By Jim De Pierro

22.11 - Everyone reading this column undoubtedly wants to know my feelings on what will happen when two of boxings most exciting fighters Mickey Ward and Arturo Gatti lace up the gloves for a second time. Mickey Ward and Arturo Gatti will never grace anyone’s top 10 P4P list but I would watch a fight with these two blood and guts warriors over Vernon Forrest or Roy Jones jr. any day of the week. It is quite fortunate that boxings two most exciting fighters just happen to be in the same weight division. Before I get to my prediction on Ward and Gatti I want to turn my attention to a fight that doesn’t promise to hold anywhere near the same amount of excitement when Vitali Klitschko will take on Larry the so called legend Donald.

Vitali Klitschko 31-1 (30 KOs) vs. Larry Donald 39-2-2 (23 KOs)

This fight is of some significance because Vitali Klitschko is next in line to challenge Lennox Lewis for the heavyweight crown. Larry Donald, for those of you reading this column who may not be very familiar with marginal heavyweight contenders, is one of the most boring fighters you will ever see. He is the polar opposite of Gatti and Ward. Larry Donald kind of reminds me of a black heavyweight Paul Spadafora. Larry Donald’s nickname is the legend and the man truly is a legend in every sense of the word. I will tell my grandkids someday of a boxer who was so boring and so awful to watch that boxing historians shudder whenever they hear the words Larry and Donald even mentioned in the same sentence. Everything about Larry Donald is boring. I mean even his name is dull. What kind of person has a name consisting of two first names? Donald’s style of boxing can quite simply be described as left jab, left jab, left jab, left jab, left jab, well you get the point. Honestly if Donald had his right arm amputated he would still be just as good a boxer as he is now.

It’s a shame that this fight isn’t being televised on American TV because Larry Donald’s day of reckoning is upon him. For years Donald the duck as I like to call him has tortured fight fans by giving boring fight after boring fight but I think Dr. Klitschko (he holds a Ph. D in sports medicine) is going to finally give Donald Duck the medicine he so richly deserves for years of boring fights when he is brutally knocked out. The way I see it this fight will be a track meet for a few rounds. Klitschko will be doing the chasing and Donald the running. I don’t think Donald the duck can run fast enough for more than a few rounds. Not only do I think that Donald will get KTFO but I also predict that he will be thoroughly dominated. My prediction is not a ringing endorsement Vitali Klitschko but my belief that Donald was never that great to begin with and I think he is past whatever prime he had. I don’t want anyone thinking I am a Klitschkomaniac because I am predicting that Donald will get his head handed to him on a silver platter.

I am actually in a unique position to judge Donald because I saw Donald’s last fight against James Stanton on the under card of Holyfield-Rahman and let me tell you I was not impressed. Donald won by a comfortable margin on all three judges scorecards and was never in any real danger of losing the fight but that was largely because Stanton strayed south of the border on a few occasions and was deducted at least two points for low blows. It looked to me like Stanton won about four rounds. Another thing to consider is that before his fight with Stanton, Donald hadn’t won a fight in over two years. Stanton had lost 5 of his last 6 bouts going into his fight with Donald. Donald isn’t even that great boxer nowadays. He lost just about every round to Kirk Johnson in an entirely forgettable fight and in his fight before Kirk Johnson he had to rally in the 12th round and score a knockdown just to get a draw with Obed Sullivan. No disrespect to Obed Sullivan because he is a solid journeyman fighter but any heavyweight contender worth his salt should be able to beat Obed Sullivan outright.

Larry Donald has never been knocked out but I attribute that to being extremely defensive minded and not a sign of an iron jaw. The best punch that Larry Donald ever took was when Riddick Bowe sucker punched him in 1994. Donald is not the same fighter he was then and has slowed down a notch or two since.

Vitali Klitschko KO 5 over Larry Donald

Mickey Ward 38-11 (27 KOs) vs. Arturo Gatti 34-6 (28 KOs)

Photo: Ring99.com

I have been salivating at the thought of this fight all week. A lot of people don’t think this fight can be as good as the last fight and they may be right but I’m one of those who thinks this fight will be every bit as good as the first one if not better. I can’t see how this fight could be anything but good. I would be hard pressed to think of a dull fight that Ward or Gatti have ever been in. It is true that sequels to really exciting fights tend to almost always be less entertaining than the original as Barrera-Morales II is a good example of but I think the difference is that Ward and Gatti are almost always exciting whereas Barrera and Morales while not dull fighters aren’t inherently exciting fighters unless they are matched up right against the right opponents.

I personally feel the first was a draw and I am not just saying that because I can’t bear to think that either Ward or Gatti who gave it 110% deserved to lose. The way I saw the first fight was that Gatti clearly won six of the ten rounds. Take away an extra point from Gatti for the knock down and an extra point for the low blow that Cappucino deducted from Gatti and the result was 94-94 all on my unofficial scorecard. Larry Merchant, who I have a great deal of respect for, stated before the scorecards were read said that he felt that Arturo Gatti had won the fight. Clearly one can reasonably argue that Gatti could have won the first fight.

I don’t have any beef with anyone who scores the fight for Ward but I do take issue with Richard Flaherty’s scoring of the 9th round 10-7 in favor of Mickey Ward. No one disputes that Ward won that round big but Ward did not dominate that whole round and Gatti was mounting a comeback at the end of that round. A knockdown is basically an extra point in favor of the fighter that scored it. Most rounds that have a knock down in them are scored 10-8 because the fighter that scored the knockdown was winning the round prior to the point of when the knockdown occurred. Occasionally a 10-8 round will be scored if a fighter is battered from pillar to post for the whole round but does not go down. It sometimes happens that a fighter may go down but is not really hurt and gets up to win the rest of the round. For those of you who watch Friday Night Fights you may notice that Teddy Atlas will sometimes score a round with a knockdown only 10-9. Once in a rare while their can a case where fighter A is absolutely dominating fighter B and fighter B just happens to get in a punch that doesn’t really hurt fighter A but fighter A is knocked a little off balance and his glove may touch the canvas. Even though fighter A wasn’t really hurt by the punch, any time a part of the fighters body touches the canvas other than his feet obviously it is technically a knockdown. If A goes on to continue dominating the round against B you might end up with a situation where the round is scored 10-10.

Imagine for example that the 9th round of Gatti-Ward had occurred pretty much as it did but that Gatti had stayed on his feet when Ward delivered that wicked body shot. Under normal circumstances absent a knockdown that round would have been scored 10-9 for Ward because it was a reasonably competitive round given Gatti’s rally towards the end. What Richard Flaherty essentially did was give Mickey Ward an extra point for nothing.

In order for Mickey Ward to win I felt that several factors had to break Mickey Ward’s way. If Flaherty had scored the 9th round 10-8 like he should have the fight would have been a majority draw. Another factor to consider is that Frank Cappucino deducted a point from Gatti for a low blow. It was Cappucino’s right to deduct a point but I feel it was a harsh call on Cappucino’s part given that was really the only foul of the whole fight and it was unintentional IMO. I don’t believe for a second that Gatti would deliberately foul Ward. I think it is very unlikely that there will be any deductions from either Ward or Gatti in the re-match. If Gatti had not been deducted a point and Flaherty had scored the 9th round 10-8 instead of 10-7 Gatti would have won the fight via split decision. Another factor to consider is that the first took place in the Mohegun Sun, which is a venue that is going to be sympathetic to Ward since New England, is Mickey Ward’s home turf. Gatti, who fights out of Jersey City, will have home court advantage this time when he faces Ward in neighboring Atlantic City. Should the fight go to the scorecards this time I expect that there will be a slight Gatti bias when looking at how the judges scored close rounds.

Good arguments can be made both ways for who will win and why but I believe that Gatti is going to win this time around for a couple of reasons. It’s a given that both Gatti and Ward have been through hell and back. Both have had their share of hard fights and both have accumulated a lot of scar tissue of the years, which makes them susceptible to cuts and swelling. An important factor to consider though is the biological age of both fighters. Arturo Gatti is 7 years Mickey Ward’s junior. It is a lot easier for a younger body (30 years for Gatti) to recover from brutal wars than it is for Mickey Ward’s 37-year-old body. Ward is at the point in his career where he can see light at the end of the tunnel. Ward is by his own admission only has one or two more fights left in him. Another reason I like Gatti to win is Buddy McGirt. McGirt is IMO one of the best trainers and strategists in the game. I favored Gatti to win the first time because of the addition of Buddy McGirt in Gatti’s corner but this time Gatti and McGirt have the experience of having already faced Ward so they know what to prepare for and will have a more effective game plan for fighting Mickey Ward this time around. The reverse argument can also be made that Ward will have a better idea of how to prepare but I don’t think Ward’s team has quite the same ring smarts as McGirt.

There are a few advantages that favor Ward going into this fight. One would be that Ward has a slight mental edge knowing that he won the first contest and was able to score a knock down against Gatti. Re-matches in general tend to be won by the fighter who won the first time 80% of the time. Ivan Robinson won more convincingly the second time around against Gatti so the possibility certainly exists that Gatti is the type of fighter who is easier to beat the second time around. Ivan Robinson is the only opponent that Gatti has ever re-matched with. Ward had an immediate re-match with a fighter by the name of Louis Veader who Ward knocked out in the 9th round the first time around. In the re-match Ward won again but this time by points. Never having seen Veader fight this would suggest that Ward had a little more difficulty in the re-match since he failed to KO the second time. Regardless, the record on re-matches between Ward and Gatti in their past fights tends to favor Ward since Ward since Ward is 1-0 in rematches and Gatti is 0-1. Both Ward and Gatti have a tendency to get bloody but I think Gatti is slightly worse in this regard because Gatti not only bleeds a lot but he also swells. I have never seen Ward with swollen eyes.

The key for Gatti winning this fight is to work on his stamina and be able to fight a full three minutes of every round. I make no bones about it, I am pulling for Gatti so perhaps my prediction is somewhat tainted by wishful thinking but I think Gatti can and will stop Ward inside the distance. He has to box early and brawl late. Gatti can’t go into this fight looking for the KO but I don’t think it will be enough to just simply hit and run Ward all night. I really think Ward was running out of gas towards the end of the last fight and I think if Gatti can conserve enough energy for the later rounds he can stop Ward. Oh, and Arturo watch out for those body shots.

Arturo Gatti TKO 10 over Mickey Ward

* * * * Bonus Prediction * * * *

The upset of the year in 2003 is that Roy Jones jr. will indeed fight John Ruiz. I won’t even attempt to try and defend Roy Jones jr. credibility because I know his history of saying one thing and doing another but I have decided that its more likely than not at this point that this fight will come to fruition.

Agree? Disagree? Think I’m full of it? E-mail me at jdepierro@adelphia.net and tell me what you think or post a comment.