Watching Gatti–Robinson II in Atlantic City last December, I realised I was watching the Manly Art of No Defence. Once again, young (but ageing fast, pugilistically) Arturo Gatti fought like Braveheart, going forward like a battle-crazed soldier charging a machine gun nest. The machine gunner was Ivan Robinson, who withstood charge after charge and fired back without mercy. This was a take-no-prisoners battle, virtually a rerun of Gatti–Robinson I some three months earlier, hailed as the ‘Fight of the Year’. Robinson eked out a split decision in that one, and in a second display of hand speed and fistic character, eked it out once again.
But Robinson prevailed with defensive skills almost as non-existent as Gatti’s. Round after round we counted bursts of five-six-seven-eight power punches thrown by a snarling Gatti. Instead of ducking, slipping, going side to side or strategically retreating, Robinson patiently endured the punishment, as if to say, ‘OK, Arturo, fire away; when you stop, it’s my turn.’ And then, Robinson would fire back with his own barrage, landing a little more accurately than Gatti, making the kind of fight that brings a crowd to its feet while never bringing either of the embattled warriors to his knees.
Round three was pure Gatti at its bloodiest. Robinson was finding the range, and the brave little bull from Montreal was giving still another of his Superman-as-victim performances. The left eye was busted up again, as I had seen it in the Patterson fights, and with Wilson Rodriguez and Angel Manfredy. Through the bloody mask, his eyes were on fire with the glint of combat. It almost seemed as if Gatti thrived on this physical abuse. At times he actually dropped his hands – as I remembered Jake LaMotta doing with the original Robinson in the last of their historic battles – and defied his tormentor to hit him. Our latter-day Robinson obliged, until watching it became either exhilarating or sickening to see, depending on the strength of your stomach.
You kept watching it because you knew, with Gatti, it wasn’t over until not only the fat lady sang but a full chorus of heifer-sized divas hit high C together. You remembered Gatti’s eyes already swollen and bloodied in the opening round of the Rodriguez ordeal. Knocked down and battered some more in round two, he somehow pressed on through that hailstorm of blood to impose his will on Rodriguez and take him out in the sixth. And who can forget the awful punishment Gabriel Ruelas inflicted on him in their fourth round, which ended with a crimson-faced Gatti barely able to stagger back to his corner? When the referee went over to survey the damage, there were cries of, ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ from the humanitarians sprinkled among the bloodthirsty. But the referee was brave enough to let Gatti come out for round five. Wallowing in a sea of punches, he refused to go under. The humanitarians were taking over now: ‘Stop it! Stop it!’ And, suddenly, the fight was stopped – by a desperate left hook on target to Ruelas’s chin. The loser came to the post-fight party, where he was still shaking his head at the explosive, last-second turnaround. And Arturo? He went where he invariably goes after a fight, win or lose. To the hospital.
After his most recent loss, Gatti was in no danger of being abandoned by HBO. ‘He’ll be back as long as he keeps on making great fights,’ a cable sportsman was saying as the doctor was stitching up the brave Arturo. But how many more times can this glutton for punishment go to the well?
The purses have ranged to $400,000, which means if he’s lucky – after the IRS and management get through with him – he’ll be taking home maybe $135,000. Hang on to your money, Arturo. As the once and future champion of the Manly Art of No Defence, you’re going to need every dollar of it. Plastic surgery comes high. And, as we approach the twenty-first century, you’re still deprived of the pension system for deserving fighters we’ve been pushing for since the first half of the old century. After going undefeated for six years, Gatti was zero for three in ’98. He’s in danger of becoming a crowd-pleasing ‘name’ opponent.
Two back-to-back ‘Fights of the Year’ had fans of this bloodfest clamouring, ‘Rematch!’ But Ivan Robinson was looking to move on: challenging the reigning Sugar, Shane Mosley, for his lightweight belt. ‘If he [Gatti] wants to fight again, he’s such an exciting fighter, he can,’ the winner summed up the rival he had nipped on two of the three scorecards by a single point. ‘But in all honesty, I don’t think Arturo can last another year taking shots like that.’
I remember the bravehearts who fought their guts out and kept coming. Ace Hudkins, way back when, whose brothers later had to lead him around like a blind child. And the late Jerry Quarry, who fought ’em all . . . Frazier, Ali, Patterson . . . and wound up groping his way through dark shadows. As we cheer him on and marvel at his truly extraordinary grit, are we writing for young Arturo Gatti a ‘Requiem for a Lightweight’?
[1999]
P.S. That was seven years ago, and the Gatti Freight Train (never an Express like De La Hoya’s) chugs on. Three brutal caveman battles with Mickey Ward. Serving as a human punching bag for Floyd Mayweather, Jr. But coming back to fill the great hall in Atlantic City once again to take out a tough, previously undefeated but unknown Thomas Damgaard in the 11th round of another of those fights in which he takes too many punches for his future mental health but to the delight of ‘Gatti’s army’, 15,000 and counting, who love his reckless style and indomitable spirit. We saw him as a junior lightweight champion walking through a storm of punches from good fighters who finally got tired of hitting him and surrendered. He’s been doing that for 15 years, since he was in his late teens, and he’s still swinging and catching in his middle 30s. The fine old welterweight, now a top trainer, Buddy McGirt, has been giving him some boxing lessons, and he’s an apt student – until he gets hit. Then it’s back to the basic Arturo Gatti the fans come to see. But they won’t be walking around talking to themelves ten years from now. They’ll have a new gladiator to cheer. My ‘Requiem for a Lightweight’ may have been premature. But when it comes to this noble practitioner of the Manly Art of No Defence, as he fights on, he may be able to hum the music of the requiem but, alas, he may have trouble remembering the words.
[2006]