Remembering Arturo Gatti - #2 The Shooting Star
Photo Credit: Al Bello /Allsport / Getty Images
April 15th is always a tough day, because it’s Arturo’s birthday. And I can’t stress enough how sad it is to me that he’s not here anymore.
Arturo deserves to be here and be celebrated for how special he was. Hopefully this article will help you remember Arturo ‘Thunder’ Gatti. If you never read the first part of this series, please find it here.
Chasing the IBF Title
After a brutal fight with Jose Sanabria, Gatti took a few months off. In 1994, Arturo fought five times (three KOs) won and defended the USBA junior lightweight title.
But it was time for Gatti to go chase a world title so he relinquished the USBA title and started chasing the IBF world title.
His first victim was Roman Smolenkov (9-4) in which will be the second and last time that Arturo fought in Europe. The first time was in the Netherlands and Arturo won by first round TKO. Nothing much different this time except that this fight against Smolenkov was filmed.
Arturo didn’t waste a second and opened the fight with a series of jabs, took the center of the ring and tried to set up his right hand. If Smolenkov was a bit overwhelmed by the sharpness and the volume coming from the Canadian, he did his best to stay low and ducked under a few one-twos. Arturo’s head movement was on point and he landed a nice combo of four punches on the Russian as he was staying very low. It only took a minute before a left hook to the body and a right hook upstairs hurt the Russian kid. After blocking and ducking a barrage of punches from Arturo he was finally sent to the ground by another left hook to the body. “He’s not gettin’ up” Gatti seemed to say to his coach as he celebrated on his way to the corner. He was right: Smolenkov was struck by lightning by the punch from ‘Thunder’.
The skill level difference in this fight was just so obvious. Arturo did a great job at mixing hooks to the body and the head, keeping Smolenkov on his toes all the time. It only took like around 90 seconds for him to end it.
Arturo’s trip to Europe was short but efficient, one more quick KO on his resume and he didn’t take damage, which is good because he was only a few months away from the brutal Sanagria fight.
Three weeks later, Arturo celebrated his 23rd birthday. A week after celebrating, he was back in the ring in Atlantic City, against journeyman Tialano Tovar (9-8).
That fight lasted 90 seconds as well. Tialano was a bit more offensive than Arturo’s last opponent but Arturo was still so much superior to him. After slipping a few punches on the outside and countering Tovar, Arturo knocked him clean out when he threw a right hook-left hook combo. Tovar ducked under the right hook and went for his own left hook to counter Arturo but the sharpest one got there first. Going hook-for-hook with ‘Thunder’ was always a bad idea with violent consequences.
Arturo kept rising through the rankings of the 130lb division, and gained two more victories by knockout.
Arturo finally get his title shot at the end of 1995. Arturo destroyed everyone who was in his way and Atlantic City cherished him like he was one of their own. He was tough, brave, honest and humble and they loved him for it.
However, the fight for the IBF junior lightweight title took place in the Madison Square Garden. The opponent: Tracy Harris Patterson (54-3 ; 39 KO). This fight was on the undercard of Oscar De La Hoya vs James Leija (two future opponents of Arturo Gatti).
The fight with Tracy was a tremendous step up in competition for the young Gatti. Because apart from Sanabria, Taliaferro and Bostic, Arturo had not faced good competition. Arturo had a tough fight with Sanabria where he showed us for the first time his capacity to face adversity and to dig deep. But the rest of his career so far was almost only first rounds highlight knockouts where his speed and power did the talking. That’s why this fight against Tracy was a big test; He was much more experienced, won the New York Golden Gloves twice, and captured his first world title three years before.
In 1992, he stopped Frenchman Thierry Jacobs in the second round to become the WBC Super bantamweight champion. Tracy is the adopted son of the late, great world heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson. Tracy’s victory over Jacobs made them the first father and son to be world champions.
The big questions for this fight were how Arturo would do against a true world champion and whether he could go for twelve hard rounds if necessary.
Tracy Patterson I
Arturo was the bigger man of the two—5’8 to Patterson’s 5’5—but they had the same reach, 68 inches. They both boxed out of an orthodox stance. The reputation of them at the time was that Gatti was more a brawler while Tracy was a pure boxer. The power advantage was clearly for Arturo here but Tracy could pack a punch too.
“This is a young man potentially on the verge of stardom”, said Jim Lampley as Gatti was walking out to the ring to the cheers of the New York Crowd. The broadcast also told us that Gatti fought 74 rounds so far in his professional career, to Patterson’s 294.
Arturo spent the first round behind his jab, making sure to keep the champion at range. Very disciplined and focused first round for the challenger. Arturo still found some opening to land a series of hooks in the pocket. Arturo’s most dangerous punches was the deadly left hook. Great job behind the lead hand, mixing up from jabs to uppercuts when Tracy ducked under the jabs. Even though it was a great round for Arturo he went back to his corner with a small cut under the left eye and some swelling around it. Hector Roca was Gatti’s head coach at the time, he asked Arturo to stay behind the jab and to blast combinations when he sees the openings, but to be careful not to force it.
The second round was very similar to the first one, but this time Gatti capitalised on Tracy’s habits of ducking under the jab and caught him off guard with a quick uppercut that sent the champion to the canvas. Patterson wasn’t really hurt but never saw the uppercut coming. And if you’d expect Arturo to pressure and try to end the show right after this you’d be wrong: Arturo stayed very disciplined and stayed behind the jab, slowly but surely taking over that fight.
At the end of Round seven, Gatti was up 6-1 with one 10-8 round. It wasn’t the flashiest performance ever but he was out boxing the champion with ease: Almost double the volume, way more accurate, hurt him in the pocket and from the outside too.
Arturo eventually took some good right hand counters over his left hook from time to time and his cut under the left eye started to bother him. Except for this everything was going just fine. Arturo was surely on his way to become a world Champion.
During Round eight, the narrative changed for two reasons: First, the body work Patterson did all fight long started to catch up with the challenger, and some big body shots seemed to bother Gatti. Secondly, with a little less than a minute left in the round Patterson landed a hard right hand that stung Gatti and further widened the cut. Gatti seemed pissed of that he got caught with this punch even though he still won the round. He went back to his corner very frustrated.
Cornerman Hector Rocca said to Arturo, “Only 4 more rounds, don’t take a chance I don’t want a knockout Arturo, you understand what I said ?” They asked him to stay behind his jab, keep out boxing the champion for a few more rounds.
Arturo didn’t seems to listen at all.
Arturo decided to up his volume even more, less jabs and more power punches. He drew reactions from Patterson, slipped his punches and countered with big powerful combos.
Gatti punished Patterson for that right hand in the previous round, but he started to overextend too much and be open for counters. Round nine was an absolute clinic from Arturo who was looking better than ever—contrary to the round before—having fun, taking risks and beating up on the champion.
Round 10 was the best round of the fight but also the most competitive one. Patterson—behind on the cards—had to take risks, and Arturo wanted to finish that fight. The result is that neither took a backwards step. As soon as Patterson got in a clean shot, Arturo responded with a flurry. But don’t get it wrong, Arturo was not being irresponsible, his shot selection was still very good, using jabs to set up his combos. Most of his fights before were short and violent but what we saw in the 12 rounds with Sanabria was confirmed on the biggest stage: Arturo didn’t want to outpoint his opponent, he wanted to beat them he was ready to bite down on his mouthpiece if he had to.
That’s something his corner might have never understood. I do not think Arturo was made to have a long career or to ever play it safe, he got in there to challenge himself and produce entertainment for his fans. And for entertainment the last minute of round 10 is one of the first holy shit Gatti moments of his amazing career. Easy to take for granted nowadays.
With 50 seconds left, Patterson ducked under the one-two and threw a short but precise body shot that hurt Gatti. Gatti answered this punch with four hooks to the body! The last seconds of the round was just both of them throwing hooks in the pocket!
The Garden gave a standing ovation to both warriors, but Gatti was getting yelled at in his corner like some parents would talk to a kid who played with matches.
“Why you need to do that Arturo ? We’re two rounds away from winning the fight! You want to become a champion, you can’t do that shit”, said Rocca.
The last two rounds were action packed, with both men having success. The cut and swelling on Gatti worsened, but he still landed some big shots during Patterson’s last push to keep his title. Arturo Gatti defeated Tracy Harris Patterson via unanimous Decision and became the IBF Junior Lightweight champion.
After the fight many said that Gatti made this fight difficult for him when he could have just out pointed Patterson all night long, but you could see that Gatti would turn an empty roominto a very entertaining brawl. The broadcast mentioned his penchant for war, and spoke on how some fighters need some tough fights in their life, with the caveat you but can only have so many.
They had no idea what would come next! This would not be an anomaly in Gatti’s career: These fights would define his life.
HBO
Following his title-winning effort, Arturo Gatti signed a long term contract with HBO. Life was good for Arturo at this point: the adopted Jersey Kid had captured his first world title and was going to make his first defense only four months later against Wilson Rodriguez (43-7-3) a very stylish boxer with great in-and-out movement.
The rise of the young champion made many people envious of him. Before the Rodriguez fight an anonymous letter had been sent to the New York State Athletic Commission (1) asking the commission “to clean up the sport” as Gatti had a metal plate in his right hand. When asked about this the hard hitting Canadian laughed and replied that it’s his left hand that does the damage anyway.
Rodriguez had some advantages in the fight, including a seven-inch reach advantage over Arturo. This fight is still to this day one of the best memories fans have of Arturo Gatti.
After Rodriguez walked out, it was Arturo’s time: of course the famous AC/DC song was blasting in the Garden when he walked out. Arturo was more than ready for this and seemed to have had a big warm up, drenched in sweat as he made his way to the ring. This fight happening only four months after the Patterson fight—a big risk as there was quite a cut under his left eye—but no signs of it were apparent as he made his way to the ring.
Arturo opened the fight with some beautiful jabs to the body and then went upstairs and applied some measured pressure on the challenger, who already showed with a few punches how quick and sharp he was.
Arturo then got some good hooks to the body as Rodriguez circled clockwise. Arturo’s pressure mixed with jabs and hooks to the body was winning him the first round, and he showcased some beautiful head movement too…until (of course) he got rocked a few times by some sharp counters. Rodriguez was very comfortable on the back foot and offered some great left hand counter punches.
With thirty seconds left, Wilson parried Arturo’s double jab and countered him with a jab, straight right and lead uppercut. The challenger made perfect use of that reach advantage and superior footwork. In Arturo’s corner, they were already working on the left eye, already swollen.
In round two Arturo made one adjustment, staying very low to duck under the jabs and punish the body of Rodriguez. He had a lot of success with it, going back to that boxer-puncher style more than staying behind his jab. He even got Rodriguez on the ropes for a few seconds and threw a hard flurry.
However, Gatti’s left eye was already nearing being completely shut, despite not getting hit much in the round.
Even worse, the big moment of that round happened when a right hook was countered by a sharp and precise three punch combo that knocked him down.
Arturo got back up right away but he kept blinking and those heavy punches didn’t help the ever-swelling eye.
“It’s a scary moment, it doesn’t last too long but it feels like a lifetime. I saw my career go by in matters of seconds. But I’d say fear is good, fear is the one that keep you going” Arturo Gatti
This is where the legend started folks: a do or die moment that would in time define Gatti. Both eyes shut, knocked down, everything against him.
Just the way he liked it: Gatti was gonna’ go all in and try to finish that fight as soon as possible, throw his cards not on the table, but in the croupiers face. As soon as they met in the center in the ring it became a battle of hooks and uppercuts, Arturo walking down Rodriguez, the challenger doing his best to counter the aggressive champion.
In Arturo’s corner, They told him he had no time, he had to stop Rodriguez as soon as possible or the doctors will stop the fight.
Gatti goes for broke swinging as hard as he can, punishing Rodriguez with his left hook. But Rodriguez took the shots pretty well and landed some of his own too.
Gatti turned the fight into a battle of will more than skill, carried by the MSG fans screaming his name.
Arturo kept chasing Wilson and did a brilliant job of mixing it up to head and body. He’s fighting the clock but Wilson was pretty bad at defending the body shots on the inside, which helped the champ get a strong footing.
Watching Gatti turning into that blood and guts warrior is to see a man in his element.
The challenger however, was resilient: Arturo even land one of the biggest left hooks of his career so far at the end of Round three but Rodriguez ate it like it was nothing. The punishment these two men dished out to each other was insane. Gatti won round three despite being half blind and still rocked. The Broadcast team was in awe of Arturo’s bravado and heart but aren’t sure he’ll get just enough time to do it!
Seems like the entire venue is on their feet, everybody is screaming but Gatti is calm listening to his corner, even the doctor who comes to check his eyes. Gatti seems fine while all around him are losing their heads, his corner, the doctor…this is probably the most insane thing about the damn fight!
Before Round four started, Larry Merchant said “This is world class folks” , which had Roy Jones Jr answering “This is World War III, folks”. Tremendous.
Arturo understood that in the previous round, Rodriguez’s mobility and sharp counters seemed to disappear the wilder the fight was. Arturo then, didn’t focus on landing hard single shots but decided to completely overwhelmed the Dominican. The Thunder has turn into a tornado, with Rodriguez despeately trying not to be demolished.
And how he survived! After losing most of the exchanges in the first two and a half minutes ofan epic fourth round, Rodriguez hurt Gatti very badly.
Big one-two over Gatti’s jab, a right hand landing flush on Gatti’s left temple. Arturo’s leg were almost gone and he had to retreat in the corner where Rodriguez threw everything he had in him, Arturo somehow surviving the flurry, pushing Rodriguez back and ending the round with his own powerful flurry! Madness!
This may have been Wilson’s big chance to win the fight. In round five, Arturo went to the body almost exclusively. Those body shots were low, at least 30% of them was too low but the referee only sanctioned Arturo one time for them. The legitimate body work still was slowing down the challenger a lot. Arturo got tagged a few times coming in but he finally got Rodriguez against the ropes and knocked the wind out of him with a vicious left hook to the body that sent him to the ground! Rodriguez got back up but was still hurt. He survived one last barrage from Gatti, getting out of the round.
That round was a masterpiece of body punching from the young king. When Rodriguez jabbed as he circled away, Gatti would slip it on the inside, get very low and throw a short right hook to the body. And as soon as Rodriguez would clinch, Gatti would just keep spamming hooks to the body. He also timed Wilson’s jab and many times he body jabbed the challenger after ducking under his jab. If Gatti’s vaunted hooks to the head were his money punch before, now he has a powerful right straight to the body too.
One he had Rodriguez’s hands are low to defend the body, Gatti jabbed his face to set up the right straight to the body. Arturo’s level changes were so explosive, his feints and distractions were harder for Rodriguez to anticipate. The punch that knockdown the challenger was set up from a right cross that forced Rodriguez to duck and get low. Arturo then took a short back step as he framed him with the right hand and threw everything he got into that left hook to the body. After destroying the body of Wilson with a series of hooks he’d go upstairs with the uppercut too.
Round six. Joe Souza, Arturo Gatti’s cutman did a tremendous job because Arturo’s visiblity from the left eye better than it was only five or six minutes ago. Everything lined up for Gatti: just up to him to seal the deal.
Arturo didn’t slow down his attack to the body and after a right hook to the body, a right uppercut and a final left hook to the body, a bomb of a left hook upstairs sent Rodriguez to the ground once and for all.
Arturo Gatti defeated Wilson Rodriguez by Knockout in round six! What an absolute war. Fantastic Arturo. This writer remains impressed to this day by this excellent fight.
Nobody can win that left hook battle with the Thunder !
Only four months later, Arturo took a new fight against the fairly unknown, Feliciano Correa. The fight wasn’t for his IBF title. Arturo won easily by third round TKO. Finally after that fight, Arturo got some time off and only came back seven months later to rematch Patterson, in Atlantic City.
Vacationing was not in Gatti’s mind though, rather that time off was due to an injury.
Back in August, Arturo landed an uppercut on a training partner and felt a pop. He tore a ligament in his left hand near the wrist. Arturo then underwent surgery and his hand was in a cast for two months. Arturo had a fun summer that year but he was more than ready to go back into the ring and defend his title again. Time off is a bad thing for a young boxer.
Perhaps it should have given time to heal Arturo’s body from the wars he had recently, but all that time off from boxing was an open window to let Arturo’s demons come back to him. Arturo drank and partied a lot. He never got over the death of his father when he was a teenager and all that free time was dangerous. He wanted to fight Patterson a second time to prove a point and then eventually move up to lightweight where an action fighter like him could get big money fights (2)
Tracy Patterson II
After 225 days of inactivity, Arturo Gatti entered the ring to rematch Patterson. An opportunity for Gatti to show some improvement and to answer critics about his capacity to do better than he did in the first fight.
However, the referee was awful and nearly spoiled Arturo Gatti’s big night (low blows not recognised, knockdown counted as slip and the opposite). Despite the bad job from the referee it didn’t have that much of an impact overall, as Gatti controlled the fight from start to finish. It was a brilliant performance from the champion who this time (only) seemed to have found the perfect balance between aggressiveness and control.
He dominated and outpointed the former two-time champion that night, but still made it entertaining and hurt him on many occasions. Defensively responsible for once, so not a bad word to say about that performance. Gatti boxed that night and he boxed like a true world champion. Arturo Gatti defeated Patterson via UD.
After this brilliant comeback Gatti hoped for a fight with African legend Azumah Nelson. However Nelson lost his fight three weeks later. Angel Manfredy wanted to fight but Arturo was very dismissive of the American and had zero interest in fighting him. Therefore Arturo moved up to lightweight to fight former world champion Calvin Grove, defeating him via technical knockout at the end of round seven when Grove said to the referee that he could not see out of his left eye.
THUNDER
Arturo went back to junior lightweight to defend his IBF title for what will be his last fight at 130lbs. The weight cut starts to become too difficult for the champion who at this point had to kill himself to make the championship limit.
Not only was the weight cut an issue, but Arturo had his eyes on the historically prestigious lightweight division for a long time.
But before moving up, he had to face Gabriel Ruelas, the former WBC junior lightweight champion. Ruelas may not be a big name but he gave two great fight to Azumah Nelson, and captured the title when he defeated Jesse James Leija. Despite those great accomplishments, Boxing can sometimes being brutal and tragic, and it doesn’t get much worse than what happened to Ruelas in 1995 during his fight with 23 year old Jimmy Garcia. Ruelas won that fight by TKO in round 11 and Jimmy died due to the injuries he had in that fight 13 days later. Jimmy Garcia’s family was at the fight.
The young boxer was brought to the local hospital after the fight and during the time he was in hospital, Ruelas went to visit Jimmy Garcia, meeting his family and praying every day for a miracle.
Here’s a few words from a New York Times Articles written by Tom Friend: (3)
He has seen the swollen lips of the man he battered and also the swollen eyes of the mother bawling nearby. He telephones the intensive care unit daily, like clockwork, and his own name, Gabriel Ruelas, appears on a waiting-room list entitled, "FAMILY."
He prays for two: himself and Jimmy Garcia. It has been 12 gripping days since the superfeatherweight prize fight that put Garcia into brain surgery and Ruelas into seclusion. One of them may not open his eyes again; the other may not ball up his fists again. In boxing, it takes two.
"I pray for a miracle," Ruelas said this week. "Because I think that's the only thing that can save Jimmy right now."
Garcia's kidneys almost gave out over the weekend, and the 23-year-old Colombian breathes through a life support system. It takes a doctor's unsubtle pinch for Garcia to even gain a reflex, and the vigil at a Las Vegas, Nev., hospital increased by one this Monday when Ruelas arrived, stepped gingerly into a mother's eyesight and, after a brief rejection, received her hug.
After Jimmy’s death, Gabriel contemplated retirement but decided to continue for two reasons. The first one was to donate some of his earnings to Garcia’s family. The second one was because it’s Jimmy’s mother who asked him to continue with his career, adding that she will pray for him before every fight. Here Gabriel is talking about that sad and tragic event but also the incredible bond he created with Jimmy’s family.
Gabriel did fight on as asked by Jimmy’s family, but looked tepid in his ring return in losing his WBC title to Azumah Nelson. Tough times for Ruelas but the man had a lot of heart and came back stronger, winning three fights in a row and earning another title fight.
Ruelas got that title shot after defeating James Crayton, who incidentally later that year also indirectly killed his opponent. Tragedy never far away in boxing.
Ruelas vs. Gatti was announced as a fight between two big punchers. One a bit bigger than the other, as come fight week Arturo struggled very badly to cut the weight and was far from being 100% on fight night. Atlantic City was about to witness one of Arturo’s most brave and unreal miracles once again.
The two heavy punchers traded blows in the center of the ring. Ruelas had success with body shots early. The referee gave him a warning for a low blow but most of the time Ruelas’ shifts allowed him to close the distance, land the lead hand upstairs and dig some hooks to the body. Remember the Gatti of the Patterson rematch? The one who would stick and move and outbox Tracy Patterson? Well he was gone. Arturo fought almost entirely flat footed, and just threw heavy leather. He didn’t look like a junior lightweight but like a welterweight that night, the weight cut possibly slowing him down.
Arturo still landed some good power punches in the pocket but missed a lot from the outside. In the second round—which was pretty even—Gatti landed a big right hand and a left hook behind it that landed clean on Ruelas, but the Mexican took it very well.
Round four was a big round for Gabriel Ruelas who had a lot of success on the inside against Arturo specially in the first two minutes. Gatti came back with some nasty left hooks to the rib cage but on the inside Ruelas again got some big uppercuts that rocked Arturo who was very wobbly on his feet. Gabriel smelled blood and went on a 16 punch flurry, starting with a beautiful left uppercut, then right hook to the body that hurt Gatti very badly. The young warrior used every bit of energy he had left to retreat but could barely use his hands to protect himself from Ruelas heavy assault. After eating three big punches he finally fired back with his own series of hooks to end the round. Arturo—almost out on his feet—bounced on the ropes, and stared at Ruelas while he was laughing. An iconic moment in a career filled with them!
The next round was so violent. Ruelas got Gatti with his uppercuts but Gatti hurt Ruelas with his left hook. The battle reached the point where both men were badly hurt, but it was Ruelas who pressured Gatti: the Mexican with his guard leaned towards Arturo and work on his body.
His tenacity was for nothing: the battle ended with one strike, a left hook counter over the right uppercut lifted Ruelas to the ground, his body crashing to the ground like thunder. What a left hook.
Arturo did it again! In an absolute war where he was so close to being finished, he found a way to end the contest. They said before the fight that Ruelas was never the same boxer after the Garcia fight (4) but that night against Arturo he gave everything he had. That left hook from Gatti was so hard that for a second you could be scared that Ruelas would not get back up but he did and after a few more seconds he hugged Arturo and smiled at him.
Ruelas more than anyone else knows how winning or losing is not the be-all and end-all.
He and Arturo are very similar in a lot of ways and we should forever be grateful for those 5 rounds they shared together for us.
In the third and final part of this series, I will look at more highlights in the career of Arturo Gatti. Including a man who he is forever linked with, moreso than even Ruelas.
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SOURCES
(1) Daily News Thursday March 21st 1996
(2) The Central New Jersey Home News Friday February 21 1997
(4) Daily News Sunday October 5th 1997