VEGAS TEACHES FIGHT FANS TO EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED
Well before The Money Fight, Nevada hosted memorable bouts on the regular
Hello Las Vegas, so nice to see you again.
It has been a while. More than a while, really. By my count, 18 years.
We used to be close. I used to be there on assignment once, twice, three times a year back when boxing seemed to matter more. I knew where to drink, where to eat, where to gamble, where to find the right boxing people in the right casino. I was on a first-name basis with Don King, sort of, back in those days.
He called me “Steve from Toronto.” That was easy for him. There were really only three boxing writers from Toronto who regularly made their way to the big shows in Vegas. All of us happened to be named Steve. That made it simple for King, the loudest promoter of his day, to recognize who was talking to him. He didn’t normally remember our last names or our media affiliations. He just knew we were the ones asking questions about Lennox Lewis and Razor Ruddock. We were the Canadians. Steve from Toronto. Two of us back in Las Vegas after all these years for The Money Fight, a freak show of sorts, Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor, which is more about pay-perview and sales and promotion than it is about sport.
But as I arrive here for all that is Fight Week — and there is nothing that ever quite compares to it, no matter how different the circumstances are — I can’t help but think of the beginning and the endings and the in-betweens of all l’ve seen from ringside in Las Vegas, a seat and a view I once cherished, that seemed such a large part of my professional upbringing.
The first time is the one you never forget. For me, it was 1985, the parking lot arena at Caesars Palace, Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns. Some have called it the greatest fight ever. Some have called it the greatest eight minutes and one second of boxing ever witnessed. The spectacle was enormous. The three rounds were breathtaking.
“When I see (Hearns) today, Tommy always says to me: ‘We should do this do this one more time,’” said Hagler. “And I say: ‘Why Tommy? Can’t you remember what happened the first time.’”
I was working for the Calgary Herald in 1985. I wasn’t there for Hagler-Hearns. I was there for the underwhelming undercard fight between Canadian heavyweights, Willie de Wit versus Alex Williamson. They fought to a forgettable four-round draw. That fight was easy to push aside: Hagler-Hearns had me dreaming of front pages and wanting more.
In 1987, I got to cover Hagler versus Sugar Ray Leonard. The next year, Leonard fought Canadian Donny Lalonde. The year after that it was Leonard and Hearns. And in between the Canadian Matthew Hilton lost in Las Vegas to Robert (Bam Bam) Hines to end his brief stint as a world middleweight champion.
Mike Tyson did much of his early fighting on the east coast around Atlantic City, where the lights were slightly duller than Vegas and the atmosphere paled in comparison. Covering Tyson was a challenge and a delight — all at the same time.
He beat undefeated Michael Spinks in 91 seconds and, from my third-row seat at ringside, I didn’t see a single punch thrown. A rather wide HBO cameraman stood in my view, his personal eclipse of the fight. The bout started around 11 p.m. and ended just after 11:01 and I had 700 words to write immediately on deadline on something I never really saw.
The only way I knew what happened in the ring was the Toronto Star’s Rick Fraser, seated beside me and with a better view, was good enough to call out each punch, as Tyson threw it, for my benefit. I’ve long figured if I get through that night writing wise, I could get through just about anything.
In 1990, I remember being at the weigh-in before Buster Douglas’s first defence of the heavyweight title after his stunning win over Tyson in Japan. Douglas took his shirt off, showed off a rather soft belly, stepped on the scale and Evander Holyfield’s trainer Lou Duva yelled out, “We won.”
The next night, he was right. Holyfield knocked out Douglas in the third round to begin his great run of significance. That was in 1990.
In 1991, there were two trips to Vegas for memorable fights between Tyson and Ruddock. That was before Ruddock was knocked out by Lewis in London. The Jays were winning the World Series in Atlanta in 1992. I had to leave after Game 5 to cover Lewis-Ruddock.
A year later, after a second World Series win, I was ringside again at Caesars Palace, sitting beside a Chicago reporter when we both heard an unfamiliar sound, a little bit like a small helicopter. We looked up and saw a man later identified as “Fan Man” landing by the apron of the ring, the title fight between Riddick Bowe and Holyfield stopped and it seemed everyone started pounding on the man in the skydiving equipment.
That still makes the crazy highlight films today. And on my personal list of oddest things I’ve written about.
Boxing has always done that. In the ring, from the air, from the weigh-in, from the three exhilarating rounds of 1985: So much of a life spent in Las Vegas, almost 15 years of Tyson and Lewis and George Foreman and Holyfield and Bowe and Michael Moorer and Ruddock and Leonard and Hearns and Hagler and Roberto Duran.
It’s been 14 years since I’ve covered a heavyweight title fight, 18 years since I’ve been in Vegas for a big event. Boxing left the mainstream after Lewis retired. It was no longer a priority for us to be there.
But if Tyson-Douglas, Tyson biting Holyfield, Fan Man, Lewis clubbing Ruddock has taught us anything, it’s to expect the unexpected.
It’s great to be back in Vegas, even for this kind of circus-like charade of riches. Honestly, it’s been way too long.