Irish Thunder

by Bob Halloran

  HBO had begun broadcasting fights in 1973 when heavyweight George Foreman fought Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica. This would be the network’s five hundredth fight, and it promised to be one of the best.

  “Wearing white,” Buffer continued. “The fighting pride of New England, never-quit, never-surrender, former junior welterweight champion of the world, Irish Micky Ward.”

  The crowd erupted in applause. Gatti was fighting close to home, but it offered him no advantage.

  “From Jersey City, New Jersey,” Buffer announced, “the ultimate blood-and-guts warrior, the former junior welterweight champion of the world, Arturo ‘Thunder’ Gatti.”

  Again the crowd applauded enthusiastically. It was as though the spectators were less concerned about who won the fight. They just wanted it to be a great fight.

  Following the referee’s instructions in the center of the ring, the bell sounded and the rematch began. Gatti’s manager, Pat Lynch, sat in his seat and prayed, “Just don’t let these guys get hurt.”

  DiBella sat down next to Sal and said, “Can you imagine if Gatti wins this one? There’ll be a third.”

  “That’s history, huh, pal?” Sal responded.

  “Yup, that’s history, but we gotta get by this one.”

  Gatti’s game plan for the second fight was to be in better condition and to box more. He didn’t expect to be able to knock Micky out. This was Micky’s fiftieth professional fight, and the only time he ever lost on a stoppage was the time he was cut against Vince Phillips. Gatti believed that he needed to box and win by decision; however, perhaps in an effort to conserve energy, he didn’t come out moving laterally as much as he did in the first fight. Meanwhile, Micky was snapping off more jabs than was his custom.

  “Both guys better realize this is a brand-new fight,” HBO analyst George Foreman cautioned. “Don’t try to continue something that ended months and months ago.”

  “Ward is as tough as you can be as a boxer,” Foreman added. “Gatti’s got no right but to do anything but box this man.”

  A single punch in the third round changed the course of history. With 2:17 to go in the round, Micky stepped forward, and Gatti tagged him with a short right. He was in good balance. Micky was leaning in. And the punch landed flush. Micky dropped instantly, falling face first into the turnbuckle. While referee Earl Morton motioned Gatti to a neutral corner, Micky bounced up, but stumbled like a drunk. He struggled to find his footing. Morton came over to give him a standing eight-count, but Micky interrupted.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine.” He repeated the words to convince both the referee and himself that they were true. But Micky was not fine. He was far from it.

  Arturo went in for the kill, but somehow Micky’s defense remained solid. His arms were out in front of him, and Gatti’s punches couldn’t find their mark. Still, he attacked. Finally, a hard right connected. Gatti’s forward movement put him right on top of Micky, and Micky wrapped his arms around him. He was clearly hurt now. His eyes were unable to focus.

  “Micky Ward is very wobbly. He has no legs,” Lampley said.

  There was still 1:42 left in the round. As Morton separated the fighters, Micky moved to his right. He wanted to move to his left, but he was unable to right himself. Finally, he took the fighting posture. As Gatti took a moment to appraise the situation, Micky tapped his belly with his gloves as if to say, ‘Give me more.’ Gatti explained to Lynch after the fight that Micky’s gesture and his overall fortitude caused Gatti to stop and reconsider going for a knockout at that time.

  “I was not going in there and shooting everything I had at him just to try to get him out of there,” Gatti told Lynch. “I know if I did, he was coming back and then I’d have a problem. He was a wounded animal, and that’s dangerous.”

  Since the knockdown, Micky was merely trying to survive. He sensed that Gatti would not be able to finish him. But Gatti fired off a few more shots, and then Micky countered with a short left and a big overhand right. That one hurt Gatti.

  “He’s still dangerous,” Gatti thought.

  The final thirty seconds was an exchange of single shots by each fighter. Micky bounced up and down as if to shake the cobwebs from his head. As the bell sounded, he pounded his gloves together. He was determined, not frustrated, not angry. Nonetheless, he needed help from Dickie to find his way back to the corner.

  “They’re doing it again in Atlantic City!” Lampley shouted. “Gatti-Ward II already living up to expectations.”

  The fight doctor raced up to Micky’s corner and asked, “Micky, are you okay? Do you feel good?”

  Micky gave him a quick authoritative reply, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  That would suffice for the time being. Even though Dickie struggled to get the mouthpiece out of Micky’s mouth, the doctor was satisfied that the brutality could continue.

  “Ice, ice, ice! Fucking ice!” McGirt yelled in an uncharacteristically chaotic corner. Gatti’s side was excited and sensing the fight could end very soon.

  “Listen to me. This is yours,” McGirt told Gatti. “Go out and use the jab. Go back downstairs. Your right hand over the top is going to work, baby!”

  Micky’s resolve and resilience in the fourth round was nothing short of amazing, even heroic. The punch that knocked him down also knocked off his equilibrium. “He caught me good. It happens,” Micky said after the fight. “He caught me behind the ear. And he just caught me. He threw my equilibrium off. I don’t know how I stood up. Jesus!”

  He not only stood up, he also managed to stand and fight. And he came out in the fourth round even more aggressive, appearing somewhat refreshed. Gatti was on his toes, and it looked as if neither fighter had just battled for nine violent minutes. By the middle of the round, Gatti’s left eye was beginning to swell shut, and by the time the round was over, Gatti was bleeding from a cut over the left eye. It was essentially an even round.

  “This is not about money. This is a fight,” Foreman said with respect. “This is about pride and dignity. This is telling the other guy, ‘This is the family I’m from. This is the country I’m from. This is who I am.’”

  Micky bounced back to his corner at the end of the round. He was still trying to tell himself and his corner that he was fine, but in truth, he was still trying to regain his equilibrium.

  “You all right?” Dickie asked without need of an answer. “That was a much better round. That’s it. He’s done. You took his best shots, and now it’s time for you to retaliate. Let’s go! Don’t let him hit you low. Hit him back, Mick. He’s dead tired.”

  “He’s going down right now,” Al Gavin said, speaking for the first time between rounds. “Aim the punches, Mick.”

  Each round developed very much like the previous one. Gatti bounced on his toes, threw a few punches, and then backed up. Micky approached, and once he was back in range, Gatti stopped his retreat and threw clean combinations, often to the body, sometimes just a bit low.

  “You know what I like about Micky Ward?” Foreman asked rhetorically. “He’s been hit below the belt I don’t know how many times tonight, and he hasn’t looked to the ref or complained or looked for any excuses. That’s what you call a man.”

  But the man was losing, and it was getting worse with time.

  The fight was exciting, but unlike the first fight, it was lopsided. Micky had lost every round, and he hadn’t landed a punch with any real force in four rounds. For a moment in the seventh round, Dickie began looking around for the towel. Dickie had seen just about enough. He was ready to have the fight stopped. But the round ended.

  “I’m gonna tell ’em,” Dickie threatened in the corner.

  “Don’t tell ’em. I’m good,” Micky lied.

  “Look at me! Wake up!” Dickie demanded as he slapped Micky twice on the cheek. “Listen to me. Keep those hands up and fight back. You’ve got to go for it, Mick. Go for it!”

  Gatti continued to execute his plan perfectly. His patience was being rewarded. He was easily win
ning every round, and he wasn’t paying a price. He was avoiding Micky’s power, and he only needed to do it for nine more minutes.

  “If I’m in Micky Ward’s corner,” Foreman predicted, “I’m thinking if he doesn’t pick things up this round and get going, I’m not going to allow him to get totally wiped out like things are going for him right now.”

  Round eight went to Gatti, too.

  “Don’t get careless,” McGirt cautioned. “He’s gonna get desperate. Okay? Arturo, don’t look for the knockout. Let’s just keep piling up points. Keep piling up points.”

  And, in truth, there was some desperation in Micky’s corner along with some positive thinking.

  “You can win this fight,” Gavin told Micky. “It ain’t over yet. You’re in better shape.”

  “Micky, bend down,” Dickie commanded. “Throw the uppercut and a hook. Bend down! You’re not doing it. You said you were gonna do it. I’m gonna stop it.”

  Dickie didn’t mean it. He only said the words to piss Micky off, to get him fighting mad.

  “I’m all right, Dickie. C’mon,” Micky said with both determination and annoyance.

  “You’re not all right! Uppercut hook! Push him the fuck off you!”

  Micky was just as angry and frustrated as Dickie was, but fatigue and poor balance made it difficult for him to do anything about it. In the closing seconds of round nine, Gatti fired seventeen punches at Micky. Micky blocked and ducked most of the punishment. Then, as the bell sounded, Gatti landing another solid right, sending Micky wobbling back to his corner.

  “The first fight was like a head-on collision,” Merchant deadpanned. “This fight is more like a one-car accident.”

  Before the tenth and final round, both corners attempted to inspire their fighters. Dickie and Gavin had seen Micky rally from behind in the past. They knew he was capable of landing the unexpected late-round knockout, and they wanted him to know it, too.

  “He’s ten times tireder than you could ever be,” Dickie said. “Whatever you are, he’s deader. His legs can’t move. You’re dead, but he’s ten times deader.”

  “He’s dead tired,” Gavin agreed. “If you can walk through him, then you’ve got him.”

  But Gatti was gearing up for the final round, determined to find whatever he had left and give it all.

  “Listen to me,” McGirt began. “Don’t fall into his trap. You understand?”

  “Yes,” Gatti responded.

  “Three minutes. Can we do three minutes?”

  “Yes, sir!” Gatti shouted this time.

  “Let’s go, baby. Give it to me. Jab. Don’t get caught in a slugfest.”

  Micky and Gatti walked to the center of the ring at the start of the tenth round, their twentieth overall, and hugged momentarily. Then they stepped back and came forward at each other again. In the final thirty seconds, both fighters swung nonstop and wildly at each other. Both fighters took additional and unnecessary shots, damage they could have avoided if they were so inclined. They were not. When it was over, Micky looked down in resignation, and Gatti raced over to his corner, jumped on the ropes, and began to celebrate.

  “You’re a fucking man!” Lynch shouted in Gatti’s face.

  “Gatti may have won that fight so decisively that there wouldn’t be a reason for a third fight,” Merchant said, adding, “It was a worthy sequel.”

  Micky and McGirt shared an embrace. Gatti and Micky hugged again, too. There was mutual respect and admiration all over the ring. Micky consented to pose for a few pictures with Gatti, each man holding up one glove. Gatti’s eye was bleeding, and McGirt stopped the picture-taking for a moment and said, “I don’t want him looking bruised up.”

  That made Micky smile just a bit. A few moments later, the smile was gone, and reality set in. Two judges, George Hill and Luis Ramirez, scored the fight 98-91 in favor of Gatti, and the third, Joseph Pasquale, scored it 98-90. The scores accurately reflected the one-sided nature of the fight. So, did the punch stats. Gatti landed 276 punches to Micky’s 180.

  “I was listening to my trainer,” Gatti explained. “I boxed the way I was supposed to box the first fight. . . . Tonight I used my legs, but I stayed in front of him and moved my head real good. We worked on staying low. When I was close to him, he had a hard time landing his body shot because I was low. It gave me an opportunity to move around him. I was in great shape. I think I landed more punches than the first fight. Micky Ward’s got a very strange defense. His hands never move. They’re like two pillars right in front of his face. So, I had to take my shots this time.”

  Micky knew he was beaten badly in the rematch, but he didn’t shy away from the possibility of a rubber match.

  “He fought a good fight,” Micky acknowledged. “Not gonna take anything away from him. No excuses. He fought a smart fight and a good fight. He’s a good guy and a great fighter. It was his night tonight. Plain and simple. The better man tonight beat me; that’s all. If we can get together again, I’ll give it one more shot. If not, I don’t know.”

  “It’s 1-1,” Gatti interjected. “So, a third one, I wouldn’t mind.”

  “Sounds good,” Micky concluded.

  It was time for Gatti-Ward III: The Final Chapter.

  CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE

  The wars inside the ring between Micky and Gatti were brutal, but respectful. The wars outside the ring between their management teams were nearly as brutal but without nearly as much respect. As usual, the battle lines were drawn around the money. For a third fight between Micky and Gatti, there was a big pile of money, enough so that everyone should have been happy. But even after a deal was struck, Micky wasn’t happy. He was bitter.

  “I’ve seen a lot of things in boxing that weren’t pretty,” Micky told the Boston Globe. “I’ve been at this for thirty years. A lot of things happen that aren’t right. After I beat him, I gave him a rematch for even money. I don’t regret that. I respect him. If he don’t respect me, there’s nothing I can do about that. I know I did what was right. Let them live with what they did to me on this.”

  With 3.2 million dollars already on the table before a single ticket had been sold, Micky was offered only eight hundred thousand dollars. Granted, it would be the second-largest payday of his career, but he’d still have to pay everyone on his management team.

  “Why did they want to make me feel like a creep in my last fight?” Micky wondered. “What keeps people like that motivated is beating people down. Getting over on people. We’re one to one. Why not even money again or maybe sixty-forty? I’m bringing in as many people as he is.”

  Micky was right. Fighters don’t get paid based on who’s better. Who can sell the most tickets is what matters. And certainly, the reason a third Ward-Gatti fight was in such high demand was because the public wanted to see the trilogy completed. For that to happen, both fighters were of equal value. Therefore, it stood to reason that they should be paid equally.

  “But I know why it went like this,” Micky added. “If I told them I’d dump Lou DiBella, they would have given me the extra 250,000 dollars that would have made it fair. But I wouldn’t do it. I’ve seen a lot of disloyal things in boxing, but I ain’t going to abandon the people who helped me get where I am for money. If I didn’t get the fight, I didn’t get it. In my heart, I knew what was the right thing. So do they, but they didn’t do it. If it never happened, I could live the rest of my life knowing I did the right thing. I would have gone back to work. I’d sit back on the roller and roll away. Paving season’s on! Why do people have to be so greedy?”

  It was a rhetorical and naïve question in the world of boxing to be sure. In the end, Main Events raised Micky’s purse to 1,075,000 dollars plus 25 percent of the net on the gate. After paying DiBella, Sal, Dickie, Al Gavin, and assorted other expenses, Micky stood to take home about 725,000 dollars. “I was fair with them after Micky beat Gatti, but they wanted to tear us apart when they got the upper hand,” Sal told the Globe. “They got a problem with DiBella, but
why should Micky have to pay for it? People have told me we should just dump DiBella and we’d get paid. Too many people in the fight game forget about loyalty. The first fight they screwed us. The second fight we were fair. We split fifty-fifty when we had the leverage because we thought it was right. So why do we get called pigs?”

  Kathy Duva from Main Events said her first responsibility was to Gatti, and that after the amount he’d be paid was determined, there wasn’t enough left over for everyone on Team Ward to get the amounts they wanted, but she added accusingly about Sal and DiBella, “If they were more concerned with what their fighter gets paid instead of what they get paid, there wouldn’t have been a problem.”

  But Main Events offered something closer to a seventy-five-twenty-five split, which could have been an indication that they really didn’t want the fight. They figured that Gatti was younger and ranked higher and he could have made a million dollars-plus fighting several different fighters. Micky’s best chance at one last payday was to fight Gatti. Micky had learned over the years that most of what happened outside the ring was out of his control. Fate and people with varying interests and varying degrees of integrity were in charge. But Micky could deal with being nickel and dimed, because he was getting out with millions. The poor kid from the bad town announced that he’d be retiring after his third fight with Gatti. Micky made nearly three million dollars in his last three and a half years in the ring. It was an amazing accomplishment for a man with an uneven 38-12 record, especially when you consider it was done in the so-called twilight of his career. Micky found the fights because he had an audience who appreciated his heart. He was proud to have made the money, and he was dead set on getting out of the dangerous game while he could still count it.

  “After our last fight, I considered retiring,” Ward admitted. “My family wanted me to stop. I was worried about my health, so I took a CAT scan to be sure everything was all right. It didn’t show nothing wrong. Then I started to feel better, and I thought, ‘Two out of three and that’s it.’”