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November 1999
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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I HATE THIS GUY
GRAHAM HOUSTON previews the genuine bad-blood rematch between blue-collar Vinny Paz and "snooty" Dana Rosenblatt. |
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NO LIKE: The first time Rosenblatt (left) met Pazienza it was perhaps too much, too soon
- but this time expect war!
- Get Big Pic If
there is a fighter who gets Vinny Pazienza’s blood boiling, that
fighter is Dana Rosenblatt.
It is more than just a local rivalry thing, with Rosenblatt living in
Massachusetts, while Pazienza is from the next-door state of Maine.
For Pazienza, this isn’t business, it’s personal. It was that way when
he fought Rosenblatt before, in August 1996, at Atlantic City. And it is
that way again when the two meet in a rematch at Foxwoods casino resort,
Connecticut, on 5 November.
Not even the fact that he stopped Rosenblatt in the fourth round in
their first fight, even kept on throwing punches as the referee, Tony
Orlando, was stopping the fight, has taken the edge off the hostility
that the veteran feels towards the younger man.
In the opinion of the always outspoken Pazienza, approaching his 37th
birthday and a professional boxer for more than 16 years, Rosenblatt,
27, is a brash upstart, condescending in manner, who has been taught a
lesson once and will be again when the two meet in a 12-rounder for the
vacant International Boxing Organisation super middleweight title.
Pazienza has, let it be noted, had his differences with opponents in
the past. His pre-fight verbal exchanges with the likes of Greg Haugen,
Roberto Duran and Hector "Macho" Camacho were not of the type you would
hear at a vicarage garden party, for instance.
For Rosenblatt, though, Pazienza has taken things further. This is not
just a fight but a hate match, in Pazienza’s own mind at least. At a
press conference to announce the bout, his comments included demeaning
references that even extended to Rosenblatt’s manhood and a couple of
times skirted close to anti-Semitism, his opponent being Jewish.
It was a verbal onslaught reminiscent of the one Roberto Duran
launched on Sugar Ray Leonard before their fight in Montreal 19 years
ago, when even Sugar Ray’s wife did not escape the nuclear fallout of
invective. Pazienza even placed $10,000 on the dais and dared Rosenblatt
to pick it up. "The way he was going on, you’d think it was Dana who won
the first fight," said Rosenblatt’s trainer, Joe Lake.
In fact, for three rounds Rosenblatt was winning the first fight with
Pazienza. He had the older man’s nose bloody and left eye closing before
getting hit on the chin by a big - perhaps desperation right-hand -
punch. There seems to be a perception in the Rosenblatt camp that
Pazienza got lucky. This adds fuel to the fire. Pazienza is emotionally
pumped up in a way he has not been for a long time - not since the last
time he fought Rosenblatt, anyway.
Over the phone from his hometown in Warwick, Rhode Island, Pazienza
told me: "I just don’t like the guy. For the most part I’m calm, the
guys I’ve fought are good guys. He’s just got a way about him, he thinks
he’s smarter than everybody, he says things about me in a real
condescending way and he thinks that I can’t understand it - and it just
goes up my ass sideways.
"Last time I fought him I’d taken 14 months off, so I don’t think
he’ll get off to as great a start as he did last time. And it really
wasn’t that great of a start if you watch it closely. But I really don’t
like this kid. He’s really a little prick who thinks he’s bigger than he
is. He thinks he’s royalty and I can’t stand that. It’s a tough fight
only because he’s a left-hander [southpaw] and that makes him hard to
fight. He says I got lucky. Well, I’ll get lucky again.
"I’m training with an intensity that I’ve never trained with before. I
dislike him more than anybody - by far - that I have fought, and I’ve
fought people that, you know, we got in words before the fight. But they
had the right to say things to me. They’d been there and they’d done
that. This kid hasn’t been there, hasn’t done that."
What sort of things has Rosenblatt said to get Pazienza so angry? He
mentioned a joke made about him by Rosenblatt in a TV interview: "He
said I was like an out of work schoolteacher - no class. That was his
big joke of the interview. No class? He throws a big word in his
vocabulary every now and then and thinks that’s class. Class is never
saying no to an autograph, giving money to charity that nobody hears
about. Class is helping senior citizens, not telling nobody. Class is
answering every bit of fan mail that comes through my door. That’s
class."
Pazienza has won his last five fights after being outpointed by Herol
Graham at Wembley in December 1997. "It was a bad night, his style," he
said of the fight with the slippery, southpaw Graham. "I thought I won
the fight, but you’ve got to take the good with the bad. I’ve turned my
career around and got back on track. Everything’s going great for me."
He sees the Rosenblatt fight as perhaps opening the door to a crack at
World Boxing Council champ Richie Woodhall. "I’d love to win the WBC
title, that’s the only big one I haven’t won," said the fighter who was
World Boxing Association junior middleweight and International Boxing
Federation lightweight champion.
Although Rosenblatt has won 35 of his 36 fights (24 inside the
distance) he faded badly in the last four rounds of his fight with Terry
Norris in September 1998. But Rosenblatt says a sodium deficiency was
diagnosed and he has been taking supplements under the guidance of a
nutritionist, as well as working with a strength coach.
"In his last fight he went 10 rounds pretty good, so him going the
distance shouldn’t be a problem," Pazienza said. "But I don’t think he’s
gonna make it that far."
Rosenblatt inflicted damage in the first fight, but Pazienza (46 wins,
seven losses, with 29 opponents stopped) feels he will be harder for the
southpaw to hit in the rematch. "I’m better defensively than everybody
thinks," he said.
But even if he suffers cuts and bruises (to which he is well
accustomed), Pazienza says that nothing is going to stop him.
"I’ll go through anything," he said. "I’d rather die than lose this
fight. My feelings for him are twice as bad as they were for the last
fight."
One has to wonder if Pazienza is so passionate about this fight that
he will go in swinging crazily instead of being smart. If he does, it
could lead to problems, because the taller Rosenblatt hits solidly and
with accuracy, and his right jab from the southpaw stance is a jarring
weapon. He is capable of making Pazienza miss and punishing him, as, in
fact, he did last time.
Indeed, the perfect fight for Rosenblatt will be to do just what he
did last time - outbox Pazienza, have him bloody and swollen, but not
get hit by a haymaker this time.
Pazienza must keep the pressure on, keep his head moving so that he
does not take too many shots on the way in, and wear down the younger
man with an accumulation of punches. The one-punch disaster that befell
a careless Rosenblatt last time seems unlikely to occur in the rematch.
Since the two last met, Rosenblatt has won seven fights - only two by
KO. But he beat the veteran Glenwood Brown by a wider points margin than
managed by Pazienza against the same opponent, and Rosenblatt was boxing
with a broken right hand that caused a 14-month layoff.
Rosenblatt says that he had to do "a lot of soul-searching" during his
long spell of inactivity, with people telling him he might not be able
to come back again. "But I had the desire and perseverance to keep going
in the face of people spreading that negativity all around me," he said.
He says he has had no more problems with his hands after the win over
Glenwood Brown, that he is "very, very happy to have this opportunity to
do this again, to avenge this only loss".
There is a quiet confidence about Rosenblatt, who insists that remarks
he allegedly made about Pazienza have either been invented by third
parties, taken out of context or are simply figments of Pazienza’s
imagination. But Pazienza will tell you he has in his possession the
videotaped interviews in which his opponent has been disparaging. For
the Pazmanian Devil, this rematch is war, not boxing, and the sheer,
indomitable strength of his will might, I feel, be the crucial factor.
Just Business Vinny
Pazienza is making his rematch with Dana Rosenblatt a personal
thing, but in the Rosenblatt camp they say it is strictly business. And,
says trainer Joe Lake, this time Pazienza will be meeting a stronger,
smarter, more mature Rosenblatt, one who definitely will not let himself
get caught by a big right hand the way he was in their first meeting.
Speaking over the phone, Lake said: "I thought we were doing all the
right things in the first fight, albeit Dana laying off him and waiting
for the counter punch - he stopped moving his feet and got hit by the
overhand right. He went down, got up, and Vinny’s always been a good
finisher. But Vinny got a young, inexperienced guy at an early age. It’s
a different kind of fight now. The kid has got more experience. Dana at
24 wasn’t the same fighter he is now at 27. Vinny’s been in a lot of
wars Glenwood Brown had him on the floor, but Dana beat Brown with one
hand basically [after breaking his right hand].
"It’s a fight that should be exciting. Vinny’s always had this deep
hatred for Dana, for what reason I don’t know. Vinny absolutely
disrespected Dana and me, his wife, his religion, literally everything,
with that foolishness at the press conference. We came for a regular
press conference, and it was a freak show. I wasn’t shocked by it, but I
was actually very surprised by it. I didn’t expect it from Vinny, to
that level. He really has some deep hatred for Dana, but Dana’s not too
fond of him either. Dana’s gonna keep his composure. He’s just looking
to get one thing out of Pazienza, and that’s a win. We’re going to take
one round at a time.
"Vinny requested eight-ounce gloves [instead of the 10-ouncers
normally used by super middles], and we accepted - Dana’s only boxed
twice with eight-ounce gloves and they were first-round knockouts over
Chad Parker and Danny Mitchell. Dana will definitely show his punching
power in this fight.
"This is a fight where were moving up in weight. We don’t plan to stay
at this weight. The sort of fights we’re looking for are with Hector
Camacho and Tony Ayala. The only problem with us not being able to fight
any [middleweight] champions is Don King has them William Joppy, Keith
Holmes. The winner of the Rosenblatt-Pazienza fight can virtually name
their ticket [have financial backing for fights of their choosing] from
Foxwoods. I think the loser goes on to retire and the winner goes on to
some big fights."
Lake said that Rosenblatt has always been stronger physically than he
looks, but added that a strength-training coach has added to the
sculpture of the fighter’s body. "He doesn’t have that baby fat he used
to have," Lake said. "He looked like a boy at 24 years old compared to
looking like a man at 27 years old, he’s just so much stronger."
The first time Rosenblatt met Pazienza, Lake concedes, it may have
been too much, too soon, even though the Las Vegas odds had Rosenblatt
from that fight. The "real devastation" in Rosenblatt’s career came when
he had the long layoff after breaking his hand against Glenwood Brown,
the trainer said. "A lot of guys like to knock him, but I think Dana’s
going to shine on November 5th," he said. "I’ve told him to do a Ricardo
Lopez and keep his hands up going out for the bell and after the bell,
expect the unexpected with Vinny Pazienza, because I just have a
feeling, and I’m going to make this prediction, I think it’s a lot like
Tyson-Holyfield, I think that Vinny doesn’t want to lose at all costs
-and I can see Vinny, when the fight is going one way and his face is
falling off, doing something, whatever it is, to try to get himself
disqualified." |
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