 The Worldwide Boxing Magazine Site |
Got your free t-shirt yet? |
| articles from the magazine ... |
|
May 1998
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!
|
 |
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
A horrific car crash set Angel Manfredy straight and the win over Arturo Gatti has put El Diablo at the head of his rivals' "No thank you!" list. STEVE FARHOOD on a force to be reckoned with, even for the likes of Hamed |
|
Regardless of whether we care to recognise the fact, most of us merely
plug on, secure in our comfortable existence.
Boxers, of course, are a different breed. For many of them, climbing
off the canvas is a metaphor for a much bigger struggle. The most
dramatic stories often belong to the best fighters. And some of those
fighters overcome the odds only after finding themselves
figuratively or literally in the gutter.
The turning point for Angel Manfredy came when he awoke in an emergency
room with blood on his hands. Minutes before, he had drunkenly driven
into a telephone pole at 65 miles per hour, his 11th car accident as a
teenager, presumably a record in the state of Indiana.
His face belonged to the victim in a Hollywood horror film; he would
take a reported 160 stitches. (He says it was 265.) It's frightening
to consider the result had he not been wearing a seat belt. He was
more than a little bit lucky to be alive. Or was he? After all,
accident number 12 was only a half-tank of gas away.
Upon regaining his senses, Manfredy screamed at the attending nurse:
"When can I box again?" The response: "You're not going to be boxing
for a long, long time."
Two months later, Manfredy was back in the ring. Ever since, the blood
on his hands has belonged to the other guy.
There was a battlefield of blood when Manfredy humbled Arturo Gatti
in January. After the non-title lightweight bout, won by Manfredy
via eighth-round TKO, both fighters visited the hospital, Gatti for
20 facial stitches and Manfredy for a severely sprained and
dislocated right hand. About a month later, the fighters bumped into
each other in Miami's fashionable South Beach. "He said: 'How's your
hand?'" Manfredy recalled. "I didn't want to say: 'How's your eye?'"
The highlight of the first quarter of the boxing year, Manfredy's
inspired victory over Gatti elevated him from good fighter to
potential star. Before the fight, Gatti was HBO's latest
million-dollar property, an all-action warrior who was headed
towards a megabuck showdown with Prince Naseem Hamed. Now Manfredy
wants what Gatti had. And that's already caused friction.
With Manfredy-Hamed a year or two away and a rematch with Gatti
unlikely to materialise before the fall, "El Diablo" needs an opponent.
Initially, three names were considered. But Gabe Ruelas turned the
bout down, Azumah Nelson priced himself out, and Tom Johnson
eliminated himself by losing to someone named Santos Rebolledo.
Eventually, Nelson reconsidered and agreed to a purse of $350,000,
not shabby for a 39-year-old former champion who lounges in
semi-retirement.
HBO penciled in the fight for 9 May, but then a problem surfaced.
Actually, three problems. Firstly, Manfredy wasn't going to fight
Nelson for his proposed purse of $400,000. Secondly, he wanted to
fight on the prime time "HBO Championship Boxing" series, and not
the network's critically acclaimed but lower-profile "Boxing After
Dark". And thirdly, he didn't want to engage in what would likely
be a distance fight so soon after undergoing rehabilitation for
his hand injury. When I spoke to Manfredy in mid-March, he hadn't
yet resumed bag work, much less sparring.
"I got $200,000 for Arturo Gatti, and that wasn't fair at all,"
said Manfredy. "I fought in his hometown, at his weight, and he
didn't put up his belt. [Gatti has since vacated the IBF junior
lightweight title]. I gave him everything he wanted and he got
$1 million. When they said Nelson for $400,000 on Boxing After
Dark, I said definitely not. I want $1 million.
"If they can pay the Prince $12 million for six fights and he
can't fight a lick, why can't they pay me? I wanted $4 million
for three fights, with those fights not including bouts against
Gatti or the Prince, and [HBO] said no. It's time they stopped
treating fighters like pieces of meat. After all, nobody ever
stepped up like I did. But I think this is just a temporary
problem. When all those magazines start pumping me up, [HBO]
is gonna want to see me again."
"The Azumah fight is a fight we'd like to have," added John
Manfredy, Angel's brother and adviser. "He'd be a great
stepping-stone in Angel's career. But the timing wasn't right.
And given what Azumah brings, we thought the fight warranted
a main show, not Boxing After Dark."
Countered HBO's Lou DiBella: "Angel's gonna have to find a fight
somewhere else because I don't have a date until fall."
Wherever Manfredy fights, be sure he won't be earning anywhere
near $400,000. Then again, he won't be facing an opponent the
calibre of Nelson either.
Most HBO-televised American fighters develop on the cable-TV
circuit. But DiBella discovered Manfredy in the flesh, not on
the tube. On the afternoon of the network's Pernell
Whitaker-Jake Rodriguez and Felix Trinidad-Larry Barnes
doubleheader in 1995, Cedric Kushner promoted a show featuring
Manfredy, then a virtual unknown, vs. the still-useful former
world champion Calvin Grove. Manfredy scored a convincing
seventh-round stoppage, surprising Grove to such an extent that
the warhorse wept before leaving the ring.
"Back in those days, Cedric ran a lot of those day-of-the-fight
shows and I had never been impressed with anything I'd seen,"
recalled DiBella. "Before that show, I had never even heard of
Angel Manfredy. But I knew Grove was tough, and this tattooed,
bald kid comes in and gives him a boxing lesson. I said to Ced:
'I want to keep an eye on this guy.'"
Manfredy kept winning, defending the lowly regarded WBU junior
lightweight title in such remote outposts as Austria and South
Africa. As promised, DiBella kept watching, and in February 1997,
he gave The Devil his due, matching him against Wilson Rodriguez,
who 11 months before had engaged Gatti in 1996's Fight of the Year.
Manfredy established that he was different, climbing through the
ropes in a hideous devil's mask and bright red knee-high socks.
Then he proved himself world-class, boxing neatly en route to a
clear-cut and impressive 12-round decision win. The only speed
bump came in round 10, when a right hand dumped El Diablo on his
derriere. But Manfredy has a steely focus, and even as Rodriguez
unloaded his guns in a final and desperate rally, ringsiders had
no reason to doubt the outcome.
Six months later, DiBella and Kushner pitted Manfredy against the
inimitable Jorge Paez, who braced himself for his outing with El
Diablo by wearing a nun's habit into the ring. If Paez had an
exorcism in mind, he was terribly disappointed. Manfredy pitchforked
him into submission, downing the clown in the eighth.
All along the route, and whether he was punching out Rodriguez,
Paez, or someone else, Manfredy always made sure to talk up a
fight with Gatti. On at least one occasion, Pat Lynch, Gatti's
manager, told me he had no intention of signing for a bout with
Manfredy. "What do we need with him?" Lynch said, insinuating that
Gatti was seeking bigger game. Ultimately, money talked louder than
either fighter.
"Angel chased that fight," said DiBella. "He made that fight. Of
course, Gatti got $1 million out of it, too."
And a beating to go with it. Boxing flawlessly, Manfredy brushed
off Gatti's big punches, dropped the 3-1 favorite with a hook in
round three, and despite his seriously injured right hand, stuck
to his plan en-route to winning on cuts. It was a most
professional performance, but not an unexpected one, at least for
those of us who had followed Manfredy since the Grove fight.
That Manfredy ever survived to advance to a fight with Gatti is a
minor miracle. In a family of four children, Angel was indeed the
devil.
"My mom and dad came from Puerto Rico when they were in their
teens," said John Manfredy, a Notre Dame-educated architect who,
at 30, is the oldest of the clan. (Jose, 29, is in the Navy,
sister Aida, 27, is a registered nurse, and Angel is 23.)
"My dad worked in the steel mills of East Chicago [Indiana],
and he was constantly instilling in us the need for an education,
'so you won't have to slave in the mills like me'. I felt I had
to set an example with grades and things like that. But for
whatever reason, maybe because he was the youngest, Angel was a
spoiled brat. He got special treatment from my parents. We were
hell-raisers, but we grew out of it. Angel was given a little
more leeway.
"Angel was also picked on the most, both by his older brothers and
in school. He had brown hair and blue eyes and didn't look Latino.
They'd make fun of him and he'd just go after them. He was known
as a neighborhood tough guy as a little kid. That's why my dad
dragged him into a boxing gym - to get him off the streets.
"Angel didn't seem focused on anything but having a good time. He
was in his volatile teen years, and he was very rebellious. He was
on a path of self-destruction. He was destroying his life and any
potential he had. When he was boxing, he was no longer taking it
seriously. He'd get into the ring hung over. I had no respect for
him.
"In our town, not a whole lot of people make it out. I thought Angel
would end up a sad existence, doing nothing."
Car accident number 11 changed all that. John Manfredy describes
it as "the slap in the face a person needs to wake up".
"After the accident, Angel decided to clean house," recalled John.
"He began to take his career a little more seriously. I'm not
gonna say he changed overnight; he still had some demons in his
closet and was still screwing around. He didn't get over that until
a couple of years ago."
In other words, just in time to salvage what just might turn out
to be a memorable career. "I wasn't spiritual before the accident,"
said Angel. "I was a dumb kid, the wild one in the family. Partying,
women, going out - I didn't know where to go till I went to the Lord.
Now I'm a believer. Now I'm 90% angel, 10% devil. Both, though, are
with me in the ring."
His confidence brimming, Manfredy, 23-2-1 (19KOs), speaks of whipping
the best of the junior lightweight and lightweight divisions.
"Nothing I ever do," he said, "could be as tough as surviving that
accident and coming back."
Manfredy lives with his fiancee and his three children, Celeste (4),
Marina (3), and Angel II (1½). But don't expect domestic
tranquility to produce a kindler, gentler devil. "Right now I
feel unstoppable," he said. "I don't surprise myself anymore. Not
after flying to Europe, getting a fever, spitting up phlegm, and
then knocking out Wilfredo Ruiz. Not after fighting in South Africa
on one week's notice [and stopping Mtobeli Mhlope]. Not after
fighting Gatti with one hand."
Manfredy is right; his differences with HBO will soon be rectified.
There are plenty of big fights ahead, especially at junior
lightweight, which he can continue to make without difficulty.
Manfredy's capsule comments on a quartet of big-name 130-pounders:
On Hamed: "He's a fighter, not a fake. It's not his fault they're
babying him. But he is overrated, not proven. Kevin Kelley should've
beaten him. Kelley either sold out or wasn't there mentally. Me and
Hamed is a good fight. Me by knockout."
On Gatti: "This time I knock him out cold. This time he's not getting up.
He'll come harder in a rematch, which will just motivate me more."
On Nelson: "It would be a good experience fight. Azumah is a hall of
famer, a warrior. But I'm a little too strong, a little too fast,
a little too young. At the same time, I have a lot of experience
for 23."
On Genaro Hernandez (WBC super featherweight champion): "I like him.
He's a good skilled boxer with good movement, but a lack of power.
I'd break him down in eight or nine rounds. I like that fight
because I want his belt."
"No matter how it happens, I'm gonna get my 'W'," Manfredy concluded.
"I'm a crowd-pleaser and a showman. If there's a brick wall in front
of me, I'm going through it."
Will someone please hide the car keys?
|
|
Also available to read from issue:
|
|
On sale on the last Thursday of every month Ensure you never miss a copy . . . buy your subscription or back issues here. |