TARVER'S VISION QUEST

by Nat Gottlieb

Antonio Tarver has always come late to the dance.

He was 28 when he won a bronze medal in the 1996 Olympics, 29, when he turned pro. It wasn't until he was 34 before he captured his first world championship. In the last two years, he has beaten future Hall of Famer Roy Jones Jr. twice, but Jones was said to be past his prime.

In his only fight so far this year, Tarver squared off against Rocky Balboa in a film sure to raise the light heavyweight champ's nation-wide profile, but even Rocky was three movies removed from his best days. On June 10, Tarver trades Balboa for a fight with future Hall of Famer Bernard Hopkins (46-4-1) at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City on HBO Pay-Per-View. Hopkins, however is 41, has lost two straight and is calling this his "farewell" bout.

In Antonio Tarver's quest to solidify his "legend," Father Time seems intent on denying him.

Since first beating Jones in 2004 on a shocking, 2d round knockout, Tarver (24-3) has become totally focused on his legend. The word pops up in virtually every interview he gives. For Tarver, beating Jones twice started his legacy, and defeating Hopkins will strengthen it. When detractors say he is just burying legends, Tarver responds by saying his critics are just continuing a pattern of career-long lack of respect for his accomplishments.

Probably, there is some truth to both viewpoints, but for Tarver there is only one: "For everything I've accomplished in my career, there's always someone trying to chip away at it," Tarver said. "But when I beat Bernard Hopkins on June 10th, no one can ever take that away from me. For 100 years, people will look at Antonio Tarver and say, 'There's the legend killer.' First Roy Jones and now Bernard Hopkins. This win will cement my place in Canastota (Hall of Fame site)."

That judgment remains to history, but working in Tarver's favor is that he is a "young" 37, and has more fights left to bolster his credentials. Tarver's trainer, Buddy McGirt, thinks that his fighter's quest for legendary status will bring out the best in him against Hopkins.

"Antonio's focused because he's looking at himself as a legend killer, and he knows he's got to be right for the fight," McGirt said. "Antonio's got something to prove."

Longtime HBO commentator Larry Merchant thinks Tarver has already proven plenty: "Tarver may not be a virtuoso whirlwind, but I think he is a good fighter and at his best, a damned good fighter," Merchant said. "I think it is admirable that he pulled his career together and fulfilled his potential in his nearly mid-thirties. What he did to Jones - basically three times in different ways - nobody else was able to do and he should get credit."

Perhaps it was Tarver's late start as a professional that bodes well for his chances to be deemed a legend. Generally, at 37, most boxers are winding down their careers. But there is every possibility that Tarver may not have peaked yet, having boxed professionally just a mere eight years and fought 27 times. In contrast, look at Glen Johnson, who beat future champions Clinton Woods, then Jones and Tarver in succession in 2004 to win Ring Magazine's "Fighter of the Year" award. Johnson is also 37, but has fought 56 times in 13 years.

"We look at Antonio as not having had a lot of mileage at all," said his promoter, Joe DeGuardia of Star Boxing. "Certainly he can go to 40 and beyond, because he just hasn't had the wear and tear."

What could also bolster Tarver's quest for legendary status is that after calling out the retired Mike Tyson earlier this year, he has indicated a willingness to move up to heavyweight at some point and fight the division's best. Tarver said he felt comfortable "fighting" at 215 pounds for the Rocky film, and should he move up and win a championship belt, that would almost certainly put him in the Hall of Fame.

First, however, he must get past Hopkins, who despite age and having fought his whole career as a middleweight, may prove to be a formidable foe.

Clearly, Hopkins (46-4-1) is not in his prime, but is he too old to give Tarver a hard time, even win? Not if you consider that Hopkins, who has always stayed in top condition, was 39 when he knocked out Oscar De La Hoya, and 40 when he dominated contender Howard Eastman. Even his two defeats that same year to young Jermain Taylor were close and controversial. And make no mistake about it, Hopkins is dead serious about winning this fight to refurbish his own legacy. That became obvious when the notoriously cheap Hopkins hired expensive fitness guru Mackie Shilstone to help him put on weight properly.

This fight finds Tarver caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, however. If he beats Hopkins, many will say Bernard was old and over-the-hill. If he loses to a blown-up, 41-year-old middleweight, Tarver's legacy will take some painful low blows.

Installed as the favorite, Tarver is clearly the bigger, stronger man. But Hopkins still has tremendous boxing skills. Tarver might also be hampered by a task that has hurt other boxers - dropping significant weight. Jones went from 175 to 193 when he left behind his light heavyweight belt to challenge and beat John Ruiz for his heavyweight title in March of 2003. Eight months later Jones dropped 18 pounds to beat Tarver in a close and controversial majority decision, then lost his next three fights, two to Tarver one to Johnson. Jones said the effort to lose weight weakened him for Tarver.

Tarver had to put on more weight than Jones - 40 pounds -- to pass himself off as a heavyweight in the Rocky film. After wrapping up the film, just before he started to train for Hopkins, Tarver acknowledged the problem involved with losing a lot of weight -- and also didn't miss a chance to toss a dig at Jones.

"Everybody knows that I'm coming down from a significant amount of weight, so we're going to disprove - or prove - the excuse that Roy Jones made," Tarver said. "And I'm here to tell you that I'm coming down from a lot more weight than Roy Jones had claimed to have come down from."

There is one key difference in the weight gained by Tarver and Jones, according to McGirt. "Believe it or not, it didn't affect him at all (in training) and it came off kind of quick because mainly it was from eating a lot and living the Hollywood life style for a while," McGirt said. "It's not like he put on muscle (as Jones did)."

Still, weight is weight, and only at fight time will Tarver know if he was affected by having to shed 40 pounds.

Another factor Tarver might be battling is whether taking time out to film Rocky was too much of a distraction. It is believed that many top fighters in the past, such as Lennox Lewis, Marco Antonio Barrera and Manny Pacquiao, are said to have lost fights because of distractions outside the ring. The Tarver camp does not feel he falls into that category.

"Antonio said he never felt acting would be his career, that he still wanted to fight, so I think he has remained focused," DeGuardia said. Tarver also said as much. "My passion is for boxing. I'm not a movie star yet. I'm still a hungry, determined fighter."

Lewis, however, felt the same way when he took a brief break in training for his heavyweight championship match with underdog Hasim Rahman (April of 2001) to film backdrop fight scenes for "Ocean's Eleven" with Vitali Klitschko. Returning to the real ring, Lewis got knocked out by Rahman in the 5th round, Ring Magazine's "Upset of the Year."

Distractions aside, Tarver did get in some "sparring" while filming the movie. In fact, there was a report out of Hollywood that fight scenes got so intense that Tarver knocked out the 59-year-old Stallone at one point, and the camera crew, thinking Stallone was acting, let the cameras run for a while before everyone realized Rocky was really down.

Stallone's people deny the report, but a Rocky fanatic who got to be an extra in the movie pretty much confirms the fight sequences were intense in a blog report she filed:

"Once the cameras rolled, Tarver and Stallone put on quite a show," she said. "The scenes looked both exciting and believable, and on one occasion, Tarver got a little excited and blasted Sly on the ear with a big right hand. Stallone took it well, but as soon as they said cut, Stallone was wobbly and the blood had to be wiped from his ear."

Tarver, in a press conference to hype the film, said the fight sequences would look just as realistic as actual bouts he's been in. "People won't know the difference between a fight with me and Roy Jones Jr, and a fight with me and Rocky Balboa."

It is telling that Tarver chose a Jones bout to make his point. In some ways, Tarver's career has been joined at the hip to Jones, a fellow Floridian.

Tarver was 14 when he took up boxing in Orlando, and in his early amateur career crossed paths with Pensacola native Jones in the ring. Jones won the fight, but Tarver never thought so. Tarver quit boxing shortly after that and didn't return to the sport until his early twenties.

In 1988, a twenty-year-old Tarver was watching the Olympics from Seoul on TV when he saw Jones, the star of the U.S.A. boxing team, fighting. "It touched me, not because he was there, but the fact that I was just as good as he was, if not better, at the time we fought," Tarver said.

Tarver returned to the gym, and over the next eight years built a distinguished amateur record that climaxed in 1996. After making history by becoming the only U.S. amateur boxer ever to win the national championships, the Pan-Am Games and the World Championships all in one year, Tarver captured an Olympic bronze medal as part of an outstanding USA team that included future professional world champs Floyd Mayweather Jr., Fernando Vargas, David Reid and Eric Morel, plus contenders Zahir Raheem and David Diaz.

Tarver had great expectations coming out of the Olympics, but perhaps because of his age (28), or being overshadowed by others on that talent-laden team, none of the big-time promoters showed real interest in him.

Forced to watch while his Olympic teammates immediately acquired money fights and soon fame, Tarver would later recall his inauspicious pro debut, a 2d round TKO of Joaquin Garcia on Feb. 18, 1997. "It was at the Blue Horizon (in Tarver's hometown Philadelphia), and I'm on the under card. No fanfare. It was really, really hard, and I didn't know how I was going to get out from under that situation."

Fighting a succession of so-so boxers, a somewhat unmotivated Tarver won his first 16 fights on sheer talent alone before losing to contender Eric Harding (18-0) in June of 2000. That loss was a wakeup call of sorts, and immediately after, Tarver asked budding world class trainer McGirt to take him on. At the same time, he contacted DeGuardia about promoting him.

"Losing (to Harding) made him realize he had to dedicate himself more," DeGuardia said. "In Antonio, I saw a diamond in the rough. People overlooked that he had so much talent and had had a great amateur career."

With his new team and new attitude, Tarver reeled off four victories, including a 5th round TKO in a rematch with Harding in 2002. Nine months later, at the age of 34, Tarver got his shot at a world championship title, and again, Jones' name was linked to it. In moving up to heavyweight to face Ruiz, Jones had vacated his WBC light heavyweight title. Tarver picked up Jones' discarded belt by beating Montell Griffin (44-3) in an impressive performance which saw him win every round on the judges' cards. Seven months later, Tarver would finally come face to face with his life-long nemesis.

"The day Antonio called me (in 2000) and asked if I would promote him," DeGuardia said, "one of the first things he said is that he wanted to beat Roy Jones Jr."

Many felt Tarver did win that first Jones fight on November 8 of 2003, but the judges saw it differently, handing the fight to Jones by majority decision. Six months later in the rematch, Tarver stunned both Jones and the boxing world by knocking him out in the second round. Jones had never been stopped before.

Tarver, however, would get no credit for the knockout from Jones. Asked why he wanted to fight him a third time, Jones told "High Roller" Magazine last August, "The guy simply got a lucky punch, which just happens sometimes."

Luck had nothing to do with what went down in their rubber match. Tarver totally out-fought Jones, winning a unanimous decision last year. The fight was doubly satisfying for Tarver in that afterwards Jones's reputation took a hit when he was widely derided for fighting all 12 rounds in a defensive posture. Getting cast in Rocky VI was in some ways icing on the Jones cake for Tarver.

"I know Roy was one of two people Sly was looking at," DeGuardia said. "That's a fact. Then Antonio beats Roy twice and that boded well for him getting the role because he was a champ at the top of his game."

But even by sending his nemesis off into the sunset, Tarver felt he still did not get the credit he merited. "When you look at the pound-for-pound list, nobody has me ranked as high as 10 (Ring had him at No. 8)," Tarver said. "People know my ability, they know my talents and my capabilities, why are they being so naive and when I'm one of the most talented fighters in the world today."

Ironically, Jones' shadow will hover over the Hopkins fight, too. Shilstone, Hopkins' weight guru, was also hired by Jones to put on pounds for Ruiz.

In the end, though, neither Jones nor Tarver's critics matter much to him. His sole focus is on being remembered as a legend. Beating Hopkins will keep him on that road to the Hall of Fame. Better late than never.