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January 2000
Each month we bring you a selection of articles from the current and past issues of BOXING MONTHLY. To buy the magazine, see our subscription or back issues pages, or use our world distribution map to find a news-stand copy. Why not use our Interactive Forum to express your own boxing comments and opinions!
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HE'S THE BEST?
Supposedly the People's Challenger in the heavyweight division, Michael Grant was dropped twice and a mile behind on points before, inexplicably, Andrew Golota let the giant contender off the hook. STEVE FARHOOD examines the dented credentials of the man who seems destined to challenge Lennox Lewis, whatever |
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CAREER-SAVER: Grant got there in the end, but Golota's erratic nature played a large part
- Get Big Pic When
positioned in a pack, boxing writers are poisonous. Subtle? Yeah,
like Naz making his ring walk. Merciful? As exemplified by Torquemada
during the Grand Inquisition. Contrite? Deadline means never having to
say you’re sorry.
Why, then, after Michael Grant stopped Andrew Golota at the Trump Taj
Mahal in Atlantic City on 20 November, did I feel more like a goldfish
than a piranha? Leading comfortably on points, Golota plainly quit after
suffering a knockdown in round 10. When Golota appeared at the
post-fight press conference, it was time to pounce, not probe, to bare
teeth, to feast until only an oversized Polish carcass remained. The
question begged to be asked: Had Golota left his heart in Gdansk?
The question never came. It lay in my throat and died there.
Only minutes before Grant and Golota climbed through the ropes,
paramedics had carried Stephan Johnson from the ring on a stretcher.
Johnson was ahead on the cards when he collapsed during the 10th round
of his junior middleweight bout vs. Paul Vaden. He later died. In regard
to Golota’s curious surrender, it just didn’t seem the time to question
a fighter’s courage. Or maybe there was never a better time. After all,
Johnson had fought until the end, hadn’t he? And if we’re going to
celebrate this awful game of ours, there’s something wonderfully noble
in that. I
came home from The Boardwalk sure of two things: Firstly, if Lennox
Lewis isn’t the heavyweight champion we’d like him to be, Grant isn’t
the ideal heir apparent either. Secondly, at the top level of
heavyweights, speed and skills are often secondary. If a big man can
punch and take a punch, he’s a threat to find the winner’s circle.
Despite the emergence of a unified champion, the heavyweight division
is topsy-turvy right now. (As if it’s ever right-side up.) Lewis is a
titlist who draws a lukewarm response. The consensus choice as
next-best, Ike Ibeabuchi, might be going to jail. Two of the three
alphabet mandatories, Henry Akinwande and John Ruiz, have been deemed
unworthy. And the most famous fighter in the division, Mike Tyson, can
be counted on only for controversy.
Clearly, there was a void to fill. An impressive win and Grant would
instantly have been declared the first great heavyweight of the new
millennium. A win of any kind and Lewis would have had a legitimate
challenger to consider. A loss and . . . is that George Foreman-Larry
Holmes fight still a possibility?
An undefeated and untested heavyweight contender is a prime target for
stinging criticism. Nonetheless, I was surprised at the Grant-bashing
practised by my colleagues before the fight. By the weigh-in, I was
beginning to wonder if his record (30-0) hadn’t been purchased on the
Internet (www.overhype.com), and by the opening bell, I was convinced he
wasn’t worthy of a four-rounder with Butterbean.
What could possibly be wrong with a 6ft 7ins, 252lbs (18 stone)
specimen who had high-jumped every hurdle without a sweat? Some said he
hadn’t beaten anybody. (His most notable wins had come against Al Cole,
David Izon, and Lou Savarese.) Others insisted he was too good to fit
the role of baddest man on the planet. Still others pointed to his lack
of amateur experience and labelled him a natural athlete who didn’t
really know how to fight.
How was I to argue when, late in the first round, Golota, 242lbs (17st
4lbs), fighting out of Chicago, Illinois, powered a right to the point
of the jaw that dropped a retreating Grant, from Norristown,
Pennsylvania, as if he had been struck by a demolition ball? "I saw the
ref counting, and I said: ‘What are you counting for?’" Grant said
afterwards. "I went back to my corner and said: ‘Okay, that’s a wake-up
call.’"
Grant was seriously hurt; upon rising, he staggered across the ring.
Before the bell would help his cause, he suffered a second knockdown,
sprawling to the canvas as Golota followed up with a series of rights. A
10-7 round against you - what a helluva way to launch your career as a
champion-to-be.
"We saw in films how Grant carried his hands below his chin," said
Roger Bloodworth, Golota’s trainer. [In fact, upon impact, Grant’s left
glove was dangling by his side.] "When he went down, I didn’t think he
was gonna get up. I thought we had him."
Marked by an inconsequential cut over his left eye, Golota took the
second round, too, though at no point did he seem about to finish his
work. It took Grant three or four rounds to recover from the first
knockdown of his career. It could be argued that a better fighter
wouldn’t have been caught that cleanly, but a better fighter might not
have picked himself up, dusted himself off, and rejoined the fray with
every intention of winning. "He makes up for his limitations with balls
and heart," Frank Maloney, who manages Lewis, said of Grant. "To beat
him, Lennox will have to nail him to the floor."
Before the second round was complete, it became a three-man show.
Obviously aware of "The Foul Pole’s" ring history, referee Randy Neumann
warned Golota for hitting on the break, and twice admonished Grant for
punching low. In the third and fourth, the judges needed erasers on
their pencils; Golota was penalised for hitting on the break in the
former stanza, and Grant lost a point for a similar offence in the
latter. Grant was frequently forcing clinches, and judging by body
language and facial expressions, Golota was fighting his instincts to
butt, knee, punch low, or-heaven forbid-bite.
"I made it very clear I wasn’t gonna put up with his tactics," Neumann
told me a week after the fight. "In the clinches, you can do things to
make sure the fighters understand you mean business. Golota was on his
best behaviour."
Rounds five and six were Grant’s best. His jab was only mildly
effective, but he was zeroing in with his right. For his part, Golota
inexplicably abandoned his straight right in favour of a left hook. My
prediction of Golota early, Grant late, seemed on target until Golota
re-established command in the seventh. Having swelled around both eyes,
Grant looked like Riddick Bowe. What nightmares this facial resemblance
evoked in Golota one can only guess.
The eighth was big for Golota, who was bouncing, while Grant was
breathing heavily. Golota’s superior boxing skills, and more precisely,
his sense of distance, were enabling him to control the pace. Grant’s
response never varied: stepping in with punches that missed, then
quickly clinching. "When Grant gets too close, he’s useless," said
Emanuel Steward, who trains Lewis.
"Talent-wise, Golota is as good as anybody," said HBO analyst Larry
Merchant. "Sure, Grant was exposed, but I’m not sure how many fighters
are talented enough to expose the same things in him."
Does Golota crumble when fatigued? Is he scared of success? He carried
the ninth, which was dominated by clinches, but there were ominous
signs: He punctuated an exchange with a hook that landed in the deep
south, and freely punched after the bell. Still, using the recently
instituted consensus scoring system, he led by five points with three
rounds remaining. If he finished on his feet, he was almost certain to
win. Then again, this is Andrew Golota, who wouldn’t be a cinch to cash
a ticket if he bet to show in a three-horse race.
"I told Michael in no uncertain terms: ‘You will not win unless you
stop him,’" said Don Turner, Grant’s trainer.
Halfway through the 10th, Grant, now 31-0 (21 KOs), broke through with
a huge right. Golota, 34-4 (28 early wins), stumbled backward, prompting
Grant to swarm. Most of the punches missed, but a couple of partially
deflected hooks toppled Golota. He rose at Neumann’s count of two, but
after the mandatory eight, chose not to continue. Three times Neumann
asked him if he wanted to fight on. The first two questions went
unanswered. The third time, Golota said no. Making a purse of $1
million, and with a possible shot at the world title on the line, Golota
quit on his feet. Just like that.
"He was walking away from me," said Neumann, "and I was figuring I
didn’t exactly have 10 minutes to make a decision. I didn’t figure he’d
quit. Could he have gone on? He was clear as a bell. We could’ve had a
nice conversation."
"He told me he couldn’t focus too well," Bloodworth said of Golota.
"I’m assuming he meant in a visual sense. In a fight where a guy who is
6ft 7ins, 252lbs, is lying on you - he got real tired.
"It wasn’t my call, it was the fighter’s. But I didn’t want to see
another Stephan Johnson." If
the glass is half-full, Grant showed the stuff of champions,
rebounding from the worst imaginable start to stop a Top 10 heavyweight
in the late rounds. If it’s half-empty, Grant was exposed as a
technically deficient boxer who was fortunate that his opponent
surrendered. Either way, Lewis-Grant is a fight that will likely be made
in 2000.
"I’m going to recommend that it’s next," Maloney said of the proposed
match-up. "I think Grant would make a great fight with Lennox."
"If you’re Grant, you take the fight now because you could be beaten
by anybody," said Steward. "Grant and Lennox would be interesting just
because of the physical size of the two. But I don’t think Grant has a
real desire to be a great fighter. Boxing is just another sport to him."
It’s possible that Lewis-Grant would be a titanic bore, with two
oversized counterpunchers alternately waiting and clinching. But when
the immediate alternatives are Lewis-Ruiz or Lewis-Akinwande, the
match-up doesn’t seem so sour. In Grant’s case, the end of the Golota
fight justified the means. Damn the ratings - he’s earned his shot in
the ring.
"In the end," said Jim Thomas, who advises both Grant and Evander
Holyfield. "God didn’t give Michael more than he could handle, but he
gave him more than anyone else could handle."
On a night of terribly conflicting emotions, that was worth a chorus
of amens. |
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