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Grant in Green Bay
By Steve Kim (July 5, 2002)

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Michael Grant would rather be in a million other places during this 4th of July weekend instead of Green Bay, Wisconsin, where he'll take on Thomas Williams tonight at the Menominee Casino Bingo Hotel.

"Well, y'know, whatever it takes to go out and get myself to the level I was at once before," explained Grant, who is currently riding a three-fight winning streak after his two disastrous bouts against Jameel McCline and Lennox Lewis.

He hasn't exactly been downing premium competition (winning against the likes of Reynaldo Minus, Joe Lenhart and Anthony Willis) but these are the kind of baby-steps that should be expected when you've hit rock-bottom.

It only seemed like yesterday that the 6-foot-7 Grant, whose body seems sculpted out of marble, was a rising star, proclaimed to be the heir apparent in the heavyweight division. He would come into his April 2000 bout against Lewis with a spiffy 30-0 ledger and plenty of accolades and adulation from the HBO hype machine.

But he would come crashing back down to reality by getting stopped by Lewis in two short rounds. Then after a 15 month layoff he would subsequently be stopped in a mere 43 seconds by Jameel McCline. McCline would drop Grant with the first punch he threw - a left hook, that would send Grant to the canvas and fracture his ankle. It doesn't get any lower than that and Grant, after a lengthy rehabilitation period on his ankle, would have to start from scratch.

"It's been going along well," said Grant, when asked about his progress, post-McCline. "We've been working hard in the gym, I'm pretty much satisfied with the development of my destination of where I'm trying to get to."

In posting his three straight wins, Grant according to eye-witnesses has often looked tentative and unsure of himself. While his body may be sound, his mental frame of mind is still questionable. Grant, admits that rehabbing his body is much easier than his mind.

"Just mentally to get back, your mind possesses great powers and without that going into anything, it's tough," explained Grant. "But it's definitely a mentally challenging path for me to position myself back to that level and that's pretty much what I'm going through right now - it's all mental. It's all mental and in having the confidence in letting my hands go and getting back the feeling that I had once before prior to the Lennox Lewis and Jameel McCline fights."

His trainer, the well-respected Teddy Atlas, is happy with the way things are going so far, post-McCline.

"Yeah, we are making progress, we're staying true to the plan that I thought was the way to go after that loss," stated Atlas, who gets the week off from his usual assignment doing color commentary on ESPN2's Friday Nights Fights. "Which was to get him back to the gym, work on technique and then get into a program of regular fights every month, five weeks. And then just keep evaluating him between fights, getting back to the gym and partnershipping it with the work in the gym and seeing the progress. We've done that, I know it would take four fights or so, this is our fourth fight coming up.

"I see progress, the first two fights were really the fights to get him out of that dark hole he was in. The first fight he was very tentative the first several rounds and was able to stop the guy in the fifth round. And then the second fight he was tentative again, but we stayed on the program. The hope was that the third fight that he would pick up where he left off from that fifth round and the third fight was the best so far. Still a little tentative in certain spots but much more alert early, much calmer, much more in control of himself - even much better in the lockerroom, much more together.

"And now, here we are again back in the ring about a month after that last fight and I'm hoping to see progress once again with Thomas Williams."

For Grant, just not getting sent to the canvas in the early rounds was a welcome change. In addition to the spills he took against Lewis and McCline, prior to that he was knocked down hard in the opening round of his bout against Andrew Golota in November of '99. This current winning streak may not look like much, but for the fighter it offers hope.

"Y'know, it just pretty much looked like no daylight was coming for me," said the thoughtful Grant. "I made some decisions that I had to suffer for. Looking at the things I had done as far as changing trainers and just pretty much getting myself back in position to get comfortable with the new trainer that I have and coming off those injuries, it just created a problem that I had to deal with and in essence of working through the new trainer and the rehab at the same time. A lot of things were taking place and I didn't do the math of what's very important here and that's me becoming comfortable and back into the heavyweight picture again. And I kind of drowned out that picture by being overwhelmed by mentally getting back into the picture and dealing with rehab."

Atlas only took on the project of training Grant after a good dealing of prodding by the fighter and his management. Even then, Atlas was weary of taking on McCline as their first opponent back with Grant's fragile psyche. For Atlas the risk was too great since McCline was a bit bigger than he wanted and the spotlight (opening up the HBO broadcast last July, which featured Shane Mosley-Adrian Stone) was a bit too bright for his liking. The route that they are currently on is the one Atlas would have preferred back then, but he admits that maybe the McCline embarrassment was needed in the big picture.

"That's a good question," answered Atlas, when asked if they would have been further along currently if they had never taken on 'Big Time', "but in fairness if we did that, maybe those innate, intangible things don't get touched on and don't get opened up. After that terrible disaster with McCline going back-to-back with the Lewis fight, they was a lot of doubt and there's no doubt that maybe he could've fluffed off the Lewis fight and say, 'Well, it was a title fight that I wasn't ready for' and maybe there were certain things he wouldn't have to heed.

"But were all human beings and when you're and when you're brought up to a $4 million fight the way Michael was and a lot of the way was very smooth, there are certain things you have no understanding of. It's kinda like a kid that can't appreciate certain things in life because they've always been given to them. You can't appreciate how they are to get sometimes and they're not necessarily guaranteed all the time.

"Well, for a kid like Michael it was hard to understand some of these things after the Lewis fight and it's not automatic that just losing the Lewis fight that he would understand them. But let me tell you something, after losing the McCline fight - it was automatic."

For a guy with little amateur experience, Grant's rise was remarkable. As he would pile early victories against the usual suspects (Jeff Wooden, Ray Anis, Louis Monaco, Ross Purrity, Lionel Butler and Jorge Luis Gonzalez) and then after two solid victories against David Izon and Obed Sullivan, the Grant bandwagon would start to fill up quickly. Don Turner, who was then his trainer, would proclaim that his young pupil was potentially one of the three greatest heavyweights of all time. HBO and Main Events (who promoted him at the time) thought they had their next heavyweight superstar.

But somewhere along the line, reality was blurred and expectations became too great. Despite mediocre showings against Ahmad Abdin and Lou Savarese and nearly getting beat by Golota, Grant was still thrown in there versus Lewis. When his career path should have been slowed, it was instead accelerated. Scary thing was, more than a few well-known boxing observers gave him a legitimate shot at unseating Lewis. Grant admits now that he needed much more seasoning.

"No I wasn't prepared," admitted Grant. "Because I was in a race, I had some momentum going. I was an athletic person with great ability and it was working well to my advantage. And I was just using all my strength and you know, just got caught up in the hype and I couldn't see through the fog. And you started believing in it yourself, but not your ability-that's what it was. And that's why I wasn't prepared.

"Lewis is a champion, we've already seen what he's been through and what he has gone through and you could pretty much see the development of Lennox Lewis. Michael Grant, on the other hand was still pretty much developing, learning new things, seeing new things come his way and in some situations dealt with them and handled them well. But it's more that that, it's more than that that makes a champion. Champions have to go through things, they have to humble themselves. I wasn't even humble when I fought Lennox Lewis. I was pretty much on a rocket, just shooting into space, being launched that everybody could see and watch."

And when that rocket came back down to earth against McCline, consider Grant fully humbled.

"Absolutely," he agrees. "I think we all need to be humbled. If we all sit on top of the letter, we never know what the bottom of the letter looks like. So it's great for me to come back and get myself back established and knowing what's very important to take place here. Knowing what's important to take place and not pretty much look at it like, 'Well, whatever' y'know what I mean? It's understanding steps and know why I had to take these steps and I know the reasons why I had to take these steps and I pretty much had to re-learn and re-dedicate myself truly to the sport and stay at a consistent level and at a professional level."

It's an interesting dichotomy in that when Grant should have been on the slow track and learning, he was thrown off by his own hubris. Now, as he tries to climb back up the ladder, the thoughtful and reflective Grant is now thrown off by self-consciousness and doubt. Many have written him off and the bandwagon has plenty of room, but it's not his detractors that motivates him.

"No, it's not a motivation," claims Grant. "That people have written me off. It's pretty much a motivation to prove back to myself that I could do it. It's a motivation to prove to my family and loved ones: my kids and my wife that they can count on me-not that they're not, but still to have that love from them, not back, but from them. And that's what I have to prove, those are the individuals in my life that I have to prove - my family. My mom, my brothers and sisters and honestly, in respect to my father, even though he died.

"I still look back and see the bloodlines I came from and I'm definitely a strong individual that will not be denied. So therefore, I'm looking back and that's my motivation-the structure of my family."

And that's why on this holiday, he'll be away from them.

VINSON IN PACKER COUNTRY

Clarence Vinson, who's currently 8-0, himself would rather be spending this 4th of July in his hometown of Washington D.C. with his friends of family, but this 2000 bronze medalist is making his own sacrifices for his own career and will be taking on Sheldon Wile on Grants undercard.

"Me and my manager we had a long talk," explained Vinson, an aspiring bantamweight. "And I have to make these decision and sacrifices to get where I want to go and this is the road I'm taking to becoming a champ."

After a rough pro debut, Vinson has steadily improved.

"I just continue to work hard and do the things it takes to get better," said Vinson. "I know I'm starting to please others and all that's coming from fighting back-to-back like this and that's keeping me sharp."

His manager Gary Gittelsohn is pleased with the way things are shaping up.

"Clarence is making good progress," explained Gittelsohn, who also handles Brian Viloria, Yuri Foreman and Jerson Ravelo. "He just fought a terrific eight-rounder in Glen Burnie, Maryland and he looked strong and won just about every round. He dropped the guy a couple of times and it was a pretty good opponent from Canada, Jason Adams.

"So we figured that we were going to keep him busy as possible this summer to really step him up. This fight is not against very tough competition, a guy named Sheldon Wile, but it'll keep him busy as he goes into his fight on the undercard of the Shane Mosley-Vernon Forrest rematch on July 20th, where we intend to get a better quality of opponent."

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