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Thursday, March 15, 2007
Holyfield a shadow (boxer) of former self
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Jeff Schultz
The latest comeback has seen Evander Holyfield work his way down the Texas food chain. First came Dallas. Then San Antonio. Now Corpus Christi. Next stop: Amarillo?
Just as well. Holyfield has shrunk in stature, even relative to the junkyard that is boxing in general and the heavyweight division in particular.
Corpus Christi? Perfect. This is Holyfield today. He fights nobodies. He fights in dust bowls. He fights for almost nothing. Or less.
Seriously. If Holyfield doesn’t take a $250,000 loss by fighting Vinny Maddalone on Saturday night, it will be a step forward financially. He was supposed to receive a $2 million purse to fight Fres Oquendo last November in San Antonio.
“I haven’t seen a penny,” he said by phone.
He was supposed to get $250,000 for training expenses. What happened to that?
“My manager took off with it,” he said.
You want to make a comeback in boxing, there’s a price. It starts with a swan dive into the sport’s cesspool.
The aforementioned manager was somebody named George Hutson from Houston. He worked his way into Holyfield’s good graces before the comeback fight against Jeremy Bates in Dallas. This same George Hutson was very eager to hand me his fresh new “Real Deal Events LLC” business card. He told me all of the potential bidders to host Holyfield’s next bout. Europe. China. Neptune.
I tried to phone Hutson Thursday. The office number was disconnected. The cell number was disconnected. There was a listing for a George Hutson in Houston. I dialed. But the man who answered assured me he wasn’t the one I was looking for. I believed him. I’m a sucker.
Holyfield says it was Hutson who convinced him to sign a deal as co-promoter with Murad Muhammad, making him financially liable for the card in San Antonio.
“I told George Hutson, ‘I know I’m a co-promoter but I’m also a fighter. I have to have a guarantee,’ ” Holyfield said. “Now we just have to wait and see what happens. I’m trying to get this fight out of the way first because I didn’t want to spend time going back and forth to court.”
Holyfield also claims Hutson pocketed the training expenses that Muhammad gave the manager. He blames Hutson for poisoning the relationship with Fox Sports Net, which was a partner in the last two fights but not this one. He says Hutson misrepresented himself as an attorney.
Holyfield says he learned all this three weeks before the Oquendo fight. So he fired Hutson. The subsequent unraveling of the promotion led to sponsors pulling out and the promotion taking a financial bath. It didn’t help, of course, that Holyfield’s name alone just doesn’t sell like it used to.
Which us brings to Saturday’s fight. The only reason it has received any attention is because Holyfield has been linked to a steroids and HGH investigation. Yes, he is 2-0 since a two-year layoff. But he knocked out an insurance agent (Bates). His reflexes looked shot against Oquendo (12-round decision).
Holyfield should win Saturday, but look who he’s fighting. Maddalone is a former minor-league pitcher and Tough Man competitor. He is a member of the Teamsters Local 282 as a truck driver. He is 27-3, but only eight of his 27 wins have come over opponents with winning records. And those eight — nobody has heard of them, either.
Maddalone did beat somebody named Shannon Miller. I’m assuming it wasn’t the former gymnast, because, like, she’s 5 feet 1, and the fight went to the fifth round.
Holyfield isn’t even the biggest sports story in Corpus Christi this week. The Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders are in the NCAA tournament today. Holyfield gave them a pep talk during a rally Tuesday.
The Islanders play Wisconsin today. Holyfield wants to win back all of the heavyweight belts. Even against the defective heavyweight field, I think I like the Islanders’ chances better.
Asked what a win Saturday would lead to, Holyfield said: “There’s nothing certain. But, you know, if people are looking to make some money, they might be interested in fighting me.”
He may want to check the freshness date on that quote.
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Jackets eager to seize an opportunity
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Mark Bradley
Chicago — The path isn’t all that different: Start in a chilly Midwestern city off Lake Michigan, advance to St. Louis, finish beneath a big Southern dome. The team, however, is.
Georgia Tech has one man who worked a minute in the stirring run to the 2004 Final Four in San Antonio, and that’s exactly how much time Mario West saw in the six games of that tournament — one minute in Round 1 against Northern Iowa. “It was a while back,” West conceded Thursday.
So far back he couldn’t recall the minute? Hardly. It came at the end of the first half, West being inserted for the same reason he’s inserted now — defense. Did Northern Iowa score in that minute? No, West said. And was he the epitome of cool in his NCAA debut? Hardly.
“I was kind of running around,” he said. “I felt lost. I had so much adrenaline, a lot of energy.”
All the Jackets players did then. And, if West is any judge, all of them do now. “It’s kind of like deja vu,” he said. “We’re very excited. It’s tournament time right now.”
On the dais at the United Center, West threw his arms around Jeremis Smith and Javaris Crittenton, who were seated alongside. “I’m happy to be here with this group of guys,” he said. “We’ve worked really hard.”
The feeling persists that Tech is about to play its best basketball of a curious season. The Jackets spent January digging themselves a hole and February clambering out, and just the realization that they’ve reached the Big Dance — something last season’s team didn’t do, and something Chris Bosh’s and Jarrett Jack’s team of 2002-03 couldn’t do — could have a galvanizing effect. The pressure’s off. An opportunity is at hand.
West again: “We’re a very confident team.”
The Jackets play UNLV today, and Tech is in the curious position of being the lower seed but the betting-line favorite. (Since the lines are made in Las Vegas, shouldn’t that tell us something?) The Rebels’ best victories have come against BYU and Texas Tech, which were seeded No. 8 and No. 10 in this tournament; Tech has beaten North Carolina and Memphis, a No. 1 and a No. 2.
If the Jackets play any defense — and there’s no reason such a premise should be iffy at this time of the year — they should win today. They have better players and just as good a coach. (Lon Kruger could do nothing with the Hawks, but he gets the most out of collegians wherever he goes.) Measuring just on talent, these Jackets are better than the ones who played for the national championship three years ago. But that team had something this team has yet to find: It had a toughness of spirit, a consistency of effort. That team would never have yielded 114 points to Wake Forest in March.
That said, this team has a rallying point that the 2003-04 Jackets didn’t, a rallying point no other team in this tournament possesses. Everyone else is playing to get to Atlanta. Win four games and Georgia Tech will be playing in its hometown.
Do the Jackets dare to dream such a sweet dream? “We’re trying to take it one game at a time,” said Crittenton, already an old pro with the clichés. “You can’t skip steps. UNLV is a great team.”
Paul Hewitt, ever the raging optimist, conceded he’d given the matter some thought, even if he hadn’t discussed it with his players. “Every time you’d drive by the Georgia Dome, you’d think, ‘Boy, that’s a natural possibility,’ ” Hewitt said. “But now that we’re in the tournament, it’s the furthest thing from our mind.”
It’s the furthest thing right now, but if the Jackets beat UNLV and should topple Wisconsin on Sunday, the scenario will seem somewhat more tangible. Win twice this weekend and Georgia Tech will be, figuratively and literally, halfway home.
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