MAYORGA A REAL SMOKIN' JOE

July 10, 2003 - by Ron Borges

Ricardo Mayorga isn't planning on spending a long night with Vernon Forrest on July 12. Considering some of his training habits, that's probably a good idea.

Political correctness may have driven smokers in America out of restaurants and bars and into the streets but there is at least one last holdout for smoker's rights. Ricado Mayorga will light up anywhere, including over his opponent's outstretched body, which is about what the colorful Nicaraguan did after he stretched Forrest, the just crowned 2002 Fighter of the Year, in a victory so quick and lopsided last January that it was stunning in its dominance.

At the time Forrest was coming off two straight conquests of Sugar Shane Mosley and was being touted as the next star in the welterweight division. He was not yet The Man but he was on his way to challenging The Man, Oscar De La Hoya, at 154 pounds. Then Mayorga smoked him and smoked a cigarette in the ring after he'd flattened the then WBC champion in just three rounds. The boxing world has looked differently at him, at Forrest and at nicotine poisoning ever since. Mayorga is of the opinion they will have no reason to change their thinking about any of those things when the two of them face off again on HBO in one of the most anticipated fights of the summer.

"Not even Forrest's dog is going to recognize him when he gets home,'' Mayorga boasted in the days leading up to their rematch on HBO. "I will knock out Forrest in two rounds whether I have a cigarette or not.''

In the interest of conditioning and his trainer's mental health however, Mayorga admits to having cut down from his usual two pack a day habit to two or three cigarettes a day while in training. This pleases trainer Hector Perez to no end only in that two smokes is considerably better than two packs of smokes. It may not be ideal from a trainer's standpoint but then again Mayorga doesn't intend to work too long if he doesn't have to so wind is not the issue as far as he's concerned.

It wasn't against Andrew "Six Heads'' Lewis, whom he stopped in five rounds to win the WBA version of the 147-pound title just over a year ago, and it certainly wasn't after he drilled Forrest through the floor in less than nine minutes. That being his mindset, the deleterious effects of smoking don't really concern him. Then again, neither does the potentially deleterious effects of being in the presence of Forrest for a second time in six months.

"When someone is scared to fight, they are even scared to talk to the reporters,'' Mayorga said of Forrest's decision to grant no interviews in the days and weeks leading up to the rematch. Forrest believes he lost his focus after defeating Mosley the second time in part from talking too much about those victories and so ended up concentrating too little on Mayorga. Lost focus, among other things, is obviously not a fear shared by the Managua Mauler.

"This is a message to all the reporters, fans and trainers who are thinking I cannot beat Forrest,'' he said. "I will put $100,000 on the table against anyone who does not think I can knock out Forrest. Tell Forrest whether he runs, stops or bends over, whatever he does, I will knock him out in two rounds. I am letting you know now so you can write it down.

"Forrest does not want to fight me. He is scared of me. It makes me feel bad because I know Forrest doesn't want to fight. When I knock him out, I will say I'm sorry but I had to do my job. As soon as the bell rings - with the first clean punch I deliver - I think I can knock him out. I am just a street dog and I bite hard. When I do, he will be out.''

Mayorga is not blowing smoke when he says these things. He has knocked out 22 of the 24 opponents he's beaten and dismisses the three losses, one draw and one no contest (in his first fight with Lewis, which ended after an inadvertent butt caused one of Lewis's six heads to split open in the first round) as odd aberrations not soon to be repeated. Rather he believes he is destined to destroy, a little man with a big punch who comes into a boxing arena to do two things - light you up and then light one up.

To purists, Mayorga's willingness to smoke in public and his dismissive habit of eating on the scales during a weigh-in (it was a slice of pizza that he was chomping on when he weighed in for the first Forrest fight) make a mockery of long held traditions about conditioning. In a sport with boxing's sorry reputation it seems almost comical that some aficionados have suggested Mayorga's approach to his profession is demeaning to it because how can you demean the redlight district of sport?

Mayorga hears these complaints however and then dismisses them as quickly as he intends to dismiss Forrest, for whom he seems to have the most minimal of respect even though Forrest has lost only one time in his career (35-1, 26 KO). To Mayorga, it seems, boxing is not about respect. It's about disrespect.

"I always get on the scale eating something and I am going to the same this time,'' Mayorga said. "My weight is never a problem. I am a fighter. That's all that I am. With or without bad habits, that is what I am and that is what I am going to do.

"When people do not believe in me, that is what makes a world champion. I am doing everything I need to do to take care of my business. I did not even deliver a clean shot in my first fight with Forrest. I hit him on top of the head (and dropped him). Wait until I hit him with a clean shot! Then people will believe who I am.''

That, of course, is the real mystery in this fight. Who is Ricardo Mayorga? Is he the relentless firebrand he was against Forrest when he overwhelmed him with a flotilla of punches for which Forrest had no answer? Or is he less than he seemed that night, as those three defeats on his record would suggest?

Those are questions some people in boxing feel remain unanswered about Mayorga. Sure he can punch, they concede, but is he anything more than a brawler who grew up poor and hungry and took that all out on an ill-prepared Forrest on the eve of the Super Bowl?

Will he again be able to trap Forrest so easily into abandoning all semblance of what he does best, which is shoot his jab, box and punish opponents when they make mistakes with counterpunching ? Can he again overwhelm a fighter with Forrest's distinct physical advantages of reach and height with his relentless pressure tactics? And will Forrest so agreeably be lured back into the kind of street fight he can never win against the harder punching WBC/WBA champion?

Many boxing experts believe he will not. They doubt Mayorga's skills, although not his heart, believing he is a one-dimensional fighter who can be outboxed and outfoxed if you are patient and refuse to engage him in what he does best. That is part of the reason Mayorga remains an underdog today just as he was before their first meeting. They see the champion having far more difficulty applying pressure on Forrest this time because when he tries to, they feel, Forrest will move, jab, counter and make him pay dearly when he tries to get inside Forrest's long arms to reach his most effective punching distance.

Perhaps that will be the case this time but Ricardo Mayorga doesn't see many things the way the rest of the world does. While some may expect a different type of fight this time, he believes when the smoke clears he'll be in the same position he was six months ago and so will Vernon Forrest.

One will be lighting up while the other will have his lights out.