Irish Thunder

by Bob Halloran

  The punch landed with twenty-seven seconds to go in the round, and time should have been called immediately. With the clock stopped, Micky would be given up to five minutes to recover from the low blow. But the clock never stopped. So, while Micky was pacing and trying to shake off the discomfort, the bell sounded to end the round. That meant the fifth round would start in one minute, and Micky would have to be ready to go. A mistake by the timekeeper cost him his five-minute recovery period.

  “He should have more time,” Gavin complained. But Micky interjected, “I’m all set. I want to go.”

  Dickie shoved the green mouthpiece back in its place, the bell sounded to begin round five, and Micky was there. He touched gloves with Arturo, and they began their dance once again.

  The final thirty seconds of this round epitomized both fighters. Gatti hit Ward no fewer than eleven times. Micky didn’t throw a single punch in retaliation. Gatti stepped back again to catch his breath. Instead, he took no fewer than twelve punches. The first several blows were a quick flurry of short lefts and rights. Micky fired a straight right that sent Arturo into the ropes. Once there, Micky landed a left to the body that made Gatti visibly wince. An uppercut and two hard left hooks later and Gatti was backpedaling to the adjacent ropes. Now, Gatti was bleeding and again looking for a breather. Instead, he took perhaps Micky’s best right hand of the night and a left for good measure. The bell sounded.

  “This is becoming Micky Ward’s fight,” Lampley shouted. “They’re fighting in a phone booth, and that’s the way he wants it.”

  Gatti’s right eye was bleeding, and Micky was an absolute mess. The blood from above his eye had smeared all over his face. His nose and his lip were bleeding as well. Lampley was right. This was becoming Micky’s fight.

  “Just aim your punches,” Gavin said while working diligently on Micky’s cuts. “You’ve got this guy. Give me your head. Let me work on you.”

  “How you feeling?” Dickie asked. Micky nodded, indicating that he felt a lot better than he looked.

  In the opposite corner, McGirt was shouting his instructions.

  “Punch him. Punch him. And turn out. You’re staying inside taking unnecessary body punishment. Don’t take it. You’ve got to suck it up like a champ now. Listen to me. He’s in the same fight you’re in. Okay? He’s feeling the same tired as you are, if not more tired. Nice and smart. Okay, when he gets close to you, listen to me, if you don’t feel like punching, move your upper body. He’s not going to do anything. Okay? Then go back to the jab. He’s seen you on the ropes, and it’s touch, touch, touch. Keep doing that until you get that second wind. Take a deep breath. Now, we’re boxing like Arturo Gatti. Listen to me. Look at me, baby. You’ve got this fight. You can rest all day tomorrow. You understand? This is for all the marbles, baby. You understand me? Box!”

  Micky entered the center of the ring to start the seventh round with the cut above his eye still bleeding. Gatti snapped off a couple of shots that opened it up even more. But Micky was fortunate: the blood trickled down the side of his face, not into his eye. He was fine, barely aware of the wound.

  “I wonder what kind of brains and heads are on both these guys,” Steward commented. “They’re getting hit with shots right on the chin, and it seems like it just stimulates them.”

  “Through six rounds,” Lampley offered as evidence, “Gatti landed more than two hundred punches, most of them on the face of Micky Ward.”

  “To this stage,” Steward continued, “Micky has been outdone in terms of talent, and skill, but not in heart.”

  Gatti boxed well in round seven, picking up another win on the judges’ scorecards. He was picking up momentum and fighting a strategically sound fight. He was not repeating his earlier mistake of brawling with Micky along the ropes. Instead, he moved well around the ring and engaged only when he saw an opportunity to land a punch or two and then move away. The style McGirt demanded was working.

  “Listen to me, baby. When he gets close to you, Arturo, if you don’t want to punch, have your hands up. Just move. He don’t want to fight no more. He’s looking for the one shot.”

  This entire night was Micky’s one shot. He was on HBO. He was making big money. He was thrilling the crowd all around him and around the world. But he was tired, and he was frustrated. Micky sat in his corner with Dickie squeezing his sides and Gavin twisting his head this way and that. Sal was offering encouragement. The crowd was buzzing and so was Micky’s head. The one minute he was given between rounds was not the best time or place to focus on a singular thought, but Micky found one.

  “I’m all right,” he said to no one in particular. He wasn’t even sure he said it out loud.

  “Are you?” Gavin asked, looking for affirmation.

  Micky looked up at him for a moment before it registered in his brain that Gavin’s question was in response to something he had just said. What was it? Oh, yeah, “I’m all right.”

  “Yeah,” Micky said. He was breathing heavily and in some significant pain, but he gave Gavin what he wanted to hear. “Yeah, I’m all right.”

  With that established, Dickie cut in. “You’re doing everything with your left now, Mick. Everything with your left. Bang the shit out of him. Mick, don’t be a punching bag. If you’re going to be a punching bag, I’m not gonna let this go like this. Fight hard. Deep breath.”

  “You’ve got to be busier,” Gavin agreed. “You’ve got to punch.”

  Micky entered the eighth round behind in the fight. HBO’s unofficial scorekeeper and fight analyst Harold Lederman had Gatti ahead 67-65, and he had it that close primarily because he gave Micky a 10-8 round in the fourth because of the low blow by Gatti. It was going to be tough for Micky to win this fight by decision. He needed a knockout, and he went for it.

  With forty-five seconds to go in the eighth, Micky landed a hard uppercut that snapped Gatti to attention. Micky stalked Gatti across the ring, landing a couple of sharp right crosses. Gatti was in trouble. So he threw two of his angriest punches of the night. They landed flush, but Gatti was surprised to learn they weren’t nearly enough to regain control of the fight. Micky brushed them off as if they were nothing, and then blasted Gatti with a sharp left, landing squarely on his chin. It staggered Gatti just a bit. Most spectators wouldn’t even have noticed it because it occurred while Micky was being hit, too. Gatti threw his punches with a flourish and a force that were impossible not to notice. Furthermore, Micky was bleeding profusely and looked like the more beaten man. But Micky ignored the assault, stepped inside, and landed effective, less flamboyant punches.

  But as Gatti walked toward Micky and landed several hard shots, Micky stopped him in his tracks with one laser-sharp, accurate punch. Gatti stopped walking forward and start walking backward. Micky approached him with only ten seconds to go in the round. He heard the loud clap indicating how much time was remaining and gave it everything he had.

  Bam! Micky started his barrage with a left. Bam! Bam! A right and a left found their mark. Bam! Another right. Then a body shot and an uppercut. Gatti had no response. He backed into the ropes and prayed for the bell to ring. He knew he could withstand the attack for a few seconds longer. Just three seconds to go in the round, two . . . bam! Another shot to the top of the head. Ding! Gatti stumbled toward his corner, obviously dazed.

  “Oh my gosh! Oh my goodness! What a fight!” Lampley said.

  Dickie jumped into the ring and brought Micky to the corner. That was a huge round for Micky, perhaps the turning point of the fight.

  “Mick, come here. You’ve got him going,” Dickie said. “I swear you’ve got him going.”

  Meanwhile, McGirt saw this fight suddenly slipping away. Gatti was probably still ahead on points, but if he didn’t right himself quickly, this fight might never get to the scorecards.

  “You’ve got to suck it up!” McGirt screamed. “You’re taking too many shots inside, Arturo. Throw the right hand to the body, Arturo. Listen to me. You’ve got six minutes. Give me
the six minutes.”

  Micky was on top of Arturo immediately in round nine.

  “When the ninth round started,” Micky would say later, “I knew I had to go out there and get right on him. He was still hurt. He was probably ahead at that time. I knew I had to either drop him, stop him, or do something.”

  Thirteen seconds into the round, Micky got in close, tapped Arturo to the head, and then shot the left to the body. Classic Micky. Gatti felt it immediately. He took two steps backward and dropped to one knee. It’s the kind of blow most fighters don’t get up from.

  “His money punch,” says Lampley.

  “He hit me to the body,” Gatti explained after the fight. “I’m a man, but I couldn’t take that body shot. It was an accumulation of punches. I just had to go down.”

  “Jesus, thank God,” Micky was thinking as Cappuccino sent him to a neutral corner. “Don’t get up.”

  Micky initially went to the wrong neutral corner, so Cappuccino pointed to another corner, and Micky ran over to it. Excited. Anticipating this could be the end. Gatti was still grimacing in obvious pain. Cappuccino turned toward Gatti, who was still on one knee, and began counting. “. . . six, seven, eight, nine . . .” and Gatti rose. He was still wincing, still very much in pain. Cappuccino rubbed Gatti’s gloves on his own shirt and stepped away. Micky came in for the kill. Keep in mind, the devastating punch landed at the thirteen-second mark of the round. There were still over two and a half minutes to go. Could Gatti survive?

  Adrenaline coursed through Micky’s veins. He was losing this fight on the scorecards, but he could still taste victory. It was for all his years of hard work, for Lowell, for Dickie, for his family, but most of all, it was for Micky. He deserved this, and he would get this, damn it!

  As soon as Cappuccino signaled that the fight would continue, Micky pounced. He threw twenty-three consecutive, unanswered power shots, starting off at the body where the damage was originally done. Then he landed a hard left hook that staggered Gatti and sent him reeling to the other side of the ring. With his victim helpless against the ropes, Micky landed another body punch. Gatti winced again. There were still two minutes to go in the round. How had Gatti lasted this long?

  “I was tagging him, but he wasn’t going nowhere,” Micky explained later. “Well, he was going somewhere, but he wasn’t going down where I wanted him to go. I couldn’t get back to the body. So, I had nowhere else to go, but to the head. He took it.”

  “He is me. He’s everything I am,” Gatti told Friday Night Fights in the days leading up to this brawl. “He’s a true warrior.”

  Now Gatti was demonstrating again what kind of warrior he was. He refused to go down again. He wasn’t able to defend himself with anything but his feet, and he kept them moving. He hoped Micky would punch himself out. That was his only chance, so he waited. He took more punches and waited some more. Finally, Micky took a moment to inhale deeply. Gatti stared at Micky and his head was clear; it was his turn now.

  Bam! Bam! Gatti landed two hard shots to Micky’s belt. A slow uppercut missed, but a left hook found Micky’s ear. Two big rights and another left bounced off the top of Micky’s head. The energy inside the ring had transferred from Micky to Gatti.

  “It wasn’t looking too good, but I got my second wind,” Gatti said after the fight.

  Gatti backed Micky up with a barrage of body shots, each one landing on Micky’s belt. They were not low, but they were close, especially for a man who had already been penalized for such tactics.

  “Vicious body shots by Gatti,” Lampley exclaimed. “Ward nods as if to say ‘C’mon. C’mon! C’mon! Let’s fight!’”

  Now Micky had backed into a corner and Gatti was standing in front of him, looking for his best chance to land the fatal blow. Micky’s head moved left and right, barely eluding some of the harder shots. His hands were low, but he rattled off a flurry of harmless lefts and rights as if he was attacking a speed bag. But five or six of those is all he had left. He needed to catch his breath. Gatti pummeled him with a series of body shots. These were full-speed, full-contact blows to Micky’s midsection, and there had been dozens of them throughout this fight. Micky took them, thankful that he hadn’t met an opponent who threw them as well as he does. As Micky tried to bull his way out of the corner, Gatti fell on him and pushed him back, using Micky to help himself stay on his feet.

  “Stop! Stop!” Cappuccino barked his command and separated the fighters. One minute remained in the round.

  “When we were hanging on each other, I was trying to save some time,” Gatti admitted later. “There was a minute left. I was just hoping the bell would ring. I’m just trying to survive that round.”

  The brief pause in the action was an opportunity for both fighters to take a moment. But as soon as Cappuccino indicated that they could continue, they landed shots simultaneously. Micky’s was a big right hand. Gatti went with his left to the body. After the punches landed, the men found themselves chest-to-chest. Here, Micky stepped to the side and threw that left hand into Gatti’s body. It hurt him again. Gatti stepped away, again in obvious pain. Micky moved in and landed an uppercut on the chin and a hard left hook. He went to the body and to the head again. Gatti was hurt again. He was tired. He had very little left. Micky, who took the last minute off, only to be punched repeatedly, now felt up to getting off a rapid-fire succession of punches. The energy had transferred again.

  “I knew I had to come back and take control over that ninth round,” Micky explained. “I just wanted to throw straight hard punches. One, two, three, four. Nice and hard. Bang, bang, bang, bang! Bang, bang, bang, bang!”

  Micky pushed Gatti up against the ropes and started to tee off. He landed one huge right hand that turned Gatti sideways in the ring. As Gatti attempted to escape, he was throttled by Micky’s left hand on his throat. It wasn’t so much a punch that landed there, but an attempt by Micky to shove Gatti and keep him from getting away. Then he landed another big right hand that should have put Gatti on the canvas. There were nine clean blows to Gatti’s head. Each one should have knocked him down. None of them did.

  “Stop it, Frank. You can stop it any time,” Lampley said rhetorically to referee Frank Cappuccino. “Arturo Gatti’s out on his feet.”

  “I thought the fight could have been stopped right there,” Micky said after the fight. “I’m thinking, ‘What the hell does he have in his head?’ I know he’s a very tough guy, but that’s a lot of punishment for somebody to take.”

  Still thirty seconds to go in the round. Gatti wrapped his arms around Micky and was quickly pushed away by the referee.

  “Frank Cappuccino’s gonna let them keep going!” Lampley exclaimed.

  With ten seconds to go, Gatti whiffed with a hard left and Micky responded with four quick punches, but they were tired punches, unable to add to the damage already done.

  “Less than ten seconds to go in the round,” Lampley announced. “Gatti’s gonna survive the round!”

  “This should be the round of the century,” Steward observed.

  Micky had met his match, someone who possessed his same resolve, someone who refused to go down or stay down. Micky was tired. Gatti was hurt. It was an unbelievable three minutes of violence near the end of an incredible boxing match.

  “They have struck the courage nerve and the nostalgia nerve,” Merchant observed. “In boxing, this is the equivalent of those forensic cop shows that show you open hearts beating and pumping. Open-heart prizefighting. Nostalgically, this fight sort of brings back to us a very visceral time when the sons and grandsons of European immigrants were fighting their ways off the farms, out of the mines, and out of the factories.”

  In the ninth round alone, Gatti landed forty-two of sixty-one power punches, and Micky landed sixty of eighty-two. Each fighter took more than forty power shots to his head and body, and not only kept going, but kept throwing. It was an unbelievable display of valor. Gatti managed to find his way over to his corner with some assistanc
e from McGirt. Gatti flopped onto his stool and an ice bag suddenly appeared on his forehead. The corner was quick to action.

  “Listen to me,” McGirt said attempting to get Gatti to focus on him. “I’m not going to let you take this punishment.”

  Gatti looked up. He could barely see through swollen eyes. His head remained unclear. The crowd was roaring, but he couldn’t hear them. His head rolled slowly to his left, and he appeared to be looking down at something.

  “Look at me!” McGirt yelled to no avail. “Look at me, Arturo! Tell me something.”

  Gatti didn’t say a word. His mind was someplace else, and he probably wished his body was, too.

  In the other corner, Gavin said with conviction, “Micky, this guy’s done.” Then Gavin threw a wet towel over Micky’s head and grabbed him hard with two hands alongside both of Micky’s cheeks. He leaned in close, going eye-to-eye with Micky and said, “You’ve got him, Mick!”

  Dickie followed with additional words of encouragement. He was watching his brother do what he himself had never done. Micky was giving everything he had. He was living up to his utmost potential. Micky simply possessed an uncommon internal strength. Micky’s mind was what made him extraordinary, while Dickie’s mind had betrayed him, causing him to give in to weakness, temptation, and greed. Although Dickie wanted to be where his brother was now, he never succumbed to the dark sides of envy.

  “I know it’s your toughest fight, Mick,” Dickie said. “You’ve got it in you.”

  As he said this, Micky rose from his stool and saw a commotion over in Gatti’s corner. There were several people in the ring, and Micky saw one of the people in Gatti’s corner waving the fight off. Gavin saw it, too, and gave Micky a big hug around his head. Micky raised his hands in victory.

  “This fight’s going to be stopped,” Lampley said and then quickly added, “Nope, it’s not!”

  “No, no. The fight ain’t over. Fight ain’t over,” Cappuccino bellowed to both sides of the ring. “No. Last round.”