The “Thunder” before the storm

 

By Mike Cassell (PBR) (6/28/2006)

                            I will never for get the first time I met Arturo “Thunder” Gatti.  It was 1991 and an unusually humid night in Philadelphia’s legendary Blue Horizon.  My seat had at least three good legs, and my beer was cold enough to keep some of the early June heat off me.  The USA NETWORK was covering the fight, for its weekly boxing show “Tuesday Night Fights”. I had heard some rumblings about a kid from Canada that was tearing through the amateur circuit up there, and that he fought in a style that resembled Jake La Motta and Carmine Basillio. I watched as this young fighter entered the ring. There was no fanfare, there was barely an announcement, but you could see that he carried himself with a controlled underlying confidence. He did not look like a kid making his pro debut. I cannot tell you who he fought that night, I can however tell you, he proceeded to knock him out in a, Pennsylvania record, 19 seconds. It was a brutal 19 seconds. Gatti attack immediately, with no real regard for defense. He walked through a few punches right on the chin, and proceeded to maul and destroy his opponent.  There was an eerie silence, then a roar from the crowd. I got to talk to him briefly after the fight, and by all accounts he seemed like a nice and normal young kid, but when I began to discuss boxing, his smiled shifted, and he was all business. His next fight in Newark NJ. was an equally impressive knockout in 28 seconds.  Since that night in Philadelphia, he has become a fan favorite, not for breaking records, but for being willing to step up, and no matter what, give it everything, even if that means losing. His battle’s With Micky Ward were classic, which kept old fight fans, with memories of Jake La Motta/Irish Jack Murphy, glued to their seats, and made a whole new generation of fight fans yelling for more. It was not about who won, but about the journey itself.

 I think he believes that if he is in a fight that he is going to lose, he is going to look good doing it.

 

    “Arturo won his pro debut [in June 1991], and then got a swing bout on the USA Network where he knocked his opponent out in 19 seconds,” Lynch said. “The fight was at the Blue Horizon and it set a Pennsylvania record. It made all the news stations.”

 

 

Mike Cassell

Philadelphiaboxingreport.com

Philaboxingreport@yahoo.com