VERNON FORREST'S FIGHTING BACK

Vernon Forrest is 35. Ike Quartey is 36. No wonder, then, that the promoters of their Aug. 5 faceoff at Madison Square Garden have entitled it "Now or Never.'' At their ages, what else is there in boxing but now or never? Ron Borges takes a look down the crossroads.

August 1, 2006 - by Ron Borges

Yet when Forrest considers what he's about to embark upon he doesn't see it quite that way. He sees Quartey as a test to be sure, one he's been seeking ever since he lost two straight fights to wild-eyed power puncher Ricardo Mayorga three years ago. Those defeats not only took the welterweight title away from him but also his aura of invincibility, sending the previously undefeated former champion on a downward spiral of injury and inactivity that left him without a fight for two years and three days and without a major challenge until he steps in with Quartey, himself a former welterweight champion embarking on a comeback after five years away from big-time boxing.

Yet the former Olympian looks at Quartey as more than a potential final exam. He looks upon him the way few people might. He looks upon him as an opportunity he's been waiting for since his own comeback began a year ago.

"No disrespect to Lou (DiBella, the fight and Quartey's promoter) but "Now or Never' is a play on words for the promotion,'' Forrest said recently. "There's no sense of urgency for me and my career. It's a fight I'm going to win. It's no more important than my last fight.''

Since his last fight was against an unknown named Elco Garcia roughly 10 months ago that seems like a bit of an understatement because the only thing Elco Garcia has in common with Ike Quartey is that both were willing to get into the ring with Forrest. Both are fighters too, but only Quartey is a challenge or, perhaps, an opportunity. Before long even Forrest concedes there is a difference. A significant difference.

"I don't think about the future,'' Forrest (37-2, 28 KO) said. "I got a big, big mountain I got to climb. That's Ike Quartey. Ike Quartey is my Mt. Everest.''

Indeed he is and if Forrest can scale him he is back in the mix in one of the hottest weight divisions in boxing. Whether at 147 pounds or the present 154, the winner would be a very logical and very lucrative opponent for someone like Oscar De La Hoya or Shane Mosley. Both would prefer to face pound-for-pound champion Floyd Mayweather, Jr. but only on their own terms and their own timetables. What that means is one of them is going to end up without a logical next opponent because Mayweatehr can't fight them both. Thus possibility enters the picture in the person of the winner of Forrest-Quartey which, in a sense, does indeed make this fight now at least, if not quite never.

After all Forrest has been through he doesn't think in such terms however. He is a realist, having had that often unwelcome outlook forced upon him by the stunning fists of Mayorga and the deterioration of his own body after the only defeats of his career. Both are now behind him, he believes, and in front of him stands the only man that matters. But that is not to say there are not other considerations for Vernon Forrest as this fight approaches.

There is his health, for one, but he insists the elbow problems and other maladies are behind him now, claiming the proof of that will be his appearance Aug. 5 as scheduled at his favorite fighting venue, the old Garden building at 33rd and Broadway.

"My body is my product,'' Forrest said. "If my product isn't good enough to show the public I wasn't good enough to beat anybody. I never fought just for the money or the accolades. I fought for pride. In my career I never won a fight and complained about my health. I never lost a fight and complained about my health. The reason I haven't fought (for those two years) is because I was injured. I was still training but I wasn't healthy enough to fight. If I wasn't healthy enough now to fight this fight I wouldn't be fighting this fight.''

That he believes he is healthy makes clear that Forrest, at least, is unconcerned about his recent past. Yet he concedes there are things a 35-year-old fighter must come to grips with as his two-fight comeback continues and the biggest of them, perhaps, is simply not living in denial.

As he was preparing for this fight Forrest spent considerable time watching tape of Quartey, both at his height when he was going toe-to-toe with De La Hoya, and in the fights that began his own comeback after his five-year retirement.

But Forrest did more than that. He did not simply focus on studying the past work of his opponent. He went and looked at who he used to be as well. Looked hard to see what he might find and in the end found himself.

"There's no way you can be the same at 35 as you were at 25 or 21,'' Forrest said. "People who say that are lying. But I can be smarter. One of the things I did for this fight was pull out old fight tapes of myself.

Normally I watch the other guy but this time I analyzed myself. All the way back to the beginning. I noticed early on I was a real physical fighter. I was very active. Threw a lot of punches.

"Today I'm not able to be as physical. But I wasn't as smart then as I am now. I don't have to be as physical. I can make the guy do what I want him to do. At times watching I was impressed with what I did but I noticed most of it was instinctive. I didn't know why I did it. I just did it.

"Now I have to add that instinctiveness to my intelligence as a fighter. When I get in there I'm not trying to re-create Vernon Forrest of 10 years ago. I'm trying to create something different. You're forced to learn different ways. I've matured quite a bit. I've gotten stronger, smarter. But I'm still going to take you down memory lane.''

By that Forrest doesn't meant a return to the style of his youth. He meant a return to the glory of his youth, which was achieved in the very same building where he will fight Quartey. It was there, in the Garden, that he first lived his dream, defeating Raul Frank on May 12, 2001 to win the vacant International Boxing Federation welterweight title. Nothing since has felt as sweet.

"Personally, for me, that was my biggest victory,'' Forrest said, saying the win over Frank trumped even his back-to-back wins over Mosley that shocked the boxing world at the time. "That made me a world champion. It solidified me as a fighter. That night I accomplished all the goals I set for myself in my life in boxing.''

Aug. 5 Vernon Forrest will seek to achieve a new goal. Perhaps one more difficult even than winning that first world championship. He will look to comeback to where he once made dreams a reality. Comeback older and wiser and do it again.