The gym at night

After a savage workout

Grit and punching power propel Pompton boxer

If you drove by the corner of Monroe Street and Lucille Place in Passaic in the early 90s, there's a good chance you saw Rafael Morera out there on the pavement, fighting against other kids his age under the watchful eye of his father.

It's not the typical father-son activity, but it was the way things were.

"He used to bring boxing gloves, take me out on the corner, and tell all the people on the block, 'Yo, what up? I'll give you $100 if you can knock out my son,'" said Morera, a smile perched on the edge of his lips. "And dude, we used to go at it."

It's hard to believe if you see him now, and Morera, with his gray eyes and short, perfectly manicured beard, looks like he should be commuting to a New York City advertising job instead of sitting sideways on a bench in a boxing gym on a Thursday morning.

But, like his father, he's built for athletics — although he doesn't have overwhelming height at 5-foot, 9-inches tall, a collection of muscles and veins bulge from every bared inch, and he is one of those guys that never runs out of energy, is always excited to be wherever he is.

After all, it's not without pride that he notes that through all of those streetfights, his father never once had to pay up.

Breaking the mold

Morera, who lives in Pompton Lakes, isn't the stereotypical fighter. For one thing, he's 31, which isn't old for an amateur but for an amateur who wants to turn pro, it's ancient. He was captain of the DePaul football team in 2002, and has accumulated a base of strength through years of weightlifting that has made him as wide as he is tall. His background isn't broken, and he was raised, as he said, with "great morals."

But there was always that other side. Especially concerning his father, who has had a profound effect on Morera, for better or worse.

He was a boxer, too, not a pro but a very good amateur, and a minor league baseball player who once tried out for the Mets. Some of Morera's earliest memories are of his dad going through his morning routine of pushups, sit-ups, and shadowboxing, and in his spare time, he would teach his son how to throw combinations or slap box.

He brought Morera to his gym, the legendary Lou Costello Sportsman Club in Paterson, and it was there that he fell in love amidst the sounds of thumping speedbags and skipping rope.

"I walked in, and I just felt at home right away," he said.

He started training, and the precocious boy even had a few fights under his belt by age 10.

Like his dad, he was always a little bigger, a little stronger than kids his own age, and in boxing, he found he could hit harder than people expected.

But then his father got mixed up in some bad things — things that aren't talked about — and shortly afterward was deported back to the Dominican Republic. After that, Morera became attracted to sports like football and weightlifting, and left his fighting days behind.

That was many years ago, and a lot has changed since. Morera became a police officer in his hometown of Passaic and married his wife Josie. Together they had a son, Mason, who is now 2 years old.

He retired from the force around that time, and picked up several trades, like real estate or private investigations, to fill his time.

But there was still an old ghost haunting him, one that he couldn't get past. He missed the challenge only the ring can provide, the thrill that only a real, honest fight can give.

So he called Joe Zabry, who owns Aces Boxing Club in Boonton, and told him he wanted to get in the gym again.

"I've always had boxing in my heart, and when I retired from the police department, I said, 'This is my time. It's now or never,'" he said.

Months of intensive training followed, and although Morera's boxing skill was intact, he had to "get his lungs up" (a boxing term for increasing his endurance). Daily double sessions of strength and conditioning work, mixed with sports-specific exercises like hitting the heavy bag and sparring, have trimmed him down from 220 pounds when he walked in to his current fighting weight of about 175.

Morera shadowboxes with his father years ago

Seven months later, his work is paying off: Morera is 4-0 with two brutal knockouts. His last fight, against Anthony Patanella, ended just 19 seconds in after he landed a left hook that shattered Patanella's nose.

But it's not just his battering-ram punches that shock his opponents, Zabry said. It's how violent he is in the ring.

"The hell with the physical attributes, it's that aggression, that need to step in and put your lights out, that can't be taught," he said. "You can't teach someone how to fight. I can teach someone how to box, but fighting is a natural thing. And when someone gets hit and they come back harder … you can't teach that."

Zabry wants Morera to "fight like a dog" over the next two years and get at least 30 amateur bouts under his belt. After that, the sky is the limit for the man whose bucket list involves at least one professional fight.

"I'll see how it goes. If it ain't for me, it ain't for me. But my mindset is go all the way, or don't [expletive] go at all," Morera said.

A fragile balance

It isn't easy to balance such a demanding workout schedule with the commitment that comes with a young family, and with Morera recently signing on as a co-owner of the gym, finding time to spend with his wife and son is difficult.

It caused arguments in the beginning, he said, and he had to sit his wife down and explain just how important this was.

"I said, 'Listen Hon, I want you to understand that this is something that I feel I need. I feel like I'm missing something, and this is what makes me happy. We need to figure something out so that I can pursue this, so that I don't feel empty inside," he said.

They came to an agreement: She won't interfere with his training as long as he spends enough time with his family. Morera said he couldn't do what he does without her support.

"Having [Josie] OK with what I do drives me even further, and it makes me feel good inside to do what I'm doing," he said.

He's been careful to drill into his son that boxing is no excuse for being aggressive in everyday life, but Mason sees him, and always wants to join his shadowboxing drills or pushup routines. And that, he said, is why he's doing it all.

"I want to influence him in a positive way where if he does take the sport, he can say, 'Yo, my daddy did this, my daddy did that.' And it's only going to motivate him further. It's almost like my dad — still to this day, from seeing all the stuff I did [with him] … it still pushes me every time I step in the ring, or every time I'm hitting a bag. It takes me back to those days," he said.

His father, of course, is the one person he hasn't heard from regarding his new career. He knows about it, Morera said, and is thrilled, even offering advice about what weight his son should go down to for his fights. But the only time Morera is ever at a loss for words is when he's talking about their relationship.

"It's my dad. I still love him … and no matter what he did, I'll never think bad about [him]," he said. "Ah. It's complicated."

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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- See more at: http://www.northjersey.com/sports/boxing/grit-and-punching-power-propels-pompton-boxer-1.1043423?page=all#sthash.OXCPVoQV.dpuf

A Stiff Jab Lands...

Fighting Out of the Red Corner ...

The Moment of Impact

Tools of the Trade, Take II

Bobby Gunn's fighting family comes full circle

A fighter’s eyes will tell you everything: how he came up, where he’s from, what style he’ll use in the ring. In older boxers you’ll catch glimpses of battles long since passed and see if they still got the sand to get up off the canvas, just once more, even though their vision is twisted and the heavy chains of fatigue have wrapped themselves around their lungs.

Bobby Gunn Jr., though, is a little bit different. Look into his eyes, and you’ll see that sanguine cheeriness we all have at 18 years old when we’re young and bold and the world is our oyster. The pale-skinned, brown-haired kid from Hackensack is warm and affable, quick to laugh, and humble to a fault.

Don’t mistake it for weakness though. He’s a fighter, through and through. It’s been bred into him, he said, and it’s all he’s ever known. It makes sense, of course, because as the son of former cruiserweight champ Bobby Gunn Sr., he’s been in boxing gyms his entire life. He can’t remember the first time he put on a pair of gloves, but even as a kindergartner he would spend hours shadowboxing in front of a mirror, emulating his dad.

Even though his father tried to dissuade him, he decided at 13 that he would someday turn pro, and over the last five years, he’s honed the necessary skills under his dad’s watchful eye. The work’s paid off, and there’s nary an ounce of fat on his 5-foot, 10-inch, 154-pound frame. But don’t let that lean facade fool you. Watch him hit a heavy bag, and you’re stunned at the amount of force he can create.

The sport is his sanctuary and his escape, he said, his way out not from the streets of a New Jersey ghetto, but from a lifetime of being "just another guy."

"Boxing, for me, is where I could be something," he said. "Where I could be extraordinary. And that’s what’s going to set me [apart] from everyone else."

Bobby Sr.’s face lights up any time he speaks of his son, who he often refers to as "my boy." The two are eerily similar and share not only the same looks, but identical demeanors and even Bobby Sr.’s voice and accent, that odd mix of Canadian and Irish gypsy that gives away their Traveler roots.

At 40 years old, he’s a broad house of a man with a face sculpted from scar tissue and accented by healed cuts. But over his own 24-year career, he was always more Jim Braddock than Joe Louis: a working-class hero who’d haul shingles onto roofs all day before making his way to the gym at night to train for bouts.

His "never-say-die" style earned him a cult following, but he lost many of his biggest fights and always seemed just one step away from the top. He called it quits last year after a particularly tough loss and now focuses solely on his son’s career. There’s something different about the kid, though, Bobby Sr. said. Something impressive. Something special.

He showed flashes of it on March 15, when he won his pro debut by spectacular knockout just 40 seconds into the first round — no small feat in a sport known for humbling newcomers who are taking their first cautious steps out of the headgear-clad world of the amateur ranks.

But even though it’s his left hook that opponents quickly come to fear, his dad thinks it’s his composure in the ring, his unshakeable coolness, that is his greatest strength.

"My boy," he said, "is already a better fighter than I ever was. He’s very experienced for a young man. … When you see him fight, it’s how relaxed and calm he is … as if he was a veteran already."

And even though the father-son team hits the occasional rough patch, both love each other dearly, and Bobby Sr. is determined to be there to keep his son away from the underworld leeches that lurk on boxing’s periphery — the same ones that tortured and extorted him during his own career.

"I thank God for what I went through, and I would go through it again and again and again to have my son not go through it," he said. "My son, he has a clean slate. He will never be around that."

It’s no secret that Bobby Jr. has been groomed to be North Jersey’s next big boxing sensation, and living up to his father’s sometimes larger-than-life presence can feed personal fears of "not living up to the hype." But when the bell rings, all that goes out the window, and it’s just him, once more, doing what he does. What he’s always done.

Because, as he said, there’s poodles in this world, and there’s pitbulls. Neither is better than the other, but one can be just a little bit meaner.

You can see it in their eyes.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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http://www.northjersey.com/sports/boxing/a-fighting-family-comes-full-circle-1.751716

Ex-boxer's hands hold the fate of a nation

Perhaps it’s inevitable that we in America idolize sports figures the way we do. We know we shouldn’t, because when you idolize someone you don’t actually know, you’re asking for heartbreak when you inevitably find out they’re a wife-beater or a drunk or addicted to painkillers.

But we do it anyway — I’m no exception — even though the idea of grown men worshipping other grown men and viciously defending their reputations just because they throw a ball hard or run fast is, well, ridiculous.

It’s in our nature, that feeling of wanting to belong to something, especially in this modern era when our small tribes have scattered and our warriors have disappeared.

So we separate. I’m Boston, you’re New York. I like the Giants, you like the Cowboys. I think Ali was the greatest, you think Tyson would have killed him. We don’t know ’em. We never will. But we love ’em anyway.

Then someone like Vitali Klitschko comes along.

If you don’t follow sports, you’re probably not familiar with him, although if you’re vaguely aware of boxing you might recognize him as "that huge Eastern European dude who reminds me of Drago from ‘Rocky IV.’"

And huge he is, standing at 6-foot, 7-inches tall and weighing in at a lean 243 pounds — but that’s where the similarities to Rocky’s nemesis end.

When he emerged as one of the top heavyweights in the world 10 years ago, it was an immediate and welcome departure from the maelstrom of drama that wreaked havoc on the boxing world during the Tyson years. Klitschko, after all, has a PhD in sports science, speaks four languages, enjoys chess, and often works with UNESCO.

Inside the ring, "Dr. Ironfist" was all we could ever want: a tough, hardworking assassin who loved to fight and always went for the knockout when blood was in the water. His only losses were stoppages due to injury, and over the course of 16 years, he was never knocked down.

When he retired in December of 2013, it was assumed to be more out of boredom than old age. No one had given him a run for his money in years, and what good is the warrior without a war?

But there was a bigger battle looming that many of us in the America were ignorant of, and I had no idea that when he said that he wanted to focus on politics in his home nation of Ukraine, that path would lead him into far greater danger than he ever met in the squared circle.

Now, one look at any news channel tells us all we need to know. Kiev burns through the night as Ukrainians, desperate to free themselves of the yoke of Russian influence, engage in running streetfights with police who represent a government intent on breaking the will of its people.

The violence has reached levels not seen since the breakup of the Soviet Union, and thousands have camped out in Kiev’s aptly named Independence Square, the epicenter of what looks more like civil war than civil strife.

And who is in the middle of it all but Vitali Klitschko, the man who has all the money and all the fame he could ever ask for, but has put himself squarely in the crosshairs anyway.

Elected to the Ukrainian parliament in 2012, he has led the opposition to President Viktor Yanukovich’s regime and proven himself an effective leader, calling for restraint from police and protestors both when it would prevent inevitable bloodshed.

But like any good fighter, he knows when the hands that can sign peace accords must ball into a fist. And as the pictures stream in from a ravaged Kiev, it appears now is that time.

"We will not go anywhere from here," he told a crowd of 20,000 who gathered in the square last Wednesday. "This is an island of freedom, and we will defend it."

Two dozen had died defending it the day before. Scores more would die at the hands of government snipers the day after. The future of a country hangs in the balance. The doctor is in and seeks to save a patient of unprecedented importance.

If you’re looking for a man who truly warrants admiration, look no further.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

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http://www.northjersey.com/news/ex-boxer-s-hands-hold-the-fate-of-a-nation-1.731742

The Ballad of Victor Ortiz

Right now, the world should be at Victor Ortiz's feet. It was, after all, just a few short years ago that this young, talented fighter, propelled by HBO and led by a cadre of world-class trainers, was rising to heights that only a fraction of boxers ever get a chance to see.

He'd come from the worst possible background - the son of illegal immigrants in a nation that deplores them, the product of a mother who abandoned the family and a violent father who drank too much before leaving himself - but the steep slope of his climb only made his ascension that much more impressive.

He was a good-looking kid in a land of crushed-nose brawlers, and that, along with his affable nature, seemed to signify the emergence of a new star birthed from boxing's dark world of whispering con-men and weekday club fights.

Five years later and it's all gone, courtesy, some might say, of the most vicious right hook that Luis Collazo has ever landed. But in truth, it began much earlier than that; after all, the fractures that cause us to crumble as adults are often scored out when we're children - young, innocent, and striving for affection and attention and understanding.

I suspect that Ortiz didn't get much of any of those things during his hard-knock upbringing, and his life since then has been one long journey in figuring out how to deal with abandonment issues that few of us can comprehend. That's all speculation, of course, and I am only guessing as to what goes on inside the man's head. But there is one undeniable truth: if your foundation is cracked, no amount of mortar can keep the walls from collapsing.

By now, Ortiz's foundation, if ever there was one, is destroyed, and all the athleticism and natural talent, all the boxing acumen he's soaked up over the years, can't make up for that.

We've known where this was headed for a long time. There were hints of his eventual fate in the statements he made after he quit in the ring during his 2009 bout with Marcos Maidana. During the post-fight interview, he did something that fighters rarely do: question whether or not the pugilistic path was one that he really wanted to explore any further.

"I have a lot of thinking to do," he told Max Kellerman.

But then he rebounded and won five of his next six fights, including the remarkable bout with Andre Berto that saw him get off the deck twice en route to a unanimous decision victory. I have to wonder though...maybe something happened to him on that April night in Connecticut. Maybe Berto's sledgehammer right hand did just a little bit too much damage, and broke whatever fragile weld was still holding things together.

After all, the rest of this story is well-documented: the Mayweather debacle, the Lopez fight, and finally last Thursday's bout with Collazo, which made little sense in the first place because if you're at a career crossroads in boxing, the last place you want to be is in the ring with the vicious streetfighter who's arrived at that same intersection.

And now it is over, and Ortiz, even if he doesn't retire right away, will fade off into that same night sky he once blazed through so brilliantly as he becomes yet another blinking footnote in the great tragic novel that is "Boxing."

But even though the cameras have turned off and the world will forget about him, the man will still exist. What is to become of him? Will anyone care? I don't know. Maybe he doesn't either. But I do hope that he doesn't spend the next 50 years wandering through this life, desperately fleeing the merciless demons that must haunt his every waking moment.

Eventually, a man's got to find peace. Sometimes, he's got to step away from the thing he loves in order to do that.

It's time for Victor Ortiz to step away.

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http://www.badlefthook.com/2014/2/4/5378762/the-ballad-of-victor-ortiz

Tools of the Trade

Tags: Boxing, Sports

Bradley vs Marquez: Remember to pay attention tomorrow night

The Boston Red Sox, as Jimmy Fallon so eloquently put it in the movie "Fever Pitch," never let you down. They may not win every game, but there's no question that on most days during the summer, that team will take to the Fenway Park field - just like they have for the past 113 years - and play ball.

Boxers though....boxers will let you down. Boxers will break your goddamned heart. Why? Because no matter how good they are in their prime, no matter how talented or special, they've all got to get old. And when they do, and all you see is some timeworn, cement-legged relic lumbering around a ring that he used to dance around on winged feet years before, it's nearly impossible to recall what he looked like when he was that raw maelstrom of violence that once descended on the sport like a Plains tornado.

It's the same cruel trick the fates play on us all, it's true, but for a boxer, it's a much more public and painful decline, one that can arrive with cliff-like abruptness

At the same time, though, that's the reason boxing is so special. Once that champion is gone, he's gone forever, and while others will follow, some better and some worse, there will never be another just like him. It's why we have to make a conscious effort to appreciate the great fighters while they're still young - while they're still dancing.

Juan Manuel Marquez is one of those fighters.

It's been a long, long career for the old warhorse, one that's seen him take on a who's-who of boxing's finest and beat most of them in spectacular fashion - hell, even his losses were thrilling. Marquez has never shied from the clash of spears, never ducked or dodged any man who wanted a shot, and his 20-year run should be considered the handbook of how a boxer should conduct himself.

Now that it's well-known that he is in the final movements of his grand symphony, I must admit that I was sort of surprised that he didn't retire following his climactic knockout of his arch-nemesis Manny Pacquaio.

After all, what more could he possibly achieve? What crescendo would ever match the grandeur of the one that saw him standing on the ring ropes, fists raised in triumph, while an unconscious Pacquaio lay utterly broken in the corner?

As the saying goes, though, fighters fight, and Marquez is that above all else - a fact he proved once again by picking Tim Bradley as his next opponent.

It's no secret that Bradley doesn't have much power, and the only way he'll be able to hurt Marquez is if his corner throws a bat into the ring. But his style of constant punching and his tremendous heart makes him an easy mark for no one, and he is, after all, (allegedly) still undefeated. In some ways, he reminds me of Juan Diaz, who was once an up-and-coming volume puncher when Marquez faced off with him in 2009.

This bout, I suspect, will unfold much the same way that one did, with Bradley seizing an early advantage only to be sunk later on by Marquez's shotgun-shell right hand and his beautiful chains of uppercuts and hooks. I'm not sure what manner the Mexican will win in, but I am certain that this man, who may be the finest combination puncher in the history of the sport, will collapse yet another thick-skulled opponent on his way to victory.

So be careful on Saturday night. Don't drink too much, and pay attention to the TV even though others aren't - be "that guy" who's absorbed in the fight. Why? Because you're watching history, and Marquez the Warrior will not be around forever.

And when he's gone, others will follow... but you will never see another that does what he can do.

This is boxing's great curse - but also its most precious gift.

http://www.badlefthook.com/2013/10/11/4829708/marquez-vs-bradley-


Boxing, Juan Manuel Marquez, Sports, Timothy Bradley,

Mayweather vs Canelo preview: Father Time looming as Floyd's biggest opponent

At its core, boxing is not about the physical attributes that so many use to define it - it's not about speed or power, endurance or accuracy, and these things, in the end, have but a minute impact on the outcome of any given bout.

In reality, this game is all about timing: throwing that straight right at the exact moment your opponent recklessly leaps in, or letting that hook go a fraction of a second after his rear hand drops. Yeah, that's what it's about: not only doing something perfectly, but doing it at precisely the right time so as to amplify its affect and maximize its pain.

Timing is why you win.

It's just as important outside the ropes, where knowing when to fight someone is every bit as important as knowing how to fight them, and the subtle differences in the words and actions of a rapacious young challenger and an aging king who's dodging the Sword of Damocles can speak volumes about that.

Timing is what just might make the difference on Saturday night.

Now, I'm no fool, and if I was a gambling man, I would not be betting against Floyd Mayweather, Jr. Rarely in boxing history has one force been so dominant over so long a period, and even at 36 years old, it's still tough to picture him losing in any fashion.

But make no mistake: this fight is as much about Mayweather's war with Father Time as it is with the baby-faced, red-haired Mexican who will be staring across the ring at him. Even Floyd is mortal, and there will come a point when, like all fine athletes, his prime has decidedly passed, and his fists can no longer capitalize on the openings his eye sees.

What's more, his Philly shell - a disposition more favored by fleet-footed young bucks as opposed to older superstars - is decidedly not a stance that suits the slowing reflexes that accompany advancing age. And although his counters are still crisp and his understanding of range remains unparalleled, the swift head movement that's pulled him just out of harm's way on so many earlier occasions has suffered, especially above welterweight.

And then there is the 23-year-old Canelo Alvarez. Muscular and intimidating, with the easy swagger that youth often carries when it's never tasted the metallic bitterness of defeat, he is a boxer with prodigious power in either hand. He punches straight, stays loose, and is, after 42 victories, as physically sharp as he will ever be. He is undoubtedly a dangerous opponent, one who can, if things go a certain way, end this fight in booming fashion.

But there's also a lot that can go wrong for Alvarez. The eyes of the world will be upon him Saturday night, and that's pressure few have even experienced, much less performed well under. Meanwhile, the man he faces has made a name for himself by, if nothing else, rising to the occasion every time it's demanded. Add to that the fact that, in prior bouts, Alvarez has gone long rounds without letting his hands go, and you've got a recipe for disaster; Mayweather, like Tom Brady, is not someone who you want to hand the ball to and say, "Go ahead, pick me apart." Most of the boxing world, it appears, expects that to be the outcome. I am not one of those.

I would be lying if I said that the dynamics surrounding this match don't remind me a little of Muhammad Ali's first fight with Sonny Liston. Nobody - and I mean nobody - picked the 22-year-old native of Louisville, Kentucky, to upset the fearsomely heavy-handed champ. Ali was a 7 - 1 underdog, and most boxing writers thought Liston would have him unconscious by the fourth. I need not remind anyone of what happened that night.

Don't get me wrong, I don't expect Floyd Mayweather to answer the opening bell looking like an old Sonny Liston. I don't expect him to get knocked out, or put on his back, or stopped. But I wouldn't be all that surprised if he didn't exactly look like the fighter we're used to seeing, and if Alvarez catches him far more often than he's been caught before.

Maybe, just maybe, Mayweather actually did pick the wrong opponent this time...and when the tide turns against him, he won't be able to blunt its roll.

He, after all, will not only be brawling with Canelo under those lights - he will also be locked in the great struggle that all legends fight, once their inevitable decline is realized and their mortality is brought sharply into focus.

And that is a battle even he cannot win.

http://www.badlefthook.com/2013/9/11/4720728/mayweather-vs-canelo-preview-father-time-looming-as-floyds-biggest

Technorati Tags: Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Canelo Alvarez, boxing, The One

New York City Boxing - 2012

Mayweather vs Guerrero preview: Sun Tzu and another Mayweather victory

Steve Janoski returns to Bad Left Hook with his thoughts on Saturday night's Floyd Mayweather vs Robert Guerrero fight in Las Vegas.

*****

Mention to the average sports fan that Floyd Mayweather Jr. is fighting this weekend, and their first question will be, "Oh, really? Against who?"

After your reply, the light will drain from their eyes and they will say, "Who's Robert Guerrero?" You will explain that too - a 30-year old Californian who's had some tough fights but is nothing really special.

Then they will ask the one you knew was coming.

"What about that Pacquaio dude? Weren't they supposed to fight or something?"

And then it will be up to you, the boxing fan, to explain why the two never fought, and why, instead, the "best boxer of our generation" is once again climbing into the ring for a bout that he's nearly guaranteed to win against a man nobody particularly wants to see him fight. You, dear boxing fan, are Floyd Mayweather's apologist - even if you don't like him.

I have bounced back and forth over the years when ruminating upon whether or not Floyd Mayweather's fighter's heart exists. Is it ever really fair to question such a thing in a man who fights for a living, especially when he's fought some impressive bouts against some great fighters? After all, as the saying goes, if you're close enough to kill the bull, you're close enough to be gored as well.

But even I - a Mayweather admirer - can't dispute that he's always taken the safest path, and fights men only when he's positive he can win. He went after De La Hoya and Mosley after they were clearly past their primes, and Ricky Hatton once he realized the Englishman's massive flaws would surely preclude him from winning. And then there was Marquez, the smaller, shorter-armed boxer whose love of battle, Mayweather knew, would force him into the role of aggressor that he is never comfortable with. And so it has been since Mayweather left light-welterweight.

I thought he was breaking this ugly streak when he picked the physically talented Victor Ortiz and the skillful veteran Miguel Cotto as opponents for his annual battles, but it was not to be - he's back to his old habits, and this Guerrero fight is a Sharmba Mitchell-esque sham, little more than a tune-up even for a 36-year-old, visibly declining Mayweather.

Don't get me wrong - it's his prerogative to do these things and pick these fights. It's his cheek feeling the blow of a leather-clad fist, his body absorbing the punishment, and (as Mayweather is so keen on telling us) his wallet that fattens further.

And it's hard to argue with that record. 43 fights, 43 victories, and he's rarely even tested. Entire YouTube videos are made showing the clean punches he's taken, and there's not much material for the amateur Spielbergs to work with. The ancient warrior Sun Tzu would say that Mayweather is, in fact, running his career perfectly; it was, after all, the great general who said, "The skillful fighter puts himself into a position that makes defeat impossible."

Tzu wrote another maxim, however, that may prove a harder lesson for his modern counterpart to understand: if you win all the time and make it look easy, don't expect the same plaudits.

"His victories bring him neither reputation for wisdom, nor credit for courage," wrote Tzu of the man who struggles too little. And, if you're like Mayweather, and you've also become known for a decade-long habit of cherry-picking, you can't bitch when history records you as something less than the coveted "Greatest Of All Time."

Sure, fighting any and all comers is hardly necessary to become a champion in this alphabet-title world, and seeking out young talent and destroying it is not a prerequisite for a man who's made very clear he's only looking to pad his bank account...but it is necessary to be recognized as a legend.

On Saturday night, Robert Guerrero, who is a very good man but a very flawed boxer, will become the forty-fourth fighter to lose to Floyd Mayweather Jr. Few will be shocked, fewer will be awed. But when the boxing annals of this era are recorded, Mayweather will not be remembered like Marquez the Warrior, who took on all comers, or Pacquaio the Daring, who leapt weight classes to war with bigger men. He will be Mayweather the Cautious. Mayweather the Tentative. He will be "The One Who Would Not Take Chances."

Now, in the autumn of his career, that lack of respect will bother him, even as he blusters about with his talk of money and wealth being the only things that matter. But his path is already chosen, and when his flock of leaching yes-men moves on and he retires to a life of having to repeatedly explain why he never fought Pacquaio or Martinez or Alvarez, he will have no one left to blame but the face that gazes back at him in the mirror.

http://www.badlefthook.com/2013/5/1/4291854/mayweather-vs-guerrero-preview-sun-tzu-another-victory-showtime-boxing-news

Permanently unforgiven: time to pardon Jack Johnson

"When whites ran everything, Jack Johnson took orders from no one. When black Americans were expected to defer to whites, Jack Johnson battered them to the ground." – Ken Burns, "Unforgivable Blackness"

It was over a century after the death of Confederate General Robert E. Lee that a nameless worker at the National Archives found his amnesty oath, written and signed and forgotten by history amongst the plethora of records sitting in the State Department.

The discovery led President Gerald R. Ford to pardon the traitor general, a man who had taken up arms against his country with the sole intent of destroying it, and the corpse was given a country again.

How long does it take, then, to pardon a man who committed no crime other than that mighty offense of being born black in the wrong era? In that case, it appears the government is far less forgiving.

Jack Johnson was one of six children born to former slave parents in Galveston, Texas, in 1878. After a half-dozen years of schooling, he dropped out to work on the docks, and eventually, like so many whose life-paths tend to end in cul-de-sacs, he turned to boxing as a way out.

And what a boxer he was.

Bald-headed and well-muscled, he’d grown to a solid 6-foot-1-inch in height, and even though he weighed somewhere between 190 – 220 pounds, he could move and hit like no one before him. His speed and power were unprecedented, his techniques unrivaled.

But no black man had ever held the heavyweight title before, mostly because being the champ back then meant that you were somewhere between a king and God himself. Plainly put, it was a white man’s title, and nobody was particularly eager for that to change.

So, when the "Galveston Giant" knocked out Canadian champion Tommy Burns on the day after Christmas in 1908, it was much more than just another KO in the squared circle — it was an uplifting moment for every African-American from the Atlantic seaboard to the Pacific coast.

"No event in 40 years has given more satisfaction to the colored people of this country than has the signal victory of Jack Johnson," said the Richmond Planet.

The following years were tumultuous, though; it was hard enough for white America to have a black champ, but having one like Johnson, who dressed sharp, flaunted his money, kept company with prostitutes, and — worst of all — married white women, was absolutely intolerable. One after another, white challengers were lined up to put Johnson back in his place, and one by one, he defeated them.

Even the legendary Jim Jeffries — the hardened former champ who had retired undefeated and once drank a case of whiskey in two days to cure himself of pneumonia — was pulled out of retirement and made into the establishment’s newest "Great White Hope."

Johnson, of course, whipped him, and on July 4, 1910, beat the 35-year-old Jeffries from post to post until his corner threw in the towel in the 14th round. That night, 20 were lynched during the race riots that burned across the nation as angry whites reacted to African-American celebrations of the victory.

Once it became clear that Johnson would not be beaten on the canvas, the government went a different route — make him fight in the court room instead. And so in 1913, at the height of his career, he was tried for violating the Mann Act, a law that prohibited the interstate transportation of females for "immoral purposes."

Although it was originally intended to prevent prostitution, the wording was loose and ambiguous and could make a crime out of any number of situations — including one where a universally-despised black heavyweight traveled over state lines with the white prostitute he was involved with.

Johnson was convicted by an all-white jury, but skipped bail and went on the run instead. After seven years in Europe, South America, and Mexico, he finally returned to the U.S. in 1920 to serve his jail time. Released in 1921, he spent much of the rest of his life as the stereotypical aging champ — broke and fighting in show after show (to his body’s chagrin) just to earn money for food and beer. He died in a car wreck on June 10, 1946, after racing away in anger from a North Carolina diner that refused to serve him.

His influence, however, would linger, and had profound affect on generations of black boxers afterwards (including one who, 20 years later, would also refuse to be subservient when the white man wanted him to.)

In the years since Johnson’s death, there have been a number of calls to grant the fighter the posthumous pardon he so dearly deserves, but all have died either in Congress or, more recently, on the stoop of President Obama’s White House, which quietly ignored a 2011 congressional resolution urging exoneration.

One more push is being made by Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and John McCain (R-AZ), however, and another boxing legend — "Iron" Mike Tyson himself — has joined the fight by starting a petition (which can be found at change.org) urging amnesty for the man who "paved the way for black boxers like me."

Four thousand and 90 have signed already. More should.

It is time, America. Not to "forgive" Johnson — after all, he committed no crime, and we should not presuppose that we can forgive an innocent man.

No, it’s time to admit to the crimes of our own racist past, and do our best to make amends by pardoning the man whose only misdeed was being born black in a time when America, quite frankly, hated them. Every day he remains a convict is another that the stain of injustice lies, dried and bloody, upon our hands.

When we finally pardon Johnson, it will be us we’re absolving. And one can only hope that the great champion can find it in his heart forgive us…wherever he may be.


Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/community/history/more_history_news/203528701_Permanently_unforgiven__time_to_pardon_Jack_Johnson.html?page=all

Rios vs Alvarado II: Soul-cleansing violence and the blood of boxing

There was a spot just behind the forward-leaning right glove of Mike Alvarado's guard that, in the earliest rounds of Saturday night's contest, may as well have had a bullseye painted on it.

His opponent, the heavy-fisted, iron-jawed Brandon Rios, aimed his left hook at that spot every time he was close enough, and one couldn't help but wince every time he torqued it around Alvarado's hand with brutal affect. He hurt Alvarado badly with a stiff jab in the second, and for a minute it looked like the fight might end earlier than it did the first time the two met in October of 2012, when Rios stopped him in the seventh.

"Mile High Mike," as the Denver-native Alvarado is called, would not be so easily dispatched, though. Smiling and grinning through the worst of Rios' barrage - whistling in the dark, some might say, but still - he came back in the later rounds, moving and boxing with the clean footwork that gave him his best (and maybe, only) chance at beating the fearsome puncher.

His movement confounded Rios, kept him off-balance, and wouldn't let him land anything more than a one or two-punch combo. No combinations meant few openings. Few openings meant that Rios' city-wall-shaking left hook stayed in its holster.

All the while, Alvarado strafed him with Diego Corrales-style looping right hands that whipped the Californian's head to-and-fro and dragged attention away from his own face, which was a swollen, bloody mess by the final bell.

One wound up with the interim WBO super-lightweight belt. Both went to the hospital. Neither had serious injuries. Everyone - and I mean everyone - won.

Too many times do boxing fans (casual or otherwise) walk away from a much-hyped fight with a sense of disappointment, a lackluster apathy that drains the energy from a sport built solely upon the electricity inherent to a good brawl. Too many times do we fork over too much money to watch men who care too little move too much and take too few chances. But once in a while, we're reminded why we love it. Saturday night was why we love it.

Welterweight champ Timothy Bradley put it succinctly afterwards when he called the affair a "bloody war" that saw "both fighters put their lives on the line."

It wasn't just hyperbole. When a man's face - inflated with blood and decorated with a scalpel cut over the left eye that looks like it's going to make the whole thing burst - looks like Mike Alvarado's did, and when you see Brandon Rios take flush shots that would lay low lesser men, have no doubt that there are indeed lives on the line.

It was all of the black beauty of this sport, rolled up into one night. And boxing, which so often likes to jam its own hand in the garbage disposal just because it feels so good when it stops, didn't fuck it up. No $70 pricetag, no anti-climactic ending, no shaking your head at 12 a.m. and wondering, "Why do I even watch?"

Fights like this are the lifeblood pumping through every vein of the sport. They lend inspiration to every amateur who spends his Friday night with his head tight against the side of a heavy bag instead of a bottle of whiskey, every kid shadowboxing in the mirror pretending he's Rocky. They create new boxing fans instead of disgusting the old ones, and build legends instead of destroying them.

Fights like this, as Roy Jones Jr. said, are what movies are made of. Fights like this blow MMA out of the water.

And we cannot forget that men like Brandon Rios and Mike Alvarado are the ones who make this sport what it is, even when "what it is" might not always seem clear. It's not Floyd Mayweather and his rap sheet or Manny Pacquaio and his swarms of hangers-on, not David Haye and his bluster or Wladimir Klitschko and his overwhelming ... prudence. It's the simple, brutal violence that cleanses the soul and reminds us just how brave some men are.

There will, inevitably, be a rubber match between these two; after 19 rounds of carnage, it's only right that it, of course, happen again. When it does, take a second to truly appreciate the lengths to which these men are going to in the name of sport and victory; not many will willingly hasten their own deaths by fighting with reckless abandon and declaring, "Fortune, it is you I follow!"

In reality, that's what these two are doing. And we the fans are lucky to be watching.

http://www.badlefthook.com/2013/4/1/4169610/rios-vs-alvarado-ii-soul-cleansing-violence-blood-boxing

New York City boxing

Speedbag

Pulling Aces from a crowded deck

BY STEVE JANOSKI

For Joe Zabry, the "Fight Night" he’s hosting on Friday at the Boonton Elks’ Club is more than just an amateur boxing show — it’s a light at the end of a long, winding tunnel that will signal a triumph in the wake of several years of broken business deals and countless setbacks.

His story is not unique in the boxing world, which is second only to politics in viciousness and rarely has room for good men.

But as he sits in his office, its walls crowded with pictures of famous fighters, past and present, surrounding an expansive aerial shot of New York City’s Flat Iron Building, he has the look of man who finally has a clear purpose.

Zabry, a youthful-looking 36-year-old, has a spiral of tattoos winding down his left arm and is rarely seen without a baseball cap and a whistle around his neck. He’s a vigorous talker, a mover, bursting at the seams with energy and ideas and optimism reminiscent of Kerouac’s Dean Moriarty.

Boxing has been in his blood since the start: both his father and uncle worked as mechanics during the day and part-time trainers at night. He started at an early age and, between boxing, MMA, has had well over 100 fights.

He left at 18 for the Air Force; 11 years later, he returned to New Jersey, and continued to fight while at the same time becoming involved in several gyms that left him with something of a bad taste in his mouth.

Now though, on the third floor of an old brick building on Main Street in Boonton, he seems to have found a permanent home for Aces Boxing Club.

The gym, like Zabry, is a mixture of old-school and new-school. Freshly painted gray sheetrock contrasts sharply with where the red brick peeks through, and brand-new heavy bags are wrapped with peeling duct tape around their midsections.

A black boxing ring sits in the corner of the gym. Someone is always using it.

Zabry has moved within walking distance of the gym; now, he says, there are times that he doesn’t drive for two weeks at a time. He buys lunch from the deli downstairs, and eats it in his office, which looks out over the training area. He always answers the phone.

And slowly, in a trickle that has turned into a stream, they’ve come, walking down bustling Main Street, through the gray metal doors, up the two flights of wooden steps to the chorus of slaps and thuds that accompany all boxing gyms.

Friday night will be the amateur debut for five out of the six boxers from Aces, and they, along with Zabry, will see exactly how much their work has paid off. The fights are as important to the coach as they are to the fighters.

"I always tell these guys – your wins are my wins, your losses are my losses, your lessons in the ring are my lessons in the ring," he said.

If they lose, he says, he wants them to use it as motivation to have a better showing in eight weeks, when he’s planning his next card – to show a fighter’s heart, even in the face of defeat.

This is difficult, and he knows it; Zabry is well aware of the psychological aspects of fighting, and that’s one of the reasons he’s built Aces as he has – more "club," less "gym."

He speaks on things like the "circle of life in a boxing gym," where younger fighters look up to the older ones, more experienced ones, and the more experienced ones look up to the Golden Gloves — and maybe, one day, Olympic – champs.

But it all starts with Friday, with the fight itself. May 25 is D-Day, and nothing, he says, sharpens the mind and the body like preparing for a fight.

Even if they never fight again, they will remember that night for the rest of their lives.

"(The fights) give all of our boys the option of being a local, hometown hero," he says. "Even if they go nowhere with this….we’re going to make them feel like a rock star for that night in front of all their friends and family."

And regardless of wins and losses, boxing has given many of them the experience that adulthood often lacks: the feeling of being a part of something greater than one’s self, of knowing what it’s like to truly spill blood and sweat next to someone else in the pursuit of a common goal.

It’s these bonds, forged by the hours of physical misery in preparation for a fight — be it in a ring in Boonton or the mountains of Afghanistan — that are often the strongest.

It is also a way of reaching back to a more gritty time and pulling the idea of hard lessons, of earning your pride, out from the past.

Boxing has always been an inner-city, immigrant sport, Zabry says, but as the families prospered and left the tenements of Paterson and Newark, Jersey City and Elizabeth, there became little reason to try and earn money with one’s fists.

For many a suburbanite kid that walks through his doors, Dad wasn’t the boxer — Grandpa was, and putting on the gloves reignites the connection that so many families have with fighting.

And the fighter’s story, he says, is eternal.

"If you like history, you like boxing. If you like love stories, you like boxing. If you like rags to riches, you like boxing. Boxing is about stories, fighting is about stories," he says.

These are the stories he see every day, walking up his stairs, dropping their backpacks, putting on the gloves and the headgear, and proving to themselves that they are, in fact, men. That they’re not scared.

"There’s a lot of lessons in that ring that you learn that apply to life… a whole level of self-awareness, responsibility, and accountability," he says. "The boys that don’t understand it, don’t get it, they normally drop out."

The ones that do end up having the stories worth telling.

Email: janoski@northjersey.com

http://www.northjersey.com/sports/153427975_Pulling_Aces_from_a_crowded_deck.html?page=all