Irish Thunder
Page 36
In June 2007 25-year-old John Morrell of Chelmsford was indicted on one count of manslaughter for the beating death of Dennis Bilodeau.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Finally, Micky’s hard work had been rewarded with good fortune. He had fought long and hard and had pocketed more than three million dollars. He walked away from boxing a winner.
Jim Lampley said it succinctly at the end of Micky’s last fight—thirty rounds with Arturo Gatti. “It has to be the most thrilling and entertaining thirteen-loss career.”
True, Micky lost thirteen of his fifty-one professional fights, which qualifies him as better than average, and he never won a major world title, his WBU light welterweight title not withstanding. But he became a working-class hero, an underdog with an oversized heart.
In the days leading up to his second and final retirement, Micky told the Boston Herald, “I’ll probably work, but I’d do that no matter how much money I had. I figure I’ll take a month off, but don’t be surprised to see me driving the paver again before the summer’s over. It’s not like I started throwing money around once I started making it. I invested most of it. I did buy a house in Lowell, but I have a mortgage like anybody else. I can honestly say my lifestyle didn’t change once I started making money, and it won’t now.”
Well, his lifestyle did change a little bit. Although he went back to paving streets and parking lots in Lowell and living in a house on Upham Street, about two hundred yards from his childhood home on Stevens Street, he now worked when he wanted to, not because he had to.
Micky kept his word about retirement, never once looking back. He married Charlene at the Viva Las Vegas Chapel on May 27, 2005.
“An Elvis impersonator sang,” Micky recalled. “It was pretty cool.”
Then he and his wife settled down with his four dogs, Buddy, Bruno, Bubba Booey, and Ernie, a St. Bernard, an English mastiff, an English bulldog, and a Pekinese, in that order.
Micky and Charlene bought a tanning salon, Caribbean Sun Tanning, on Middlesex Street in Lowell. And Micky began training a small stable of fighters, including his nephew Sean Eklund, who had the talent, the courage, and enough poor judgment to follow his uncles into the world of boxing. Eklund had his first professional fight up at the Hampton Beach Casino in New Hampshire, the same place where Micky’s career took a definitive upward turn. Eklund lost that night.
A life of leisure isn’t something Micky had ever known, and he wasn’t looking for an introduction at the age of thirty-eight. But whether he was comfortable with it or not, Micky was a celebrity, and he had time on his hands. He attended dinners in his honor. He accepted awards. He played in charity golf tournaments, even though his double vision made it impossible for him to see the ball for more than a year. He dropped the ceremonial first puck at a Lowell Lock Monster’s hockey game where fifteen hundred fans received Micky Ward bobblehead dolls. He signed autographs, and he raised money for the Lowell-based Kids in Disability Sports, Inc.
Micky even kept himself in good-enough shape to run the Boston Marathon, though he didn’t take his training quite as seriously as he had when he was still a professional boxer. When other runners spent the evening before the marathon carbo-loading on pasta, Micky was getting drunk. He showed up at the starting line in Hopkinton with a pounding headache, and by the time he reached the finish line in Boston, he felt even worse. Still, he finished the 26.2 miles. He knew about hard journeys, and he always went the distance.
“Micky Ward belongs to that great upper middle class of prizefighters,” Larry Merchant said. “He’s not in the elite, but he’s never cheated the fans or the public. Too often, the top fighters’ bouts are performances—concerts, if you will. But in terms of competition, action, and drama, guys like Micky Ward are the heart and soul of the sport.”
Micky did things in the ring that showed more courage than talent. His comebacks and knockouts against Alfonzo Sanchez and Reggie Green showed people less about what kind of boxer he was, and more about what kind of man he was, and they began rooting for the man. So, despite losing three of his last four fights, Micky remained a hero of the people.
It was an uncommon success story. At one point, the kid from Lowell was being promoted by a guy who couldn’t promote fights in his home state, managed by a novice manager, and trained by his brother, a former crack addict. Meanwhile, any one of his seven sisters could barge into his locker room drunk at any time. Yet, inside this maelstrom was a calm but violent fighter.
Luck was involved. Talent had something to do with it. And the will to win kept Micky moving forward in the ring and upward outside of it. It didn’t hurt that he was a white Irish kid who could fight, either. He was given opportunities, and he failed. He was given second chances, and sometimes he failed again. But he finished every fight on his feet, and walked out of the ring with his head held high.
Micky Ward was not a saint or an innocent. He was imperfect as a man and as a fighter, but as both, he was dependable and respectable. He lived in two worlds—boxing and the real one—and in both there are right roads and wrong roads to travel, pitfalls ready to devour anyone who missteps. In the worlds where Micky resided, there were hundreds of ways to screw up, and only one way to succeed. You have to fight. You don’t always have to win, but you have to keep fighting. Micky kept fighting. And the low-key, strangely humble, and honest Irish kid who could fight did more than that, he became a legend.
Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY - ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY - TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE