Young fighter's quest for a lasting legacy

By Steve Janoski

In the back of what looks like a typical general fitness gym in Whippany sits an Olympic size boxing ring and a long row of heavy bags that sway and flutter like the ocean breakers over the rippled hardwood floor.


It’s here, among the smell of sweat and old hand wraps, that athletes are put through sweltering torture to the snapping rhythms of punches hitting leather meant to forge them into fighters.

One man here has risen a bit faster than the rest, though, and when Final Round Boxing’s pride and joy gets in the ring and goes to work, the whole gym stops and takes notice.

At 24 years old, he’s a relative newcomer to a sport where most champions train from their first steps, but as soon as he steps through the ring ropes, it becomes undeniable that the kid’s got a natural aptitude for violence; as he shadowboxes, his body hurls around like a gyroscope in a brutal ballet designed to devastate the hardiest of men.

Vinny O’Brien, lean and chiseled with slicked-back black hair, started boxing around three years ago and immediately showed his aptitude in the squared circle: a finalist in the 2008 NJ Golden Gloves tournament, he won the 141 pound title in the same tournament in 2010.

This Friday night, the East Hanover native will return to the Prudential Center in Newark for his third professional fight in the hopes of staying undefeated as he tries to turn a fledgling pro career into something bigger — much bigger.

A bell signals the end of the round, and his trainer, Lou Esa, steps between the ropes himself to work the focus mitts for the young welterweight nicknamed “The Lion.”

In another life, the mammoth 6 foot 6 inch Esa, 59, was a professional heavyweight who fought on Muhammad Ali’s undercards. With blonde hair and a huge smile, he talks with the swaggering confidence of one who’s knocked out 16 men.

He trains O’Brien every day, and calls him a “work in progress” whose maniacal attitude towards training is proving to be his finest asset.

“He’s only had eight amateur fights and two pro fights…but he works every day like it’s his last and I love that about him,” said Esa.

With every session he improves, the trainer says: increased movement, more powerful punches, the development of a left hook that can shake a building.

Pop, pop….pop, pop, bang goes the sweet cadence as combination after combination tear into the pads. Esa shouts encouragement as O’Brien throws a right hand to his chest.

“Yea, you stopped his heart with that one!” he yells.

A step to the side, and another right hand spits out from the furious dynamo, another yell, and I have no envy for his opponent.

“You hit somebody with that and its goodnight Irene!” Esa yells through his goatee.

O’Brien’s style is electrifying— he’s got no problem taking a punch to land one, and when he takes one on the chin, it’s like pulling the cord on a 5 foot 9 inch chainsaw.

He’s also white, which in boxing is nothing but a blessing; if you’re a good fighter, you can be transformed into the next “Great White Hope” overnight. If you happen to be a great fighter, it doesn’t matter what color your skin is— the money is out there.

“You’re in boxing, you could get lucky and make millions…I mean, you could set your kids up for life if you worked hard,” Esa tells me later.

He says that his fighter has a style that will fashion an iron bond between he and his fans reminiscent of the late Arturo Gatti, anotherNew Jerseynative andAtlantic Cityfavorite known for his die-hard following.

Friday’s fight will be broadcast nationally on ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights,” so if there’s any time to create that bond, it’s now.

O’Brien wants it just the same, because if it doesn’t work out in boxing….well, in his words, “It’s gotta work out.”

“There’s no backup plan. This is Plan A, Plan B, Plan C…this is everything,” he says.

It’s not an easy road to choose—littered with empty promises, shattered careers, and the corpses of good men, it’s known as a meat grinder that will use up the weak and lay low the strong.

But Esa knows the siren song of the villainous swine, and says he laid it bare to O’Brien from the first meeting.

“I was there, I been there, I done that,” he says. “I told him, ‘Look, they’re gonna’ offer you the world, and you gotta’ make the decision: it’s either you do it the right way, or we don’t do it,’ and he says, ‘No Lou, I promise I’ll listen.’”

Esa shakes his head as he relates stories about fighters from his generation who are so punch drunk that they can barely talk, or who lost everything on their journey down the rocky road.

“I won’t let that happen to (Vinny),” Esa says, shaking his head.“No matter what.”

E-mail: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/122209103_Young_fighter_s_quest_for_a_lasting_legacy.html?c=y&page=1

The noblest parts of the hardest game

BY STEVE JANOSKI
Wednesday, September 29, 2010

The first professional fight I ever watched was on Cinco de Mayo, 2007.

That night, a few friends and I had gone to a seedy bar in a rough section of town to watch Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya go to war.

There had been a lot of hard talk before the fight, and I had just begun learning to box myself at the time, so I figured I should watch one or two fights to see what the top dogs did.

It was hardly a memorable fight— a mundane split decision victory for Mayweather that featured a lot of movement and very little brawling.

Regardless, it captivated me, as fighting in any form often captivates young men.

Growing up shorter than the rest of the crowd in my youth, I'd lost my first fight in kindergarten and faired only mildly better in many affairs after, so I knew what it was like early on to get hit.

Why anyone would want to make a profession of such a thing escaped logic to me, but I came to understand it that night.

It was the atmosphere around the ring, which, though filled with movie stars and former fighters and politicians, also has an electrical energy in it, a deadly calm that occurs on the seas right before a hurricane hits.

And then, for its flash and fanfare and fame— then, the brutal, unadulterated violence explodes.

It seems like a simple sport, the base of which comes down to "hit the other guy more, and harder, than he hits you." That's probably why every guy thinks he can do it, or that he knows what he's talking about when watching a fight.

The truth is that they can't, they don't, and that boxing is possibly the most complicated, subtly nuanced sport ever invented.

Even with the advent of Mixed Martial Arts, which seems to be overtaking part of boxing's market, there still is no question which is the "harder" sport.

MMA athletes are warriors just the same, but there are ways in MMA to dodge the brutality that's simply inherent in boxing.

Don't want to get hit in the face? Shoot for his legs. Take him down, make it a grappling match. Try and "tap out" the other guy.

In boxing, you can't tap out. The only way to tap out is to take a knee and let the referee stop the fight, but for real men, literally bowing in the face of an overwhelming opponent can be a soul-shattering experience.

And so we have fighters, guys like Micky Ward or Arturo Gatti or Diego Corrales, who made careers out of being known to never, ever quit, and to go out on their shield in the most literal sense of the term, finishing the fight either standing up or knocked out.

That's a lot to ask for when, after round upon round, you know you're not getting knocked out but the bones and your face feel like they've melded together in one mushy, painful pile, and that one more shot might blow them apart.

Boxing represents all that has left our society, and what lies in the souls of fighters is not found in the souls of those who play basketball or football.

When one of these players spikes the ball in the endzone or dunks on another guy, he's saying, "I've won. I'm harder than you, I'm more of man than you."

Sometimes the dunked on player will take offense, and a shoving match will ensure, maybe even a full blown fight. Because really, that's what all of these games come down to — who's more of a man, and who is the alpha dog.

And when you're looking to settle who is king of the mountain, well, that's settled with fists.

The spectacle of a boxing match is what forms the base for all of these other games that are trying to show who's king without getting beaten to death while doing it — this is why nobody "plays" boxing.

This society as a whole has become overwhelmingly frightened of violence. A cross word can get you sued, dodge ball is banned in schools, and HR departments and "mediators" settle disputes that once might have been settled the old way.

But in truth, a little violence is a good thing.

It's good to know where your limits are, what it feels like to get hit, and the sense of accomplishment you get from being so tired that your lungs are gasoline burnt and you can't hold your arms up and a fighter is trying to kill you…but you still made it through.

That's the kind of thing that boxing slams on the table and shoves towards you. There's no plaudits for those that can't make it, no participation trophies for the "B" level fighters.

Don't want to get hit? Get out of the gym. Not hard enough? You'll get knocked stupid, and no trainer will waste his time on you.

And if you do lose, you've got to admit that there's at least one guy out there who probably could have killed you if he didn't let up or the fight wasn't stopped.

This is one of most sobering thoughts that a human can have.

Email: Janoski@northjersey.com

A Final Plea for Mayweather-Pacquaio

By Steve Janoski: I imagine that these must be dark days for Floyd Mayweather Jr. Just a few short months ago, he was boxing’s triumphant conquering hero - returning to the sport last July and quickly dispatching two of the toughest, most talented fighters in the world in Juan Manual Marquez and Shane Mosley.

Immediately following the Mosley fight, he rose back to the top of the elusive “Pound for Pound” rankings once again, but there was more going on in the ring on the evening of May 1 than just taking some worthless mythical title from a placeholder.

Mayweather proved something to his detractors that night when he took Mosley’s best right hands and not only withstood them, but came back to utterly dominate the bigger, stronger fighter without having to back up while doing it.

For that short time after this virtuoso performance, the game was his again; he had made millions off the two fights, and his name was cleared in the eyes of not only the boxing public, but also in the eyes of the IRS. Many boxing fans, though they hated to admit it, began to suspect that he would easily defeat Manny Pacquiao in what everyone believed was an imminent match.

However, after the negotiations for the fight stalled for the second time, Pacquiao signed up to fight Antonio Margarito. The one-sided demolition of that same fighter last Saturday night has struck the boxing world hard, and made the iron hot for a drastic change; the pendulum has swung back in the Filipino’s favor.

And my God, how far Mayweather has fallen since.

The furor spread instantly over the internet. The wall of Mayweather’s Facebook page is alight with messages— nearly all of them having to do with Pacquiao, and not all of them cordial.

Some are messages of support from his real fans, while others are quiet, humble inquiries into what appears to be his seeming reluctance to fight the Filipino. Many, however, are far more boisterous, calling the fighter “Gayweather” or “Fraud” and telling him that Pacquiao will “destroy him.”

One fan even went so far as to say that Floyd has lost his own Facebook page.

“Floyd has lost his skills, he always loses money, he’s losing his fans, and he’s even lost this Facebook page,” the fan proclaimed. “This page belongs to PACQUIAO now.”

It doesn’t stop there. Every YouTube tribute to Floyd has been inundated with comments of the same ilk— brutally brash callouts by anonymous screen names looking to rattle sabers for their fighter.

All the while, piles of opinion articles are accumulating, many of which contain feature authors proclaiming the era of Floyd Mayweather dead, and that Saturday’s mauling of Margarito has left the outcome of a future Mayweather-Pacquiao fight all but decided.

As if this isn’t enough, Mayweather’s personal life also appears to be in shambles. He’s been hit with a restraining order by his ex-girlfriend that prevents him from seeing his two sons, the result of an allegedly violent confrontation in September. The slew of charges he faces for this incident could put him in prison for over 30 years.

Another incident occurred just last week, with a security guard claiming that Floyd poked him in the eye through an open car window when the guard was parked outside Mayweather’s Las Vegas home. This could result in another misdemeanor assault charge if pursued by the prosecution.

And, in one final blow, his trainer and uncle, Roger Mayweather, will likely stand trial on Jan. 24 on charges of attacking a female boxer. Roger, who is currently free on bail, could face a maximum of 10 years in prison if he’s convicted, meaning that even if Floyd ducks jail, he may be left without his trusted trainer for the biggest fight of his life.

Frankly, Floyd’s life is becoming a Shakespearean tragedy of epic proportions, where the attributes that have led him to these magnificent heights— his unwavering pride and his willingness to commit violence— are leading him directly to his brutal end.

But fear not. All is not over— especially when we’re talking about Floyd Mayweather, Jr.

I made the mistake once of questioning his heart, and he came back and proved me wrong; I suspect that he may do the same thing with the current flock of critics, especially in regards to a possible fight with Pacquiao.

Pacquiao’s fight with Margarito, while impressive, was not a shocking upset; one might even say that it had a predetermined outcome. Size difference be damned, few gave the slow-footed, wide-punching Mexican a realistic chance at defeating the Filipino southpaw, and with good reason. But we boxing fans are a fickle, insatiable brood, with short memories and minds that are easily swayed by the pre-fight hype heaped upon us.

In reality though, the Mexican brawler is cut from the same cloth as Pacquiao’s past handful of opponents— hard-hitting but sluggish on his feet, and little more than a wavering heavy bag for the tornado that is Manny Pacquiao on fight night.

Was Margarito much larger? Yes. However, he’s always been more of an inside fighter, walking through punches to land his own heavy uppercuts and hooks. He rarely employs a solid jab, and doesn’t throw a particularly long right hand; a rangy fighter, he is not.

For a fast southpaw like Pacquiao, this was not a spectacular challenge. Freddie Roach knew this, and that’s why he let Pacquiao take the fight. No misleading, overblown 24/7 series should make anyone believe that Margarito had any real chance besides a fluke knockout.

But when people talk about Pacquiao “destroying” Mayweather, I really must ask, even in the glowering ruins of the post-Margarito destruction— have we forgotten whom we are talking of?

Hate him or love him, Floyd Mayweather Jr. is 41-0. He has made fighters of every style and caliber look like amateurs, and he’s done it for more than a decade.

His resume is a list of the most talented fighters of the last 10 years— Emanuel Augustus, Jose Luis Castillo, Oscar De Lay Hoya, Zab Judah, Diego Corrales, DeMarcus Corley, Ricky Hatton, Shane Mosley, Arturo Gatti, Carlos Baldomir; Floyd has humiliated and defeated all of them.

Is Pacquiao better than all of these fighters? Yes. His combination of speed, power, footwork, and angles puts him at the top as far as ability, with the exception of maybe Mosley at lightweight or De La Hoya in his prime.

However, to say that the outcome of any fight with Floyd Mayweather is a foregone conclusion is foolhardy, for the simple reason that 41 men have tried, and all have failed. As the fighter himself is so fond of saying— all 41 had a game plan, and none of them worked.

On top of this, Mayweather, being an astute counterpuncher with an exceptional understanding of range, distance, and angles, is the type of fighter that Pacquiao has had trouble with in the past. He is far more Marquez than he is Cotto, Hatton, Clottey, or Margarito.

I will make no prediction on this prospective fight, as it’s simply too early to even entertain the thought (or get my hopes up that it happens in the first place). But one thing is certain: having Manny Pacquiao in the ring with Floyd Mayweather will drive Mayweather to dig deeper, and perform better, than he ever has in his life.

Will that be enough to prevail? Who knows. But it will certainly be enough to make the fight an encounter that Mayweather would have extraordinary incentive to win— he should know better than anybody that in America, when you win, we tend to give you a pass on a lot of misdeeds.

Whoever triumphs, the excuses will abound. The fight took too long to come to fruition, someone had hand problems, someone was on steroids, someone injected lidocaine, someone got old overnight or someone was already shot and now they’re “exposed”— we boxing fans don’t like giving credit to winners, no matter who it is.

Ironically though, it’s the fans who would be the real winners of this matchup. The massive buildup to this fight would be one that this generation of fight fans has never experienced, and the battle itself might approach the level of those bouts that have come to be described as “legendary” in the history of the sport— “The Rumble in the Jungle,” “The Showdown,” “The Brawl in Montreal,” “The Thrilla in Manilla,” “The War.”

It would be the only matchup of this era capable of duplicating the raw excitement purely because of the characters of the personalities involved. And, if it does finally happen, these two modern warriors will face off and have the opportunity to, as Homer said, “Stand and fight to the finish, twisting and lunging in their deadly dance,” and leave the memory of their battle imprinted on the minds of every pair of eyes watching for years to come.

The chance for the two greatest fighters of an age to have the opportunity to come toe-to-toe while still in their primes happens rarely, and this fight not happening because of squabbles about blood tests or payouts would be the greatest travesty in the history of the sport.

It would also give every fan in the world the right to – no, it would nearly demand – that every fan in the world turn their back on an already fading niche sport, because we deserve more than this from the fighters, the promoters, and the boxing world in general.

Floyd, Manny— do not rob yourselves of the chance for your names to live forever, with a place in the history books that emulates the likes of Hector and Achilles, and to be the first memorable warriors of the new millennium.

And for the love of God…do not rob us of the chance to watch you do it.

This article originally posted on Eastsideboxing.com

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=25846&more=1

Where is Floyd's Fighter's Heart?

By Steve Janoski - When I heard that Floyd Mayweather was returning to the ring, my first thought was, “This will be it.”

I had envisioned him returning to the sport like a conquering hero, a modern day Hernan Cortes, crushing those welterweights who he had been accused of ducking over the years with sharp left hooks and stiff straight rights. After these brawls, he would join the pantheon of boxing heroes and be called one of the Greatest Of All Time, alongside the Alis and Fraziers, the Durans and Lenoards, the Haglers and Hearns..

Yes, I thought. This must be it.

And then…I heard that he was fighting Juan Manuel Marquez… and I knew that this year‘s “Money” wasn’t any different than the last one.

Not that Marquez isn’t a great fighter, mind you- he most certainly is. However, he’s a small great fighter, one that is two weight classes lighter and five inches shorter in reach. On top of this, Floyd Mayweather is an incredible fighter, a once-in-a-lifetime talent with superb reflexes, impeccable ring generalship, and yet-unmatched hand speed.

Floyd has been blessed with that we mortals could only dream of having; even more remarkable, his skills, which for most men fade with age, have seemed to have only been enhanced, more defined in their perfection.

And that may be the real reason why Floyd is a rarity amongst fighters- unlike most warriors, whose hearts and wills outlive their skills, Floyd is the opposite- a fighter whose skills have outlasted what his heart, and maybe his head, tell him he can do.

Once upon we had a Floyd Mayweather Jr. who truly fought. We watched him embarrass the indomitable Chico Corrales, knocking him down five times in 10 rounds. We saw him in 24-rounds of war with Jose Luis Castillo, winning both times, the first by the narrowest of narrow margins.

Later, he battered the heroic Arturo Gatti into submission, raked Zab Judah (after Judah’s pre-requisite “Four Good Rounds” were over), and out-brawled Baldomir. He out-thought De La Hoya, and out-slugged Hatton. Two weeks ago, we saw him “come back” to the sport we all knew he never left against a determined, but outclassed, Juan Manuel Marquez in a decidedly one-sided fight that featured Mayweather at his finest.

Those last names are big ones to be sure; Hatton and De La Hoya are amongst the most popular fighters in this generation. Unfortunately for Floyd, that’s all they are- just names.

The Mayweather-De La Hoya fight was done plainly for the money. It was not the finest matchup that could be made- a 154 lb. Mayweather fighting out of his weight class, and being more conservative than normal against the quickly-aging De La Hoya who had always performed less than brilliantly in his biggest fights. Ricky Hatton was another one of those odd mismatches, with the tough Englishman who always struggled at welterweight stepping up for only the second time, and ending up way above his head. And since then, there was… well, silence.

Not from boxing fans, mind you. Since “Money” decided to move up to welter, we’ve all wanted to see him fight the big dogs; no more old warriors or blown up 140-pounders or 8-loss brawlers. No, we’ve wanted to see him get in with the lethal fighters, the Sugar Shanes, the Killer Cottos, the Clotteys. I would love to see him fight the Paul William, Andre Berto, hell, even the Collazo or Quintana. Just fight full size welterweights, the guys that he knows (and they know) could actually hurt him, the guys aren’t going to get in the ring with their hands down or forget to jab.

But that won’t happen. On Sept. 19, we saw that Mayweather knew full well that his smaller, slower opponent could hurt him no more than a puppy can hurt a pitbull. Unfortunately it seems that this is how Floyd likes things, and it is beginning to appear that this pitbull is silently fearful about facing dogs his size.

The look on Mayweather’s face when Sugar Shane Mosley got in the ring after the fight showed us all we needed to know- Floyd, looking more shook than Max Kellerman, didn’t react with his typical bravado. While not one man in the boxing world questions whether Sugar Shane would fight him, we all question whether Floyd is so willing. The “banter” after the fight did little to dispel that belief in those of us who hold it.

Regardless, Floyd will go on his way. He will beat Pacquiao in similar fashion as he dispatched Marquez, and probably go on to fight another fighter that he is sure he could beat before he retires again. He will make loud noises about how he is the greatest, but no one will listen. Why? Because for most fighters, it’s the names in the win-and-loss column that that defines their legacy; for Floyd, it appears that it will be the names not in any column that define his.

And that is not only a waste of God given talent, but also a God damn shame.

Article posted on 02.10.2009

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/news.php?p=21388&more=1