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Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: Below the line
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Here's what the Times had to say about the fight. The NY Times lists boxing under "other sports," by the way.
June 9, 2003
For Two Fighters, an Intense Rivalry Comes to an End
By GEOFFREY GRAY
ATLANTIC CITY, June 8 - In the hospital emergency room a little past 2 a.m. today , Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward sat in rooms next to each other like brothers, nursing wounds from their rubber match.
"Surgery again," Gatti said, speaking in good spirits but slowly, through swollen lips. He had broken his right hand again - it was fractured last November in his last fight with Ward - and he was holding on to his fiancée, Vivian, with his left hand.
Not long before, Gatti, a 140-pounder, had won a unanimous decision in front of a feisty sellout crowd at the 12,000-seat Boardwalk Hall. It was his second consecutive decision over Ward in the rivalry's third and apparently final round.
Ward, who vowed to retire after a 17-year boxing career, was on his back after medical tests. His face, swollen on the right side, had been tattooed with cuts. When the 37-year-old Ward, who retired with a 38-13 record, left the hospital, Gatti's limousine driver drove him back to his hotel.
"I don't need the money anymore," Ward said last week. "This is it. I'm done."
After losing six of nine fights in the early 1990's, Ward's tough luck and brittle hands led to a leave from boxing. He took a job as a prison guard and later as a steamroller driver, a job he plans to return to in Lowell, Mass. After doctors took bone from his pelvis and fused it into his right hand in 1998, Ward mounted a comeback. The operation also forced him to shift power to his left hand, with which he developed a trademark punch to the liver.
"Mick is a true hometown hero," Lowell's mayor, Rita Mercier, said.
Like many people in Lowell, Mercier will miss spotting Ward doing his morning five-mile run through town. "He doesn't show any pomp," Mercier said. "He's a superstar and the boy next door. We couldn't be more proud."
Gatti, 31, had also been struggling in his career. After losing a title and a rematch to Ivan Robinson, and later losing to Oscar De La Hoya in 2001, Gatti (36-6) took nearly a year off. He had been in too many fights too soon, his handlers thought. He had also been known to party too hard, taking off for Atlantic City on the weekend and returning to his Jersey City home on Monday or Tuesday. Attempting to reinvent himself, Gatti hired Buddy McGirt as his trainer, looking to convert his ring rage and warrior instincts into boxing finesse.
In his first fight against Ward last May, Gatti began to show flash and fluid movement in the early rounds. Cut over one eye, Ward chased him. In the ninth round, Ward sent Gatti to a knee with a liver punch. Gatti, one eye shut, came back to win Round 10, but Ward won a split decision.
Gatti broke a rib. Both received fight of the year honors.
In his first million-dollar payday, in a rematch last November, Ward began the chase again. Gatti planted an overhand right to Ward's temple in the third round, sending Ward into the ring post. Off balance, Ward egged Gatti on, pounding his chest, and finished the fight on his feet. Gatti broke his right hand but won a unanimous decision. Ward had a broken eardrum.
On Saturday night, Gatti and Ward met for the last time, despite cries from critics who felt the matchup was senseless, made-for-television violence.
"These fights are like Pier 6 brawls and detrimental to the fighters," says Steve Acunto, president of the American Association for the Improvement of Boxing. "There's no reason to have them except to satiate the crowd."
That's just what happened. In a reversal of roles, it was Gatti looking to land aggressive body shots in the early rounds and Ward looking to box.
Ward's strategy, it seemed, was paying off. In Round 6, Gatti was knocked down; in Round 9, Gatti almost fell again. His backside caught a ring rope on the way down, providing a split-second rest, then he was catapulted back to his feet.
In the 10th and final round, Gatti and Ward stood unsteadily, swinging desperately until the final bell. Then they held each other in the center of the ring - forehead to forehead- while fireworks went off above them.
"There's no single word that will define these fights," said the heavyweight champion, Lennox Lewis, who sat at ringside. "Blood. Guts. Pride. Pain. Compassion. They're two tough nuts that never say quit. It's old-school fighting for a new era."
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