A true warrior was carried out on his shield at Boardwalk Hall on Saturday night. Arturo “Thunder” Gatti bowed to the relentless power punching of Argentinian upstart Carlos Baldomir in a welterweight title fight. It should be the last for Gatti, save perhaps an easy win to celebrate with his loyal fans in Atlantic City, and let it be said that he went out throwing punches. That was always Gatti’s way - his biggest wins came when it seemed the lights were about to go out for the Montreal-born but Jersey-bred righthander and his biggest losses came with Gatti taking it on the chin like a man who was always up for a little bit more tussling. That brawling style made him a four-time participant in Ring Magazine’s fight of the year and that only represents a handful of the bouts worth noting on Gatti’s resume.
Top 10 Fights of Arturo Gatti’s Career
10. 2/26/2000 – Knocks out Joey Gamache in the second round at Madison Square Garden. Gatti gained 18 pounds after weighing in at the 140-pound limit and then overwhelmed Gamache leading to calls for rules governing how much weight a fighter could put on after weigh-in.
9. 7/24/2004 – Knocks out Leonard Dorin in the second round at Boardwalk Hall. Dorin had never been knocked out before Gatti got him at 2:55 of Round Two two years ago. It was his first defense of his second world title, the junior welterweight crown.
8. 2/22/1997 – Unanimous decision over Tracy Patterson at the Atlantic City Convention Center. Gatti had beaten Patterson for the title 15 months earlier in a somewhat controversial decision but controls the second fight and retains the super featherweight belt.
7. 1/26/2002 – Knocks out Terron Millet in fourth round at the MSG Theatre. The most dominating performance of Gatti’s career, perhaps. Moving up in weight, Gatti knocks the former world champion Millet down in the third and then twice more in the fourth to force the stoppage. Also the first fight for Gatti with trainer Buddy McGirt, a former champion himself, and the relationship continues to this day.
6. 3/24/2001 – Knocked out in the fifth by Oscar De La Hoya in Vegas. A terrific brawl that saw Gatti busted open in the first round and firing punches wildly at the bigger, stronger Golden Boy. That was his first attempt to move up to welterweight and an early indication that as much Thunder as Gatti brought at 140, he wasn’t going to be able to swing with the bigger boys. The match ended when Gatti’s corner threw in the towel with their man brutally beaten but still throwing haymakers.
5. 1/24/2004 – Unanimous decision over Gianluca Branco at Boardwalk Hall. Gatti wins his second world title in front of 11,000 screaming fans. He seals the deal with a 10th round knockdown on a brutal left hook – he was using the left because he’d broken the right in his previous fight, which you’ll find further down this list.
4. 3/23/1996 – Knocks out Wilson Rodriguez in sixth round at the MSG Theatre. Knocked down by Rodriguez in the second round and with a swelling eye limiting his defense, Gatti scored the first of his epic comeback knockouts by punishing Rodriguez’s midsection until the Dominican challenger dropped his gloves and opened his chin. One left hook later proved the boxing maxim - “kill the body and the head will die.”
3. 8/22/1998 and 12/12/1998 – Vs. Ivan Robinson. Both fights were losses for Gatti but in neither case did he get beat. The first fight, at Boardwalk Hall, was Gatti’s second “Fight of the Year” that saw both men punching from the first bell with Gatti’s relentless throwing matched by Robinson’s efficient sadism. Gatti very nearly knocked Robinson out in the waning seconds of the tenth and final round but Robinson was given a hotly contested split decision. The second fight was also in A.C. but at the Taj this time and Robinson was again given a decision. It was unanimous this time, but Gatti had a point deducted, correctly, for low blows and Robinson escaped a draw by that point on two judges scorecards.
2. 10/4/1997 – Knocks out Gabriel Ruelas in fifth round at Caeser’s in Atlantic City. The singular defining fight of Gatti’s career resulted in his first “Fight of the Year” accolades and is a lasting memory for fight fans everywhere. The fight, for Gatti’s super featherweight crown, saw both men trading punches for three rounds before Ruelas landed a mandible-rattling uppercut in round four. Gatti was dazed and hurt but as Ruelas landed punch after punch after punch, 17 unanswered blows in all, Gatti stayed on his feet, finally getting the bell’s reprieve. Ruelas continued the onslaught in the fifth and Gatti looked absolutely done when like a bolt from the heavens, the left hook of Thunder found Ruelas’s jaw. Ruelas found the canvas in short order and seconds later it was another title defense for Gatti and an instant classic.
1. 5/18/2002, 11/23/2002, 6/7/2003 – The Micky Ward Trilogy. Three of the greatest fights you’ll ever see pitted Gatti against the brawling Irishman and produced two “Fights of the Year,” a lifetime’s worth of cuts and bruises and eternal respect for two of the best fighters of their generation. Fight One, at Mohegan Sun, went to Ward on a majority decision after 10 rounds of pure hell, with most rounds resembling something from Rocky more than a conventional prizefight. Emmanuel Steward, during the live telecast, called the ninth round, which saw nonstop action and Gatti downed, the “Round of the Century.” The decision was disputed by many but it didn’t really matter as a rematch was assured. As was the 2002 Fight of the Year award.
The second fight was six months later and back on Gatti’s turf, Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City. Gatti thoroughly beat up Ward this time, including a memorable third round punch that left Ward face-first against the turnbuckles. He survived the round, and the fight, however and battled all ten rounds in the face of Gatti’s lethal body punching and superior boxing ability. Gatti won a unanimous decision, setting the stage for a third and final fight to settle an all-time boxing rivalry.
Fight number three was again set for Boardwalk Hall and as the fight date neared the hype machine went into overdrive. It seemed that the bar was getting set too high, that there was no way to match the 20 rounds that had to have taken their toll on the two gladiators. Wrong. Gatti broke his hand in round four, got knocked down in round six but pulled himself together to dominate the close of the fight and earn a second straight decision over Ward. Both men shared a second consecutive Fight of the Year crown for the closing chapter in their thrillogy, a fight that Geoffrey Gray of the New York Times summed up thusly, "It seemed right that it ended this way: both fighters on their feet in the 30th round of their personal war, bleeding and swinging wildly, with fractured hands, then waiting for the winner to be named and the pain to disappear."
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