This 'Rhino' easily dehorned
3/25/2001
LAS VEGAS - The Black Rhino was ready to rumble Friday night. So said the lyrically named Clifford Etienne, who is one in the same.
But he did not rumble. He stumbled. Stumbled and fell seven times in eight rounds against a guy with only 10 knockouts in his career. Stumbled when he wanted to rumble and thus tumbled from the edge of boxing's big money in less than 24 minutes.
''Etienne wasn't the guy we saw fight [Lawrence] Clay-Bey,'' said disappointed Showtime executive Jay Larkin after Etienne had been stopped by Fres Oquendo in the eighth round of the scheduled 10-round heavyweight fight at Texas Station.
After the November fight with Clay-Bey, Larkin signed Etienne to a three-fight deal, a precursor to a big-money cable deal if things work out.
But they did not work out. The Black Rhino's night ended under observation at Valley Hospital.
''He showed guts and it was great TV, so if he wants another shot we'd probably give it to him, but he was very, very disappointing,'' Larkin said. ''It didn't look like a fight. It looked like a tough-man contest.
''He showed nothing of a professional fighter in there. I don't know what happened between those two fights.''
Three times Etienne went down in the first round Friday from soft punches to the back of what is apparently a glass head.
By the end of three rounds, he'd been down five times and already needed a knockout to win. Frankly, it was a ridiculous performance because while Etienne went down seven times before referee Jay Nady stopped the fight at the insistence of Etienne's corner, all it proved was that The Black Rhino can't fight and Oquendo can't punch.
In other words, two undefeated guys lost Friday night, not one.
''Would we use Oquendo again?'' Larkin said. ''Why? He was awful. He just wasn't as bad as Rhino.''
Before the fight, it was hoped Etienne might be one of several rising new faces on the heavyweight scene, joining newly crowned World Boxing Association champion John Ruiz, World Boxing Organization titleholder Wladimir Klitschko, and hot contender Lance ''Mount'' Whitaker. They had brought new blood to a division that had grown long in the tooth with the lengthy reigns of Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield and the shadow of Mike Tyson.
Beyond those three, there has been a dry hole of talent among the heavyweights. David Tua proved to be a portly and pleasant fraud when his moment came against Lewis; Michael Grant proved to be a taller, leaner version of Tua; Michael Moorer was too mentally fractured to last for long; Ike Ibeabuchi is now locked away; and Andrew Golota ... what can you say about The Foul Pole except that he earned that sobriquet?
Certainly other names have been around for some time. Kirk Johnson, Hasim Rahman, Derrick Jefferson, and Chris Byrd are all regularly mentioned as contenders, and Oleg Maskaev is, too. Yet none of these second-tier heavyweights carries the sweet smell of someone special.
Etienne seemed possibly different, though. It was too early to know if he was special until the fight with Oquendo. But he was at least a guy with a story and a willingness to punch until you dropped or he dropped.
''I'm an aggressive fighter,'' said the 31-year-old ex-con, who spent 10 years in Angola Prison in Louisiana for what he describes as ''strong-armed robbery.''
Etienne was 17 at the time and being courted by colleges like LSU and Nebraska for his potential as a linebacker until the night he and four friends decided to rob the patrons of a mall in New Iberia, La. That decision changed everything. Etienne never got to play his senior year of high school football. What he got instead was a 40-year prison sentence.
When you ask him about that, he says, ''I did the wrong thing. I tell kids to listen to their parents. Don't listen to your so-called friends.''
Etienne was released into the care of former New Orleans police officer Les Bonano, who is now a boxing promoter.
Etienne was an instant hit in a prison boxing ring, beating 23 of the first 24 inmates he faced before a deal was made to release him when a New Orleans city councilman and sports agent, Eddie Sapir, got wind of his talent.
He entered the ring Friday night with a carefully constructed 19-0 record and 13 knockouts but he was stepping up slightly in competition against Oquendo (20-0).
The Clay-Bey fight showed he lacks the one-punch power of a Tyson, but it also made clear why he chose the nickname he has.
''I came up with my nickname while I was in prison,'' Etienne said. ''After doing some research on my own, I picked Rhino because rhinos are relentless. They only know one way to go. Forward. That best describes my style in the ring.
''People think I'm just a wild slugger, but I'm a puncher-boxer. I know I'm going to get hit, but if I don't get hit, I haven't been in a fight. My attitude in the ring is not to be outdone. I know if I throw punches, I will not be outdone.''
He wasn't, until Oquendo threw first and hit him on the back of the head with a right hand early in the first round. Down he went on one knee, not apparently hurt but already in submission. That would be repeated twice more in the first round, once in each the second and third, again in the seventh, and one final time in the eighth, more surrendering to momentary shock than being drilled to the floor.
''I was never hurt,'' Etienne said before he left for the hospital. ''I got back up. But I have to give him credit. He was tougher than I thought. I'd fight him again. I'd fight him tomorrow.''
Short jabs
Tua made an odd comeback Friday night from his one-sided loss to Lewis last November that he called ''embarrassing.'' He knocked out Danell Nicholson with sweeping left hooks that twice flattened Nicholson before referee Joe Cortez stopped the fight 34 seconds into the sixth round. Before those punches, Nicholson had controlled Tua the same way Lewis had, with a long jab and some body punches. Nicholson lacked Lewis's heavy hands so Tua remained relentless this time. He kept marching forward, winging his trademark wild punches until one exploded off Nicholson's chin late in the fifth round and dropped him flat. He got up but was not the same and when Tua trapped him on the ropes and landed another huge hook early in the sixth round, Nicholson went down in a heap. Cortez stopped the fight at that moment. Nicholson protested, but it was not until five minutes later when he regained his senses. Tua's power was obvious once again but so, too, was his vulnerability. He will fight once more to see if he can win back the International Boxing Federation's No. 1 ranking. If he gets it though, so what? It would only mean another fight with Lewis, and nothing Tua showed Friday indicated a second fight would be any different than the first unless he gets lucky. Very lucky ... |
