All writers keep notebooks, but few of us ever really use them. We scribble or type in them furiously. We use variations of shorthand. We think we’ll need them immediately. But we never do. Aside from direct quotations, we rarely use notebooks the day or week after an event.
The memorable details have a way of percolating to the top. Not until we run out of material or mis-size an idea do we return to our notes. A close reader, then, can usually detect the very moment a writer returns to his notebook for seasoning or filler. This will be a return to a notebook. But not for filler.
In 2008 I had the great fortune to be seated ringside for the year’s two best fights. I hope to honor them by revisiting each in two parts. These returns may be short on analysis and long on nostalgia. Or they may not. Come along and see.
On Saturday HBO will rebroadcast its best fight of 2008, Antonio Margarito versus Miguel Cotto. Held on July 26, it was the best fight of the second half of the year. And it was by far HBO’s best pay-per-view offering of the second half of the year. One for which a “Countdown to” program almost wasn’t produced since neither combatant spoke English fluently.
I arrived early in Las Vegas that Friday morning, flying into McCarran round 7 a.m. I took a cab from the airport to MGM Grand. I hadn’t used my credential to acquire a room. There’s a good reason for that. In bygone days the media rate was something special. Today it means little more than a lousy room.
I stowed my luggage with the bellhop and went for breakfast. Then it was down the long corridor to the media center. There are two kinds of writers in the media center. Some of us love to be there. We confer with old friends, make new ones and wait for publicists to offer rumors or dinner invitations. Others of us see the media center as only a Wi-Fi connection for sending in stories. I belong to the latter camp but admire those in the former.
Coming out of the media center I saw a gathering of maybe four people in the no man’s land of carpet that stretches to the Garden Arena. The tallest among them wore a track suit. Behind him stood Sergio Diaz, one of our sport’s best-liked managers. Antonio Margarito was the tall gent in the track suit.
Margarito is always larger than you expect, no matter how many times you meet him. His shoulders would fit properly on a 200-pound weightlifter though he fights at 147. He is fastidious about his appearance. His hair is always moussed. He is gentle. Were he not the most ferocious athlete in a ferocious sport, you might call him delicate.
With each autograph Margarito signed, someone sent a text message or made a phone call. Every three steps Margarito took, five more fans appeared. Sergio Diaz never looks flustered, but he was getting there. What was apparently a pre-weigh-in visit with the scale became a reception line. Margarito, being what he is, slowed his walking pace and sped his signing hand.
Few have handled long-sought adoration more gracefully than Tony Margarito.
Hours later at the weigh-in, there was a large gathering of fans and press. Before me sat Ronan Keenan, a U.K. fight scribe who joined our site, briefly, years ago. He’d just written a wonderful profile of George Kimball for TheSweetScience.com. I knew I’d be writing a review of Kimball’s book soon and enjoyed Ronan’s details of his encounter with Kimball in an Irish pub.
Then came a big highlight of the trip: Meeting Mike Swann, our flagship writer. Colleagues and occasional pen pals for years, Mike and I had never met. Long before I joined 15rounds.com I admired Mike’s work. The day I joined the site, I told him so, writing, “I hope someday our readers look forward to Mondays as much as I look forward to Thursdays.”
Mike’s gracious reply? “I’m already looking forward to Mondays.”
Because of scheduling, the weigh-in’s and Telefutura’s, there was little time to file one story before it was off to another. Jesus Soto Karass, a Mexican, would battle David Estrada, a Puerto Rican, at Hard Rock Hotel and Casino – in the main event of a “Solo Boxeo” program that proved to be an apt preview. What a fight. In the frenzy of what happened the next night, Soto Karass-Estrada was lost to posterity. But it comprised 22 hellacious minutes.
Sometime just after, Doug Fischer, then with MaxBoxing.com, sat beside me. He spoke the weekend’s most insightful phrase: “I feel like everyone here is a friend.”
It was exactly right. Devoid of the usual fight-week crowd, Las Vegas, for once, was filled with purists. Whatever you opined of this writer’s work or that reporter’s opinion, you knew if he’d made the trip for Margarito-Cotto he was for real; his passion for prizefighting extended beyond heavyweights and Boys – Golden or Pretty.
At Wolfgang Puck Bar & Grill back at MGM Grand, a dinner wrapped up. Ace publicist Bill Caplan hosted Norm Frauenheim, a number of other writers and Phil Soto – Top Rank’s public relations guy in Arizona. Phil was in town with his family to celebrate his son’s safe return from a tour of duty in Iraq.
Phil is also a guy who helped get me started in boxing writing. He gave me my first media credential. It was a big deal. Still is. There are writers who see media credentials as a reward for meritorious service. And those that see media credentials as an invitation to provide meritorious service. Phil put me with the second group, where I hope always to remain.
Bart Barry can be reached at bbarry@15rounds.com
Editor’s Note: Check back on Wednesday for Part 2.
