Mark
Workman
is a former boxing writer. His feature articles have appeared
on BoxingScene,
one of the leading boxing news sites in the world, and Fox
Sports.
Please
click the links below to read Mark Workman's
boxing articles about "Iron Mike" Tyson, Evander "The
Real Deal" Holyfield, Arturo "Thunder" Gatti, "Pretty
Boy" Floyd Mayweather, Jeff "Left Hook" Lacy, David
"Tuaman" Tua, Wladimir Klitschko and Samuel "The
Nigerian Nightmare" Peter, Vitali Klitschko and boxing promoter
Don King, Hasim Rahman, Antonio Tarver and Roy Jones, Jr., "Relentless"
Lamon Brewster, James "Lights Out" Toney, Bernard "The
Executioner" Hopkins, Jermain Taylor, Zab Judah, Manny "Pac
Man" Pacquiao, the turbulent life of 60s heavyweight contender
Thad Spencer, and Tommy "The Duke" Morrison.
Boxing
Articles
By Mark Workman:
November 28, 2011
Arturo
Gatti--The
Thunder Up Above
On June 11, 2005 I
looked on in sadness as I witnessed the end of a career that I
had followed intensely for twenty years. A few too many drinks
in me, I sat down after the fight and poured my despair into my
computer. Early the next morning, I woke up and found "Iron
Mike Tyson--The Death of a Killing Machine" on my laptop
screen.
Extremely hung over, I proceeded to read an article that I had
little recollection of writing. I sat there staring at my computer
screen wondering if the legendary "Iron" Mike Tyson
had truly quit on his stool against the unknown journeyman, Kevin
McBride.
The fight was also a blur to me.
The writing had been smeared on the arena walls for years but
many of us refused to even try to decipher it. We didn't want
to see it end. But the crystal floor beneath Iron Mike's throne
had been cracking for a long time.
Then it finally collapsed.
Was the legend vanquished for the final time? I had to go online
and read the news at BoxingScene to see if it was actually true.
It was over.
Then it hit me like a Mack truck running down mangy stray dogs
on the highway: I had actually been drunk enough to send "Iron
Mike Tyson--The Death of a Killing Machine" to many of the
top boxing news sites.
Drunken delusions of grandeur.
I began to wonder if I could have a straight razor, cyanide and
a thick rope delivered from the local liquor store with another
bottle of fine French vodka. A noble end, I felt at the time.
The wave of embarrassment drowned me like a roaring tsunami. I
poured another stiff drink hoping to end my humiliation and stop
the incessant throbbing of the alien organism dying on my shoulders:
my aching head.
That drink made E.T. call home but he didn't get off my shoulders
and fly away.
I quickly signed into my email account worried that I had also
done a "drink-and-email" to my ex-wife and old girlfriends,
offering useless advice and other things that they didn't need
or desire. But to my complete and utter shock there was an email
from BoxingScene, among others, asking me to submit more articles.
I immediately wondered if they loved French vodka as much as I
did. Crazy.
Perplexed, I sobered up immediately, wondering what I had done.
I didn't know how to write but I loved boxing, the noblest sport
in the world.
The next big fight was Floyd Mayweather versus the blood and guts
warrior, Arturo "Thunder" Gatti. Frightened to death,
I devoured two pots of coffee, a bowl of canned chili drowned
in hot sauce and a grilled cheese sandwich. Then I wrote "Arturo
Gatti--The Last Warhorse." Writing without the detriment
of another extraterrestrial crash landing painfully on my shoulders,
I surprised myself with something readable.
My battered head started to feel better.
I loved Arturo Gatti. He stood tall on my personal boxing pedestal
alongside Mike Tyson and Tommy Morrison, new-era fighters that
I admired because they gave the fans all they had even when they
had little left to give.
A few days after I submitted "Arturo Gatti--The Last Warhorse"
to BoxingScene, I went online to read boxing news and was super-stunned
to see it on BoxingScene and Fox Sports. I thought I was tipsy
again but I was still in the evil grips of abstinence.
I went on to write two dozen features for BoxingScene that included
"60's Thad Spencer--Battered From Grace" and "Tommy
Morrison--Still Walking Tall," both articles based upon interviews
that I conducted with the two fighters.
Those audio tapes will be in my casket when I'm finally buried
one day.
After "Tommy Morrison--Still Walking Tall" ran on BoxingScene
and Fox Sports--and made national headlines--I seriously injured
my back in an accident, spent a few months knocked out on painkillers
and booze, in and out of the hospital, and lost my writing momentum.
When I was finally able to stand up again, I went back on the
road working as a road manager and lighting designer in the music
business, my career for twenty-two years at the time.
Heavy metal never dies.
I was doing a show at the Knockout Festival in Krakow, Poland
with the famous heavy metal band, Testament, when I received a
phone call from my old friend, Camilo, in America telling me that
Arturo Gatti had been found dead in a hotel suite in Porto de
Galihnas, Brazil. I've never boxed before--well, not in an organized
fashion--but that moment made me realize what it must be like
for a fighter to get hit with a brutal body shot to the liver.
It hurt a lot.
Shocked, I walked aimlessly around the parking lot of the Wisla
Hall in Krakow surrounded by luxury rock and roll tour buses and
beautiful Polish girls trolling the backstage area, reaching deep
into their sexy little wells for their best attempt at English
trying to communicate enough to earn a backstage pass and do what
they do. I couldn't have cared less about their sweet music that
night, and that's saying something.
It was a bad night for me.
I sat down on a broken concrete parking lot, staring at a dark
cloudy sky, slowly sipping a bottle of Jack Daniels, tears in
my eyes, refusing to believe that another one of my legends had
been beaten down once and for all. But this time it was not in
the ring, it was in the worst manner imaginable: suicide.
Or was it murder?
I followed Arturo Gatti since he first began fighting on television
years ago. I wouldn't have missed a single fight for anything.
If my firstborn--I don't have kids--was delivered on the night
of a Gatti fight, my ex-wife would've pushed and screamed in front
of a television in the delivery room, my hand in hers and the
other thrust in the air cheering that relentless, non-stoppable
warrior on to victory or defeat. It didn't matter which one. He
gave his blood, guts, heart, soul and nearly his life in every
fight he fought.
That was Arturo "Thunder" Gatti. There will never be
another one like him
.
Watching the episode of "48 Hours" about Arturo Gatti's
death, I saw the ugliness of what's happened to this great fighter
by his hand or others. And while all sides of his family fight
over his fortune and attempt to find truth, peace and solace,
I will never believe that Arturo killed himself. That wasn't in
his DNA. Arturo "Thunder" Gatti fought until the end.
He always did.
But we often fight our demons in the dark. And in the darkness,
the truth may forever hide.
We may never know how Arturo Gatti really died. But I find comfort
in knowing that he's up there above, training on a square ring
of white clouds, waiting for his friend, "Irish" Micky
Ward, to join him again one day and thrill the heavens with Gatti/Ward
4 and more.
The thunder up above.
© 2011 Mark Workman
1.
Tommy
Morrison; Still Walking Tall (www.boxingscene.com)
Exclusive
Interview
2.
Pacquiao's
Revenge a Salute To a Nation (www.boxingscene.com)
3.
Zab
Judah Fails Mike Tyson History Lesson (www.boxingscene.com)
4.
Will Jermain
Taylor's Confidence Defeat Him? (www.boxingscene.com)
5.
Hopkins
Battles Taylor and the Kingdom of HBO (www.boxingscene.com)
6.
The
Return of Iron Mike Tyson (www.boxingscene.com)
7.
James
Toney; Heavyweight Menace or Mercenary? (www.boxingscene.com)
8.
Vitali
Klitschko Retires; Don King is The New Undisputed Champ (www.boxingscene.com)
9.
Vitali Klitschko's Burden of Proof (www.boxingscene.com)
10.
Lamon Brewster;
America's Heavyweight Hope (www.boxingscene.com)
11.
Antonio
Tarver's Road To Respect (www.boxingscene.com)
12.
Wladimir
Klitschko - Destination Destiny (www.boxingscene.com
13.
"Pretty
Boy" Floyd Mayweather - The Poison's Antidote (www.boxingscene.com)
