Page case a warning to older fighters
At the height of his improbable comeback, George Foreman liked to claim that "40 is not a death sentence."
On Nov. 5, 1994, Foreman, then 45, won the heavyweight championship for a second time when he launched a right hand in the 10th round that turned out the lights on WBA/IBF champion Michael Moorer. Aging fighters ever since have hoped to capture some of Big George's late-career magic.
But, with former WBC champ Greg Page barely clinging to life in a Cincinnati hospital after surgery to remove a blood clot in his brain, maybe Big George's maxim should be revisited. Being 40-plus isn't necessarily a death sentence for fighters, but it could be a form of Russian roulette.
"There's no exact science to knowing what's best and safest for individual fighters," ESPN2 analyst Teddy Atlas said after Page, 42, was stopped in 10 rounds by 24-year-old Dale Crowe March 9 in Erlanger, Ky. "But there's no doubt these older guys are in a higher-risk category.
"All of them point to what George Foreman did in his 40s, but George was very special. . . almost an anomaly. And remember, he took no punches at all for 10 years [following his 1977 retirement]."
Page - who earned a piddling $1,500 for his bout with Crowe - was very much on the mind of two-time former heavyweight champ Tim Witherspoon, who continues to soldier on at age 43.
Witherspoon (49-10-1, 34 KOs), who takes on Eliecer Castillo (20-1-1, 10 KOs) March 31 at Bally's Park Place in Atlantic City, won the first of his two world titles against Page, whom he outpointed on March 9, 1984. He lost a rematch to Page on June 18, 1999, when, while leading on the scorecards, his back went out in the seventh round and he could not continue.
"I know him good," Witherspoon, a South Philadelphia native, said of Page. "I'm very sad this thing happened to him, but I can't really say it's a shock. When I fought him the last time, he wasn't sharp like he used to be."
Not surprising, 'Spoon sees himself more as a potential Foreman success story than a potential Page tragedy.
"I'm not saying it can't happen to me, but my situation and Greg's are not the same," said Witherspoon, who acknowledged he is hanging on in boxing for financial reasons. "I keep my hands up; he never did. I never got hit with the kind of punches Greg did. I've never taken bad beatings. I've never been cut.
"I agree that guys past a certain age should be tested regularly, but I took all kinds of medical tests and passed them all with flying colors.
"It may be a little too late [to become a contender again], but I'm going to give it a try. If and when I feel like it ain't going to work, I'll be the first to say I should stop."
Witherspoon is so sure that his time has not come, he confidently predicted he "would knock out [newly crowned WBA champion] John Ruiz, there's no doubt of that in my mind."
Atlas wonders if "Terrible Tim" isn't selling himself a bill of goods.
"I guess the last time I saw Timmy was on tape, against [Andrew] Golota a couple of years ago," Atlas said of 'Spoon's unanimous-decision loss on Oct. 2, 1998. "He looked bad - very slow, very plodding, not able to pull the trigger on punches.
"I can't believe he's gotten better since then."
Remember the Passport
Longtime IBF middleweight champion Bernard "The Executioner" Hopkins always has cited Marvelous Marvin Hagler, the last man to hold the undisputed 160-pound title, as his role model.
"I met Hagler last summer in Canastota, N.Y., at the International Boxing Hall of Fame," said Hopkins (38-2-1, 28 KOs), who takes on WBC champ Keith Holmes (35-2, 23 KOs) April 14 in New York's Madison Square Garden, the opening round in a three-bout series that will produce the division's first undisputed titlist in 13 years.
"We talked. Our rooms were right next to each other. He told me to hang in there, that things would open up for me like they opened up for him. And they have."
Hopkins said he will do everything in his power to ensure that Hagler, now a movie actor in Italy, attends his bout with Holmes, as well as for what he hopes is a Sept. 15 showdown against the winner of the other middleweight semifinal, on May 12, which pits WBA champ William Joppy (32-1-1, 24 KOs) against WBA/IBF junior middleweight king Felix Trinidad (39-0, 32 KOs).
"Let Marvin put down some Italian bread and olive oil and come back to the United States to see Bernard Hopkins unify the title," the North Philadelphia native said. "I'll pay for his airplane ticket and put him in the best hotel suite so he can watch me do to Holmes what he did to Tommy Hearns." |
