Azumah Nelson, "The Professor", featherweight out of Africa, one of the best fighters of all-time. He was a freakin' Buzzsaw, brutal knockout power, iron chin, endless stamina, technically sound, he had it all.
Azumah Nelson – Africa’s Greatest Fighter
By James Slater -
The greatest African fighter? Should the lofty distinction go to Dick Tiger (Nigerian)? To Ike Quartey (hailing from Ghana)? To Brian Mitchell (South African)? – or to Azumah Nelson (from Ghana)? There have been some pretty special fighters to come out of Africa, that’s for sure. But to many, in fact to most, “The Professor,” or, to use another of Azumah Nelson’s nicknames, “The Terrible Warrior,” fully deserves the honour of being called the greatest African boxer. Why? Nelson was uncommonly tough, he was technically brilliant. And Nelson had ruthless punching power to go with an uncrackable chin. Oh, and “Zoom Zoom” was also blessed with stamina to die for. And a willingness, in fact an obsession, to fight the best – again and again and again, even when his own stature was concrete. Going pro in December of 1979, this after having won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in 1978, this topping his amateur career, Nelson stunned the boxing world in July of 1982. In just his 14th pro fight, and after taking the fight at short notice, Nelson gave the great (some say the greatest Mexican fighter ever) Salvador Sanchez nothing but hell for 1 minute and 11 seconds short of 15 rounds. Nelson, taking the heat to Sanchez, this in a very real effort at ripping away from him his featherweight title, Nelson was stopped in the dying seconds of the final round in New York. This was Sanchez’ last fight, the 23 year old tragically losing his life in a car smash three weeks later. But as tragic as Salvador’s death was, Nelson had arrived, even though he had lost the fight. It would be 18 fights over the course of eight years before Nelson lost again. Nelson, at age of 26, stopped the also great Wilfredo Gomez to win the WBC featherweight title in 1984. Nelson would go on to retain the title six times (scoring notable wins over Pat Cowdell and Danilo Cabrera), before he made the move up to 130 pounds, with Nelson winning the WBC belt there also. Four retentions followed, before Nelson, now aged 32, lost to the sublime Pernell Whitaker, this in a challenge for “Sweet Pea’s” lightweight titles. Nelson, still the reigning super-featherweight boss, dropped back down accordingly, the Don King promoted warrior beating Juan Laporte in a title defence before tangling with the ferocious Jeff Fenech. The 12 round war/ battle of attrition Nelson and Fenech went through in June of 1991 (the fight of the night, maybe of the year, taking place on a Mike Tyson card) was savagely entertaining, with Nelson deemed lucky to have avoided defeat by way of the controversial draw that was handed in by the three wise man who were privileged to have been sat at ringside. But Nelson had been fighting the lingering effects of malaria as well as the raw aggression of Fenech. The return fight was a suitably different story, with a fully fit Nelson travelling to Australia to smash Fenech to 8th round defeat in another memorable fight. After winning this one, one of his most important and satisfying wins, Nelson gave the focused cameras an almost smug shrug, as if to say, ‘So what! I knew I was the better man.’ That Nelson was, and he went on winning, and drawing, and then losing (in fights with Jesse James Leija), and then winning again, until 1997. It was in March of 1997, after having become a three-time WBC featherweight champ with a KO win over multi-fight rival Leija, that Nelson’s age finally caught up with him. Genaro Hernandez won a split decision over Nelson, taking his title. Azumah fought on for a while, but he never won another fight; “The Professor” dropping a decision to Leija in a fourth fight and then, ten years later, dropping an “old man” decision to Fenech in a needless third tango. None of this mattered or matters. Nelson, who finished at 37-7-2(27), during which time he was stopped just one time, this by Sanchez, had done all he had to do to become recognised as the greatest African fighter ever. 65 today, Nelson is one of those rare fighters about whom nobody has a single bad word to say. Not even the guys that managed to defeat him in the ring. Nelson was special. Very special. And we all applaud him for having been so.
Azumah Nelson vs Pat Cowdell, one of my favorite KO's, beautiful left uppercut did the job.
A “Terrible” KO – When Azumah Nelson Iced Pat Cowdell And Then Called Out McGuigan
By James Slater
Of all the lower weight super-fights that never happened, a clash between featherweight greats Azuma Nelson and Barry McGuigan comes close to topping the “what if?” lists. The two were rival 126 pound champions in the mid 1980s, Nelson the WBC ruler, McGuigan the WBA champ. Sadly, for whatever reason or reasons, this blockbuster never came to fruition. But Nelson sure wanted it. In 1985, “The Terrible Warrior” travelled to Birmingham, UK to make the second defence of his title. 27 year old Nelson went in against the experienced and classy Pat Cowdell. Cowdell was 32 years of age (old for a featherweight, especially back then) but he had never been knocked out (stopped once, very early in his career, on cuts). Cowdell had also been 15 rounds with the great Salvador Sanchez, the man who stopped an unknown Nelson in a titanic battle a year after winning a split decision over Cowdell. This made what happened on the night of October 12, 1985 all the more shocking. Nelson, coming out fast, letting his hands go in an intimidating manner, countered a Cowdell jab with a crushing left uppercut that landed smack, bang on his challenger’s briefly exposed jaw and down Cowdell went. For an alarming amount of time. The fight lasted just over two-minutes but Cowdell was laid out on the canvas for a good deal longer than that. Nelson said in the post-fight interview that he had said he would knock Cowdell out in the first round. Then talk turned to McGuigan. Nelson said he wanted to fight him, “any time, anywhere,” and he also predicted how McGuigan would “not last four rounds with me.” Did the brutal display of handiwork Nelson showed against Cowdell scare McGuigan and his team away? Who knows, but the fight never happened. Instead, McGuigan went into a defence against Danilo Cabrera in February of 1986 (Cabrera also fighting Nelson, in September of ’86), before he was shocked by relative unknown Steve Cruz that summer. His title reign over, McGuigan was no longer on Nelson’s radar. The featherweight division had lost what may well have been a very special fight. Nelson went on to retain his WBC title a further four times, before moving up to become champion at super-featherweight. In total, Nelson scored 28 KO’s during his Hall of Fame career, but it could be argued that the destruction job he did on the durable Cowdell deserves to sit atop his highlight reel. Cowdell came back from the brutal KO, winning six of eight bouts, yet he never again challenged for a world title.
Azumah Nelson KO's Pat Cowdell, brutal left uppercut. Before the fight Nelson said he was going to take Cowdell out in the first round, and that's exactly what he did.
If you really want to see how bad a$$ Azumah Nelson was, watch his fight with Wilfredo "Bazooka" Gomez, that should give you a good idea. Wilfredo Gomez was an all-time great, he didn't lose many fights, his career record was 44-3 with 42 KO, and only five men made it to the final bell against Gomez, he was a murderous puncher, they didn't call him "Bazooka" for nothing. Azumah Nelson wages war with Gomez and brutally takes him out. Highlights time.
Azumah Nelson knocks down Gabriel Rueles down in round 4 of their 1995 fight, this knockdown came from a left hook to the ribs, a body shot. Nelson would go on to stop Ruelas in the 5th. Azumah Nelson was past his prime in this fight.
Lucian Bute "Mr. KO", lands a left hand on Glen "The Road Warrior" Johnson in their 2011 Super Middleweight fight, look at the impact from the punch, it's actually sending ripples through Johnson's head. Lucian Bute was a brutal power puncher.
Lennox Lewis, "The Lion", one of the greatest heavyweights to ever do it. What a beast Lennox was, 6"5', 257 lbs, had a 84 inch reach, which is equivalent to 7 feet. He had a poleaxe jab, and he hit like sledgehammer. Great great fighter, unified the heavyweight title, he could outbox you or he could exchange with you, he had it all.
Sick card of Lennox Lewis, 2024 Leaf Exotic Military. The series comes in different military themes, Coast Guard, Air Force, Space Force, etc. I own this printing plate set for the Tank.
Juan Domingo Roldán was a middleweight boxer in the 70s and 80s from Argentina, he was known for his sheer aggression and brutal punching, earning him the nickname "El Martillo" (The Hammer). He fought Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler, gave them both all they could handle. Roldan was a brutal brutal fighter, if you faced him it was pretty much guaranteed you were going to be roughed up.
Juan Roldan is the man that is responsible for the famous Marvin Hagler knockdown, the only time Hagler ever tasted the canvas in his career. It should be noted that Hagler was adamant that it was a slip, and not a knockdown. I've watched the footage many times and I have to agree with Hagler, it was a slip, Hagler slipped and it coincided with Roldan pushing him down by the back of head with his glove, but it wasn't an actual knockdown. Nobody ever put Hagler on the canvas. But it is a famous incident nonetheless.
Juan Roldan vs Tommy Hearns, Roldan wore Hearns out and had him in serious trouble until Hearns dug deep and rallied back to stop him, Roldan wasn't an easy nights work for anyone, he always brought it, he was a rough customer.
Tommy "The Duke" Morrison defeated Big George Foreman by unanimous decision on June 7, 1993, to win the WBO Heavyweight title. Morrison, the younger fighter, used movement and out-boxed the older Foreman, who was the favorite to win. The fight went the full 12 rounds, with Morrison landing more punches and Foreman having a point deducted for a low blow. Here Morrison is seen landing a jarring right hand that knocks the sweat from Foreman's head.
Tommy Morrison was a brutal puncher, to the body and head, savage power and speed, great left hook, and a wild man, there are some crazy stories out there about him, a real loose cannon. He was once quoted as saying, "I'm the guy your parents warned you about in high school." Morrison was a "balls to the wall" fighter, the kind of guy you had to really nail down to keep him on the canvas. He also once said, "I don't believe in past lifetimes, but if there was one, I had to be a gladiator.'' Of course Morrison gained a lot of fame starring in Rocky V as Tommy Gunn, a young hungry fighter that Rocky takes under his wing only to turn against Rocky when the money and fame go to his head.
A blood soaked Tyson Fury, "The Gypsy King", is tended to in his corner by his cut man during his fight with Otto Wallin in 2019. Fury was cut over his right eye in round 3 from a punch by Wallin, despite the cut constantly bleeding, Fury fought through the blood and won by unanimous decision. The cut needed 47 stitches to close and was one of the worse cuts you'll ever see.
Saul "Canelo" Alvarez is a nightmare. He's one of the most genuinely frightening fighters I've ever seen in a boxing ring. Tries to knock you out with every punch. Never been knocked down in over 60 flights. Targets the hell out of you rib cage. I'm sure his opponents will tell you what it's like to stand toe to toe with this wrecking ball of a man. Canelo was made in hell.
Canelo is such a freakin' beast, one of the greatest pound for pound fighters that ever lived. He's the epitome of what a fighter should strive to be. He lives, eats, sleeps, and breathes boxing. He's totally fearless, ducks absolutely noone, always seeking the best competition. He's extremely powerful, he throws every punch with the intention of knocking you out. He's never tasted the canvas in 67 fights, nobody has ever knocked him down, not even once. A punishing, punishing fighter.
I've injured my ribs twice in my life, barely banged them and it was two of the most painful experiences of my life. It's 24/7 pain that lasts for over a week, it hurts to breathe, it hurts to move, you can't sleep on that side, and it's something that has to heal on it's own over time, there's no quick cure for a rib injury. I can't imagine taking a Canelo Alvarez body shot to the ribs like this.
Willie Pep "The Hartford Wonder" after his 4th fight with Joseph "Sandy" Saddler. This was one of the dirtiest fights in boxing history, both Pep and Saddler fought dirty, they disliked each other, thumbs to the eye, elbows, you name it.
Adonis Stevenson, "Superman", one of the most lethal punchers ever. Adonis primarily fought in the light heavyweight division, where he held the WBC title from 2013-18. He also briefly competed in the super middleweight division, winning the WBC Silver title in that weight class. Adonis was like a snake waiting to strike with one precise well timed deadly shot, always waiting for the right opportunity to land that traumatizing left hand.
In 1991, Vinny Pazienza, "The Pazmanian Devil" then known as Vinny Paz, suffered a broken neck in a car accident. He sustained a dislocated vertebra and two fractured vertebrae, and doctors told him he might never walk again. Despite this prognosis, Pazienza underwent surgery to stabilize his neck with a halo brace, and remarkably, returned to boxing 13 months later. It is one of the greatest comebacks in sports history.
"Dr. Carter said to me, and Dr. Carter had a tear in his eye, I could tell he felt for me, and he said, son I'm sorry to say, you're not going to box again. And I looked at him, and I said, no Dr. Carter you're wrong, I am going to box again, you see, you don't understand what kind of man I am." - Vinny Pazienza
Legendary crooner Frank Sinatra took this photo of "Smokin'" Joe Frazier glaring through his eyebrows while bobbing and weaving his way to an attack on Muhammad Ali in their epic 1971 showdown for the undisputed heavyweight crown at Madison Square Garden. When Frazier crouched down like that, he was usually about to spring up and launch one of his brutal left hooks, much like a snake uncoils and strikes when it attacks. Frazier looks absolutely menacing, great boxing photo.
British Featherweight champion Steve Sims makes the iconic 290 step journey up Newport's Transporter Bridge as part of his training routine in 1983. He would do this 10 times a day.
Ron Stander, "The Council Bluffs Butcher", after going 5 rounds with Joe Frazier in 1972. Ron Stander was something else, tough as a $2 steak, the guy would just assume die than surrender, packed a good punch, he knocked out Earnie Shavers when Shavers was starting his career. Stander's wife was quite a character as well, she said of her husbands fight with Joe Frazier, "You don't enter a Volkswagen at the Indy 500 unless you know a helluva shortcut."
Michael "Dynamite" Dokes, 1980s heavyweight, part of the 80s crop of heavyweights that were so talented and showed a lot of greatness but ultimately underachieved, the 80s was a weird decade for heavyweight boxing, so much wasted potential. There was so much talent in the heavyweight division in the 80s, so many guys that should have been Hall of Famers but fell short for one reason or another, personal demons, beefs with promotors, lack of focus and dedication, it's a real shame. Dokes had some of the fastest hands you'll ever see on a heavyweight, good power, good fundamentals, but he couldn't keep his head on straight.
ONE LONG SEASON IN HELL
On Michael Dokes
By: Carlos Acevedo
How he always believed - what madness -
that cheat who said: "Tomorrow. You have plenty of time.”
Cavafy
Once, during his prime, he would toss red roses to the women seated at ringside for his fights. But that was another lifetime ago. Michael “Dynamite" Dokes was light-years removed from those carefree days when he died of liver cancer at a hospice in Summit County, Ohio, on August 12, 2012. Dokes was fifty-four years old, a short-lived champion, and a charter member of "The Lost Generation" of 1980s heavyweights, a grim cast of characters marked by misfortune and tragedy.
For years, Dokes lived a life as bleak and as dark as a late Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, perhaps, or The Fates. Like all fighters, however, Dokes had simple dreams that would never come true. "There are many things that I would like to do in my life," Dokes told Boxing Today in 1982. "I'm very interested in real estate and the stock market. I enjoy designing clothes. I have a whole life ahead of me. I plan on spending two or three years as the heavyweight champion of the world. After that, I can pass it on with dignity and continue living and growing as an individual." Such small wants, and yet, they were impossible.
Michael Dokes was born on August 10, 1958, in Akron, Ohio. A gifted all-around athlete, Dokes played football and basketball and ran track. But what he really excelled at was boxing, and Akron followed his every move as a teenage prodigy. How talented was Dokes? As an amateur, he won a National AAU title and a National Golden Gloves title. At fifteen, he was sassing Muhammad Ali. At seventeen, he had to settle for a silver medal at the Pan American Games when he lost a decision to Olympic legend Teófilo Stevenson. Even before he gloved up against Stevenson, Dokes had already been featured in Sports Illustrated. By the time he turned pro in 1976 (a second-round KO over Al Byrd in Hollywood, Florida), Dokes was considered a future star.
But it took six years for Dokes to land a title shot. "It seems like I've been fighting forever," Dokes said in 1982. "I'm not impatient. I just know that I'm ready right now." Lost among the disastrous heavyweight stable of promoter Don King, Dokes ran his record up to 25-0-1 but remained in limbo until he became the mandatory contender to a journeyman champion named Mike Weaver.
On December 10, 1982, Dokes scored a knockdown within thirty seconds of the opening bell and stopped Weaver in just over a minute to capture the WBA title in Las Vegas. But the biggest win of his career was overshadowed by the panicky actions of referee Joey Curtis, who stopped the fight before it ever really got started. After a scrum between corners-and with an enraged crowd at Caesars Palace chanting “Bullshit! Bullshit!" and "Don King sucks! Don King sucks!" —Dokes left the ring without even being announced champion. Weaver insisted the whole affair was a fix, and the press sniffed out skulduggery in every possible corner. No matter. Dokes soaked himself in a bathtub full of champagne after his victory party, prefiguring the excess that would eventually ruin his career.
Years later, Dokes would estimate that his bubbly bath had cost around $20,000. There is no jet set as low-rent as the prizefight jet set, and Dokes was soon off on one merrymaking junket after another, surrounded by the leeches that would eventually drain his blood and end up sucking at the marrow. "Once you get into that life and get that kind of money..." Dokes haltingly explained to the Akron Beacon Journal in 2010. .. last night we were talking about the people we were around-the toughest gangsters, the biggest entrepreneurs. It was probably more than we probably should have been biting on at the time, but I was just caught up in it."
In boxing, the enemies of promise are numerous: entourages, managers, promoters, injuries, other fighters. But self-destruction ranks up there with the best of the worst, and Michael Dokes had a talent for dissipation second to none. Soon, Dokes began to look sluggish in the ring as well as outside of it. His downfall was reminiscent of how Mike Campbell in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises described going bankrupt:
"Gradually, then suddenly."
As partial heavyweight champion (alongside the far more established Larry Holmes), Dokes had an undistinguished title reign even by the low standards of the "greed is good" decade. And Dokes began to realize it as much as anybody. "I had attained the most coveted prize in boxing, yet I still was not happy," he told Newsday reporter Wallace Matthews in 1989. "I thought everything would be great, but there was nothing but dissension and jealousy in my own camp. I was so let down, so hurt. At that point, I said, I’ll fix everybody. I started to escape by the use of drugs. Before I knew it, it became the number-one priority in my life." A rematch against Weaver ended in a draw, and on September 23, 1983, Dokes was flattened before a sparse hometown crowd in Richfield, Ohio, by Gerrie Coetzee. Dokes never had a chance. He entered the ring at the Richfield Coliseum cross-eyed on cocaine. Coetzee, whose brittle right hand had undergone surgery more than a dozen times, made his limitations count against a zombified Dokes, scoring a KO in the tenth round. With "Dynamite" still out of sorts on the canvas, Don King ducked through the ropes, stepped over a woozy Dokes, and led the congratulatory charge for the new champion, the first white heavyweight titleholder since the days of Ingemar Johansson. Even in his fifties, King was a spry, spry man.
And just how did King—ex-numbers-runner, showman extraordinaire, two-time murderer, and master of the malapropism-affect Dokes? In the early 1980s, the electro-haired promoter had a virtual lock on the heavyweight division as well, it seems, as the souls of the men whose careers he moved at whim on a sinister chessboard of his own design. "Don King hurt me," Dokes once confided to Jack Newfield. "One time I went to Cleveland to ask Don for some money when I was in a jam with the IRS. He said he didn't have any money and I started to cry. I loved that man. I looked up to him like he was my daddy. I even tried to comb my hair so I could look like him. And he had this big mansion, and millions of dollars, and he wouldn't help me out just a little.
I became suicidal, close to a nervous breakdown. And I was still doing drugs all the time."
But Dokes was not the only heavyweight who found himself drawn and trapped by a master manipulator whose business sense had been honed by a lifetime of hustling. With the exception of Larry Holmes, no one got away from the dark side King seemed to represent. From Dokes to Trevor Berbick to Pinklon Thomas to Tony Tubbs to Jeff Sims to James "Bonecrusher" Smith to Tim Witherspoon to Greg Page to James Broad to Mike Tyson-all of them sent spiraling into drugs or prison or murder or obesity or injury or privation. Like some sort of creepy fairy tale, King even imprisoned his fighters on a compound in Ohio. "Oh, man, did I hate that training camp," former two-time heavyweight titleholder Tim Witherspoon told Jack Newfield. "Being there was like being back in the ghetto. The mentality put most of the fighters back into a not caring situation. The fighters didn't have money. There wasn't a hundred dollars between us. We knew Don was charging us for staying there. The morale was real low. There was drugs floating all around the camp. It was just like being back in Philly. . . . That camp messed us all up. That's where we became the lost generation of heavyweights, that's what I call us."
This is how Richard Hoffer once described the 1980s heavyweight scene as controlled by King: "Such a monopoly, and that's what it was, guaranteed him the most important title in boxing, no matter who won or lost. There was little anxiety on his part, watching one King fighter batter another. Who really cared who won or lost? Sadly, as it turned out, not even his stable of fighters cared very much; as a group they had become so demoralized over their enslavement that defeat, and the possibility of freedom, had actually become cause for celebration in some cases."
But losing to Coetzee sent Dokes headlong into oblivion. From 1984 to late 1987, Dokes spent more time in prison, rehab centers, and on police blotters than in the ring. Dokes swapped abbreviations like NABF and WBA for SWAT and AA. Cocaine was his lodestar.
Alcohol, women, parties, and marijuana also guided Dokes through a permanent American midnight. He used so much dope that he was once charged with trafficking.
In 1987, a SWAT team crashed his Las Vegas home expecting to find a kingpin like Frank Lucas or Nicky Barnes inside and an arsenal to match. Instead, they found Dokes, a one-man gang of personal use. "I just poured it out until I thought it was enough," Dokes told Wallace Matthews. "If you could picture buying a bag of flour, putting a piece of paper on the floor, and just pouring it out until you had what you thought was enough, that's what I did. I didn't scale it out, I didn't measure it out or nothing. I just started pouring." It was one of several misunderstandings Dokes would have with the law during the mid-1980s, before his comeback, before his last pathetic shot at the heavyweight title, before he almost beat his girlfriend to death and paid for it by spending nearly a decade behind bars.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "There are no second acts in American lives," and boxing tries its damnedest to make sure that sentiment is true ninety-five percent of the time. Incredibly, Michael Dokes almost made the five percent bracket when his comeback, begun in late 1987 after a forty-seven-day stretch in the Clark County Detention Center, led to a high-profile fight with Evander Holyfield in 1989. Holyfield, undefeated and only eighteen months from winning the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world, was all that stood in the way of Dokes and the kind of redemption all too rare in boxing. On March 11, 1989, Holyfield and Dokes savaged each other in a minor classic at Caesars Palace. In preparing for his biggest challenge in years, Dokes had flayed his war-torn body to its absolute peak for one last chance at an honest future. Once a nimble dancer in the ring, Dokes had lost his legs by the time he faced Holyfield, but he still had his hand speed, those blistering combinations, and a raging desire to win. "I was willing to put out whatever it took to overcome," Dokes said after the fight. "It was disheartening to see it slip away from me."
It was the best performance of his career, but Dokes was simply not fresh enough to beat Holyfield. Although only four years separated them, it might as well have been a generation for Dokes, who was thirty at the time but had long ago yielded his natural gifts to the night. "There were moments during their heavyweight bout last Saturday night in Las Vegas when Evander Holyfield and Michael Dokes looked like two men trying to knock down mountains," wrote Pat Putnam for Sports Illustrated. Dokes ripped shots to the body, doubled his left hook, and forced Holyfield to trade in close. But Holyfield responded with just as much fury, and Dokes seemed to be slowing down with each passing second of barbarism under the lights. Holyfield fought through so much pain, he later admitted, that he had begun to doubt his calling as an athlete midfight. Dokes finally succumbed to superior firepower in the tenth round, his dream now as limp as his rag-doll body in the ring. It took nearly ten minutes for Dokes to rise from his stool.
A little over a year later, Dokes was flattened-as still as winterkill-in the fourth round by a left-hooking power puncher named Donovan "Razor" Ruddock. It was not a fight for which Dokes was prepared. Not only was Dokes
nineteen pounds heavier than he had been against Holyfield, he had also been arrested for possession only a few months before he was to answer the bell against the dangerous Ruddock. Doctors stormed the ring before referee Arthur Mercante Jr., could finish his gratuitous count. Dokes remained on the canvas, unconscious, for something close to forever. "Maybe it's time to consider doing something else for a living," Dokes later said in his locker room. It had taken him an hour to regroup and face the press. Although he recovered and kept fighting-going through the motions against stumblebums for what amounted to pocket change-Dokes was finished as a contender. Incredibly, after nearly three more years, Dokes somehow managed to qualify for a title fight-his first since 1983. How the New York State Athletic Commission allowed Dokes to face undefeated Riddick Bowe in such a ghastly mismatch remains a mystery even now, almost two decades later. On February 6, 1993, Bowe trampled a burnt-out Dokes in less than a round before a crowd of more than sixteen thousand at Madison Square Garden. No longer the prodigy of the late 1970s, no longer even the wilted but dedicated pug who pushed Holyfield to the brink
in 1989, Dokes looked tired, faded, gray. Dokes had as much business being in the ring that night as Charles Oakley or John Starks, and his baffling training methods inspired the rare snarky headline from the New York Times: "The Dokes Diet Program: Eat, Eat, Eat." There was nothing left of him as a fighter that night. Maybe there was nothing left of him as a man.
With his $750,000 paycheck, Dokes invested in a restaurant, and bought a few racehorses and watched them charge from the gate down in Florida. But he soon became restless and returned to Las Vegas to renew his
"Sunglasses at Night" routine.
In 1998 Dokes brutally assaulted his girlfriend, and in early 2000 he pleaded guilty to attempted murder, second-degree kidnapping, and battery with intent to commit sexual assault. No longer the high roller with an entourage, Dokes was appointed a public defender and was given a ten-year sentence. When he was released from prison in 2008, Dokes settled in Sin City once again, making a living of sorts by signing autographs and making appearances, but he returned to Akron in 2010, back to where he first put on gloves as a twelve-year-old boy at the Firestone YMCA.
Michael Dokes, who fought from 1976 to 1997, finished his career with a record of 53-6-2, with thirty-four knockouts.
The flamboyant personality of thirty-five years ago has long been forgotten. The man who tossed red roses at the crowd before his fights, the man who cooked like a gourmet chef, the man who designed and sewed his own clothes-none of that seems relevant now. But for the fighter who once told KO Magazine, "I found out once you get past the clouds, you don't see no angels," it may be best, after all, to remember him for these few quirks and to forget the squandered promise, his heinous crime, that one long season in hell.
Comments
Great image of Chiquita Gonzales, freakin' Gladiator.
Azumah Nelson, "The Professor", featherweight out of Africa, one of the best fighters of all-time. He was a freakin' Buzzsaw, brutal knockout power, iron chin, endless stamina, technically sound, he had it all.
Azumah Nelson – Africa’s Greatest Fighter
By James Slater -
The greatest African fighter? Should the lofty distinction go to Dick Tiger (Nigerian)? To Ike Quartey (hailing from Ghana)? To Brian Mitchell (South African)? – or to Azumah Nelson (from Ghana)? There have been some pretty special fighters to come out of Africa, that’s for sure. But to many, in fact to most, “The Professor,” or, to use another of Azumah Nelson’s nicknames, “The Terrible Warrior,” fully deserves the honour of being called the greatest African boxer. Why? Nelson was uncommonly tough, he was technically brilliant. And Nelson had ruthless punching power to go with an uncrackable chin. Oh, and “Zoom Zoom” was also blessed with stamina to die for. And a willingness, in fact an obsession, to fight the best – again and again and again, even when his own stature was concrete. Going pro in December of 1979, this after having won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in 1978, this topping his amateur career, Nelson stunned the boxing world in July of 1982. In just his 14th pro fight, and after taking the fight at short notice, Nelson gave the great (some say the greatest Mexican fighter ever) Salvador Sanchez nothing but hell for 1 minute and 11 seconds short of 15 rounds. Nelson, taking the heat to Sanchez, this in a very real effort at ripping away from him his featherweight title, Nelson was stopped in the dying seconds of the final round in New York. This was Sanchez’ last fight, the 23 year old tragically losing his life in a car smash three weeks later. But as tragic as Salvador’s death was, Nelson had arrived, even though he had lost the fight. It would be 18 fights over the course of eight years before Nelson lost again. Nelson, at age of 26, stopped the also great Wilfredo Gomez to win the WBC featherweight title in 1984. Nelson would go on to retain the title six times (scoring notable wins over Pat Cowdell and Danilo Cabrera), before he made the move up to 130 pounds, with Nelson winning the WBC belt there also. Four retentions followed, before Nelson, now aged 32, lost to the sublime Pernell Whitaker, this in a challenge for “Sweet Pea’s” lightweight titles. Nelson, still the reigning super-featherweight boss, dropped back down accordingly, the Don King promoted warrior beating Juan Laporte in a title defence before tangling with the ferocious Jeff Fenech. The 12 round war/ battle of attrition Nelson and Fenech went through in June of 1991 (the fight of the night, maybe of the year, taking place on a Mike Tyson card) was savagely entertaining, with Nelson deemed lucky to have avoided defeat by way of the controversial draw that was handed in by the three wise man who were privileged to have been sat at ringside. But Nelson had been fighting the lingering effects of malaria as well as the raw aggression of Fenech. The return fight was a suitably different story, with a fully fit Nelson travelling to Australia to smash Fenech to 8th round defeat in another memorable fight. After winning this one, one of his most important and satisfying wins, Nelson gave the focused cameras an almost smug shrug, as if to say, ‘So what! I knew I was the better man.’ That Nelson was, and he went on winning, and drawing, and then losing (in fights with Jesse James Leija), and then winning again, until 1997. It was in March of 1997, after having become a three-time WBC featherweight champ with a KO win over multi-fight rival Leija, that Nelson’s age finally caught up with him. Genaro Hernandez won a split decision over Nelson, taking his title. Azumah fought on for a while, but he never won another fight; “The Professor” dropping a decision to Leija in a fourth fight and then, ten years later, dropping an “old man” decision to Fenech in a needless third tango. None of this mattered or matters. Nelson, who finished at 37-7-2(27), during which time he was stopped just one time, this by Sanchez, had done all he had to do to become recognised as the greatest African fighter ever. 65 today, Nelson is one of those rare fighters about whom nobody has a single bad word to say. Not even the guys that managed to defeat him in the ring. Nelson was special. Very special. And we all applaud him for having been so.
Azumah Nelson vs Pat Cowdell, one of my favorite KO's, beautiful left uppercut did the job.
A “Terrible” KO – When Azumah Nelson Iced Pat Cowdell And Then Called Out McGuigan
By James Slater
Of all the lower weight super-fights that never happened, a clash between featherweight greats Azuma Nelson and Barry McGuigan comes close to topping the “what if?” lists. The two were rival 126 pound champions in the mid 1980s, Nelson the WBC ruler, McGuigan the WBA champ. Sadly, for whatever reason or reasons, this blockbuster never came to fruition. But Nelson sure wanted it. In 1985, “The Terrible Warrior” travelled to Birmingham, UK to make the second defence of his title. 27 year old Nelson went in against the experienced and classy Pat Cowdell. Cowdell was 32 years of age (old for a featherweight, especially back then) but he had never been knocked out (stopped once, very early in his career, on cuts). Cowdell had also been 15 rounds with the great Salvador Sanchez, the man who stopped an unknown Nelson in a titanic battle a year after winning a split decision over Cowdell. This made what happened on the night of October 12, 1985 all the more shocking. Nelson, coming out fast, letting his hands go in an intimidating manner, countered a Cowdell jab with a crushing left uppercut that landed smack, bang on his challenger’s briefly exposed jaw and down Cowdell went. For an alarming amount of time. The fight lasted just over two-minutes but Cowdell was laid out on the canvas for a good deal longer than that. Nelson said in the post-fight interview that he had said he would knock Cowdell out in the first round. Then talk turned to McGuigan. Nelson said he wanted to fight him, “any time, anywhere,” and he also predicted how McGuigan would “not last four rounds with me.” Did the brutal display of handiwork Nelson showed against Cowdell scare McGuigan and his team away? Who knows, but the fight never happened. Instead, McGuigan went into a defence against Danilo Cabrera in February of 1986 (Cabrera also fighting Nelson, in September of ’86), before he was shocked by relative unknown Steve Cruz that summer. His title reign over, McGuigan was no longer on Nelson’s radar. The featherweight division had lost what may well have been a very special fight. Nelson went on to retain his WBC title a further four times, before moving up to become champion at super-featherweight. In total, Nelson scored 28 KO’s during his Hall of Fame career, but it could be argued that the destruction job he did on the durable Cowdell deserves to sit atop his highlight reel. Cowdell came back from the brutal KO, winning six of eight bouts, yet he never again challenged for a world title.
Azumah Nelson KO's Pat Cowdell, brutal left uppercut. Before the fight Nelson said he was going to take Cowdell out in the first round, and that's exactly what he did.
If you really want to see how bad a$$ Azumah Nelson was, watch his fight with Wilfredo "Bazooka" Gomez, that should give you a good idea. Wilfredo Gomez was an all-time great, he didn't lose many fights, his career record was 44-3 with 42 KO, and only five men made it to the final bell against Gomez, he was a murderous puncher, they didn't call him "Bazooka" for nothing. Azumah Nelson wages war with Gomez and brutally takes him out. Highlights time.
This is one of my favorite photos of Azumah Nelson, he looks so laid back, you would never know he was a brutal pugilist.
Azumah Nelson knocks down Gabriel Rueles down in round 4 of their 1995 fight, this knockdown came from a left hook to the ribs, a body shot. Nelson would go on to stop Ruelas in the 5th. Azumah Nelson was past his prime in this fight.
Great book about Azumah Nelson. I love the photo on the cover, the intense look.
I feel like another music break, a classic from the 90s, great decade for music.
Lucian Bute "Mr. KO", lands a left hand on Glen "The Road Warrior" Johnson in their 2011 Super Middleweight fight, look at the impact from the punch, it's actually sending ripples through Johnson's head. Lucian Bute was a brutal power puncher.
Lennox Lewis, "The Lion", one of the greatest heavyweights to ever do it. What a beast Lennox was, 6"5', 257 lbs, had a 84 inch reach, which is equivalent to 7 feet. He had a poleaxe jab, and he hit like sledgehammer. Great great fighter, unified the heavyweight title, he could outbox you or he could exchange with you, he had it all.
Lennox Lewis connects with a fight-ending right hand to regain the heavyweight championship from Hasim "The Rock" Rahman in 2001.
Sick card of Lennox Lewis, 2024 Leaf Exotic Military. The series comes in different military themes, Coast Guard, Air Force, Space Force, etc. I own this printing plate set for the Tank.
Oleksandr Usyk, all-time great, two-time unified heavyweight champion shows his battle scars. The life of a fighter.
I think it's fair to say, these two guys knocked out a lot of people. On the left is Sandy Saddler, and of course George Foreman on the right.
Juan Domingo Roldán was a middleweight boxer in the 70s and 80s from Argentina, he was known for his sheer aggression and brutal punching, earning him the nickname "El Martillo" (The Hammer). He fought Tommy Hearns and Marvin Hagler, gave them both all they could handle. Roldan was a brutal brutal fighter, if you faced him it was pretty much guaranteed you were going to be roughed up.
Juan Roldan is the man that is responsible for the famous Marvin Hagler knockdown, the only time Hagler ever tasted the canvas in his career. It should be noted that Hagler was adamant that it was a slip, and not a knockdown. I've watched the footage many times and I have to agree with Hagler, it was a slip, Hagler slipped and it coincided with Roldan pushing him down by the back of head with his glove, but it wasn't an actual knockdown. Nobody ever put Hagler on the canvas. But it is a famous incident nonetheless.
Juan Roldan was a brutal puncher, his knockout of Frank "The Animal" Fletcher is one of my favorites.
Juan Roldan vs Tommy Hearns, Roldan wore Hearns out and had him in serious trouble until Hearns dug deep and rallied back to stop him, Roldan wasn't an easy nights work for anyone, he always brought it, he was a rough customer.
Great shot of Juan Roldan, they actually put headgear on the camera.
Juan Roldan, Argentina warrior.
Tommy "The Duke" Morrison defeated Big George Foreman by unanimous decision on June 7, 1993, to win the WBO Heavyweight title. Morrison, the younger fighter, used movement and out-boxed the older Foreman, who was the favorite to win. The fight went the full 12 rounds, with Morrison landing more punches and Foreman having a point deducted for a low blow. Here Morrison is seen landing a jarring right hand that knocks the sweat from Foreman's head.
Tommy Morrison was a brutal puncher, to the body and head, savage power and speed, great left hook, and a wild man, there are some crazy stories out there about him, a real loose cannon. He was once quoted as saying, "I'm the guy your parents warned you about in high school." Morrison was a "balls to the wall" fighter, the kind of guy you had to really nail down to keep him on the canvas. He also once said, "I don't believe in past lifetimes, but if there was one, I had to be a gladiator.'' Of course Morrison gained a lot of fame starring in Rocky V as Tommy Gunn, a young hungry fighter that Rocky takes under his wing only to turn against Rocky when the money and fame go to his head.
Tommy Morrison with Sylvester Stallone in Rocky V.
Tommy Morrison was an absolutely brutal puncher, just brutal.
Great shot of the devastation of Tommy Morrison's power.
A blood soaked Tyson Fury, "The Gypsy King", is tended to in his corner by his cut man during his fight with Otto Wallin in 2019. Fury was cut over his right eye in round 3 from a punch by Wallin, despite the cut constantly bleeding, Fury fought through the blood and won by unanimous decision. The cut needed 47 stitches to close and was one of the worse cuts you'll ever see.
Saul "Canelo" Alvarez is a nightmare. He's one of the most genuinely frightening fighters I've ever seen in a boxing ring. Tries to knock you out with every punch. Never been knocked down in over 60 flights. Targets the hell out of you rib cage. I'm sure his opponents will tell you what it's like to stand toe to toe with this wrecking ball of a man. Canelo was made in hell.
Canelo is such a freakin' beast, one of the greatest pound for pound fighters that ever lived. He's the epitome of what a fighter should strive to be. He lives, eats, sleeps, and breathes boxing. He's totally fearless, ducks absolutely noone, always seeking the best competition. He's extremely powerful, he throws every punch with the intention of knocking you out. He's never tasted the canvas in 67 fights, nobody has ever knocked him down, not even once. A punishing, punishing fighter.
Canelo has been the face of boxing for over a decade now and will continue to be until he decides to relinquish his crown.
I've injured my ribs twice in my life, barely banged them and it was two of the most painful experiences of my life. It's 24/7 pain that lasts for over a week, it hurts to breathe, it hurts to move, you can't sleep on that side, and it's something that has to heal on it's own over time, there's no quick cure for a rib injury. I can't imagine taking a Canelo Alvarez body shot to the ribs like this.
Willie Pep "The Hartford Wonder" after his 4th fight with Joseph "Sandy" Saddler. This was one of the dirtiest fights in boxing history, both Pep and Saddler fought dirty, they disliked each other, thumbs to the eye, elbows, you name it.
Adonis Stevenson, "Superman", one of the most lethal punchers ever. Adonis primarily fought in the light heavyweight division, where he held the WBC title from 2013-18. He also briefly competed in the super middleweight division, winning the WBC Silver title in that weight class. Adonis was like a snake waiting to strike with one precise well timed deadly shot, always waiting for the right opportunity to land that traumatizing left hand.
That nasty left hand.
Adonis Stevenson made one hell of a living off of that left hand.
In 1991, Vinny Pazienza, "The Pazmanian Devil" then known as Vinny Paz, suffered a broken neck in a car accident. He sustained a dislocated vertebra and two fractured vertebrae, and doctors told him he might never walk again. Despite this prognosis, Pazienza underwent surgery to stabilize his neck with a halo brace, and remarkably, returned to boxing 13 months later. It is one of the greatest comebacks in sports history.
"Dr. Carter said to me, and Dr. Carter had a tear in his eye, I could tell he felt for me, and he said, son I'm sorry to say, you're not going to box again. And I looked at him, and I said, no Dr. Carter you're wrong, I am going to box again, you see, you don't understand what kind of man I am." - Vinny Pazienza
Mike Tyson gives money to a homeless man in the streets.
Legendary crooner Frank Sinatra took this photo of "Smokin'" Joe Frazier glaring through his eyebrows while bobbing and weaving his way to an attack on Muhammad Ali in their epic 1971 showdown for the undisputed heavyweight crown at Madison Square Garden. When Frazier crouched down like that, he was usually about to spring up and launch one of his brutal left hooks, much like a snake uncoils and strikes when it attacks. Frazier looks absolutely menacing, great boxing photo.
British Featherweight champion Steve Sims makes the iconic 290 step journey up Newport's Transporter Bridge as part of his training routine in 1983. He would do this 10 times a day.
The Newport Transporter Bridge and it's 290 step climb.
Ron Stander, "The Council Bluffs Butcher", after going 5 rounds with Joe Frazier in 1972. Ron Stander was something else, tough as a $2 steak, the guy would just assume die than surrender, packed a good punch, he knocked out Earnie Shavers when Shavers was starting his career. Stander's wife was quite a character as well, she said of her husbands fight with Joe Frazier, "You don't enter a Volkswagen at the Indy 500 unless you know a helluva shortcut."
Michael "Dynamite" Dokes, 1980s heavyweight, part of the 80s crop of heavyweights that were so talented and showed a lot of greatness but ultimately underachieved, the 80s was a weird decade for heavyweight boxing, so much wasted potential. There was so much talent in the heavyweight division in the 80s, so many guys that should have been Hall of Famers but fell short for one reason or another, personal demons, beefs with promotors, lack of focus and dedication, it's a real shame. Dokes had some of the fastest hands you'll ever see on a heavyweight, good power, good fundamentals, but he couldn't keep his head on straight.
ONE LONG SEASON IN HELL
On Michael Dokes
By: Carlos Acevedo
How he always believed - what madness -
that cheat who said: "Tomorrow. You have plenty of time.”
Once, during his prime, he would toss red roses to the women seated at ringside for his fights. But that was another lifetime ago. Michael “Dynamite" Dokes was light-years removed from those carefree days when he died of liver cancer at a hospice in Summit County, Ohio, on August 12, 2012. Dokes was fifty-four years old, a short-lived champion, and a charter member of "The Lost Generation" of 1980s heavyweights, a grim cast of characters marked by misfortune and tragedy.
For years, Dokes lived a life as bleak and as dark as a late Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son, perhaps, or The Fates. Like all fighters, however, Dokes had simple dreams that would never come true. "There are many things that I would like to do in my life," Dokes told Boxing Today in 1982. "I'm very interested in real estate and the stock market. I enjoy designing clothes. I have a whole life ahead of me. I plan on spending two or three years as the heavyweight champion of the world. After that, I can pass it on with dignity and continue living and growing as an individual." Such small wants, and yet, they were impossible.
Michael Dokes was born on August 10, 1958, in Akron, Ohio. A gifted all-around athlete, Dokes played football and basketball and ran track. But what he really excelled at was boxing, and Akron followed his every move as a teenage prodigy. How talented was Dokes? As an amateur, he won a National AAU title and a National Golden Gloves title. At fifteen, he was sassing Muhammad Ali. At seventeen, he had to settle for a silver medal at the Pan American Games when he lost a decision to Olympic legend Teófilo Stevenson. Even before he gloved up against Stevenson, Dokes had already been featured in Sports Illustrated. By the time he turned pro in 1976 (a second-round KO over Al Byrd in Hollywood, Florida), Dokes was considered a future star.
But it took six years for Dokes to land a title shot. "It seems like I've been fighting forever," Dokes said in 1982. "I'm not impatient. I just know that I'm ready right now." Lost among the disastrous heavyweight stable of promoter Don King, Dokes ran his record up to 25-0-1 but remained in limbo until he became the mandatory contender to a journeyman champion named Mike Weaver.
On December 10, 1982, Dokes scored a knockdown within thirty seconds of the opening bell and stopped Weaver in just over a minute to capture the WBA title in Las Vegas. But the biggest win of his career was overshadowed by the panicky actions of referee Joey Curtis, who stopped the fight before it ever really got started. After a scrum between corners-and with an enraged crowd at Caesars Palace chanting “Bullshit! Bullshit!" and "Don King sucks! Don King sucks!" —Dokes left the ring without even being announced champion. Weaver insisted the whole affair was a fix, and the press sniffed out skulduggery in every possible corner. No matter. Dokes soaked himself in a bathtub full of champagne after his victory party, prefiguring the excess that would eventually ruin his career.
Years later, Dokes would estimate that his bubbly bath had cost around $20,000. There is no jet set as low-rent as the prizefight jet set, and Dokes was soon off on one merrymaking junket after another, surrounded by the leeches that would eventually drain his blood and end up sucking at the marrow. "Once you get into that life and get that kind of money..." Dokes haltingly explained to the Akron Beacon Journal in 2010. .. last night we were talking about the people we were around-the toughest gangsters, the biggest entrepreneurs. It was probably more than we probably should have been biting on at the time, but I was just caught up in it."
In boxing, the enemies of promise are numerous: entourages, managers, promoters, injuries, other fighters. But self-destruction ranks up there with the best of the worst, and Michael Dokes had a talent for dissipation second to none. Soon, Dokes began to look sluggish in the ring as well as outside of it. His downfall was reminiscent of how Mike Campbell in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises described going bankrupt:
"Gradually, then suddenly."
As partial heavyweight champion (alongside the far more established Larry Holmes), Dokes had an undistinguished title reign even by the low standards of the "greed is good" decade. And Dokes began to realize it as much as anybody. "I had attained the most coveted prize in boxing, yet I still was not happy," he told Newsday reporter Wallace Matthews in 1989. "I thought everything would be great, but there was nothing but dissension and jealousy in my own camp. I was so let down, so hurt. At that point, I said, I’ll fix everybody. I started to escape by the use of drugs. Before I knew it, it became the number-one priority in my life." A rematch against Weaver ended in a draw, and on September 23, 1983, Dokes was flattened before a sparse hometown crowd in Richfield, Ohio, by Gerrie Coetzee. Dokes never had a chance. He entered the ring at the Richfield Coliseum cross-eyed on cocaine. Coetzee, whose brittle right hand had undergone surgery more than a dozen times, made his limitations count against a zombified Dokes, scoring a KO in the tenth round. With "Dynamite" still out of sorts on the canvas, Don King ducked through the ropes, stepped over a woozy Dokes, and led the congratulatory charge for the new champion, the first white heavyweight titleholder since the days of Ingemar Johansson. Even in his fifties, King was a spry, spry man.
And just how did King—ex-numbers-runner, showman extraordinaire, two-time murderer, and master of the malapropism-affect Dokes? In the early 1980s, the electro-haired promoter had a virtual lock on the heavyweight division as well, it seems, as the souls of the men whose careers he moved at whim on a sinister chessboard of his own design. "Don King hurt me," Dokes once confided to Jack Newfield. "One time I went to Cleveland to ask Don for some money when I was in a jam with the IRS. He said he didn't have any money and I started to cry. I loved that man. I looked up to him like he was my daddy. I even tried to comb my hair so I could look like him. And he had this big mansion, and millions of dollars, and he wouldn't help me out just a little.
I became suicidal, close to a nervous breakdown. And I was still doing drugs all the time."
But Dokes was not the only heavyweight who found himself drawn and trapped by a master manipulator whose business sense had been honed by a lifetime of hustling. With the exception of Larry Holmes, no one got away from the dark side King seemed to represent. From Dokes to Trevor Berbick to Pinklon Thomas to Tony Tubbs to Jeff Sims to James "Bonecrusher" Smith to Tim Witherspoon to Greg Page to James Broad to Mike Tyson-all of them sent spiraling into drugs or prison or murder or obesity or injury or privation. Like some sort of creepy fairy tale, King even imprisoned his fighters on a compound in Ohio. "Oh, man, did I hate that training camp," former two-time heavyweight titleholder Tim Witherspoon told Jack Newfield. "Being there was like being back in the ghetto. The mentality put most of the fighters back into a not caring situation. The fighters didn't have money. There wasn't a hundred dollars between us. We knew Don was charging us for staying there. The morale was real low. There was drugs floating all around the camp. It was just like being back in Philly. . . . That camp messed us all up. That's where we became the lost generation of heavyweights, that's what I call us."
This is how Richard Hoffer once described the 1980s heavyweight scene as controlled by King: "Such a monopoly, and that's what it was, guaranteed him the most important title in boxing, no matter who won or lost. There was little anxiety on his part, watching one King fighter batter another. Who really cared who won or lost? Sadly, as it turned out, not even his stable of fighters cared very much; as a group they had become so demoralized over their enslavement that defeat, and the possibility of freedom, had actually become cause for celebration in some cases."
But losing to Coetzee sent Dokes headlong into oblivion. From 1984 to late 1987, Dokes spent more time in prison, rehab centers, and on police blotters than in the ring. Dokes swapped abbreviations like NABF and WBA for SWAT and AA. Cocaine was his lodestar.
Alcohol, women, parties, and marijuana also guided Dokes through a permanent American midnight. He used so much dope that he was once charged with trafficking.
In 1987, a SWAT team crashed his Las Vegas home expecting to find a kingpin like Frank Lucas or Nicky Barnes inside and an arsenal to match. Instead, they found Dokes, a one-man gang of personal use. "I just poured it out until I thought it was enough," Dokes told Wallace Matthews. "If you could picture buying a bag of flour, putting a piece of paper on the floor, and just pouring it out until you had what you thought was enough, that's what I did. I didn't scale it out, I didn't measure it out or nothing. I just started pouring." It was one of several misunderstandings Dokes would have with the law during the mid-1980s, before his comeback, before his last pathetic shot at the heavyweight title, before he almost beat his girlfriend to death and paid for it by spending nearly a decade behind bars.
F. Scott Fitzgerald once wrote, "There are no second acts in American lives," and boxing tries its damnedest to make sure that sentiment is true ninety-five percent of the time. Incredibly, Michael Dokes almost made the five percent bracket when his comeback, begun in late 1987 after a forty-seven-day stretch in the Clark County Detention Center, led to a high-profile fight with Evander Holyfield in 1989. Holyfield, undefeated and only eighteen months from winning the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world, was all that stood in the way of Dokes and the kind of redemption all too rare in boxing. On March 11, 1989, Holyfield and Dokes savaged each other in a minor classic at Caesars Palace. In preparing for his biggest challenge in years, Dokes had flayed his war-torn body to its absolute peak for one last chance at an honest future. Once a nimble dancer in the ring, Dokes had lost his legs by the time he faced Holyfield, but he still had his hand speed, those blistering combinations, and a raging desire to win. "I was willing to put out whatever it took to overcome," Dokes said after the fight. "It was disheartening to see it slip away from me."
It was the best performance of his career, but Dokes was simply not fresh enough to beat Holyfield. Although only four years separated them, it might as well have been a generation for Dokes, who was thirty at the time but had long ago yielded his natural gifts to the night. "There were moments during their heavyweight bout last Saturday night in Las Vegas when Evander Holyfield and Michael Dokes looked like two men trying to knock down mountains," wrote Pat Putnam for Sports Illustrated. Dokes ripped shots to the body, doubled his left hook, and forced Holyfield to trade in close. But Holyfield responded with just as much fury, and Dokes seemed to be slowing down with each passing second of barbarism under the lights. Holyfield fought through so much pain, he later admitted, that he had begun to doubt his calling as an athlete midfight. Dokes finally succumbed to superior firepower in the tenth round, his dream now as limp as his rag-doll body in the ring. It took nearly ten minutes for Dokes to rise from his stool.
A little over a year later, Dokes was flattened-as still as winterkill-in the fourth round by a left-hooking power puncher named Donovan "Razor" Ruddock. It was not a fight for which Dokes was prepared. Not only was Dokes
nineteen pounds heavier than he had been against Holyfield, he had also been arrested for possession only a few months before he was to answer the bell against the dangerous Ruddock. Doctors stormed the ring before referee Arthur Mercante Jr., could finish his gratuitous count. Dokes remained on the canvas, unconscious, for something close to forever. "Maybe it's time to consider doing something else for a living," Dokes later said in his locker room. It had taken him an hour to regroup and face the press. Although he recovered and kept fighting-going through the motions against stumblebums for what amounted to pocket change-Dokes was finished as a contender. Incredibly, after nearly three more years, Dokes somehow managed to qualify for a title fight-his first since 1983. How the New York State Athletic Commission allowed Dokes to face undefeated Riddick Bowe in such a ghastly mismatch remains a mystery even now, almost two decades later. On February 6, 1993, Bowe trampled a burnt-out Dokes in less than a round before a crowd of more than sixteen thousand at Madison Square Garden. No longer the prodigy of the late 1970s, no longer even the wilted but dedicated pug who pushed Holyfield to the brink
in 1989, Dokes looked tired, faded, gray. Dokes had as much business being in the ring that night as Charles Oakley or John Starks, and his baffling training methods inspired the rare snarky headline from the New York Times: "The Dokes Diet Program: Eat, Eat, Eat." There was nothing left of him as a fighter that night. Maybe there was nothing left of him as a man.
With his $750,000 paycheck, Dokes invested in a restaurant, and bought a few racehorses and watched them charge from the gate down in Florida. But he soon became restless and returned to Las Vegas to renew his
"Sunglasses at Night" routine.
In 1998 Dokes brutally assaulted his girlfriend, and in early 2000 he pleaded guilty to attempted murder, second-degree kidnapping, and battery with intent to commit sexual assault. No longer the high roller with an entourage, Dokes was appointed a public defender and was given a ten-year sentence. When he was released from prison in 2008, Dokes settled in Sin City once again, making a living of sorts by signing autographs and making appearances, but he returned to Akron in 2010, back to where he first put on gloves as a twelve-year-old boy at the Firestone YMCA.
Michael Dokes, who fought from 1976 to 1997, finished his career with a record of 53-6-2, with thirty-four knockouts.
The flamboyant personality of thirty-five years ago has long been forgotten. The man who tossed red roses at the crowd before his fights, the man who cooked like a gourmet chef, the man who designed and sewed his own clothes-none of that seems relevant now. But for the fighter who once told KO Magazine, "I found out once you get past the clouds, you don't see no angels," it may be best, after all, to remember him for these few quirks and to forget the squandered promise, his heinous crime, that one long season in hell.