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The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 60

Publication:
The Boston Globei
Location:
Boston, Massachusetts
Issue Date:
Page:
60
Extracted Article Text (OCR)

6 THE I50ST0N SUNDAY GLOIiE JANUARY 5, 1997 Minds may By Ron Borges GI.OKE STAFF matter most Tape told. Ms tele first he would watch the tape two, three, four times a night wiiile he ran on his treadmill, always missing the ending. A Dana Rosenblatt didn't have to was doing. "It's hard to say what got me hit that night but when I did, my chin had nowhere to go. I've always been leery of that wild, overhand right.

It was a punch I never wanted to get hit by and I did." It is not, however, a punch he intends to get hit by again. Since that loss, Rosenblatt has w-orked on returning to his old defensive style with his hands tighter to his face instead of out in front of him to block incoming howitzers. It is a wise course of action, yet he knows, too, that he cannot be too defensive tonight. He can't be in a shell when Brown comes out after him, as he surely will, looking to make his own tape without an ending for Rosenblatt to watch. Celtics to After Pazienza loss, Rosenblatt will again try to measure up By Michael Holley GLOIIE STAFF IT That moment will be the true test because I 'n to his credit the Maiden middleweight has noC 3 cnosen a sou toucn ior ms comeback.

Kather, see the ending. He was there when it happened. It held no fascination. This went on for a month or so, watching and rewatching the first three rounds of his fight last August with Vinny Pazienza, rounds he was dominating the ay Michael Jordan dominates on his best nights. But the tape never got to the end, same as Rosenblatt.

Instead of a triumphant victory, Rosenblatt was derailed by a looping right that he never saw coming midway through the fourth round. It drove him to the floor, knocking the skin off the side of his face. When he got up, he was all gone. Everything was gone. His undefeated streak, his World Boxing Union middleweight title, his moment.

Faded into darkness. This Dana Rosenblatt did not need to see again. "Now I watch it once every two weeks with the end cut off," said Rosenblatt, who will restart his career tonight at the Roxy on Tremont Street when he takes on the still-formidable Glemvood Brown in a fight that will likely not begin until around 11 p.m. "I watch it because it was my best performance, but I don't need to see the end. That's like watching tapes of a guy winning the Publisher's Clearing House sweepstakes.

It's hard to sit back and eat that fight. I didn't win a fight I had the full ability to win. This is difficult to accept. This is difficult." Difficult, but not unlike other nights for other young fighters. Joe Louis had his nightmare with Max Schmeling.

Marvin Hagler had two in a row with tough Philly fighters who wouldn't have been able to carry his gym Today we peruse the self-heasketball psychology section of the NBA. Team: Boston Celtics. Exercise: Visualize more wins than losses, even though the season has been under way for more weeks than the team has Wins. This is a difficult assignment. Former Celtic Kevin McHale was asked if he could do it.

He took a deep breath and shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "It is tough; I know it's tough. Players have to have a goal to shoot for. You have to convince them that they are playing for something." McHale played in Boston for 13 seasons, and the team's worst record during that time was 48-34.

If these 6-23 Celtics continue their pace, they will have 34 losses by the end of this month. Ah, but we are becoming too negative, not focusing on the exercise. So imagine jazz. Imagine palm trees, sun and sand. Imagine taking a lead into the fourth quarter.

Imagine treating that lead with respect, not as if it is a plague needing to be quarantined. Antoine Walker says he can do this. He has already lost more games this year than he had in his life. So this 20-year-old rookie's psyche must be sagging, his disposition hardened by this season's results. "Not by a long shot," he said.

"We've only played 29 games. I know it isn't always going to be like this. I'm he is stepping in with a fighter with far more fights (47-7), reasonably dangerous punching power (27 KOs) and a recent loss to former world champion Simon Brown in which he ac- -quitted himself quite well. 1 This was not by chance, for Rosenblatt knows he has been accused by more than a few boxing wiseguys of being the creation of 1 manager Joe Lake's matchmaking more than anything else. -r.

Other than Pazienza, his toughest fight was with journeyman Troy Watson, which was the kind of fighter he needed to see a bit more of in his early development. He has that type of fighter again tonight and what he does with him, he understands, may deter- mine what he does with boxing after this and what his fans do with their money, because more than a few of them assumed the college 1 kid with the Star of David on his trunks would watch the tape of his first defeat and decide he didn't need to risk a reran. It was a perception that came as a shock to Rosenblatt, who never wavered in his re-solve to return to boxing after the disaster v- wwr -WW- im' Li.unm.Ji-. rog AP FILE PHOTO Dana Rosenblatt is ready to pick up the pieces and carry on. with Pazienza.

"I understand probability and I understand the magnitude of the punch I got hit by," Rosenblatt said. "Therefore my confidence is higher now than it was be-fore the loss. I saw how I handled him. "For a while, I was angry with myself, with my left hand. Why did I have it out like that? Why didn't I get more defensive the more I hit him? "I look upon this like a correction in the stock market.

Nothing goes straight up. There's always correcting. That's why it was odd to hear people saying I'd quit. "Why would I quit? I was a little taken aback when people would say, Tou're going to continue, as if there was a question. There was never any question about it.

"Everybody stumbles. Everybody makes mistakes. You can't be complete until you know the whole story. Now I know the whole story." Dana Rosenblatt know the whole story without having to see the ending an bag two years later. Ray Leonard had his with Roberto Duran in Montreal.

It happens in boxing. The young kid steps in against the apparently fading veteran, looks good for a time, grows confident (which is good) and then grows overconfident and too eager (which is bad) and ends up growing up the hard way, which as Rosenblatt understands now, is the only way you do it in boxing. "I think this loss will make me stronger," said Rosenblatt (28-1, 21 KOs). "You see guys 25-0, 30-0 and there's something missing. There's a place they haven't been yet.

Now I've been somewhere I hadn't been before and I'll be better for it. "Being on the upside is great but now I know what the other side is like and I didn't like it. I remember thinking in that fourth round that I just wanted to do thin already," Rosenblatt went on, lifting one arm above his head in the universal sign of victory. "Maybe I got overanxious and was looking to nail him and I got nailed instead. How much he got me angry and got me away from my jab I don't trying to take something from each game and learn from it and get better." There.

That's the spirit of the exercise. And it's good. Now we're going to throw a twist into the mix and see if the Celtics can continue their feelgood responses. The focus will be on attitudes toward an opponent. Quickly review the season.

Notice that the Celtics have played respectably against the Bulls but were blown away by the Kings and Bucks. No, it doesn't make sense on the surface. But look deeper and you will find that know, but next time I'll know to just stay boring and keep doing the same things I ending he'll be trying to rewrite, beginning tonight. ANTOINE WALKER Not discouraged din ms favors are. nppe Boxing ItKVTCHHHifr ike the rest of us, Wayne McCullough kept telling himself four pounds didn't make a bit of Hiffprpnna Rnt nnliL-o tVio rout I Jill.

II uiuuu. ii ftf ns was trvinir tn and give it up right away because making that weight was too much for him." Tinley ignored Futch because there was money to be made with title defenses back in Ireland, and McCullough agreed. But after the struggle with Bueno, Futch did not have to do any more convincing. "He looked good when he won the title in Japan and his first defense was not a tough fight for him so it was one of those things," Tinley says now. "But every time he fought at that weight it was like running a red light at an intersection and in Dublin vs.

Bueno, it really showed. I won't make that mistake twice." Instead, Tinley immediately moved McCullough up, so when he steps into the ring at the Hynes Convention Center Saturday night he will automatically relinquish the WBC bantamweight title. "Zaragoza has been down the line with good fighters for a long time," keep the four pounds off, not justify having already put them on. Ever since the 5-foot-7-inch Irishman won the World Boxing Council bantamweight title from Yasuei Yakushiji in 1995, trainer Eddie Futch kept insisting he move up four pounds to the super bantamweight division before the fight to stay at 118 cost him a bigger fight. But McCullough refused, on the advice of his manager, Mat Tinley, and struggled on, twice defending the 118-pound championship but with a nearly calamitous outcome in Ireland last the jCeltics play seamlessly when they sense that a team (hat should easily defeat them will easily defeat them.

And when they don't have that fear? They become rugged individualists in a game that requires five players working together. 'il think I have finally realized that I can't fix things by myself," captain Rick Fox said. "When things went wrong, I think I would try to fix them real fast. I think we all have to realize that one of us isn't going to fix it." This is true. And while they shouldn't do it immediately (for fear they will ruin this exercise), the Celtics may want to begin looking at the standings.

Only one (earn, the Vancouver Grizzlies, has a worse record. So whenever the Celtics find themselves overwhelmed by ego and believing that there are teams they should automatically beat, they should go to those black-and-white figures that scream out an undeniable truth: 6-23. But there are always shards of hope in the worst times. So we bring another element to the exercise: Coaches, with championships, who have been in similar situations. As a player, M.L.

Care's worst Celtic team was 56-26. K.C. Jones' worst as a coach or player was 54-26. Dennis Johnson had some great years with the Celtics, but long before he got here, he was on a tattered Seattle Super-Sonics team. Johnson recalls that the 1977-78 Sonics "got off to a pretty rough start, something like 6-18." Then they click.

They went 41-17 after that and went all the way to the Finals, where they lost in seven games to the Bullets of Elvin Hayes, Bob Dandridge and Mitch Kup-chak. They won the title the next season. That's not to say the Celtics will right themselves, replace the Bulls and get to the Finals against the Rockets, Jazz, Sonics or Lakers. But the attitude of the Sonics had plenty to do with their reversal. FWe were a team" Johnson said.

"A good team." 1 1 Once again, the Celtics might want to imagine jazz, palms, sun and sand. And think about Johnson's state- ment. Futch said. "He knows what it takes to remain a champion. He's a good, good puncher for 122 pounds but I have the feeling Wayne's style, strength, and persistence will take him over.

That dogged at March against Jose Bueno. That fight turned into a war that ended in McCullough winning a close decision and ending his days of fighting the scales. Next Saturday night, McCullough will come to Boston to fight for $500,000 and the WBC super bantamweight title held by the venerable Daniel Zaragoza. Zaragoza is a man who refuses to give in to age as staunchly as McCullough disqualified. That night boxing's greatest living trainer said, "enough," and he hasn't heard from Bowe or Rock Newman, Bowe's manager, since and isn't surprised by that, just as he wasn't surprised to see Bowe knocked around the ring by Golota in their rematch before the big Polish heavyweight was again disqualified for repeated low blows.

"It was very sad to see him come out fighting like an amateur," Futch said. "He was missing punches by a foot. He was lying on the ropes standing straight up with his shoulder blades on the ropes, an easy target. "Those are things you're not supposed to forget even though whether you can still do them well enough is another matter." When Bowe came out of the 1988 Olympics, few wanted to handle him. Boxing people felt he was unmotivated, lazy if you will.

But Futch agreed to take him on and Bowe spent three years in the gym. From 1988-92 he was never away from Futch's training for more than two weeks. He was active and fit, a 236-pound heavyweight with size, movement, power and a fighter's heart. Then he won the title and things began to fall apart, in Futch's view. "When he beat Jesse Ferguson in his second title defense, he was as near to being a great fighter as you could be," Futch said.

"The way he destroyed Ferguson indicated to me that he could be great. "So what happened? They read: Newman took him to Somalia. They tooliliim to South Africa. They took him to Italy ta meet the Pope. He was out of the gym for five months and when he got back they expected him to be ready to fight in seven weeks.

What had taken three years to develojithey expected to come back in seven weeks. It wras impossible." The decline intensified when Bowe cut his eye in his second day of sparring, the first cut of his career. He as out tw more months, and hen he came back he sprained his back within two weeks, and Futch knows why. "The muscles that had been so firm began to let him down," Futch said, "lie was never the same after that. I tried to stay and reconstruct this perfect body and this perfect fighting style but I'd come to cam) and somebody new would be in charge of various parts of his training.

"I tried to stay until I knew I had to go. When my effectiveness started dis- appear I had to go. When my ideas we're being superseded it was time to go." And so Futch's longtime aide, The! Torrence, took over. It made no difference, and although Torrence now makes the excuses, citing Golota's repeated use of low blows as the major cause 'of Bowe's poor performance, even he concedes it was more than 'that. "This guy took a hell of a whacking below the belt," Torrence said.

"He totally destroyed this guy's ability to perforni' as he was trained to do. But Riddidk didn't do what he was supposed to do either, even before the first bell." Torrence refused to elaborate but Futch knew the feeling. He knew what it! was like to tell a man what to do and see his words ignored or overruled by people who didn't know a left hook from a fish hook. That's why he knew what he would see that night when Bowe stepped in for the rematch. He would see a fighter who could have been somebody but isn't.

i "He needs to rest, then go back to the gym and have some very thorough tests, done to see if he's physically able to perform any more," Futch said. "From what I see I'd say no. Maybe my opinion-is. prejudiced but I hope not. I have an interest in Riddick at heart, but we haven't exchanged one word since that time 8,0 all I know is what I'm hear.

And what' I see." Local bleatings Vincent Phillips has replaced former, welterweight champion Crisanto Espana in the semi-main event Saturday night.on the HBO After Dark card at the Hynes Phillips squares off with Romallis Ellis. (23-1, 17 KOs) in a junior middleweight fight with a story line. Ellis, who won. bronze medal in Seoul in 1988, is coining" back from a terrible car accident in which he was hit while crossing the road and suffered severe head and log injur-' ies. lie was on the shelf for 10 months and now is one win into his comeback and a stirring one it was.

lie trailed IV' dro Sanchez into the final round before scoring a dramatic lOth-round KO Tune in USA Network Tuesday night to see if the Capo Cod's Kippy Digits (27 1); can gain a measuiv of revenge from Tony Martin CX 5 1) in a rematch froiti the Blue Horizon in Philadelphia. It will' be a fight, not an argument, for Diggs'' North American Boxing Federation welterweight title Boh Arum has signed' 17 year old Tiverton, it. heavyweight Joshua ItiH-ha, who was 40-4 as an ania-tour. tack wears people down. he was 118, it was a precarious undertaking.

Now, ab-this weight, he's so much stronger." So much stronger that he could get into this fineN dining thing and keep mov EDDIE FUTCH Saddened by Bowe 1 refused to give in to calo- lies. At 38, he has won nine of his last 10 fights and not lost since 1993, yet the 26-year-old McCullough believes he has a stronger ally than Zara-goza's experience. He has four pounds of new muscle going for him. "I fought at 122 pounds eight times before I won the bantamweight title and I had a higher knockout ratio than at 118," the Belfast native explained. "I'll be stronger for this fight.

I don't have to worry now about how much water I take in. Four pounds isn't much but it can kill your body at 118." That is a point Futch was trying to make from the moment McCullough seized his opportunity in Tokyo on July 30, 1995, and added his first world title to the silver medal he won at the 1992 Olympics. "He was really straining himself making that bantamweight limit," Futch ing on up to 126 pounds to challenge for a third world title. But at the moment, four pounds and one night with Daniel Zaragoza are enough to satisfy Wayne McCullough's appetite. Futch fears worst Futch has seen all there is to see in boxing, so there were no surprises for him last month when he sat in silence in front.

of his television and watched Rid-dick Bowe get destroyed for the second time by Andrew Golota. There was only sadness. Futch had trained Bowe from the stall, taking him from raw recruit to the heavyweight championship of the world and, he believes, the doorstep of greatness. But then it began to unravel and when he couldn't stand it anymore, he left, alking out after Bowe waddled into the ring at 253 pounds for his first fight with Golota last July and looked terrible at tlw FleetCeirter fe TV, radio: SportsChannel, WEEI (850), 7:30 p.m. Scoring: Kevin Johnson 16.0, Danny Manning .14.4, Wesley Person 10.6.

Rebounding: Hot Rod Williams 7.9, Manning 6.6, Mark Bryant 4.5. Assists: Jason Kidd 9.1. Johnson 8.0, Steve Nash 3.1. Head to head This is the first meeting of the season. The teams split i two games last year, with the Celtics prevailing at home, J13-109.

Miscellany Newly acquired Kidd will be sitting this one out. He was placed on the injured list Dec. 30 after fracturing his right collarbone against the Vancouver Grizzlies Phoenix has won six of the last 10 meetings between the teams The Suns have at least one thing in common with the Celtics last place (10-21) Danny Ainge is 10-13 since assum-' ing control of the Suns Nov. 15 Another player who is somewhat familiar with the local surroundings is former Celtic Joe Kleine, who is averaging 3.8 points in limited action. recalled.

for one, didn't want to see i him hold that title. I wanted him to witit despite avoiding a loss when Golota wSs.

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