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Jesse James in January
15 Rounds by Steve Kim (August 23, 2002)

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It's been awhile since we've seen jr. welterweight contender Jesse James Leija. This past January, Leija won controversially against Micky Ward on a fifth-round technical decision. Ward then went on to wage his epic battle with Arturo Gatti in April while Leija sat on the shelf.

In fact Gatti and Ward will do it again in November and Leija will still be on the sideline. Only this time, he does have a fight on his agenda, a mid-January date with the undisputed jr. welterweight champion Kostya Tszyu.

"It's really been tough," admitted Leija, on his layoff and his long wait for his bout with Tszyu. "Ever since the Micky Ward fight, I took a week off and I've been in training ever since. So I just got to keep working and I have a schedule where I have to get my weight down and I'm on a weight program so I have everything going for me. I love the fact that I have five months, I'm going to be more than prepared for the fight."

By the time he steps into the ring with Tszyu it will have been more than a calender year since his last bout. It's something that does concern Leija but he is making some contingency plans for this.

"I've never done that before," admits Leija, "but Kostya Tszyu's people, which is Vlad Wharton, he didn't want me fighting a tune-up because Kostya Tszyu wasn't going to get a tune-up. So the way I look at it, I'm almost like Azumah Nelson, he was fighting once a year and still winning and doing well. I mean, how much better can I get if I had one more tune-up fight between? The one thing I do have to do and I'm going to do is to simulate a fight for possibly in late-October. I'm going to spar 12 rounds, get my weight down to a certain weight, maybe 143 and spar 12 rounds with three or four different guys. Take a week off and then go back into training."

But his manager Lestor Bedford says that with Tszyu being inactive himself, since his April bout against Ben Tackie, that there is no huge advantage for either fighter.

"What I like is that by the time we fight, Tszyu wouldn't have fought for nine months either," explained Bedford. "I would have liked James to have fought before this but at least Kostya Tszyu had some time off too. And if James took better care of himself than Tszyu, then that's an advantage and also Tszyu's not a real young guy either, it's not like were going up against a 24-, 25-year-old guy."

What's ironic about all this is that it was Leija who was the official winner in his bout with Ward, but it's 'Irish' Micky that has gone onto to bigger and more brutal things.

"It was frustrating because I thought after the Ward fight, things were going to open up for me," explained Leija, the former WBC jr. lightweight champion. "But it didn't and I think maybe because Lou DiBella was really promoting the fight but he wanted Micky Ward to win because he wanted to make that matchup for the East Coast with Gatti and Ward. I think they lucked out with the way the fight ended controversially on my cut. So that was his way of putting me out of the way and making a Ward-Gatti fight. And he made a great fight but it was two fighters that were similar in their fight patterns and that's why it turned out to be such a great fight."

It seems that Leija may have been punished for the way in which he beat Ward. Leija's cut was ruled to have been caused by an accidental clash of heads, but others argue that it was a really punch that caused the cut over Leija's brow. Regardless, as the fight was stopped after the fifth round, everyone agreed that it was a disappointing end to what was heating up into a very good fight.

"I don't know if I was penalized for it or not because it was controversial," answered Leija, when asked if the disputed nature of his cut was being held against him. "People don't know if it was a headbutt or a punch, so it was real controversial. I kept saying it was a headbutt as soon as the headbutt happened. I told the ref, for him to watch his head and the ref saw the cut.

"But the case is, people are saying Micky Ward would have done this or done that. But they're forgetting he didn't do anything up until that point. 'Till that point, it was an easy fight and I even tell people now that the fight was so easy for me. He didn't do anything I didn't think he was going to do. He did everything we thought he'd do and it was an easy fight. I blocked all the punches and he can punch to the body because I felt every punch. But he didn't have a punch upstairs at all. It turned out to be an easy fight for me but I guess the way it ended I think it hurt me in the long run."

But while Leija has been inactive, his name was routinely tossed around while a Ward-Gatti rematch was being discussed. Both sides would openly bring him up as an alternative if a rematch could not be negotiated. Leija was being used as a human chess piece, if you will.

"They are using me as leverage," said Leija, laughing at the thought, "because they kept saying, 'Well, if Gatti doesn't take the fight, Micky Ward will fight Leija' or 'If Micky Ward doesn't want to take the money, Gatti will fight Leija'. And they're just using me and that's OK, at least people are bringing my name up. But I think that fight makes more sense for those two guys because they're on the same level. It hurts because I know I can beat any one of those guys. They're tough fighters but I know I have the skills to beat them. But it's funny that I am being used as leverage against those guys."

Which suits Bedford, just fine, "Hey, it beats not being used as leverage or not being mentioned at all. At least it means that we're perceived as still a threat or a big name."

One bout that went by the wayside was a rematch with Hector Camacho Jr. as 'the Not-So-Macho Man' got run out of the ring by Omar Weis in March. While the rest of the boxing world laughed at Camacho's demise, Leija's laughter was tinged with sadness.

"Yeah, everything went down the drain when he lost to Omar," said Leija, "and we laughed at it because we knew it was going to happen if Omar put pressure on him and he put the pressure on Camacho and Camacho backed out. It almost looked like he was looking for a way to quit. He didn't quit but he lost the fight and I think his stock value really went down. That terminated any rematch that would have happened between him and I."

But what's in the past, is past and Leija is only looking forward to his bout with Tszyu. A fighter who is one of the few undisputed champions in the sport and widely considered among the game's best pound-for-pound. Leija respects him, but he isn't in awe.

"He's a great fighter," points out Leija, one of San Antonio's most popular athletes, "but I see some things. I mean, he was getting beat really bad the first round with Zab Judah, almost where it looked to a point where he may get stopped. Judah got careless and Tszyu made him pay. Tszyu is the type of fighter that will make you pay for every mistake you make. So we really have to be on the ball and really have to train hard, get everything just perfect. It has to be a perfect fight for me to beat him. Because he's not very fast but he's clever and he's strong and he makes you pay for your mistakes.

"I think I have a great chance. I think I have the skills and I'm gonna work on my defense much more to not get hit on the eye's as much."

And like all the other fights he's had the last several years, Leija is putting himself in a position where if he doesn't win or perform well, that he will contemplate retirement.

"I think every fight that I'm fighting is do-or-die. And it is, I'm 36 years old now. I'm towards the end of my career and I'm preparing for life after boxing. I tell you what, all the fights since 1998, when I fought Lazcano in 2000, all have been do-or-die fights and I've been doing so good, it's almost like I keep winning. The new workout ethic that I have, I keep winning these fights that everyone says I shouldn't be winning."

WHEN AND WHERE?

Both January 11 and January 18 have been discussed as the dates for Tszyu-Leija. With either San Antonio, Texas or Melbourne, Australia as the location for this bout.

If the bout were to be held in San Antonio, the Southwestern Bell Arena (the new home of the San Antonio Spurs) would be the venue.

Anything beats having Tszyu fighting in front of about 500 people in a near-empty Las Vegas venue.

LONG WAIT

It's interesting that any fight is announced five months early like Tszyu-Leija.

"We just wanted to give HBO plenty of time to counter-program us," explained Showtime's Jay Larkin, whose network will be televising this bout.

That was mighty nice of him to do that. It's good to see that Showtime and HBO are still cooperating with each other post-June 8th, 2002.

TONEY-JIROV

James Toney looked very sharp in dismantling Jason Robinson this past Sunday to secure a shot at IBF cruiserweight titlist Vassiliy Jirov.

It's a very good matchup, a 'fight fans fight' if there ever was one. I wonder which of the networks will end up televising it.

COUNTDOWN

It's less than two weeks 'till the defending national champions, the mighty Miami Hurricanes, begin their quest to go back-to-back by opening up with Florida A&M at the Orange Bowl on August 31st.

And then a week later, Roy Jones faces Clinton Woods.

So which is the bigger mismatch?

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