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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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READY FOR ROY JONES?
New York light-heavyweight David Telesco has been hounding Roy Jones Jr, stripping to the waist and issuing challenges whenever his path crossed with that of the undisputed world champion. GRAHAM HOUSTON catches up with the puncher and previews the showdown set for the Radio City Music Hall |
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TELESCO's got the jackhammer punch to make it interesting (left)
- if he can land it on RJJ (right)
- Get Big Pic When
Buster Douglas shocked the world by knocking out Mike Tyson in 1990
he was inspired by the memory of his mother, who had died three weeks
earlier. There will be a similar situation when David Telesco steps into
the ring to meet Roy Jones on 15 January. Like Douglas, Telesco is a
major underdog. But, as was the case with the unlikely heavyweight
champion, Telesco is carrying his late mother’s memory into the ring
with him.
Telesco says that he promised his mother, Mary Teresa Telesco, that he
would make a success of his life and be the world champion some day.
Now, the moment is at hand.
His mother died in 1995, while he was serving a three-year prison term
for drug-dealing. He honours her Italian heritage by bringing an Italian
flag into the ring with him. He says he hardly knew his father, an
African-American. He was raised by his mother and his grandparents.
Telesco is not in the least awed by Jones. He has been seeking a fight
with him for the last 18 months and issued in-person challenges, "called
him out" in the current vernacular.
"I took a few of my buddies up to Connecticut when he was fighting
[Otis Grant] and I sat on their shoulders so he could see me and I told
him who I was, just taunting him, telling him: ‘I want to fight you -
fight a real man. How can you go home and look at yourself in the mirror
and call yourself a champion without fighting me?’
"He pointed to his [championship] belt and he pointed to his muscle in
the left arm [the well-known single-arm bulging-bicep pose that Jones
favours] and he went: ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah.’ I took off my shirt and flexed
my muscles.
"Another time I went to Pensacola, Florida, when he fought Rick
Frazier and I went to the press conference, taunted him, said: ‘You
haven’t fought a real light-heavyweight yet.’
"Obviously he hasn’t met anyone yet who comes close to my power. I’m
like a pit bull. Once I taste blood, I’m going in for the kill. That’s
something that comes automatically. That’s something that’s in you,
that’s in a fighter. When I see hurt, when I see blood, I’m going always
to attack.
"I’m going to be in such great shape that if I see the guy hurt, I’m
going to go in there and take care of business."
But what about Jones’s punching power? Is Telesco not concerned that
an aggressive fight plan might get him into trouble against such a fast,
sharp hitter as the champion? "Jones’s punches don’t faze me," he said.
"You know why? I’ve been in the ring, sparring-wise, with heavyweights
weighing 190, 220 [pounds], who’ve hit me with their best shots guys
like Carl "The Truth" Williams, Renaldo Snipes, Nate Jones, the
[Olympic] bronze medal winner - and you know what I do? I just
retaliate, and after that they respect me and lay off a little bit. If
I’m not fazed by a heavyweight’s punches, why should I be fazed by his?
"You’ve got to remember, I’m 31 and I’ve been around quite a bit but
people don’t know who I am. I sparred with the heavyweights, with
Michael Olajide [the former middleweight and super middle contender].
I’ve got a lot of experience under my belt."
But no matter what happens against Jones he says that he will marry
his long-time girlfriend, Lysette, the mother of his three children (two
girls, Destiny, who was born on 6 May 1999, and Dominique, aged six, and
an 11-year-old son, David). They have been together for 15 years.
Telesco has finally arrived at centre stage as a fighter but says his
first love is football (American-style). He was a running back and
believes he had (and still has) a great talent for the sport, but he got
into boxing because he felt he was not given a fair opportunity to play
on the football team by a local athletic director. He said he felt angry
at the time, believing the decision was racially motivated. But he still
wanted to compete in a full-contact sport, so he decided to try boxing,
having watched the sport on TV with his grandfather, Daniel.
The local gym was a short walk away, just three blocks from his house.
He boxed "off and on" as an amateur, winning 15 of 19 bouts and
capturing a silver medal as a super middle in the Empire State Games.
One of his trainers, he said, was an old-timer named Mike Capriano, who
was once associated with the famous "Raging Bull", Jake LaMotta.
Telesco turned pro nine years ago but his career was interrupted by
the three-year prison term for cocaine dealing when, he said, he was set
up by an undercover cop who pretended to befriend him, then busted him.
"Doing time in prison taught me a lot," he said. "You meet thousands
of personalities and learn a man is a man, no matter what, that even if
you have more than him, he’s no less a man than you are. I was around
older men who’d pull me aside and say: ‘Listen young guy, don’t get in
trouble, you have a career to fulfil. You’re a talented kid. Don’t get
mixed up with these gangs and this other stuff that takes place in
prison.’
"The boxing head coach, who was an inmate himself, had me join the
boxing team. I couldn’t compete [because he was a professional], but I
kept busy, kept my head straight, and when I came home I was already in
top shape and went straight to the gym."
Telesco returned to the ring in 1997 and showed his character in a
tough fight with old rival Ernest Mateen - the only boxer to have beaten
him - for the New York state light-heavy title. It was Telesco’s second
bout after his incarceration, against a man who had twice outpointed him
(he disagrees with both decisions). He won in the eighth, after having
been hurt himself in the seventh.
"He caught me with my hands down, with a right hand I didn’t see
coming, he rocked me and I’ve never been in a situation like that
before," Telesco said. "I tried to keep my composure, and during that
moment I just thought about my mother and said: ‘I’m not going down. I
can’t lose.’ Towards the end of the round he hit me again and I got
rocked a little bit more, but all through that round I said: ‘Davey,
keep on fighting, no matter what,’ because at the back of my mind was my
mother, and the promise to my mom, that I’d be world champion. And in
the eighth round I was alive again, and I went out to take care of
business and - boom! There you go.
"I told my mom that I’d make something of my life. I told her that,
and I want to fulfil that." HE'S GOT THE POWER Light-heavyweight
champion Roy Jones steps back into the ring on 15
January, this time on a new stage, that of the famous Radio City Music
Hall in New York City. The historic venue (built in the 1930s) reopened
in October after a $70 million facelift, in time for its Christmas show
that is a New York fixture.
But instead of the high-kicking Rockettes, those in attendance on the
night of the 15th will be seeing the world’s leading boxer attempting to
rock a hard-punching challenger in David Telesco, a 31-year-old from
Port Chester, in south-eastern New York.
Jones, boxing the night before his 31st birthday, took a site-fee cut
to make history by headlining the first fight show at Radio City
($400,000, instead of the million-or-so fee that would have been
guaranteed by one of the big Southern casinos). It will be his first
Big Apple appearance since he outpointed Lou Del Valle in July, 1998,
when Jones got knocked down for the first time in his life but won every
other round of the 12-rounder. And it will be Jones’s first fight since
he outclassed Reggie Johnson at Biloxi, Mississippi, last June to unify
the light-heavy titles (adding Johnson’s International Boxing Federation
belt to the World Boxing Council and World Boxing Association titles he
already owned).
Jones’s Radio City date was to have been against Graciano Rocchigiani,
the mandatory WBC challenger, but the German would not commit himself to
attending the New York press conference to announce the Home Box
Office-televised fight. There were doubts in the Jones camp that the
erratic Rocchigiani really wanted the fight, so Telesco was brought in.
And there is not the slightest doubt that Telesco does want it. He has
been badgering Jones to meet him for some time now, making a scene after
the champion’s easy wins over Otis Grant and Rick Frazier (in November
1998 and January 1999 respectively), even ripping off his shirt to
dramatise the seriousness of his challenge.
Now Telesco gets his chance, and Jones quipped at the press
conference: "Sometimes you got to watch out for what you wish for, you
might get it."
Jones said that Telesco’s taunts never got under his skin and even
admitted - probably tongue-in -cheek - an admiration for the challenger,
telling reporters: "To know how bad he’s gonna be beat and still go
around beggin’ for it, you’ve got to respect the guy."
Telesco, with a record of 23 wins and two losses (19 opponents halted)
after a modest amateur career, is a 6ft 1in, well-muscled banger who
probably represents a greater risk to Jones than Rocchigiani would have
done. But how much of a risk is that? Jones has hardly lost a round in
his career of 40 wins and one loss, with 33 KOs. And the "loss" was
really a matter of Jones beating himself when he hit a nearly-gone
Montell Griffin when his opponent was on the floor. The rematch revealed
the gulf between the two men when a motivated Jones blew away Griffin in
the first round.
Jones says he expects Telesco to come right after him. If so, he says,
this could be the quickest act in Radio City history. "He’s gonna come
right at me and I’m not going to run too far," Jones promises.
Telesco, of African-American and Italian heritage, is colourful, his
long hair tied in a braided ponytail when he boxes. He served three
years in prison for drug dealing but says it taught him a lesson about
life. He is undefeated since his release, his biggest wins being a
fourth-round battering of former champ Frank Tate and, in his last
fight, an 11th-round shelling of the tall former title challenger Will
Taylor.
The fight with Taylor was essentially even on the scorecards after 10
rounds, but Telesco caught his man in the 11th and did not let him
recover. He is known to be a lethal left-hooker but has power in both
hands. He has scored eight one-round knockouts but the Taylor fight
showed he can be devastating late in a fight, too. "If he can hit Jones,
anything can happen," says Telesco’s promoter, former amateur boxer Joe
DeGuardia. But will he be able to hit Jones? That is the big question.
And if Telesco goes in bombing he runs the risk of being blasted by
rapid-fire counter punches.
But Telesco says Jones has never met anyone like him: a big, authentic
light-heavyweight with firing power.
The crowd (the music hall has been configured to seat 5,500) is likely
to get some excitement in the first big fight of the new millennium (and
first big match in New York since the Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield
fight at Madison Square Garden last March).
Telesco has the size, the punch and the ability to make things
interesting. Perhaps very interesting. Can he win, though? It is highly
unlikely, but his defiance should bring out the best in Jones. And that
is always something worth seeing. |
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