faw months ago, Brt sug gested my next assignment {oc FIGHT GAME: an exhaustive exploration nto the work ofthe knockout Now, !doubt any fighter worthy of his mouth pice would have «problem king you chou his ‘nos bli! knockout performance. Hel enhus- aaticalyprovdo you wth an account worthy ofon Dunphy, Howard Cosell and Jim Lamply, com- bined, king you throught blow-by low up othe ‘very second he scored the knockout However, when it comes to descibing the time be was the victim ofthe knockout, Mz Ethusiasms tongue isnt as liberal with the details For obvious reasons ths is hardy opic any fighters comfort able with. And yous ul sno exception speic- Iywhen asked todos in print. Call me acowardif you wil, but hod less than 0 interest in reliving my frightening knockout loss to Herbie Hide, Nor inthe box hidden on the top shelf omy livin oom closet containing a YES copy of my darkest hou It held personal torment forme. ‘Understand twas not so much the subject ma teras the reluctance lo bare the very essence of vu nerablity in «profession where vulnerailiy is masked and denied. And being former boxer does 1texempt me fom those emotions. n fc, it makes neal the more quali to address them. ag Cera fone has his Set tg pores ees) roy ") Races Fighters ight to knock ther ighters down; and, if theyre good enough, to knock them out. Converse Iy the law of averages clmost guarantees tha if « fighter fights long enough—or, for that matter, fr too long—he, too, will be the victim ofthe single ‘most humbling and devastating experience an ath lete cam ever face, that of being knocked cut So, as much as I'd like to avoid the subject, allow me, dea reader, tobe your qualified Dante as Tescott you trough the many levels of boxing Hel that beset fighter who has been knocked out was a17-yearcld heavyweight fighting inthe somi-fncs ofthe 1983 Now York City Golden Gloves and the only thing that shod between amp and the most coveted amateur boring pie ths sido ofan Olympic gold modal was Ronald Tamer. Only the previous week, Mr. Turner had clob- bred my older brother, Winston ith an ovrhand right Now itbecame my duty to avenge the honor o the Brothers Bont—then spelled with only one "* ot only was [smaller than my brother, but at 185 pounds, [was also substantially smaller than Ma Turner, who in those days before the Golden Gloves broke the hecrymeight division into heay- eight and super heavy, weighed in ct arebust and menacing 25 Butsizemadeno nevermind tome, [had chard By MICHAEL BENTT on for Mr Turner. Shit Thad major score to set with him that night at Madison Square Garden's FeltForum. But revong or no that ig Maphucka pu that same damn ovechand right upside my head inthe second round. [can sil remember lying on my back, unaware of where I was, asking mysell Lights...Aren lights supposed to be on the ceil ing. df thoy ar, why am I lookin’ ot 'em?..And why the hell dof hear someone couata’™ lkyoute amascchist and have the urge fo expe rience th lowest degree of humiliation and sel pity git you’ ass knocked out. defy anyone to find a (quicker route to Humble Pie Blvd ow, come with me as I take you back {orto the Muhammad Al: George Fore- nan “Rumble in the Jungle” And, further, forthe purpose of illustrating exactly what I'm talking As defonding champion, you have destroyed If every man who has ever given your aging opponent Aificalty. Ken Noton: you paralyaad him with your malevolent glare and crunching punch in two, Joe Fraier against one ofthe grectost ring wartos of alltime, you never gave the always-forward-mov- | ‘ng “Stokn' Joe" achanc, iting him hard enough to knock Brotha through a brick wall and smoke ff him in two. I That fool Ali can do all the talkin’ he wants and f cam pray to Alla, Buddha, Jehovah and Yohweh as such os he wans, but youand al the expers— ‘now he dosn't have «damned prayer. i ‘ndcll he while hes training this fabled Doe Loko, Pennsylvania tring foiity and muttrngf his manta, "To win, all have todos suffer” youre traning just as diligent Bu the months ou spend stootng and frying yourself with an insuperable physial, psychological and emotional resolve ‘would soon be nates For you would be no mach forthe monkoy that would ride your back and damn near drive you tothe mad house, th result of Als raster psyche campaign, on which lasted fom the time the fight was announced upto, and includ ing, the fateful seventh round. That was the rund0 debut was so or eld McClellan, Dennis And ichilles ten down on nko cmomeat ourjob. Thon csetime ine sir othe of Kroak che! Moorer, sand Frankie strained my right se foot | came going up for «rebound, but whoer On March 19, 1994, the author (right) was Pree reese Ct are goto Pieter ny PEST pened Proven ocd Peers a's it was, they pulled i ut f cme dowa hard. have never expe f seating pain that gripped me on that highs gym floor that evening And! as excruciating os the pain was, | Th would be soveral more wooks belore my finaly healed andthe most ed-ama b lf was ready to finally J frst couple of Kronk fight x experienced moe than some dficltin thet bouts, should have known tha Kron’ night and th iy aligned in Kronk’ favor. Ie tporanen ol curent champion Dike Tyson. A tll indeed, but given the proper timelrame, On this night of nights, however, I cemed with dispatchit ting all he hype than meth funny happen Jom—funny od nt funn somebody, in their infinite non-wis share my build-up with my opponent, Gery Jones, ht his wa yg ing out did not oko ino account bc weld ond cai ps foot tour amuse to lull me int at if it was, shit wor ‘As Round One bogan, made note that Mr Jones seemed to be which hand Night rules. Roughly 30 seconds into the fight I him in « comer and proceeded to land a coupleol scorching elt hooks downstairs But hen commit ver unfamiliar se e only as surec! sweetness accel that [hod been burt Refusing 10 and never he plore, | sustained even more punches and was ose fo being rendered unconscious while sill some pont, was knocked control of my motor sills en rout oa fst round ‘nockout lo Cus D'Amato always maintained that who are knocked out somehow sense the impending FIGHT GAME 27doom and weleome the ali of be further humiliation, Another way some thing is that a ightor classed and subjected to severe punishment nnight welcome a stoppage. Take, for instance the fight botweon Vinnie Pienza andthe hal halt caazin' oy Jones lr. A case could be made that somewhere deep down in the core of his boing, Vinnie hoped that the public sloughter would be ended sooner rather than ae. looking back, altough 1 wos becoming ware co the foc that was hur, was o impaired I had cbsolutely no idea of how close Iwas fo being stopped. What Iwas certain of was that was notin contol of my motor skills by any sieich of my altered imagination, And that, when the fight was | stopped, more thon anything elsa perhaps I loged | for the sufocting feelings of vulnerability and | ‘embarassment o end by virtu of clean knockout or via the intervention of the referee, [welcomed that stoppage, een lt was at 259 ofthe round, Holl, the one-minute rest period wouldn't har helped mes what determines whether or not a lr is reduoed to what the great ny Liston described as “a man 1 ing for the alarm clock while he's sill asleep’ depends upon how much respect opponent. As much as Mike Tyson directed at Razor Ruddock prior to their two donnybrooks, the litle Brothc from J Brownsville was not stupid enough to throw caution J tothe proverbial wind and ty to walk the power punching Jamaican down, Beocuse, inthe back of his mind lurked the real possibility of being burt ‘And the fear of being kmocked on his ass kept him alert. In my first professional fight the thought of being hurt was not even a consideration, so how could I respond to it once it occurrad? Now, I'm not advocating a fighter spend his ent ing for c fight totally concerned with how fo react when he'sshakon up Bum saying that balance between perfecting your offensive repertoire and thinking cbout how to employ defensive postures— such as partying, movement or clinching, should the occasion call for such actions—might be a wi ‘hing to come equipped with once the fightar sieps | into the ng. Because, eventually your grey matter will be | altered. nd then what axe you going todo? The way fo prevont an express trip to Buck esville is to establish a mental balance in your preporation—one which involves preparing your | self mentally for the very real possibility that you may be hurt and how to overcome that possibility. A pow {bad c healthy vespect forthe vaunt bY fed punching power of one Tommy Morr MBG sox when we met on that Halloween night back in 1993, { meaa, you don't have to be a Rhodes Scholar o know that someone weighing in acess of 25 pounds has the potentcl o hand outa Pg Michael Bentt KO'd Tommy Morrison in Round One of their bout on CCR CRa ECR onic severe case of lockjaw and a migraine worthy of being Excedrine case 6 And while Tm no Rhodes Scholar, [quickly beoame a scholar ofthe roads to wining, studying up on everything Morison. [ studied every tope of hat boy Teoul, Took copious nots, too. And while doing so, unearthed a fow golden nugges Numero Uno, when Toramy hod on opponent i trouble, he appeared to take «deep breath and bold it Hod tin his fight against Car Willis. And again, agains Joe Hipp, Numero Dos, when he bed his breath ho cctual Iy made himself as rigid and stitas board, Ho recalled something {had once heard in an old Chi nese flick wher the old master of the Shooia style imparted his wisdom fo his students, telling them thatthe keys to power were fu using the bumboo stick as an exam that philosophy, {could only think that if Tommy were holding his roath, he was at hissillest, And courting dsas {also suspected something else: that Ni. Morr son, coming olf his win over George Foreman forthe WBO heavyweight championship, bad less than a healthy respect or yours rly. was an arrogance could ident wit, having entered the rng for my first professional fight with as much the sume hcughtness An paying the price tn certain th furthast thing from Morrison's mind when he stepped ito the ring with me on that fatetul night would be trying to explain to Larey Merchant what the bell happened inthe 8 seconds oar fight lasted On the other hand, my respect for Mi. Morrison and hs ade hed prepared me for he bouts ccton- packed sat Aiter he hurt mein those opening sec ands, driving me info the ropes with one of his REM-inducing let hooks tha bod somehow man- aged to sneak through my guard | remained calm, moving, clinching and parying as he punched away in frenzy Iewas at that pia that «oie fom somewhere inside me called out, "Shit man, we aint get hit ‘Why should we got embarrassed ‘ease you cant fake an ass whuppin'” Responding wit a ‘Point well chen, righted myslffom my uncomfortable position against the ropes and began parrying Mr Morrisons rain of blows thinking he would be able to go on punching forever. And that when he ptused otako «breath, he would offer mean open ‘ing. Bcmuse eventhough paring places you in your opponents line of fr, it clo encbles, you fo counterpunch because of your close proximity o your formento ‘Kod counterpunch did, taking fall van tage not only of Mr. Matson’ inability to con trol his rompage but also becuse when he unleashed his combinations he never once moved his head As result he never saw the righthand that beat his let hook othe punch Here [must note thatthe punches that do the most damage are those not picked up on the fighter’ radar, never seen nor antcpated—tht i, unless you're an Ali circa 198, Perel! Whitaker | (roa 198), or the current version of Roy Jous J. ‘Aad it was one Mr. Morison never saw nor antici- | pated ] ggg every, hos boon sid intedvees ld Bran to himself. And many’ lighter MB Boric has been introduced to hinsel by | ving abs the ind erty ord hum: tion that can only come with a knockout los, ] exveloping him ina feeling that is worse than a | sb den fein tot chalene ir eal J worth. ] 1.100, would be enveloped by those feelings fol lowing my knockout loses. And pry after ech that the torment and anguish that sored fo fllow me everywhere would be washed away. drowned ia my ccean of sorrow. As nite this itis approximately 52080 hous, or some six years since Iwas severly beaten wih ina minute fragment of ny ile by Hobie Hide What distinguishes this devastating los rom my provious knockout losses, both os pro and as cn amateur is that have no recollection ofthat carer ending fight nor ofthe 98-hour coma {would lapse {nfo following it Both my lack of memory of the fight ite and the subsequent com canbe atrbuted toa subdur- cl hemotoma, one certain! sustained four weeks prior othe fight nc spirited sparing session. Dur- ing my recovery ltr the fight, was old by vious neurologists and psychologists that what some- times happens is that tha subject's subconscious mind lends fo suppress all images of on extomsly violent and traumatic occurence, both those gre ceading it andthe event ise, Which is excely what happened to me, the hours preceeding the fight and my crashing thunderous acest othe convas inc danse macabre recounted to me alte ‘ward but nol remembered FB lecse do not ask how my blood ran cold D cud my voice choked with fear at the thought of baring my sou inthis ticle But [did go, and by doing so emerged from my own petsoncl Hello slay the tormenting demons that sil lurk inthe uppermost right-hand comer of my living room eloset, Vary sill, now. =| Micuatt. Bentr is the former WBO * heavyweight champion,