Oscar Too Much For Gutsy Gatti
Sunday,March 25,2001
by WALLACE MATTHEWS
LAS VEGAS - If ever a prizefight could be characterized as both a mismatch and a great battle, last night's meeting of Oscar De La Hoya and Arturo Gatti was that fight.
Not in terms of skill, or even competitiveness, because from the time De la Hoya nearly decapitated Gatti with a left hook in the final seconds of round one, there was no logical reason to believe Gatti could win the fight.
And yet, his tenacity and courage in the face of certain defeat almost made you believe he was capable of pulling off the upset, right up to the time that his corner threw in the towel, saving him from the kind of beating Gatti would never spare himself from.
"If I don't stop the fight, he'll get killed," said Hector Roca, Gatti's trainer. "He'd never stop the fight himself."
Not even on a night in which De La Hoya, always his superior in talent, seemed bent on matching him in ferocity, as well.
De La Hoya's first fight under the tutelage of Floyd Mayweather Sr. was a qualified success, in that it came at the expense of an opponent Mayweather himself had characterized as "a perfect guy for us to practice on."
It turned out to be target practice for De La Hoya, even if Gatti was never a very docile target.
De La Hoya dropped Gatti in the first round, cut him badly under the eye in the second, had him gasping from body shots and doing something Gatti considers a mortal sin, which is retreat.
But until Gatti's corner threw in the rag after 76 brutal seconds of round five, it was never assured that De La Hoya would be able to finish the job before the end of the scheduled 12-round bout.
The cuts weren't a factor, nor were the guts. It all came down to skill, of which De La Hoya simply had too much for Gatti.
"I knew Gatti would be tough," De La Hoya (33-2, 27 KOs) said. "He's a tough Italian kid."
Actually, Gatti is a Canadian of Italian ancestry who grew up in Montreal and has done much of his fighting out of Jersey City.
But the way he fought last night recalled another brawler of Italian ancestry, Rocky Graziano, the lion of the Lower East Side.
In the process, he brought out the Tony Zale in De La Hoya, who too often has fought with all the passion of Tony Orlando.
Coming off losses in two of his last three fights, to Shane Mosley and Felix Trinidad, De La Hoya acknowledged he needed to "look spectacular" against Gatti, and he did.
"I'm not even close to becoming as good a fighter as I can be," said a jubilant De La Hoya, who was coming off a loss to Mosley in his last fight. "This is only my first fight with Mayweather. We still have a long way to go."
This week, De La Hoya's praise of Mayweather was exceeded only by Mayweather's praise of himself.
But last night, they looked like a pretty good combination, as potent as the 1-2s that Oscar repeatedly bounced off Gatti's granite jaw.
After the first-round knockdown, Gatti somehow remained on his feet, but while his punches were bouncing off the bigger (5-foot-11 to 5-7) De La Hoya, Oscar's punches clearly were taking a toll on him.
"I never felt like I caught him flush," Gatti (33-5) said.
Then, he added the kind of joke that sums up the essence of Arturo Gatti. "I caught him with one left hook," Gatti said. "But I never got a chance to follow it up with a knee."
And after the fight, Gatti, the kind of rambunctious ladies man De La Hoya is reputed to be, was told he would be taken to Valley Hospital in a limousine in the company of a nurse.
"Can we keep the limo for the night?" he cracked.
A cautious first round exploded when De La Hoya snapped a left hook into Gatti's chin with 19 seconds left in the first round, dropping him for a seven-count.
Gatti, whose career has been plagued by cuts, came out with a new one under his right eye to start the second round. By the end of the third, Gatti was bleeding heavily from his right cheek. He landed several sharp left hooks and overhand rights, but only could do damage with his head, when an accidental butt at the end of the fourth left De La Hoya with a nick over his right eye.
By the fifth round, De La Hoya was fighting with his hands at his waist, inviting the eager Gatti to rush into a knockout punch. De La Hoya's left-right to the body left Gatti doubled over and wincing, and a blazing two-handed flurry to the head left Gatti's corner with no choice but to save its fighter from himself.
"I could have kept going, but I respect my corner's judgment," Gatti said. "Oscar has a pretty good defense, and I was surprised by his hand speed. He just had faster hands than me."
De La Hoya just had more of everything than Gatti, except for guts. But the man who ran from Trinidad never ran from Gatti last night. According to PunchStat, De La Hoya landed 195 of 313 punches; Gatti could only connect with 87 of 308.
"The thing that really surprised me was his hand speed," Gatti said. "His hands were just faster than mine."
De La Hoya attributed the improvement to his association with Mayweather, a serviceable welterweight in an era dominated by Leonard, Hearns and Duran, but a self-proclaimed training wizard.
"Before Mayweather, I wasn't doing nothing in training," De La Hoya had said before the fight. "If I had him from the beginning of my career, I would still be undefeated, I would still be a champion."
Instead, he will have to fight his way back up, beginning with a challenge to WBC welterweight champion Javier Castellejo in June.
Then, he wants to redeem himself against Mosley and Trinidad.
"I know I have to beat Trinidad, and I have to beat Mosley," De La Hoya said. "I won't be happy until I do."
In the meantime, he could be happy with his performance last night.
For one night at least, Oscar De La Hoya was more than just another pretty face. |
