ARTURO GATTI: HIS FANS CAN'T GET ENOUGH

January 24, 2006 - by Nat Gottlieb

He has won and lost world titles, suffered brutal, bloody beatings in early rounds, only to come back and win. In a 46-fight career, the man they call "The Human Highlight Film" has had more than his share of lowlights, including losing seven times. So why does everybody love Arturo Gatti? "He's a warrior, that's why" said promoter Lou DiBella, who was HBO's main man for boxing in the 1990s. "He's a tremendous example of heart and courage."

Gatti (39-7, 30 KOs), who has made two spectacular comebacks in his career when people rushed to write him off, will try yet another when he faces Denmark's Thomas Damgaard (37-0) Jan. 28 at Boardwalk Hall in a fight for the vacant IBA welterweight title, broadcast live by HBO. Gatti lost his WBC welterweight title last June to unbeaten Floyd Mayweather, widely considered the best pound-for-pound fighter on the planet. So how do you measure heart in a boxer anyway? Or courage? With Gatti, it's easy. Watch how he gives every ounce of his soul until the final bell rings, watch as he plows into the fray even with a broken hand and blood streaming down his face into puffy eyes nearly shut from crushing blows. In an era when far too many fights aren't worth a third of the money you pay to see them, Gatti gives 100 per cent value on the dollar to his fans.

"Gatti is a courageous puncher who provides drama time and time again, and should be indulged for his losses because he leaves nothing in the ring," said Larry Merchant, the longtime HBO ringside analyst. "He even impresses other fighters with his toughness, which suggests how unusual and special his blend of talent and spirit are. We used to call him a throwback to the warriors of the '30s and '40s."

What's a typical Gatti fight like? The word "war" comes to mind. Or, "back alley brawl." And always, in every round there is an endless stream of punches, like his fists were machine guns. By the end of a Gatti fight, the crowd is nearly as exhausted from having watched as is Gatti, whose face invariably looks like somebody had taken a hammer to it. It is a measure of Gatti's great allure as a boxer and a man, that his biggest fan is Ward, whose trilogy with Gatti would span 14 months and 30 rounds, in 2002 and 2003, and be called the second greatest trilogy in boxing history behind the Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier fights.

The 9th round of their first fight at the Mohegan Sun Casino and Resort on April 18, 2002 - named "Round of the Year" by Ring Magazine -- was so monumentally ferocious, you'd have to go back to ancient Rome and watch gladiators with chains and swords to find a rival. HBO announcer Emanuel Steward, who worked the fight, blurted out after Round 9, "It's the round of the century!" What is it like to walk into the eye of a storm called "Thunder" Gatti, stuck in an enclosed space with no way out except quitting or being carried away? Ward remembers the 9th Round as if it was etched into his brain, and perhaps it was -- from Gatti's punishing blows to the head. "I had him hurt at the end of the eighth," Ward said. "I knew I had to get on him fast in the 9th. I ripped a hook to the body, caught him perfect in the liver." Down went Gatti, but only to one knee.

"I thought he wasn't going to get up," Ward said. "But knowing him I knew he would. I started throwing everything I had." But as he had done so many times before, Gatti forced himself to go on the attack, even when his body was screaming "No mas!" Like a wounded animal, Gatti unleashed a flurry of two-fisted power punches - all the more remarkable because Gatti had broken his right hand in the early rounds - and at the bell, despite looking like he was out cold on his feet, Gatti managed to throw some real hurt on Ward.

CompuBox, the service that specializes in punch counts, had Gatti landing an incredible 42 of 75 punches, all power shots in Round 9. Ward connected on 68 of 93, with 60 of them being power punches.

"I thought they were going to stop it at the end of the ninth," Ward said, and perhaps silently prayed they would. When the bell did rang for the 10th and final round, Ward would look back and remember forever what he felt: "Oh (expletive), I've got to do this again?" Many of the fans that saw the fight afterwards rushed to their computers to pass on the buzz. If you type in "Arturo Gatti" on Google, then click on "Groups" instead of "Google Search," you will come upon a treasure trove of fans discussing Gatti, 2,690 pages in all.

After the first Ward fight, one posted message said:

"Unreal doesn't even start to describe what went down," the message began. "Fans should have been charged an extra $20 as they were leaving the arena. If Round 9 was part of a movie, you would have been sitting there saying, 'BULL---T," as if it were Rocky Balboa and Ivan Drago. Gatti almost didn't have a pulse after round 9, then came out and won round 10 decisively." There are also more conventional ways to measure the 33-year-old, Jersey-based Gatti's enormous popularity. To paraphrase an old Babe Ruth-Yankee Stadium standard - "Boardwalk Hall is the house Gatti built."

Six times Gatti has gone to war at the renovated Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, and six times he has filled it with fans up to the rafters. In his final fight with Micky Ward (2003), a crowd of 12,643 showed up to cheer on their warriors. It was the largest crowd ever to assemble at Boardwalk Hall for a non-heavyweight, non-title fight, a record Gatti would break last June 25, when he lost his junior welterweight title to Mayweather. Mention the name Gatti to Val McGonigal, director of marketing for the Atlantic City Convention Center, which houses Boardwalk Hall, and her eyes light up. "He has helped keep us on the boxing map," McGonigal said. "Largely because of Gatti, both Billboard and Venue magazines named us 2005's "Top Grossing Mid-Size Arena in the Country. His fight with Floyd Mayweather last June generated $5 million. That's the kind of draw Gatti is."

McGonigal, who said she never misses a Gatti fight, has even given Gatti his own permanent dressing room, with "Arturo Gatti" in gold letters on the door. Soon as a Gatti fight is announced, she said, there's a sudden charge in the Atlantic City air. "We do lots of fights here, but when it's Gatti, he generates a lot of buzz. His tickets sell faster than for any other fight," McGonigal said. "He calls Boardwalk Hall his home. How much value is there (for us) in a statement like that!"

How much does Gatti "own" Boardwalk Hall? When Jersey-based promoter Dino Duva staged the much-anticipated heavyweight bout between Wladimir Klitschko and Samuel Peter last September at Boardwalk Hall, one of his primary concerns he said, was to show that somebody besides Gatti could draw in Atlantic City. The fight did well, selling over 10,000 tickets and Duva heaved a sigh of relief.

Another way to measure Gatti's popularity is how often his efforts in the ring are rewarded by the "bible" of boxing, Ring. Since 1945, when Ring started awarding "Fight of the Year," only five men have been involved in a "Fight of the Year" four or more times. Gatti, George Foreman and Joe Frazier each had four. The only boxers with more are Carmen Basilio (5) and Muhammad Ali (6). Nice company, Arturo.

Gatti has also been named "Comeback of the Year" (2002), honored for "Round of the Year" three times, and "Knockout of the Year" once.

Yet while many boxing analysts say Gatti and Evander Holyfield may have been the most exciting fighters of their generation, they are reluctant to call him an all-time great, pointing to his having fought in just six championship fights and winning two titles.

"If Gatti doesn't get into the Hall of Fame it would be an atrocity," DiBella said. "I absolutely believe he is a first ballot Hall of Famer."

Boxing historian Johnny Ortiz, a member of the World Boxing Hall of Fame board of directors agrees that wins and loses are irrelevant when analyzing Gatti's career.

"Arturo's fight-or-die style of boxing has endeared him to fight fans all over the world," Ortiz said. "If he were to lose, it would not make any difference as far as his devoted fans are concerned. They know that Arturo will give you everything he has and more. He has the heart that champions are made of."

Gatti's first appearance on HBO's new show, "Boxing After Dark" was against Wilson Rodriguez on March 23, 1996, a brutal fight many felt would have been named "Fight of the Year," except that a couple guys named Holyfield and Mike Tyson went at it, also.

From day one, Gatti has been one of the top six most popular boxers for the network.

"He's the best TV fighter out there," said DiBella, who was instrumental in starting "Boxing After Dark." "There's no fighter in America right now who is a better draw than Arturo Gatti. I am completely nuts about him."

Gatti has appeared 18 times on HBO. Only Shane Mosley (19), Pernell Whitaker (19), Lennox Lewis (23), Oscar De La Hoya (28) and Roy Jones Jr. (30) have graced the HBO screen more.

Gatti's fights also perform remarkably well in the ratings, and it is said he is held by HBO subscribers in almost the same fond regard as fellow Jerseyan Tony Soprano.

You could put Gatti and Tony Soprano on stools in the ring at Madison Square Garden talking about growing tulips and you'd sell out the house.

"Gatti gives his heart to his fans," said boxing historian and Hall of Fame writer Bert Sugar. "We've seen others retire to their stools. You'll never see Arturo Gatti hold a retirement party in the ring."

DiBella says, "He is the kind of fighter who if he gets hurt, you have to stop him, he won't quit."

Listen again, to his fans after Gatti-Ward I:

"That was one of the most amazing displays of heart and courage I have ever seen in the ring. I almost feel guilty having watched it for free (to HBO subscribers)."

On a blog aptly called, "Can't Stop The Bleeding," it is no surprise Gatti's the topic of discussion often.

After Gatti successfully defended his WBC junior welterweight title on Jan. 29 last year by knocking out Jesse James Leija in the fifth round (Leija announced his retirement a week later), there was a triumphant blog picture of Gatti holding his arm high in the ring, and an accompanying entry that read:

"One of these days, Arturo Gatti will be too old and slow to dish out the punishment, and when that day arrives, the human race will be much poorer for it."

Right before the Mayweather fight last June, another blog had this posting:

"Heart Is Spelled G-A-T-T-I

And on yet another blog where the topic of the day was, "What would be your favorite three fights of all time," one blogger wrote:

Arturo Gatti vs. Anyone
Arturo Gatti vs. Someone Else
Arturo Gatti vs. Another Someone Else.

Gatti even has a following among musicians. A San Francisco based band calls itself, "Arturo Gatti," and plays guess what kind of music? Heavy metal, hard driving stuff, coming right in your face, relentless and incredibly loud.

Numbers rarely tell a story. But in Gatti's case the sheer overwhelming size of his punch counts does "describe" what his fights are like.

CompuBox offers analysis of its punch counts, but rarely gushes with superlatives. Not so after the first Gatti-Ward fight.

"Round 5 was a classic (their bold type). They combined to throw 179 punches, they landed 98, 54 by Gatti and 44 for Ward. The CompuBox average (of all fights) for connects in a round by a single fighter is 20. Of those 98, 88 WERE POWER PUNCHES (their caps). Not pitty-pat no-jabs, these warriors were unloading on each other...

"Round 9 should be in everyone's top five of greatest three minutes. They LANDED 110 TOTAL PUNCHES - 102 WERE POWER PUNCHES. They threw 168 total punches. Which brings us back to the 110 combined punches they landed. The combined average landed per round (for all fights) is 40 punches, 20 each. Do the math. THEY LANDED ALMOST THREE TIMES AS MANY PUNCHES AS THE COMBINED AVERAGE!!!

"Where does Round 9 Gatti-Ward rank in the Greatest Rounds category? Riddick Bowe and Evander Holyfield combined to land a total of 69 punches in the 10th round of their first fight.

"Erik Morales and Marco Antonio Barrera landed a combined total of 75 punches in Round 5 in their first meeting.

"In what was considered one of the greatest rounds in history, Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns combined to land 106 total punches in the first round of their classic. Gatti-Ward (110) tops them all."

Ring, in awarding Gatti-Ivan Robinson it's 1998 "Fight of the Year" award, also alluded to punch count in it's announcement:

"Stats alone seldom tell the story of a fight, but the fact that Ivan Robinson and Arturo Gatti threw a combined total of 1,630 punches, and that 674 landed certainly goes a long way toward indicating the level of ferocity that blazed inside the ring..."

As for the historic 9th round, Ring called it: "a round that squeezed more action into three minutes than a lot of great fighters squeeze into their whole careers...When the bell rang for Round 10...both men looked like they'd been run over by monster trucks."

Commenting on Ward's close victory in their first fight, Ring said: "This wasn't about winners and losers. This was about what two warriors did together, lifting themselves and their sport as high as they possibly could from the first bell to last."

Just before Round 10 of their final fight, after 29 rounds from Hell, Gatti and Ward approached each other for the traditional touching of gloves. Instead, they both simultaneous hugged each other and the crowd stood on its feet and roared.

"They were blood brothers who had created a rare emotional bond that would link them forever together," DiBella said. "Micky knew Gatti had helped him get in the Hall of Fame because of their trilogy."

The historical significance of that great trilogy was not lost on the video game industry. Last Dec. 13, Electronic Arts announced Gatti and Ward would grace the cover for its highly popular "Fight Night Round 3.

The aftermath of their final fight was typical how classy Gatti is.

Gatti, face battered and bleeding, was a gracious winner: "I knew that he was coming to fight," said Gatti, who again hugged Ward and shared a water bottle with his equally bashed-up opponent. "He's a great champion. Anyone else would have quit."

Asked who is next opponent would be, an exhausted Gatti said: "I don't know. I just want to go to the hospital - right now."

Fittingly, the guy sitting across from Gatti in the ambulance was Ward. The two were taken to Atlantic City Medical Center for treatment, call it "Round 31." The result: Ward had broken his right hand in the third round, Gatti his own right in the fourth round.

What's it like to box with a broken hand? By the 6th round of the last fight, it was obvious Gatti couldn't throw the right with any authority. But Gatti told his trainer, Buddy McGirt, he wanted to go on, even if it meant taking on the aggressive Ward with one hand, and using the right sparingly.

Asked how he could fight so furiously with such pain, Gatti said: "You just have to wait until you get adjusted to it."

Adjusted to it? Meaning, take the pain and go on, don't disappoint your fans or yourself.

On Gatti's tombstone some day in the distant future, there should be four words under his name: "NEVER GIVE AN INCH!."

NOTES: Damgaard, 34, is not a typical slick southpaw. He is tailor-made for Gatti in that he is a brawler who will take three punches to land one. Like Gatti, he is strong of heart, and likes to mix it up inside, using both hands to do damage. His best punch is a right hook. He is also a frequent bleeder with poor defense. His toughest fights have been against fighters who box and move. Gatti, while primarily a brawler, does have good boxing skills, thanks to his trainer, former welterweight champ Buddy McGirt. The game plan Gatti/McGirt used for much of Ward II was to stick and move, and should Gatti do that, he'll be in good shape for a victory...