Thursday, June 23, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Desire, grit have led Gatti to glory

Gutsy veteran won't get rattled by anyone, not even Mayweather

By KEVIN IOLE
REVIEW-JOURNAL

ATLANTIC CITY -- Wilson Rodriguez's name isn't known to most boxing fans. But Lou DiBella will forever remember Rodriguez's name and face.

Rodriguez fought Arturo Gatti in the second episode of HBO's monthly "Boxing After Dark" series.

The series had opened on Feb. 3, 1996, with a slugfest between Marco Antonio Barrera and Kennedy McKinney that Barrera won on a 12th-round knockout.

At the time, DiBella was running HBO's boxing division.

Although he had seen Gatti fight several times before he paired him with Rodriguez, DiBella knew he couldn't expect Gatti-Rodriguez to match Barrera-McKinney.

DiBella was right. The bout didn't match Barrera-McKinney.

It exceeded it.

And on the night of March 23, 1996, a legend was born. Rodriguez dominated Gatti in the first round. He knocked him down in the second. His punches closed Gatti's eyes and ripped open his skin.

After the fifth round, Gatti's left eye had swollen so badly he couldn't see out of it.

The ringside physician was considering stopping the fight. He asked Gatti to close his right eye and, using only the left, tell him how many fingers he was holding up.

"No way he could see, so he cheated a little and peeked with the other eye," DiBella said.

Gatti's cornermen warned him they'd stop the fight after the sixth, so bad were his eyes and hands.

Gatti promptly went out and delivered a picture-perfect left hook that knocked Rodriguez down and out.

"It was right out of a Rocky movie," said DiBella, now a promoter but still a self-proclaimed Gatti fan. "You couldn't write that kind of stuff and have anyone believe it. And it happened right there before our eyes."

To many, that bout defines Arturo Gatti as a fighter and a person.

Regardless of the outcome when he defends his WBC super lightweight title against unbeaten Las Vegan Floyd Mayweather Jr. on Saturday at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, that will never change.

Gatti is a decided underdog who has chosen to sit in the background while Mayweather has berated him at every opportunity.

During a live interview on HBO's broadcast of the Antonio Tarver-Glen Johnson light heavyweight fight on Saturday, Gatti (39-6, 29 KOs) was able to speak very little as Mayweather trashed him and vowed to end his career.

The two won't appear together in public except for a brief moment Friday at the weigh-in. At the news conference today, they'll be kept separate, as they have been at every official function, a point that riles Mayweather (33-0, 22 KOs).

"The man is supposedly a world champion, and he can't come to a press conference and look at me so people can take pictures of us?" Mayweather said. "The guy is scared."

Carl Moretti knows better than to believe that. The vice president of Main Events, Gatti's promotional company, has watched Gatti in too many dire situations ever to believe he would be afraid. He has absorbed massive amounts of punishment and kept moving forward.

He's fought when blood was flowing into his eyes, when his eyes were just slits, when his hands were broken.

"One of the reasons Arturo is so popular is that people recognize he'll go through just about anything trying to win," Moretti said. "The biggest mistake Floyd would make is if he believes for even a second that Arturo would even think about quitting."

While Mayweather revels in the limelight and the comparisons to boxing greats such as Sugar Ray Leonard, DiBella said Gatti compares favorably to a boxing legend as well.

"Without question, he's the most exciting TV fighter of the modern era," said DiBella, who nicknamed Gatti "The Human Highlight Film." "He's a nice-guy version of Jake LaMotta. You watch Gatti and all you can think of are fighters like LaMotta and (former welterweight champions) Carmen Basilio and (Tony) DeMarco and guys like that. He's in that league as an entertainer."