a pitter-patter of combinations. The first two rounds were all that Micky could have hoped for: he threw 101 punches in the first round, 89 more in the second, and he landed 53 power shots.

  “You’re doing great, Mick,” Dickie said encouragingly between rounds. “Keep working him. This guy can’t take this abuse much longer. Nobody can. Deep breath. Let’s go home early.”

  In response to his own corner’s instructions, Burton started the third with a commitment to boxing. He was fluid and graceful on his toes. He moved away from Micky fairly easily, changing directions around the ring, and throwing a few jabs to the body and to the head. It seemed that he could have been more in control of the fight from the outside from the beginning. As the bell sounded, Micky landed a decent right cross, and Burton fired back with three shots after the bell. Referee Steve Smoger jumped in quickly, and Burton rocked his head side to side with a big, crazy-man smile on his face. He was having a little too much fun for someone taking so much abuse.

  The fourth round began with Burton switching positions, putting Micky on the ropes and going to the body. Burton was landing cleaner shots. Later in the round, Micky, clearly tired, threw a bunch of punches that missed, and Burton responded with a flurry that landed. For the final ten seconds of the round, both threw incessant lefts and rights. They were connecting. Hurting. Still throwing. As the bell sounded, Burton smiled again.

  “Anybody watching this fight at home, in between rounds, call your friends up,” Teddy Atlas said during the ESPN broadcast. “You’re seeing something you don’t see very often. Holy Cow! Both guys inside making everything count. What a fight!”

  The fighters combined to throw 256 punches in the fourth round. Burton outlanded Micky 57-34, and on Atlas’s scorecard, the fight was even.

  It had been nonstop action every second of every round, and it continued into the sixth. Another round with Burton on the ropes. Micky was relentless and effective this round. It was as if Burton had taken the round off. After three minutes of accepting punishment, Burton heard the bell and raised his hand in victory. It was an odd and premature gesture.

  The heat in the casino was a factor. So too, were the number of punches Micky had been throwing. He had gotten tired sooner than usual, and his punches lacked that little something extra that might have been able to take Burton out. Also, Burton had fought two world champions in his career. He believed—and he was proving—that he could handle Micky’s power.

  “One thing I see right here, in his career, twenty-four wins and seventeen losses and four draws,” Atlas said. “Burton sometimes has been convinced to do enough to lose competitively. He did not come here to lose competitively. He came here to win.”

  The seventh round was as frenetic as the previous, and in the final twenty seconds, both men started throwing bombs. Micky and Burton aimed and landed their punches with precision. Although they could see the return shots coming, they made no effort to stop them, too intent on landing shots of their own. They didn’t feel the pain. But when the round was finally over, the exhaustion set in. This time when Burton returned to his corner, he was not smiling. He dropped down onto his stool and draped a towel over his shoulders. He looked like a beaten man, though he was not. He had landed 49 of 100 power shots in the seventh round.

  So many punches had been thrown and had found their marks, yet neither fighter was seriously hurt. And there had been no knockdowns. Their combined wills had kept them on their feet. They had made that unspoken contract at the end of the first round, promising each other this fight would go the distance and the man with more stamina, more strength, and more consistency would win. With neither man backing down, the fight was as even as it could be.

  “This is when Micky Ward gets strong,” Dickie said affirmatively. “Don’t worry about spitting. I’ll mop the floor. C’mon Micky, plenty of time. Shoot up the middle, Mick. Don’t take so many punches. You’re taking too much punishment. Keep the hand in front of your chin and then shoot up the middle. C’mon Mick. This is your fight now. You’re stronger than he is. You want it more.”

  The crowd was chanti
ng, “Mick-y, Mick-y, Mick-y,” as round nine began. Now, when Micky fired with his right, his left hand stayed on his cheek. When he fired with his left, the right hand stayed on his cheek. He was listening to Dickie’s instructions. Midway through the round, as Burton stepped back to create a little space, Micky tagged him with a hard right. Burton took a moment to realize what had just happened, and Micky nailed him again. It looked as if it was a snapping left that initially got to Burton, and as he stepped back to recover, he put his hands down. Before he could take his fighting posture again, Micky hit him with that hard right. Burton was visibly stunned, unable to move for a full second. Micky went right after him.

  “Burton is going defensive!” Atlas exclaimed.

  Micky pursued. Burton instinctively started fighting again, but his mind wasn’t right. He moved, but without purpose. Micky hit him with a left-right combination to the head. Burton threw a couple of big shots, but they didn’t land. Micky tapped him on the head, and landed the body shot. Burton grimaced and dropped down to one knee in the corner.

  “There’s that body shot!” Atlas observed. “You saw a little change there. Burton went into that defensive posture, and Micky knew exactly what to do.”

  Burton took three deep breaths and stood up. He wasn’t quitting. He had a contract with Micky he still needed to honor. Smoger rubbed Burton’s gloves on his shirt and sent him back to the middle of the ring with forty-five seconds to go in the round. Fortunately for Burton, Micky was so tired, his shots kept missing, and Burton survived the round. It was a pivotal ninth round that could have tipped the scorecards.

  “I had Burton up by one point going into that round,” Atlas said.

  Through nine rounds, Micky had thrown 1,007 punches. Burton had thrown 789. But Burton had landed 90 more punches, 358 to Micky’s 268. If the fight went to the scorecards, the difference could be that knockdown, which made the ninth a 10-8 round.