by Don Colgan

When Sugar Ray Robinson won the 1940 Golden Gloves Lightweight Championship, Bill Gallo, legendary cartoonist for the New York Daily News, who watched and followed Robinson since his Simon pure days, observed “I knew I was watching greatness”.

Often greatness is unmistakable.  Sometimes it whispers gently.  Archie Moore labored

for 17 years though the light heavyweight ranks, fighting weekly at times.  He was a light heavyweight contender through the middle and late 1940’s yet was not entirely dominant, having suffered a KO defeat to Jimmy Bivins, a points loss to Charley Burley and three defeats at the hands of the Cincinnati Cobra, Ezzard Charles.

He was a familiar and battle toughened warrior yet no one mistook Moore for a future, dominant world champion in his weight class and a legitimate Heavyweight Championship threat.  Archie dethroned Maxim easily and came reasonably close to reliving Marciano of the Heavyweight Title, dropping the Rock hard midway through the 2nd heat.

Robinson’s greatness, like Leonard’s decades later, was evident from the beginning.  That is not always the case!  When Antonio Tarver, a late comer to the ring wars, emerged as a light heavyweight championship threat in 2002 with triumphs over Reggie Johnson and a convincing TKO over Eric Harding, avenging a earlier defeat in which he dominated the bout until suffering a broken jaw. After rising up in stature, he was still considered a second tier contender.  A talented, diversified and tough battler he was viewed as at least several lengths in talent below the stellar WBA & WBC titleholder, Roy Jones, Jr.

Then Jones left the title behind in a supposedly easy championship defense against Montel Griffin.  Roy found himself in a competitive skirmish, unable to sleepwalk through another easy conquest.  He barely ran ahead of Griffin for eight rounds and was in mild jeopardy of surrendering the title via points defeat when he finally broke through and dropped Griffin in the 9th round.  Than Roy did the unexplainable.  He punched the challenger while he was down on one knee.  Roy was suddenly an ex-champion with the embarrassing blemish of a disqualification on his record.  Great fighters don’t foul, they persevere!

Tarver brought dynamism to the light heavyweight division, at a time when boxing in the throes of Post Tyson Syndrome.  A boxer puncher with durability and a creative ring style he was a Philadelphia battler in the historic sense.  Hardened by the Philly gym wars he fought his way towards the top of his weight class, much in the same fashion as Joe Frazier and Bennie Briscoe had before him.

Only Antonio had a bigger fish to fry!

Tarver had boxed Jones as a neophyte and, over the following years, felt he was on a par with Roy or better.  He grew to resent the mantle of immortality that had been bestowed on Roy’s head.  As he quietly ascended the light heavyweight ranks, his singular goal was to interrupt Jones march to Canastota.  He vowed to stop Jones, annexing the championship serving as a means, not an end to his ambition.  Yet Roy showed little inclination to mix it with Tarver.  Jones was content to build his legacy with the likes of the Derrick Harmon’s and Clinton Woods of his weight class as Tarver battled the division’s iron, including Harding, Reggie Johnson and Montell Griffin.

Tarver forged status as the leading Light Heavyweight contender.  The “Tarver Team”, led by the hiring of former WBC Welterweight Champion Buddy McGirt, one of boxing’s finest trainers, is largely responsible for elevating the Philadelphian to the position of being a genuine championship threat, and danger, to Jones, Jr.

Ultimately Jones relented and Tarver got his championship opportunity November 8, 2003 at Las Vegas.  The challenger’s teenager ring experience with Jones was a nice little prelude to the bout yet Roy remained a strong favorite to stop Tarver.  No one disputed the fact that Jones ring skills were without peer.  Yet he, like Ali, needed his Frazier.  Like Griffith, he needed his Rodriquez and Benvenuti.  Jones myriad of ring skills gathered rust due in large part to the endless series of weak title defenses.

Jones won all right.  He won the battle that fall night, surviving twelve difficult rounds with a foeman worthy of his steel.  Roy retained the title, yet Tarver emerged more formidable than ever.  It was Jones most strenuous evening since his points triumph over Bernard Hopkins a decade earlier.  It should have broadened his stature yet there was a growing sense that Roy’s crown would be in real jeopardy in the return.

Six months later Jones gave Tarver another chance.  Roy won the first round, throwing his fabulous combinations and generally out dazzling the challenger.  Yet a shadow seems to pass over the Champion’s eyes.  Tarver had been an intimating force in the pre fight dialogue, including the pre fight instructions when he challenged Jones, “Any scuses, Roy?”.  Jones had the same look Johansson did in the first round of his return against Patterson at the Polo Grounds in 1960, the look of a man who knew things weren’t going to be the same as they were the first time.

Midway through the second round Jones got caught.  Tarver came over a lazy right hand by Roy with a sledgehammer left hook.  In an instant a decade of dominance was over and there was a new Philadelphia titleholder.

Tarver’s coronation was a clear cut surprise yet Roy had been showing hints of vulnerability.  The struggle with Griffin, the knockdown by Del Valle, all subtle signs the crown was beginning to teeter.  Tarver had won the title with the brutal swiftness of Marciano’s KO of Walcott a half century earlier.  His arduous climb to the top of the heap seemed to herald a dominant reign.

It never came to pass.

Within seven months his crown was stripped because he elected not to make a WBC dictated mandatory defense.  It was a principled decision.  Tarver instead met Glen

Johnson in Memphis in a bout which, based on his stunning stoppage of Jones, was widely predicted to be a victory for Antonio.  However, he pulled a Douglas, seemed in less than peak form and without his usual fire.  Johnson upset Tarver and the Jones KO receded into the background.

2005 was a better year.  A sharp, well conditioned Tarver  rebounded to decidedly avenge the Johnson defeat via a points triumph.  He handily took the rubber against Jones, struggling at times and absorbing some punishment yet emerging with a clear cut points verdict against his boyhood rival.  Yet Jones was in sharp decline and Tarver’s triumph in their third bout surprised few.  A sense was emerging that Tarver looked great only in contrast to Jones.  The question was fair.  Was he a late bloomer or a marginal champion?  The Philadelphian needed a non Jones test and he got it in the form of Bernard Hopkins, who had forged his claim to greatness by virtue of twenty championship defenses and wanted a denouement to his wondrous career.

Off of two defeats to young Jermaine Taylor, Hopkins’s halcyon days seemed gone.  Tarver, two short years after shearing the crown from Jones head, had reached a crossroads at the not tender age of 37. He had to defeat Hopkins.

He didn’t!

Tarver had gained much notoriety with his KO of Jones.  He was a colorful and recognized champion with an element of flamboyancy to compliment his skills.

America saw him as the fictional heavyweight titleholder Mason Dixon in “Rocky Balboa”.  He added considerable weight to play that role, always dangerous for an older fighter.

Only Archie Moore could gain and lose twenty to thirty pounds and oscillate between Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight with a degree of success.  Facing the former champion Tarver could not assume the great Middleweight Champion did not have one stellar effort left in him.

The Philly battler failed miserably.  He was out boxed, out foxed and out punched.  He threw few power punches, in fact few punches at all!  Tarver could barely claim two sessions as his own. He was embarrassed by a great champion, knocked down and thoroughly beat up.  The respect and recognition he earned after years of struggle were left in the ring in Atlantic City.  Three-years-ago, Antonio Tarver had the look of an emergent great fighter.  Now he has mirrored his arch rival Jones in the steep descent of his ability.

He had beaten Rocky on the silver screen, yet lost that fleeting hint of greatness in the process.