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 Writers as Fighters: From a Neutral Corner to a Neutral Corner
By Lee Groves (July 25, 2006)
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Boxing has always been a resilient sport. Despite bad decisions, scandals, disappointments and all around weirdness in and out of the ring, boxing somehow manages to not only attract new followers but keep the ones that have experienced it all. Once the boxing bug bites, it stays for life – and most of us are thankful for it.
One of the reasons for boxing’s staying power despite numerous shifts in cultural norms is its ability to instantly connect with those who watch it. Most of us have had to put up our dukes at one time or another, and boxing is just the organized extension of our own life experiences. Boxing is a game that is both savage and scientific, and despite its obvious complexity it appears simple enough for the average viewer to think to himself, "if he can do it, I can do it." Many of today’s stars were inspired to box by what they saw on television, and more than a few of us who eventually became boxing writers couldn’t resist the temptation to give our favorite sport a try.
The first two-part installment of "Writers as Fighters" detailed the stories of those who sampled the sport at various levels. Some dipped their toes in the water by engaging in gym workouts while others chose to take the next step by sparring, sometimes against world-class competition. A few went as far as taking their skills public while others simply left their boxing escapades to the imagination. The positive feedback received from the first series – and the desire of others to tell their stories – has spawned this second edition of "Writers as Fighters." In this installment, some of boxing journalism’s best-known names has graciously allowed their tales to be told, and it is my hope that MaxBoxing Nation will enjoy reading them as much as I did presenting them.
Wallace Matthews is serving his second tour of duty as a columnist for Newsday and will serve as the color commentator when Outdoor Life Network begins its boxing series on Thursday. His more than two decades as a professional included stints at the New York Post, ESPN Radio, Showtime, SportsChannel America, ESPN and CBS. He provided color commentary for NBC’s Olympic boxing coverage in 1988 and 1992 and served as the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America from 1989-1993. But before Matthews became a writer and broadcaster, he was a fan and his first boxing experiences came early in life.
"I have been boxing since age four, when my father threw two pair of boxing gloves at me and my brother, a year younger, and said ‘If you two want to fight, use these!" he recalled. "I began boxing seriously at 18 after several years of hitting a sand-filled heavy bag in my basement and forcing friends to spar with me in the backyard."
Matthews took part in the 1977 New York Golden Gloves, winning three fights by knockout and losing one, also by knockout. He continued to box in amateur tournaments and smokers in New York City until the early 1980s, when he entered college at age 24. He described his style as "a combination of Duran, Dempsey and Frazier – Joe, not Marvis. I could punch like an SOB and could sob like an SOB, too."
His amateur experiences produced both the greatest punch he ever threw – and received.
"The hardest punch was probably one I landed on a guy named Walter Willis on the PAL," Matthews said. "It was so solid I didn’t even feel it, the way you don’t feel a baseball that you hit on the screws. Felt goooood."
As good as delivering a big punch felt, that’s how bad receiving it was.
"I was KO’d in the Golden Gloves by a punch I neither saw nor felt," Matthews said. "That was nothing compared to a shot I caught from a heavyweight named Ralph Cuomo in a Long Island gym in the early 1980s. It landed on my sternum and I swear I could feel my heart and lungs vibrating."
As his professional career progressed, Matthews had the opportunity to spar with many notahle names, including Vince Phillips at the Top Rank Gym, Aaron Pryor at Howard Davis’ gym in Glen Cove, N.Y., in 1982 and James Toney when "Lights Out" was preparing to fight Roy Jones Jr.
Moments before the session began, Toney decided to have a little fun with Matthews.
"Just before the bell, I had my back turned to him in the corner and he snuck up behind me and whacked me in the back of the head," Matthews recalled. "When I turned around, he said ‘Ready, junior?’ I guess so. We went three medium rounds and he was kind enough to never really belt me. Afterward, he compared me favorably to Robert Shapiro, another one of his amateur sparring partners. As a boxer, not a lawyer."
Matthews is certain his episodes between the ropes have served him well outside them.
"Absolutely," he said. "Everything a fighter feels or experiences in the ring, I have felt and experienced. I hate it when an athlete uses the old ‘you never played the game’ routine to berate reporters, but in boxing at least, if you haven’t done it, you can’t really know. (Writing about boxing) has allowed me to enjoy boxing at a level no fan ever can. To know that Larry Holmes, Joe Frazier, Muhammad Ali, Tommy Hearns, Roberto Duran, Evander Holyfield and even, at times, Mike Tyson are your friends is impossibly fulfilling and gratifying."
David Avila, co-owner of Uppercut Magazine, has worked for the Riverside Press Enterprise since 1999 and also writes for TheSweetScience.com and La Prensa. Like Matthews, Avila was introduced to the sport early in life and it wasn’t exactly voluntary.
"I started boxing at age five in East L.A.," Avila recalled. "My father got me into it. I didn’t have a choice. But I probably lost my first seven or eight fights. I was pretty timid. But once I reached nine years of age things started to turn. At the age of 10, I began concentrating more on baseball. At City Terrace Park (a barrio located in the hills of East Los Angeles), I was known as the lefty. I still boxed occasionally, but only during tournaments."
Avila was born into a family full of boxers – his father, grandfather and great-grandfather all pulled on the gloves and several of his uncles also boxed. He was encouraged to follow in their footsteps but little by little he moved away from the sport. Despite winning his last tournament at age 15, Avila preferred to play baseball – and impressively at that. His East L.A. team captured three consecutive state titles and the team he defeated for the first championship included Keith Hernandez and future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley. Avila, who pitched and played first base, was L.A. County’s MVP in 1966 and 1970 and was also named Most Valuable Pitcher in 1970. The southpaw was about to sign with the Atlanta Braves when he injured his arm.
"I walked on to a spot on the UCLA baseball team but soon realized I would not start as a pitcher because of a torn labrum," Avila said. "I played first and hit about .360 in the games I played, but I didn't have power. UCLA academically was pretty tough for me so I decided to quit the team and concentrate on studies instead of riding the bench."
Avila’s major league aspirations may not have panned out, but he still flashed his skills over the ensuing years. For 12 years, he managed and played on a Los Angeles semi-pro league that included stars such as Steve Howe, Fernando Valenzuela, Randy Myers and a slew of others that played just to keep in shape during the off-season. Avila said he was 2-for-3 against Howe and he stole 30 bases without getting caught at age 45. His baseball career ended for good after he tore his knee trying to steal third.
When Avila did box, he did well. His height, reach and speed confounded his amateur opponents and though he didn’t fight often his skills still carried him to victory.
"I entered a tournament on a whim," Avila remembered. "My friends asked me to enter because they were facing some kids from downtown L.A. I had no idea who I fought because I fought maybe once a year. I won the tournament by knocking down the other guy two times with right hooks in the final."
Avila developed his style while sparring with his father and used his dad’s attributes to develop a style to counteract it.
"I was a left-handed boxer-puncher who adapted a style to counter my father’s," Avila said. "My dad was only 31 when I was 12 and he often sparred with me. He was more of a bob-and-weave, slick inside fighter who could belt you with either hand – a lot like James Toney. He often decked me until I was 12. After that, my height and speed allowed me to keep him at length. I learned about defense from my father than anyone else."
Though defensive-oriented – his favorite fighters were Salvador Sanchez and Muhammad Ali – Avila had the power to score eye-catching knockouts.
"I knocked out two guys in one unsanctioned tournament in the City Terrace Park shell – one with a right hook and the other with a left hand that caught him coming in," Avila recalled. "I felt bad for the second guy because he was unconscious and the tournament was kind of illegal. He got up but I was pretty scared."
Avila got caught with his share of hard punches – and they left their mark.
"One guy hit me so hard that I broke a cheekbone," he said. "We didn’t have head gear; I continued to fight and won. But my cheekbone still has a bump where it was fractured. Another person who hit me hard was my brother. He used to be a stablemate of Danny ‘Little Red’ Lopez, and he once hit me so hard with a right hand I thought I would die. He could punch. He quit because of problems with the law. He later entered the U.S. Marines and stayed there for 31 years."
Boxing people saw Avila’s tall, slender frame and saw potential, but Avila knew he didn’t have the viciousness needed to ascend to the highest levels.
"(When I was) age 18, my dad’s old boxing trainer Harry Kabakoff took me to dinner and tried to coax me into boxing," Avila said. "I was tall (6 feet) and made 135 pounds easy. But I just didn’t have that kind of fire inside me. I didn’t have a killer instinct unless provoked. Then I might go East L.A. on someone."
Avila says his in-ring experiences have sharpened his powers of observation and has given him a perspective that those who have never attempted the sport.
"I definitely feel my boxing experience makes me a better writer," he said. "Sometimes I’ll see a fighter who everyone is raving about and find his flaws in seconds. It helped me develop an eye. It’s just like my baseball experience helped me pick out future prospects. I could pick them out quickly because my playing days allowed me to see what makes a person good. It’s that way with boxing.
"Because I cover other sports like pro baseball, basketball, etc., I see the difference in attitude and gratitude," Avila continued. "Boxers are the most humble of all. Most could probably demolish the average writer without a sweat, but they choose to be humble and cooperative. They’re the best athletes in the world in my opinion. Boxing is the greatest sport."
Glenn McBrady, who has penned the "Fighting Words" column for The St. Louis American Newspaper for the past two years, got his start fighting backyard matches on the south side of St. Louis that featured carpet remnants as the canvas and garden hoses for ropes. Headgear and 14-ounce gloves were used and a referee was employed. Eventually, the popularity of the events grew, the local amateur boxing commission sanctioned the shows and all of the safety precautions were strictly followed.
McBrady remembered one memorable episode in September 2001 when he was 32.
"I had been working with friends in the gym, but not with a real trainer," he said. "Because I was in decent shape at the time (6’0", 175 pounds), I agreed to go five rounds. Big mistake. The sparring in the gym didn’t prepare me for the exhaustion that resulted from never having been in a fight in my life and then squaring off against a guy who was trying to knock my head into the third row. I committed every amateur mistake in the book: I froze up – no head movement at all. I also pulled straight back with my hands down and loaded up on every shot, quickly burning through every drop of adrenaline in my system. I would find out later that I was up on the judges’ cards, but I retired at the end of three rounds with a huge burn on my shoulder from the rubber ‘ropes.’
"After the fight, I went to see David Gamble, a former amateur standout and pro," McBrady continued. "David started boxing at age 10. He learned from old-school guys who really knew their stuff. In turn, everything they taught him he tried to pass along to me."
The southpaw McBrady, a self-described boxer-puncher, tried to put the lessons to use – against a former world champion, no less.
"One day I walked into the gym and Eddie Hopson was working the mitts with David," he said. "Ed was on the comeback trail, and people in the gym always stopped to marvel at his blazing combinations. A couple of days later, David told me he was going to have me spar with Ed. The gym was actually a fitness club and the boxing equipment was in the aerobics room. It was a Saturday afternoon and the place was packed. As we gloved up, a small crowd gathered and peered through the picture windows to watch. I wore headgear (I could have used a catcher’s mask). Ed didn’t. He split my lip open with the first punch he threw. I never came close to landing anything. Afterwards, I pulled my gloves off and limped towards my car. But I can always say I sparred with a former world champ."
McBrady said the hardest punch he threw came during a sparring session against a fighter training for his first pro bout. The debutante’s confidence couldn’t have been very high after his encounter with the St. Louis scribe.
"He had no previous training," McBrady remembered. "I was trying to work with him, but I think he was nervous and he kept throwing bombs at me instead of putting together the combinations we had been working on. I finally got a little steamed, and I backed him up against the ropes. I saw an opening and threw a left hook to the body, followed by a right hook to the point of his chin. He slid along the ropes and landed motionless on his back. There was only one other guy in the gym, and he and I looked at each other like ‘What do we do now?’ I tore my headgear and gloves off and began talking to him, telling him to relax and breath. My mood had gone from aggression (a split-second before the punches landed) to total panic. He eventually sat up and was fine, but he gave us quite a scare."
But McBrady must have been more frightened after being on the receiving end of an overaggressive sparring partner’s Sunday punch.
"I was sparring with a very strong guy who just wouldn’t ease up," he said. "With every punch he threw, he was swinging for the fences. No matter how many times our trainer told him we were there to learn and get better and not hurt each other, he just didn’t get it. It was the first round and I was bent over slightly with my gloves up. He threw an uppercut literally as hard as he possibly could and split my gloves. My knees buckled and I took a step back. I didn’t know how bad it was, but the expression on his face had me worried."
McBrady would soon learn the damage his overzealous opponent had caused.
"I tugged at my gloves as the blood began pouring from both nostrils," he said. "The punch had landed underneath the tip of my nose and had collapsed the septum to one side. I left a trail of blood to the bathroom and hung my head over a sink for more than 20 minutes. I’ve never lost that much blood at one time in my life. My trainer (David) almost got fired; the gym owner said it upset the other members working out. As far as the guy who broke my nose, David would end up sparring with him and beating him so badly that he lost him as a client."
Like the others, McBrady says his work with the gloves has enabled him to pick up subtle signs that he might have missed had he chosen to remain outside the ropes.
"It has absolutely helped," he said. "It is easier to identify what each fighter is trying to accomplish from a strategic standpoint. Also, it makes it easier to read faces and body language, such as whether a fighter was truly hurt by a punch when he’s smiling and shaking his head. There’s nothing I enjoy more than writing about boxing and sharing my enthusiasm for the sport."
Doug Fischer, editor and chief of MaxBoxing.com, has always been involved in combat sports as he learned Kempo/Kenpo-style karate and Tae Kwon Do as a child and wrestled during his teen years.
"I have two brothers, we’re all one year apart, and we were very competitive with each other growing up," Fischer recalled. "It seems like we were always fighting over stuff (toys, friends, girls, you name it). I have an uncle who teaches karate in New Orleans, and when we spent holidays with our grandparents in Baton Rouge as kids, we would always visit his studio on Canal Street. He taught us all the basic stances, strikes, kicks and blocks – even some forms of weapon combat. We were eager to learn because we couldn’t wait to try it out on each other and the neighborhood kids back home."
Fischer loved the martial arts training, but he couldn’t develop those skills once he returned home. But there was another outlet for his taste for combat – boxing.
"Home in the late 1970s was Columbus, Ohio," Fischer said. "I wanted to continue with the karate training but there weren’t any school that I knew of around Ohio State University, where my parents were grad students. However, places that taught boxing, from old gyms to community centers, was everywhere at the time. With the Columbus State Fair, which hosted a long-running amateur tournament, and with the popularity of the heavyweight champ Muhammad Ali, the 1976 U.S. boxing team, the first two ‘Rocky’ movies and local pro contenders like Earnie Shavers, Aaron Pryor and Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini, it seemed like people were always talking about boxing along with the other major sports. A lot of boys I knew in school wanted to at least try boxing, just to see what it was like. I joined a youth boxing program at the student recreation center on OSU’s campus sometime in 1979, but in mid-1980 my family moved to Springfield, Missouri, where there were no boxing gyms or programs."
The move prevented Fischer from pursuing any boxing aspirations beyond sparring and workouts, which, he thinks, is just as well.
"Had there been a real boxing gym and program in the southwest Missouri area, where I lived from 1980 to 1988 (fifth grade through high school), I really think I would have given amateur boxing a try," Fischer said. "I’m positive I would have gotten my butt kicked, but at least I’d have that experience, which I believe is very different from sparring."
While attending Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, Fischer took advantage of the school’s internship programs that allowed students to work for three- to six-month stretches during the school year, and his jobs in New York, Philadelphia and Boston provided him a solid boxing education. While training twice a week in Gleason’s Gym in New York, he learned the basics under Martin Snow. When Snow was busy with other students, Fischer received instruction from a famous substitute teacher.
"When he was busy with his white-collar clients uptown, former lightweight champ Carlos Ortiz would fill in for him," Fischer said. "That was a real treat for me, except when the Hall of Famer would show me how to deliver body shots – when I didn’t do it correctly on the heavy bag, he would show me the right way by actually hitting me in the ribs."
Fischer didn’t experience real sparring until he moved to Los Angeles in late 1993.
"The first trainer I had out West was Ignacio ‘Nacho’ Navarro, the brother of Jose and Carlos Navarro, at the L.A. Boxing Club," Fischer said. "I was 24 years old and he was only 17, but he’d been boxing competitively as an amateur for 10 years, so there was a lot that he could teach me about conditioning and what to expect in the ring."
His first sparring session had the air of a real fight because it included all the psychological games the pros play as well as the mental torture a fighter goes through in the hours preceding a match. The events of that day were burned into Fischer’s memory and would – in an indirect way – have an impact on how he conducts his work as a writer.
"The first time I sparred was against another guy that Nacho trained, a tall, rangy young man from Hawaii named Alika," Fischer recalled. "He and I were the best guys Nacho trained and both of us were bugging the kid about sparring, so he put us in the ring when he felt we were ready. He told us we were going to spar in two weeks and in that time Alika and I stopped talking to each other when we were in the gym at the same time. In fact, we wouldn’t even train in the same area.
"There was a lot of tension between us and Nacho loved every minute of it," Fischer continued. "He would tell me that Alika was talking s**t about me when he was around me, and vice versa when he was around Alika, just to see our reaction. Neither of us said anything bad about the other, but our workouts intensified when Nacho came around with his propaganda. When Nacho first told me that I would spar with Alika, I was hyped. Although he was heavier than I was (between 165 and 170 pounds to my 140), and at least four inches taller than me, he had just started boxing that year and he had no athletic background, so I thought that I would have the upper hand."
As the sparring session neared, Fischer felt butterflies and even considered talking to Alika to remind him that this was only sparring, not a real fight. He had conflicted feelings: On the one hand he wanted to impress his trainer and any spectators who saw the match but as he neared the gym, his nervousness turned into outright fear.
" ‘What the hell was I thinking agreeing to fight a guy who is 6-foot-2!?’ I asked myself as I got closer to the L.A. Boxing Club," Fischer said. "I was in a state of heightened awareness as I got off the freeway. I was ‘in-the-moment’ and aware of everything around me in a way that I’d never been before. I was also very emotional. A sad song came on the radio as I was pulling up to the gym’s parking lot, some sappy tune from the 1980s that I would normally ignore, but on this day I heard and felt every word of the song and actually I started crying in my car. I’m someone who NEVER cries, no matter the situation, not even as a kid. It was all very strange.
"I took a deep breath after parking, gripping my steering wheel and looking at my watery red eyes in the rearview mirror," Fischer continued. " ‘Jesus Christ, Doug, get a hold of yourself!’ I commanded myself. ‘It’s just a f**king sparring session! Get in there, get in the ring, get knocked out, get it over with and get on with your f**king life."
Fischer’s trainer Navarro was clearly having a good time with the situation as he wore a broad grin as he wrapped Fischer’s hands. Adding to the pressure was the presence of other fighters Navarro trained, mostly teen-aged girls who went to school in L.A. Trade Tech across the street from the gym, and an opponent who did his best to score a TKO in the stare down.
"Across the ring from me, Alika stood as still as a tree," Fischer said. "His eyes were intense and he stared directly into my eyes. ‘Great,’ I thought, ‘the man’s a psychopath.’ I stared back at him to express my feeling, which could have been summed up in five words: ‘F**k it, let’s do this.’ As we got close to touch gloves, Nacho, noticing the stare down, lost his smile. ‘Hey, you guys aren’t going to get wild on me, are you?’ Neither of us said anything. We didn’t even look at Nacho."
It may have been a sparring session, but for Fischer and his bigger opponent it was as real and intense as the championship fights Fischer would cover years later for HouseofBoxing and MaxBoxing.
"The buzzer sounded for the first round and I inched toward Alika, stiff and upright like I had a board up my ass," Fischer said. "I held my gloves up almost above my head in a jack-up John L. Sullivan stance. Alika was also uptight. I could tell he was biting down on his mouthpiece and his eyes looked like they were going to pop out of his head at any minute. Neither of us did anything for about 30 seconds, so I decided to pop a jab, which landed directly to his mouth. I froze for a second because I didn’t think it would actually land. He smiled, I smiled back and then he snapped a better left stick in my face. I got pissed and shot out another jab, this one faster and harder than the first, and finally the sparring session I had been dreading for almost a week was on."
The first two rounds were quiet as the two fighters spent most of the time jumping back from jabs, but in the third Fischer was forced to confront one of his greatest fears.
"Just when I was beginning to get comfortable, Alika stepped it up in the third round by nailing me with a straight right," Fischer remembered. "It landed flush and snapped my head back, but wonder of wonders, I was OK. I saw it coming, and perhaps I mentally braced myself in that split second before impact, but though I felt the force of the blow I didn’t feel any pain at all. In fact, a sort of warm tingly numbness enveloped my entire body after the punch. It actually felt kind of good."
Awash with relief, Fischer began to let his hands go.
"My muscles relaxed and I opened up on Alika with both hands, swinging away with such a total lack of technique that I probably made Ricardo Mayorga look like a prime Donald Curry. But the gym folk watching the session got a rise out of the sudden spark in intensity, which continued in the fourth and final round. Alika kept throwing one-two combinations, I kept eating them flush and firing back with both hands to his elongated midsection. Nacho was proud of us both and he was wise to stop the session after four rounds as Alika and I was completely spent after only 12 minutes of ‘action.’
The combat over, the tensions that were felt before the sparring session were transformed into a bond similar to what championship level fighters feel years after trading leather.
"I saw Alika in the gym a week later and it was nice to see him with a smile on his face and to be able to talk to him," Fischer said. "He noticed slight bruising under my left eye and told me that his jaw was swollen after our session, although I have no recollection of ever nailing him with a clean power shot to the head. A few years later, about the time I stopped training regularly, I happened to be at the L.A. Boxing Club interviewing some fighters for HouseofBoxing or MaxBoxing (this was in 2000 or 2001), and Alika walked in. He had returned to Hawaii where he started a clothing company and he was in L.A. on business. He was a little taller than he was when we worked out together and a lot heavier, probably a little more than 200 pounds. We hugged as soon as we recognized each other. I didn’t know Alika beyond the walls of that gym. I don’t even know the guy’s last name. All I really know about Alika is the experience in the gym, but that experience was deep enough that two relative strangers would remember each other after many years and embrace at the sight of each other. That’s boxing."
In subsequent sparring sessions, Fischer would land his best punch (a hook to the body that doubled over a more experienced opponent) and received his hardest blow (a hook that cracked two ribs and still brings up bad memories whenever his wife massages the area). But the time in the gym also whipped Fischer’s perspective into shape and it has helped shape the tone of his writing.
"Being in the gym on a regular basis for those years (the mid-1990s to about 2002) didn’t make me a better writer, but it did make me a more informed boxing journalist," he said. "My job is to tell the story of the lives and careers of boxers and I learned more about their trials, lifestyles and personalities by having that gym time and limited ring experience than if I hadn’t. I also learned more about the craft of boxing by being taught by various trainers, from Martin Snow, to Nacho to Kevin Morgan (and others like Willie ‘Birdlegs’ Jensen). They taught me about different styles and how they play out in the ring. Being in the ring gave me insight on boxing I didn’t have previously. Before I ever laced on gloves to spar, I truly believed that a good boxer would always beat a brawler or pressure fighter, no matter how good they were. Sparring taught me how much physical conditioning, willpower and the fighters’ mentalities factor into a fight and its eventual outcome."
A common denominator with all the writers that participated in this series is the fact that there’s nothing like in-ring experience to sharpen one’s perspective about the subject they write. For years, athletes have questioned writers’ authority by pointing out that they’ve never played the game. That may have been true in the past, and it is probably true for writers who cover other sports. But more and more, boxing writers are taking the plunge and educating themselves on what it takes for the men they write about to climb those ring steps. By doing so, perhaps some of the walls that separate writers from fighters, and vice versa, will crumble.
But this isn’t a one-way street. Just as writers have tried their hand (or hands) inside the ropes, fighters have turned to writing for post-career income. In the next two weeks, MaxBoxing readers will learn about retired boxers who have transformed themselves into scribes as well as three people who are juggling both careers simultaneously.
In the meantime, all of us will keep on fighting our collective fight in all the arenas of life.
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