All week long the Atlantic City spectacle – pitting the crowd-pleasing puncher Arturo Gatti against the slick and undefeated ‘Pretty Boy’ Floyd Mayweather, Jr – had been hyped as ‘Thunder v. Lightning’. Gatti, the poster boy of the Manly Art of No Defence, has won fame and fortune for his ‘gluttony’, an eighteenth-century word describing his ability to absorb severe punishment, on the verge of a knockout, and then somehow digging down for one desperate effort that turns the tables and gives him the final victory. Over the years this punch-absorbing, gladiatorial approach has won him an army of loyal fans, and they were lining up as early as 4.30 a.m. on the first morning tickets went on sale for his challenge to the nifty but unpopular Floyd Mayweather, Jr .The people’s favourite bringing it to the betting favourite, the peerless but unloved and self-styled ‘Pretty Boy’ Mayweather.
In the week building to the fight, the trash talk went on. Gatti bragged that his new trainer, a former champion himself, Buddy McGirt, had added a new finesse to his brawling style that would surprise the egomaniacal Mayweather and destroy his perfect record. But no one has ever out-talked the brash ‘Pretty Boy,’ who scorned Gatti all week as ‘a paper champion who doesn’t deserve to be in the same ring with me. What you are going to see is a superb, young champion out there, executing what he was taught as a young boy.’
Floyd wasn’t born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but maybe a mouthpiece, as his father was a top contender and his uncle, Roger, his erstwhile trainer, a former champion. Having seen both the elder Mayweathers in action, I knew that the twenty-first century version is an improvement on both of them put together. He has, by far, the fastest hands in the division, and his offensive skills are equal to his defensive skills, which is why he has been rated as one of the top two or three pound-for-pound fighters in the world – although ‘Pretty Boy’ would question that statement, telling everyone within hearing distance that he is clearly No. 1. With his 33 victims, including Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo (whose recent battle will never be forgotten by ring historians), Floyd must be given credit for backing up his non-stop arrogance with performances that convince his audience that he’s almost as great as he thinks he is. ‘You call it arrogance, I call it self-confidence,’ Floyd defined it before the fight, and he has a point. Where is that fine line between a healthy self-confidence and chest-thumping arrogance?
Maybe the best answer is the Mayweather–Gatti fight itself. When the cheers for their hero – 12,000 strong, chanting ‘GATTI! GATTI! GATTI!’ – and the prolonged boos for Mayweather were finally punctuated by the opening bell, Floyd went right to work, flashing the lightning. But, alas, for the local hero, there was no thunder. Nothing but lightning and a hard rain of punches to Gatti’s face and body that came so fast, from so many angles, that once again I was reminded of my oft-repeated description of this masochistic warrior: the manly art of no defence. Near the end of the round, with Gatti turning to the referee to protest what he thought was an infraction of the rules, and with his head turned away from his opponent, Floyd showed no mercy by smacking him resoundingly on the jaw. ‘Protect yourself at all times’ is the unforgiving maxim that Gatti forgot and Mayweather opportunistically remembered. As Gatti started down, the referee gave him an eight-count.
It was an omen of what was to come. My second round notes read: ‘FM’s handspeed. Outclassing AG. Landing at will.’ That could describe every round thereafter, into the sixth. By now Mayweather was scoring with five- and six-punch combinations that poor Arturo was absorbing with a Jake LaMotta determination to endure punishment that made you feel sorry for him while admiring his futile courage. When trainer McGirt decided his battered warrior had had enough, even Gatti’s legendary fighting spirit was failing him. His protest was muted, and his battered face told the story. After 18 painful minutes, he knew he had met his master. All the great nights were behind him now. He was exposed for what he had always been, a glorifed club fighter, on his way to the laughing academy if he doesn’t hang ’em up.
As for the winner, the showboating and braggadocio that has not endeared him to the public was noticeably absent when he talked with us after the fight. Clearly aware of the negative image he had created, not only with the nasty trash talk but for marital disturbances, assaults in nightclubs and his ugly fights with his father, whom he had fired as trainer and thrown out of his house, Junior was now saying, ‘Don’t judge me by my past. I’m not perfect. Nobody’s perfect. Anyone can change. I don’t go to clubs any more. I’m a family man now. They need to judge me on how I seem now, not on what I did. All I wanna do is be the first. Like Sugar Ray was the first. Ali was the first.’
I travelled all over the world with Ali, from Miami to Dublin to Zaire, and there was something about the way he proclaimed, ‘I’m the prettiest! I’m the greatest!’ that didn’t irritate us as has Junior’s ‘Hooray for me!’ There was a touch of insouciance and humour in Ali’s advertisements for himself that have been noticeably lacking in Floyd’s self-hyping persona. As for his readiness and ability to reform, I have my doubts. Too many times he has seemed to be auditioning to play the lead in a remake of Champion, the old movie with its nasty, anti-hero champ, as created by the gifted, sardonic Ring Lardner and acidly acted by Kirk Douglas. But maybe this is a generational thing. My son Benn, the psychology graduate student and boxing writer for www.thesweetscience.com, who is more of an age with young Mayweather, came away from an exclusive one-on-one talk with the champion with this observation:
Mayweather admitted that boxing’s not a gentleman’s sport, like golf or tennis. And that he trash talks because it goes with the territory. Yet, after the fight, we saw a different man, humble, respectful and genuine, and he admitted to making mistakes in life. He even showed compassion for his fallen opponent after telling the world he wanted to punish and embarrass him. ‘He’s tough, I respect him. Gatti’s a good guy. I even said a prayer for him before the fight that he could come back another day.’
Maybe we should scratch the ‘Pretty Boy’ nickname and call him ‘Gentleman Floyd’ as this Mayweather has seemingly turned his lifestyle around and matured into a champion we can all be proud of. So don’t be fooled by his flashy antics inside the ring. The mink hoods, the talking to the commentators while fighting, the outlandish entrances, including Saturday night in which he was carried to the ring on an emperor’s throne by Roman soldiers, are all part of his plan to make an everlasting mark in this sport. ‘I gotta be flashy in the ring cuz I gotta be the first,’ he explained. ‘All I wanna do is be the first.’
But a humble ‘first’? All I can say, in Spanish, is Vamos a ver. We will see what we will see. I wish I knew how to say it in Scottish. Or, maybe we’ll settle with the old bromide, ‘The proof is in the pudding.’
So what’s next for our undefeated junior lightweight king? Ricky Hatton was at ringside, and he would be an obvious choice in a mega-fight to unify the belts. Floyd has already started the trash talk, in describing his own ‘God-given talent. I showed them this sport is called boxing, not wrestling [referring to Hatton’s defeat of Kosta Tzsyu].’
If I were Ricky, now with American fans as well as British at my feet, I wouldn’t want to rush into a fight with Floyd. I imagine Frank Warren would agree not to burst the bubble by exposing his boy to those super-fast hands and accurate punching power. An aggressive brawler, Hatton seems made to order for Mayweather. If I were he, I would think about cashing in on my instant American fame with some name fighters in the division who could bring me some money without yet exposing myself to a buzzsaw who could chop me up.
As for Mayweather, the fight these old eyes are looking forward to is his imminent challenge to Zab ‘Super’ Judah, the undisputed welterweight championship of the world. Both of them can outfight everybody else around. Not to mention out-talk them. But when they get ready to rumble, if you’re a betting man, go with ‘Pretty Boy’. Alas, the fight game ain’t what it used to be, but the pride of the Mayweather dynasty may be the only boxer on the scene today who could hold his own with the great ones of old.
[2005]