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5th of July Fireworks
By Steve Kim (July 7, 2002)

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Michael Grant was scheduled to face Thomas Williams in a scheduled 10-rounder this past Friday night near Green Bay, Wisconsin at the Menominee Bingo Casino. For Grant spending the holiday weekend away from friends and family was just another sacrifice he would have to make if he wanted to continue his slow rise back up the heavyweight totem pole.

It would be fight that was held in virtual anonymity as Wisconsin isn't exactly a boxing staple and there would be no television coverage of this event. But that isn't to say that Grant-Williams didn't come under heavy scrutiny.

In his ongoing series 'Operation Cleanup', Charles Jay of TotalAction.com detailed the sordid past of Williams, who is said to have allegedly dumped a bout against Richie Melito in August of 2000 and is currently under indictment for federal sports bribery and will go on trial in August. Another point raised by Jay was that Teddy Atlas, who is known for being outspoken on the need for a federal commission that would disallow these types of matches, was training Grant. The irony was thick.

Word spread of Jay's article (which came out on the 4th) and it would cause chaos for this rather innocuous show. Atlas was preparing for his afternoon run on the day of the fight when he was approached by Grant's co-managers Craig Hamilton and Jim Thomas, who informed him of the situation.

"I immediately said that what were not going to do is fight this guy and they agreed and we had to get another opponent," Atlas explained to MaxBoxing.com, who was back home in Stanton Island, New York. "So we immediately talked to Eric Bottjer (matchmaker for Cedric Kushner Promotions, Grant's promotional company) and he got on the phone and got a guy from Chicago, Ken Murphy, to drive from Chicago.

"He got in the car at three, it was a three-hour drive and we then notified the commission of what we were doing."

It would be the most harrowing 'three hour' trip anyone has seen since Gilligan and the Skipper took out the S.S. Minnow. Only this time, it was Murphy that would be lost (time and time again).

Atlas and the managers were adamant about not letting Grant fight Williams even though the commission was going to allow the fight and there's no doubting that there had to be pressure from everyone else to go with the original fight.

"The only other possible option I could think of is, if you made Thomas Williams and his people sign an affidavit that he has to give forth an honest effort in our eyes and the commissions eyes and if he doesn't, his purse gets withheld and that you'll sign off on it and Jim Thomas, a lawyer, will make sure that it's drawn up properly," explained Atlas, on a deal he would later regret making and reneging on later. "But the real thing is was that I didn't want to go in the ring with that guy."

Atlas had made the deal assuming that Murphy would show up and Bottjer was corresponding with him every half-hour via cell-phone.

"So we found out he's 45 minutes away," said Atlas. "So we say, 'OK, we're gonna be all right' then 45 minutes later, we find out he's an hour away, he got on the wrong road. It was just an odyssey of errors. It was something that if you put in the movies, that they would think it was overkill or over the top."

So while Murphy was probably going through Madison and then Milwaukee, it looked like he would indeed make in time to face Grant. Well, not exactly.

"Then he gets back within a half-hour and he calls back a half-hour later and now he's another hour and 20 minutes away. It was just unbelievable, then he says, 'I think I passed a place called Wisconsin'. It was just absurd."

The trainer had decided that he wasn't going to get his fighter warmed up until Murphy had arrived. But they did have some contingency plans long before Murphy was taking a scenic tour of the state of Wisconsin.

"We did have a backup guy," explained Atlas, "because I did talk to Craig and said, 'Make sure we have a backup because you never know with these guys. I'm not going all the way out there for nothing'. He said, 'You're right, I already thought about that, we'll pay the money, we'll have the backup guy there'. So right away were in the parking lot with this whole thing and I go, 'What about the backup?' Eric puts his head down and I go, 'What's the problem?' 'He's drunk'. 'He's drunk?!?!' 'Yeah, when we thought we were going ahead with Thomas Williams and I told him he's not fighting and he got drunk.'

"So let me think of my choices here: I can go in there with a guys who's being indicted or fight a guy who's a lush. What's better here. Gimme a minute to think about this," said a chuckling Atlas.

The card would begin and Atlas and Grant would patiently and nervously await the arrival of Murphy. Their dressing quarters were about a 100 yards away from the ring which was situated outdoors. As the undercard went off, another call from Murphy would come.

"So now we get a call that he's 15 minutes away," says Atlas. "I got a call back 20 minutes later, Eric comes in and says, now he's an hour and 20 minutes away. I said, 'WHAT THE F__K!!!!' I just started losing it, I really did. And Eric's afraid to yell at him on the phone because every time he yells at him, he threatened to turn around. I said, 'TELL HIM TO TURN AROUND, HE MIGHT GET HERE!!! TELL HIM TO TURN AROUND, THIS NINCOMPOOP. HE MIGHT RUN INTO THE PLACE!!!' So this is what we're dealing with."

Perhaps Murphy was circling Lambeau Field or hovering around Oshkosh. But as the undercard wound down and the main event was scheduled to go on, everybody involved got restless.

"At 9:30, we're supposed to be in the ring," narrates Atlas, who by this point would rather be calling another James Butler fight for ESPN2 than to go through this aggravation. "10, 10:30, 11:00 o'clock goes by. Jackie Kallen, who's got an interest in the show and the tribal people, and all these people come to the room and they're threatening us, [saying] that we could be arrested on tribal grounds by not abiding by the contract. So it was just a mess, it was unbelievable.

"So they're telling Jim Thomas we could be arrested and so Jim comes and says, 'Teddy, they're saying we could be arrested'. I said, 'Fine, no problem' and then he says, 'If they arrest us, we're going to have plenty of extra expense money for the next show, that's for sure, because they're going to be paying a lot of extra money from the lawsuit.'"

Unbeknownst to Grant and his people was that Williams had been gloved up and waiting for them in the ring.

"They're still arguing and stuff and then you could actually hear from the ring - they have Amy Hayes, the Playboy whatever, as the ring announcer. She's just in this red, white and blue bikini outfit and she tried to keep the crowd going, which was fine," said Atlas of the brewing situation that seemed to be getting worse. "But then, she starts inciting them. We could hear little bits like, 'They don't want to come out' and all this and you hear the crowd booing and meanwhile we found out that that they got Williams gloved. He's in the ring and they're saying this while he's in the ring with no opponent."

Now, Hayes is a looker (to say the least) and judging by her outfit, veeeery 'patriotic', but she wasn't helping the situation according to Atlas.

"And then you hear, 'Well, Thomas, how do you feel about this? Them not coming out?' And were hearing this!!! I mean, forget it. So here we are, they're threatening us, they're doing all this stuff, but I'm not going. It don't matter. So anyway it comes down to it, and I said, 'No we can't do this' and Michael's standing up and his managers are standing up - everybody together in solidarity.

"And this guy's still not here and after all the arguing, this Jeanie Miranda (who along with Kallen helped bring the show to the Menominee Bingo Casino) almost got things out of control because now Craig, Jim and Jackie Kallen, they're screaming at each other in the hallway and she was right about one thing - she mentioned that I said if the guy didn't show up, that if they had the affidavit about Thomas Williams giving a full effort, that we would go in the ring - I changed my mind. I do not deny that. She was absolutely right, we did say that. I thought about it, and I just did not feel comfortable with it."

So while Murphy was cruising by Appleton by this point, things got more heated according to Atlas.

"So he we are, everybody's screaming at each other and finally Miranda turns to one of the guys in the hallway with a walkie-talkie and says, 'Call security!' I turned to her and said, 'You are being a fool' and I turned to the guy and said, 'Call them back on the radio and cancel that. I'm telling you right now' - I looked right in his eyes - 'because now you're going to cause a problem, someone's gonna get here and get a little carried away with themselves and there's going to be a problem'. She saw me and turned to him and canceled it."

But Miranda did come up with a better idea afterwards.

"Finally, after all that, it's just me and Michael outside," continued Atlas, "all by ourselves in the hallway and he stood up like a soldier, he really did. And she comes over and says, 'Teddy, how about making this an exhibition?' a very good idea considering the circumstances. "Atlas and Grant's managers agreed to that plan as long as it would be announced when they got into the ring and the fight would not go on the fighter's official record. The 'exhibition' was on.

"As we go in," narrated Atlas, "we get the s__t booed out of us, the crowd hates us. They're booing us like one of those wrestling bad guys, oh my God, they're booing the crap out of us!!! So he's (Grant) got to deal with all this. But before we leave the dressing room, I grab him and I said, 'Michael, before I can allow you to go out there, I gotta ask you something. Unless you can completely erase what you've heard for the last several hours about fight-fixing, taking dives and everything else, unless you can forget all that and understand that this guy is going to try and knock you out to make me and everyone else wrong. I guarantee you he will fight the hardest fight he's ever fought in recent memory. He will try to knock you out and will not give up for the first time in quite a long time.'

"He said, 'I understand Teddy' There was a lot of tension, I was very serious about it and I said, 'OK, this is another test of being a pro and so we go out there and then there's no announcement and I turned to Craig and say, 'Wait a minute, there's no announcement' So Craig immediately was on top of things, he tells Jackie we need the announcement (that this bout was an exhibition), she says, 'We've announced enough things, we're not announcing anything' So Craig says, 'We're not announcing it? We'll get the hell out of the ring. We're ready to leave now, we'll go right back to the dressing room'. They announced it."

The fight would eventually go on, but of course, not without a hitch (it just wouldn't have been appropriate for this night) when a clash of heads left both fighters dazed and dizzy in the second round but the bout would resume and Grant would stop Williams in round three. But the fun wasn't over according to Atlas, who can't help but laugh now.

"Now, after this whole odyssey, after all this crap, the people are now satisfied. They're not angry no more and they're all lined up and one of them wanted an autograph. So I said, 'Yeah, no problem, come up here'. Soon as he came up everyone started rushing up in the ring. So I stayed in the ring for about 40 minutes signing autographs, just to make sure everyone was happy. Michael, came back afterwards and he signed autographs.

"As I'm signing with all these people up in the ring, all of a sudden, Amy Hayes starts saying on the microphone, with I guess instructions from Jackie Kallen, I'm guessing, and she starts saying, 'We're so sorry they did this' and I turned around to somebody and said, 'Would somebody freakin' take that microphone and shove it down her throat!!' What is she trying to do? What does she want to do!? Is she trying to incite a riot again?!' They looked at me and said, 'Teddy, I don't know what they're doing'. If it wasn't so serious or crazy it would have almost been funny. And then she says, 'If you want the real story click onto Fightnews.com and find out the real story' I said, 'What the hell is this, is this an informercial!?!? What the hell is going on here?!?!'"

I agree Teddy, and they rarely ever give you the real story over there, anyway.

By the way, whatever happened to 'Traveling Man' Murphy?

"So we get out of there," Atlas goes on to say. "It's all over and Eric comes over and says 'Thank you for handling it the way you did' and I said 'I just want to get out of here' and Hamilton says, 'Go ahead, tell him'. I said 'Tell me what?' Eric says 'Well, I gotta tell you that as you were going in the ring the opponent showed up'. I said 'Get the f__k outta here' he said, 'Yeah, and I understand he's looking for me now because he wants to get paid."

IRONY

"Here's the funny thing, Michael's had four fights in his comeback - this was the most competitive one," states Atlas. "I gotta be honest, two of the other guys quit on us. I'm not gonna deny that, that happens all the time in boxing. You don't plan on it, but that's where the problem is. If you plan on it or you entice it."

Grant will now take on Robert Davis on August 3rd.

ACCOUNTABILITY

So what did Atlas think of Jay's story?

"I got faxed the story and I called him up and I read the story and I didn't have a problem, to a certain degree, because certainly I'm not above criticism. I have to be held to the same level of standard of responsibility as the people I call out. So I don't have a problem with that at all.

"My problem is that if he would have called me, he would have found out that I didn't know. If I would've known or if he would've told me before, he would have saved me a helluva trip. So that's my problem, because I sure as hell would have rather been home for the 4th of July than be traveling to Green Bay, Wisconsin, driving an hour to some place I can't pronounce."

Atlas joked that this event has left him so emotionally jarred that he'll have a tough time watching the Packers this year.

WHO'S TO BLAME

Really everybody that was a part of this should share some of the blame. But especially the organizers and the promoters of this event. They should have known better.

Funny, but isn't Kushner the one that does 'Heavyweight Explosion'? You're telling me that his company and his matchmaker, Bottjer, didn't have about 5000 other heavyweight 'opponent'-types on their rolodexes, ready and willing to go against Grant?

Sources tell me that both Kushner and Bottjer were warned about the fallout that could come from using Williams weeks in advance of July 5th.

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