Curtis Jackson (a.k.a 50 Cent) entered. Jarrell jumped to his feet and embraced the rap impresario. Then, as long as he was on his feet, he shadow-boxed for thirty seconds before sitting down on the credenza again. Shortly before ten o’clock, he stretched briefly on the floor before putting on his groin protector and trunks.
Harry Keitt gloved him up.
Jarrell hit the pads briefly with Aureliano Sosa, shouting as he punched.
“Nobody beats me!”
“No chance!” the chorus responded.
“Nobody beats me!”
“No chance!”
“What time is it?” Keitt demanded.
“Miller time!”
“What time is it?”
“Miller time.”
Seldin–Ortiz ended on a third-round stoppage.
Jarrell’s friend and publicist Alvina Alston led the group in prayer.
Miller put on his robe, walked the length of the room, and examined his image in the mirror above the vanity table.
It was time.
The fight itself was a disappointment for Miller’s partisans. Jarrell had weighed in at 283.4 pounds, which led them to believe that he was in better shape than he’d been for his knockout victory over Gerald Washington fifteen weeks earlier. But he didn’t look like an elite heavyweight.
Wach gave away his advantage in reach and height, allowing Miller to fight at close quarters for most of the bout. Jarrell went to the body throughout, which is a commitment he usually makes. But Mariusz takes a good punch. And Jarrell has clubbing power, not one-punch knockout power, which enabled Wach to stay on his feet.
As in past fights, Miller’s defense was flawed. But he showed a good chin. And when Wach landed, Mariusz didn’t have the power to exploit Jarrell’s defensive limitations.
Midway through the bout, Wach injured his right hand. From round seven on, he was a one-handed fighter. One minute into round nine, New York State Athletic Commission chief medical officer Nitin Sethi appropriately intervened to stop the fight. Miller outlanded Wach in every round en route to a 204-to-95 CompuBox advantage.
After the bout, much of the attention in Jarrell’s dressing room was focused on the TV monitor that showed Danny Jacobs doing battle against Luis Arias. On paper, Arias hadn’t posed much of a threat to Jacobs. In the ring, he didn’t either. Jacobs cruised to a unanimous-decision triumph.
“I expected more from Jarrell tonight,” Harry Keitt said. “But he did what he had to do.”
Miller’s self-evaluation was similar.
“Nobody looks good against Wach,” Jarrell offered. “And I didn’t either. I was a little sloppy in there; I know that. I never really found my rhythm. And I hurt my elbow in training camp, so it was hard for me to snap my jab. It is what it is. A win is a win.”
As for what comes next; it’s expected that Miller and Jacobs will fight again on an HBO card in April 2018, most likely at Barclays Center. After that, who knows?
How will Jarrell do when he steps up to the next level of opposition? There are things he has to improve upon, and it’s no secret what they are.
Miller is slow. There’s not much he can do about that. He can be outslicked. As he moves up in class, his success will depend to a great degree on his ability to take punches: big ones and the accumulation of small blows. But he has to do a better job of protecting his chin.
Also, Jarrell doesn’t get maximum leverage on his punches or put his weight into them as effectively as he might. That’s a legacy from his years in kickboxing, which demands that combatants balance their weight differently than conventional boxers do. And while Miller is a huge, strong guy, he’s not physical enough on the inside. When he gets inside, he should be leaning on opponents, shaking them, tugging at them, wearing them down.
Some boxing insiders have compared Jarrell to Riddick Bowe, which would be a compliment were it not followed by, “He’s the laziest fighter with talent I’ve seen since Bowe.”
Miller weighed in fifteen pounds lighter for Wach than he had for his previous fight. And he made a point of telling the media, “I haven’t had a cheeseburger in two months.” But that didn’t mean he was in better shape.
There’s a level of preparation that involves sophisticated nutritional monitoring and grueling, carefully calibrated physical conditioning that can transform a fighter’s body into a more effective delivery system for the skills he has. Jarrell has to take himself there.
In that regard, it wasn’t reassuring that, in the dressing room after the Wach fight, Miller declared, “I felt I was stronger and performed better when I was heavier.”
There’s a line that separates confidence from complacency and foolishness.
And finally, there’s a nagging issue that dates back to 2014, when Miller was suspended by the California State Athletic Commission after testing positive for methylhexanamine following a Glory 17 kickboxing event. More recently, he was removed from the WBC rankings because of his refusal to participate in the WBC’s Clean Boxing Program supervised by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Agency. The WBA now appears poised to institute its own drug-testing program with VADA, which could endanger Jarrell’s top-ten ranking with that organization.
At the kick-off press conference for Miller–Wach, Jarrell told the assembled media, “If you know anything about the streets and boxing, you know it takes a long time to get to where I’m at.”
It would be foolish for Jarrell to blow things now by giving less than his best effort when he’s so close to success.
Rosie Perez on Muhammad Ali
Promoter Kathy Duva is sometimes referred to as “the first lady of boxing.” But she gets competition from Rosie Perez.
January 17, 2017, marked the seventy-fifth anniversary of Muhammad Ali’s birth. To celebrate the occasion, Epix televised an original documentary entitled Muhammad Ali: A Life.
I was involved in the making of the documentary, both as a talking head and on the production end. One of the pleasures that came with the job was working with Rosie Perez.
Perez is best known as an actress whose breakthrough films were Do the Right Thing and White Men Can’t Jump. She has been nominated for an Academy Award and three Emmys. She’s also a community activist, a choreographer, and a serious boxing fan.
Rosie participated in Muhammad Ali: A Life and is on camera throughout the documentary. Some of what she had to say is in the final version; some isn’t. The quotes below are from Rosie and reflect her personal experiences as well as some of her insights regarding Ali and boxing.
“I was subjected to a lot of beatdowns. I grew up rough. I knew what it felt like at seven years old to get hit in the face.”
“When I started in my career, people were like, ‘Why do you have to talk with such a strong accent?’ And I go, ‘Because I have a strong accent.’ A former agent said to me, ‘You know, you could pass.’ I go, ‘For what?’ I knew exactly what she was trying to say. She goes, ‘Tone down the accent.’ I told her, ‘It’s beyond insulting that you said that to me. You’re fired.’ Everyone thought I was crazy because nobody was trying to represent me, and that person represented me, and I was very thankful for it. But I wasn’t going to bow down for it. I said, ‘No, I will not.’ Even when I got nominated for an Oscar, it was still told to me over and over and over again. And I didn’t have the personality that Ali had that could make light of everything. I was very, very angry. My accent has lessened since then because I stepped off the blocks of Bushwick and I’ve gone out into the world. But it was organic; it wasn’t premeditated. It wasn’t something I did for my career. And when Ali said, ‘I will not apologize for who I am,’ it had a huge effect on me. That set the path to give me the encouragement to say, ‘You know what? I can do it differently.’”
On Ali’s womanizing: “It’s not right for me to judge. I cheated on a boyfriend. I really was not proud of that. I swore to myself I would never cheat again, and I never have. I would judge Ali if he had cheated in the ring. If he had cheated in
the ring, I would judge him harshly because that’s for us. What you do in the ring, you do, not only for yourself and your career as an athlete, but you do it for the fans. You cheat us when you cheat. I have a big issue with that. And it’s a very dangerous sport, so you could put someone else’s life in jeopardy because of that. But in regards to Ali’s personal life, I have certain feelings about what Ali did still to this day. But it’s not right for me to judge. We all fall short.”
“I saw the Thrilla in Manilla in a theater. We snuck in. We couldn’t afford those tickets; we wanted to see the fight, so we snuck in. Even as little girls, we knew how to do it. We made friends with the security guy at the back door. You slip him a dollar or you sit there and crack jokes. Then he opens the door and you slip in. I’m so glad I got to see it. But when I went back to school and said I saw the fight, nobody believed me.”
“I cried when I saw him fight Frazier in Manila. I was like, ‘He just didn’t give up. This is the greatest man ever.’ Other people were saying, ‘What a fool.’ They actually said that. ‘What a fool. He should have thrown in the towel. They both should have. This is stupid.’ But what I saw was determination and grit, never say never, I won’t give up. And for me, a child who was a victim of poverty and of child abuse—kids used to make fun of me—I was like, ‘I’m going to be great.’ I used to say stuff like that. That’s what I saw in him. That’s what I saw in that fight. It changed me as a person.”
“I was disappointed in Muhammad Ali in the way he treated Joe Frazier. As a person that had dealt with racism and prejudice and bigotry at a young age, I thought that it was really bad seeing my hero inflict that upon someone else who was of his own race. I felt bad for Joe; I really, really did. That hurt me. That hurt me a lot. Ali was such a big hero, and he was using that language and just verbally and mentally and emotionally beating this man down. I understood that it was a tactic. I got all that. But even as a young kid. I was like, ‘It’s just too far.’ When you’re a kid and you’re treated differently because of the color of your skin, you know how that feels. And what was really strange was that there were a lot of kids of color who were defending Ali. They defended Ali. And I was one of the few kids to say, ‘That’s wrong.’”
“People ask me, ‘Why do you love going to the fights?’ It’s not just the fight itself. It’s the whole thing. It’s waiting on line to get into the arena. It’s finding your seats. It’s saying hello to your boxing friends. It’s saying, ‘Look, over there. There goes Bernard Hopkins. Oscar De La Hoya is right there. There’s Bob Arum. The first time I said hello to Bob Arum, he didn’t know who I was. I’m like, ‘Hey, Bob Arum; how are you doing?’ He looked at me like I was insane. The second time I saw him was at Madison Square Garden. I said, ‘Hey, Bob Arum.’ He goes, ‘Hello, young lady. I know who you are.’ I said, ‘You do?’ He says, ‘Yeah. Very nice to meet you.’ It’s fantastic. It’s fun. You want more of it and you can’t wait to go to another fight. A fight in Vegas, I just love it. I like to go there the day before and just kind of settle in. I stay in the hotel, go downstairs, meet everybody, shake hands, talk and BS. I just love it.”
“In some sports, you have predominantly this set of people, predominantly that set of people. I’m not just talking about race either. There is a certain class of people that go and watch a tennis match. There is a certain class of people that watch NASCAR. Football is a little more mixed. But with boxing, there are no color lines. There are no socio-economic lines. It’s just people.”
“When I watch a boxing match, a strange thing happens in my heart. It’s as if I’m fantasizing that that’s me in the ring. The Danny Garcia versus Paulie Malignaggi fight. Paulie is a friend of mine. Every punch that Paulie absorbed, I felt. I’ve been in those situations. Not on a prize-fight level, not on a professional-athletic level. But I’ve been in those situations where, ‘My gosh, someone is beating the crap out of me. What am I going to do?’ I didn’t have that stamina that Paulie had. I didn’t have that power that Danny Garcia had. But they have it, so I get to experience that level of greatness. I get to see it and I get to sit ringside. I get to cheer for them and I get to cry for them, and that’s why I love boxing. It’s things that I experienced as a child that didn’t play out the way I wanted them to play out. But here are two prizefighters who are going to give me that opportunity every single time, over and over again. I root for them. I root for the winner and I root for the loser. I really do.”
“I always dreamed of the day. I always believed in my heart and soul that, one day, I would meet Muhammad Ali. One day, I’m invited to this party by a certain athlete. I go to the party, got real cute, having a great time at the party. That certain athlete’s wife comes over to me and says that I must leave. She wasn’t very nice. Actually, she was very rude and very mean about it. The group of people that I was sitting with who were kissing up to me turned on me in an instant. I was in shock, I couldn’t believe what was happening. A group of people circled around the athlete’s wife and were saying, ‘That’s right. Tell her to leave. That’s right.’ I was like, ‘What?’ She wanted me to leave because she believed that I was having an affair with her husband, which I wasn’t. I didn’t even know that’s what she thought at the time. Everyone was closing in on me. I got paranoid. I felt extremely threatened and I was extremely embarrassed. My emotions were rising up in me. This one particular person, who was a celebrity, who will remain nameless; she got close to my face and told me, ‘Nobody wants you here. You better leave.’ Brooklyn jumped out of me. Bushwick came out in full force. I turned to the woman and I said, ‘If you don’t get the fuck away from me, I’m going to punch you in your fucking face and I’m going to punch you in your big fucking fat titty.’ Everyone went, ‘Huh?’ My girlfriend, Rhonda, was with me. She was a VP at a record company at the time and she got just as ghetto as I’d gotten. She said, ‘We’ll take all you motherfuckers on.’ Then I feel a big hand on my shoulder, and I’m thinking it’s security. I turn to say, ‘Get the fuck off of me.’ And it was Muhammad Ali. In an instant, I was the seven-year old girl that dreamed, one day, I was going to meet the champ. I cried like a baby. My face turned bright red. The tears just started flooding down my eyes. My mascara was down in streaks. Lonnie was with him. She said, ‘That’s all right; that’s all right. You don’t have to go anywhere. Come on, let’s go sit over there. Sit with us.’ I said, ‘No.’ I was mortified. I was extremely embarrassed. This was not how I envisioned that I was going to meet the champ. Muhammad was pulling me in close and he had his condition and his body was shaking. He gets very, very close to my ear and he whispers in my ear. He says, ‘If I was younger . . .’ I burst out laughing. And then I started getting hysterical again. I said, ‘I didn’t want to meet you like this. I don’t want to meet you like this. This is not happening.’ I didn’t join them. I left the party because I just was too embarrassed. I sat in the car on the way home and cried the entire ride back to my house. Rhonda was like, ‘Are you okay?’ I said, ‘No, that’s not how it was supposed to go down. I wasn’t supposed to meet the champ like that.’ It wasn’t until years later that I realized that’s how it was supposed to go down. He saw me at my worst and he only saw the best of me. He saw me at my worst and put his hand on my shoulder, pulled me in, and told me, ‘I’ve got your back. It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Nobody is going to hurt you because I’m here.’”
“Muhammad Ali will always be my perfect flawed hero.”
More on the Muhammad Ali Documentary
Muhammad Ali had a face that everyone could love. But there was a lot more to him than his looks.
Robert Lipsyte and Randy Roberts were also featured prominently in the Muhammad Ali documentary referenced in the preceding piece.
Lipsyte covered Ali as a journalist for the New York Times and other publications from the early 1960s on. He was present at the Fifth Street Gym when Cassius Clay met the Beatles; at Convention Hall when Clay dethroned Sonny Liston; and at Ali’s home in Miami whe
n Muhammad uttered the immortal words, “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Vietcong.”
Roberts is a distinguished professor of history at Purdue University with books about Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, and Mike Tyson to his credit. Most recently, he co-authored Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X.
The quotes below are from Lipsyte, Roberts, and others in the boxing community who were interviewed for the documentary. Some of these quotes are in the final version of the film; some aren’t. All of them offer insight into the extraordinary life of Muhammad Ali.
Randy Roberts: “Here is this guy who emerges from the 1960 Olympics with a gold medal in the light-heavyweight division. He wants a tomato-red Cadillac. He wants to be rich. He wants to become heavyweight champion by the time he’s twenty-one or twenty-two years old. This is what he stands for. This is what he wants. I don’t think there was a whole lot more than that. I don’t think he ever saw the direction he was going to go in. He wanted what all great athletes want. Money, riches, fame. But en route to that goal, a life happened.”
Robert Lipsyte: “It’s instructive to go back to the movie with Will Smith—Ali—which gives the impression that he came out of the womb this man of principle who was going to remake the world. That’s not true at all. He was, I think, an intelligent but ignorant and totally uneducated, barely literate kid who, from the age of twelve on, really did nothing but box and was in that tunnel. He evolved into this fighting machine who was totally suggestible on so many levels to his boxing trainers, to the Nation of Islam, to the currents of the society around him. He became Muhammad Ali incrementally over a number of years. The idea that anybody is the picture on the dollar bill at birth is insane. We learn this in sports, where Michael Jordan didn’t make his junior high school basketball team. He didn’t start in high school until late. He had to work hard and develop. We understand that. Sometimes it’s harder to understand how people mature and develop socially, politically, and emotionally.”
Protect Yourself at All Times Page 13