ARTURO GATTI career set CONCLUSIONS

So I just got done watching as many fights for the Human Highlight Reel as possible as I could find.
I thought it would be a entertaining and nice for observations stroll down memory road and maybe pick up some things I didn't know and polish up on what I did.
49 fight career in 16 years with a average of 3 fights per year more or less is the standard of tv era modern fighter. He had the same build up of being busy early on and then more rare appearances.
So here are some of my conclusions.

-He was a big puncher.BIG.
31 KOs in 40 wins could or could not say it all.But lets check things more closely.
This man virtually knocked out,knocked down,hurt or at the very least got the respect of every opponent he ever faced.
He KO'd 31 of 40 wins.
He dropped Leon Bostic twice-officially-Bostic should have been counted 4 times in that bout to be exact but the ref missed em.More on this bout later.
He dropped Tracy Harris Patterson with an uppercut in the 3rd round of the first fight.Patterson as also counted in the 9th of the rematch in,to be fair,a bogus KD claim.
He stunned Jose Sanabria on the ropes and definetely had his respect
He dropped Ivan Robinson with a clubbing right hand on the top of the head in the 4th of the first fight.He also had him badly wobbled in the 10th.
He dropped Joe Hutchinson
He dropped Micky Ward
He dropped Gianluca Branco via left hook aswell.
This more or less counts for most of his fights.
Of what I have not mentioned:
I could not for the life of me find footage of the Joe Lafontant UD win or the King Solomon SD loss.
Manfredy-here you could make a case he didnt really made a dent in him.Manfredy was super ready for that fight unlike Gatti and I would say faith(of which Gatti had tattooed on his left arm) was looking down on the man from Gary,Indiana.
Oscar has publicly named him the hardest puncher he ever faced,and while that may be revisionist,heresay or more likely ,respect to a dissapared warrior,and while Oscar was in a transitional period in his life and career and the Gatti fight was a confidence builder ,I do think he didnt like the rare taste of the Gatti left hook.
The only 3 men who really took no real punishment at all from AG were his last 3 losses-Mayweather,Baldomir and Gomez-who all escaped unscathed but that was at the tail end of his career.

-offensive dynamo
Power as not the only tool in the box.
He was ambidextrous capable of putting your lights out with both the left and the right altough indeed his brutal left hook was his money punch that ended Wilson Rodriguez and Gabe Ruelas to the head or Leonard Dorin to the body.
More on this:He was and always had been an excellent body puncher ,going for the rib cage all throughtout his career.
Naturally everybody remembers his Dorin body KO and curiously Larry Merchant asks him after if he ever has knocked out somebody with a bodyshot like that and Gatti seemed a bit flabbergasted before answering.
He had kncoked out with the left hook to the body Christino Suero,Ruslan Smolenkov and Feliciano Correa previously.
Also it should be noted that once he adapted his stamind to the longer round distance he also adapted his punch output to keep it up.He aws a very busy fighter averaging 65-70 punches a round and later on under McGirt 45 jabs per round.
He was also adept at switch hitting at times,maybe just to change it up but many times to look for unleashing power punches.

-zero defense

None.Serisouly one of the worst defences at the commercial top level you will ever see.
I think this was as much his own stubbornness than training as he had worked with Hector Rocha,Ronnie Shields,Bob Wareing,Buddy McGirt and Micky Ward-we will get into Buddy later but none really helped him in this regard.
Why stubborness?Well if you check his instagram his manager Pat Lynch has short podcast episodes in which he discusses his career.
He mentions that they were at the plastic surgeon after the Calvin Grove fight-a first then and Pat was mad about why Arturo chise to go kamikaze instead of boxing.
Gatti,wearing sunglasses to cover his badly cut eye took his sunglasses of,looked Pat straight in the eyes and said "If you think I was gonna run after that m-f-er for 10 rounds your crazy.I'd rather get punched in the face".Classic.
His quality opponents averaged about 51 % of power punches landed on him and really-even his weaker opponents were landing plenty on him.
Mayweather had 63 % power punches landed-yes about 2/3 that he threw.de l.a Hoya had a little lower but still same.
No self preservation whatsoever.

-loyalty
Fairly loyal guy,got signed by Pat Lynch as his brother s company and stayed with him the rest of his career.
Got signed by Main Events after his 3rd pro fight and stayed with them his whole career.
1991-2007 same team.
No lawsuits no controversy.Mutual respect.
Both sides made money.And a lot of it.So no troubles.Which leads me to the next point.

-box office success
He put assess in seats and ratings on tv.
Everybody watched him and wanted to anyway thus he commanded high purses throughtout his career.
Granted they werent the super purses of today and in the tens of millions on one fight superstars get now but a fairly consistent pretty good purse career.
He was a smash on his Montreal return gathering 2200 people at his public training sessions-some guys get 2200 at their fights.
Of what I could find online:
1,8 millions dollars for Oscar.At the time Oscar just got out his TR contract in court and that fight as promoted by Univision billionaire Jerry Parencchio who had signed Oscar and he looked at no expenses.
Gatti had initially said yes to a 1,6 million purse but Parrenchio was affected the purse got leaked in the press so he just upped Gattis purse to 1,8 out of spite.Which....ofcourse got leaked in the press.I'm sure Gatti didnt mind.
Around 1 or 1,2 million for Ward 2 and 3.The trilogy was well marketed and thus demanded a good purse.Dont know how much they made for the first one but it was less.
930 k for Branco
1,75 million for Dorin
2 million for Leija
3,5 million for Mayweather
1,4 million for Damgaard
That s about 13 and a half million dollars from just about 10 fights.You can bet he made quite a few more dollars in the rest.I estimate somewhere around 20-30 million dollars total in his career.

-dirty fighter?

I put the question mark here since I 'm not sure.
Him being a career body puncher obviously made him open to ,at times,going below the belt and he was admonested for this all throughout his career.
Moreover he has lost 4 points due to low blows in his career:
-Robinson
-Hutchinson
-Ward
-Patterson
Now,4 points in a 49 fight career is a lot?I dont know,I will let you guys say but I just noticed this.
The most clear incident of dirtiness is the Hutchinson fight however there are mitigating circumstances.
Gatti was cut early with a terrible cut on his often destroyed left eye by a punch.He was also cut by a butt on his right eye due to the southpaw orthodox thing and Gatti as badly frustrated by this,he thought it was intentional and he retalieted with an intentional headbutt.

-glass left eye.

His left eye was a major concern as it aslsys swelled up and cut until ater in his career when he got his conditioning on point.
Early top fightsas Patterson and Rodriguez showed a weakness to the right one but as time went by I feel the left eye never got going.
It was gruesomly cut vs Grove afterwhich the first of many plastic surgeries followed.
It was the eye that ended the Mandredy fight on cuts.The doctor said the cut was to the bone and Gatti,valiant as ever said "Yeah,it s to the bone,so it cant get any worse".That was a terrible cut.
It also got badly cut vs Hutchinson-a fight where had it taken place anywhere outside of Montreal it would have been stopped on cuts TKO for Hutchinson.

-McGirt effect.

Now,I said earlier that no matter the trainer his defense was atrocious throughout his career as that s who he was.True but nuanced.
He did improve under Buddy.
First of all conditiong and this was also to the new conditiong coach Teddy Cruz who stayed from then on.
His body looked different especially the Millett and Ward trilogy.His body looked svelt,cut,defined,you could see every muscle,his legs trim.
It was a noticeable difference compared to previosuly,as in the Munoz,Gamache,Jakubowski,Hutchinson-where he looked like a in shape bloated fighter versus a elite conditioned athlete later.
Now while Buddy didnt make him Pernell Whitaker however he got his mind on the job.Compare his first fight under Buddy vs Millett,where he as fleet of foot and fluid vs his first fight with Robinson where is a feet planted,face first brawler style.
Noticeably his speed also came back until making 140 took it s toll.He was significantly faster under Buddy then his last 4-5 fights.His defence improved aswell,sure he wasnt a master defensive wizard but he was impproved on his bob and weave,upper body movement,etc.
Also you have to consider Buddy took on what many considered was a 29 year old damaged goods fighter.
Many people thought he was done after 1998.
All thought he was done after Oscar in 2001.
They won a second world title together-albeit a paper championship.
McGirt was a gift in his career prelonging it quite a few years.Makes you wodner what could have been if they hooked up quicker.

All in all a very enjoyable experience and if I missed something please feel free.
As Jim Lampley said :"one of the greatest high-wire acts in boxing".He was special.
Too bad he couldnt enjoy his life at the end.
I also DEEPLY studied his death and all things covered post mortem so you could shoot questions there aswell but I am meaning to cover this aspect on a later topic.
His daughter btw is a NPC bodybuilder now who turns 19 later this month and his son is a amateur boxer but that is a different topic.

 

C'mon I was expecting at least a little engagement here.

Dammnit I put 2 weeks worth of work into this.

 

To be honest looking at it back now and fresh in my mind he really was a big puncher at any weight outside of welterweight-where even then had he put his gloves on you you would feel it.

You make a very good point which I forgot to mention:
Gatti gets stick online for the Mayweather performance but really Buddy lost that one.Agreed 100 % that was a terrible game plan.
In fact you could make a case it s right up there with the worst trainer work in a big fight ever.
He got the gameplan wrong
He didnt have a plan B
Never adjusted
Wrong corner instructions
Only good thing Buddy did that night was when he called it after 6.
But,again,that is one fight of theyre 10 fight marriage.They did well together for the rest of 9 mostly.
Were you there in Uncasville that night or on tv?

 

Thank you.

I mean most people including Max Kellerman say it was the first Paterson fight.He boxed behind his jab,he as eased into the 12 round distance as far as stamina was concerned,even dropped him at some point.He also enjoyed the size advantage in order to keep Tracy at length and get out of that fight pretty safe-altough even then his right eye as swollen up badly.
You know Roy Jones made a fantastic point while commentating,not here but later on,might have been the rematch or even later on,when Lampley asked him why Gatti didnt box against guys like Ivan Robinson or someone and Roy said a great thing:
"You know Gatti can box against a banger but he cant box against a boxer generally speaking".
Lampley:"But Roy most people would say Tracy Harris Patterson was a pretty good boxer"
Roy:"That s most people.I never said that.To me Paterson was always more of a banger than a boxer.Gatti boxed bangers."

And that got me thinking.He was right.Patterson did fight him like a banger,so much so that in the rematch he was catching flak from Lampley and Merchant for covering up and waiting for the right punch too much while getting swarmed by Gatti s workrate.
Roy was right,Patterson was a banger,he just waited to much.He did get a chance in the first round of the rematch and,really,got robbed of a big chance at least to end the fight and,at most,of a KO win.
Brilliant boxing mind for Roy there.

As far as performance goes you said performance not actual achievement.
Ali's greatest performance is regarded as the Williams fight not Frazier 2-where relatively speaking he beat a much better opponent much easier than fights 1 or 3.

As far as performance wise I will say Terron Millett.
First fight with Buddy in NY.
Going in it was seen as a 50-50 fight between 2 bangers who had seen better days.Loser leaves town type of fight.
Some even said it was another "thanks and goodbye" HBO gift for Gatti.
McGirt was vocal to the NY press that his student would KO Millett in 4.
Gatti looked beautiful,first of all his body,it was tremendous.Sculpted to the bone,tanned,quick,trim.Significantly better than he looked vs Gamache for example.
He as damn near perfect that night.
He moved,he kept his composure against his ,really,desire,you could see moments in the fight where he wanted to get into a brawl but excellent concentration prevented him from doing it.
Even the rare times he got hit he didnt respond,didnt lose his cool,kept at it and on the gameplan-something he didnt do in the past.That was Buddy s biggest win,he got him to listen.
And offcourse Millett helped him with this as he was very slow,awkward and seemed ...of.I dont know.
Like George Foreman said:"...going straight back like that.....left hand down.....just asking to be hit by that right hand.And Gatti obliged him".
Like me,you could tell George thought Millett was very underwhelming that night.

So that yeah.Controversial choice maybe but as far as performance yeah.Not his biggest win or achievement but performance.

 

Yeah,well you got spoiled.I didnt see Gatti fight live until Branco or maybe Dorin.
Actually all the Gatti-Ward trilogy was on free HBO.Part 1 was on Boxing after Dark and 2 and 3 were on World Championship Boxing.
Yeah New Jersey was tough.
Gatti lived and trained all over Jersey.
He lived in Middletown for a while then Jersey City and altough he was billed from Jersey City all his late career he actually lived in a nice apartment in Hoboken stsrting 2004.
He trained all over aswell from Paterson to NY having his camp at Gleasin’s for a while under Hector Rocha before moving to Florida.
Further to your point many people know about his often broken right hand which was damaged beyond repair-5 surgeries during his career on it ironically having broken it initially on the very excellent punch that put Micky Ward down face first in the turnbuckle in rd3 of fight2.Weirdly enough the human body reacta differently since Gatti didnt feel anything during the bout and only found out about it after the fight.Obviously it never properly healed since he broke it in 5 of his next 9 aswell with only pure luck avoiding breaking it in the others.I really think had the Dorin fight gone on it would have gone as it already “locked” as he called it in rd2.
In my research I also found out that,as you saud no one was safe from the Jersey sparring sessions either as he originally had planned to tirn pro age 18 in 1990 instrad of 19 in 1991 but he had broken his left hand sparring an irish boxer called Benni McCarthy-a Jesse James Leija victim who had moved to Jersey to further his career.The left hand was also damaged in 1996.
I think it was a matter of combinatiin of things to prelong his career but yeah Pat Lynch was a big part.He had a personal relationship with Arturo that both cherished.They wwre basically family.
If you watch the Calvin Grove fight which CBS televised they did a pre fight segment on Gatti to show the human side behind the athlete.The interview was actually done in Pat Lynch’s Union City home and Gatti talked about some boxing subjects and touching up on him wanting kids some day.Years later he had complained privately how hard that was with the gold diggers around him but he sure didnt help himself with his would bes being mainly strippers.
Anyway the first few minutes here are the ones:

This content is protected

The girl he swings in the clip is actually Lynch’s daughter Alexandra-host of the podcast she has with her dad.
Years later she was the kid seen with Pat and Arturo after the Dorin fight.There is a pic but I dont know how to post it.
You can alao see her more years later in the Legendary Nights episode of the trilogy.Now she s 30 ish year old into fitness who is smoking hot 4 weeks out from a competition.
Back to the topic at hand Pat not only gave him soft touches but also kept him on HBO while doing it.
To be fair Gamache wasnt sen as a soft touch on paper,Gatti made it a soft touch.

 

Agreed altough considering the long history in boxing I dont know about the boast of him being quite one of the biggest altough again this career recap mainly did remind me how strong his punch was.
Still though does he make a top 10?
Of the top of my head Arguello,Corrales,Valero,Freitas have to be there no?Canzoneri ?
I’m sure there were plenty.

 

Well what would be that top 10?