September 13, 2011 MONTE BARRETT: THE TALE OF TWO GUNZ By Doveed Linder Part two of three In Part One of “Monte Barrett: The Tale Of Two Gunzâ€, Barrett discussed his introduction to the sport of boxing, his rough upbringing, his amateur years, and his pro debut. In Part Two of this three-part interview, Barrett talks about the heart of his career, his fights with Lance Whitaker, Wladimir Klitschko, Joe Mesi, Dominick Guinn, Owen Beck, Hasim Rahman, Cliff Couser, Odlanier Solis, Nikolay Valuev and Tye Fields. DL: You were undefeated in your first twenty-one fights and you were having a lot of success. Tell me a little about that time in your life. Where did you see yourself going? MB: Early in my career when I was coming up, my promoter Joe DeGuardia did a great job of building me up. And I think at that time, everything that happened, I expected it was going to happen. I was a hard worker. At the end of the day, whether I was cocky or arrogant, I was a hard worker. I really applied myself at the gym and I expected good things were going to happen. Whenever you make a commitment to any project, whether you’re in a relationship with your girlfriend or if it’s your job or whatever, if you make a commitment to it, you’re going to get good results. And I knew I was going to get good results because I was committed. DL: Your first loss was in August of 1999, which was a split decision against Lance Whitaker, who is a huge man at 6’8â€. And your second loss was in July of 2000 against another big man, Wladimir Klitschko, which came via seventh round TKO. Tell me a little about the night you faced Wladimir. MB: Let’s first go back to Lance Whitaker. I was robbed in that fight. That’s when I got to understanding the politics of boxing. We were both represented by Dan Goosen at the time. And Dan’s brother trained him and his other brother managed him. That’s what you call an in-house fighter. He had to give me a bonus if I won the fight. So to make it easy on himself, instead of giving me the bonus they gave Lance the win and kept it in-house. The fight was close, but I know I won. Now, when I was training for Wladimir Klitschko, I was in camp with Lennox Lewis. We sparred twenty-two rounds together and it was like a fight. We were really going at it. Then after the first week, my trainer Eddie Mustafa Muhammad said to me, “You’re out, Monte. They’re not gonna box you no more. It’s not what they’re looking for.†So that was the only good sparring I got for that fight. And I felt like I needed about seventy-five rounds of good sparring to compete with a guy like Wladimir. Wladimir was good when I fought him and he’s improved since then. But so have I. Every fight I’ve lost has made me a better fighter. And when you get a late start in boxing like I did, sometimes you lose those big fights on the way up. I’ve been boxing for nineteen years and I feel like I’m just now coming into my own. I have a lot of respect for Wladimir as the heavyweight champ and he deserves all the credit for what he’s done. But if I ever fought him again, I know it would be a different story. DL: You’ve had moments in your career where you’ve lost a fight and the public pretty much wrote you off. But then you’ve popped up and won fights that a lot of people thought you wouldn’t. You gave an undefeated Joe Mesi a great fight [Barrett lost by majority decision], you gave Dominick Guinn his first loss… [you beat] Owen Beck, [lost to] Hasim Rahman, [split two fights with] Cliff Couser… This was all from 2003 to 2007. What stands out in your mind about some of the fights you had around this time? MB: With Joe Mesi, I was so close to winning the fight. HBO thought it was a great fight and they gave me another chance against Dominick Guinn who was a better fighter than Joe Mesi. People thought he was the future of the heavyweight division and I beat him in his hometown. I fought Owen Beck who was an undefeated Don King fighter. I had just signed with Don King, because Lou DiBella had just signed me over to him. And I knocked Beck out in the ninth round. I fought Rahman who is a friend of mine. I trained really hard for that fight, but I couldn’t get it going like I wanted. I just couldn’t fire my guns. I had some personal problems on the day of the fight and a lot of stuff going on in my head at the time. And one thing you learn in boxing, you can’t stay focused when you’re emotional about something. When you get into an argument with your girlfriend or your kids or whoever, you’re not making the best choices. That’s what happened when I fought Cliff Couser the first time. I’ll never forget that day. It was July 7th, 2007. 7-7-7… That was a bad day for me. Everybody that was supposed to win, lost that day [Editor's note: Vic Darchinyan, Travis Simms and Bermaine Stiverne also lost that day]. And I was one of them. I didn’t train right. I was very heavy. I weighed 229. I was just trying to get out of my contract with Don King and I took him very lightly. And I went into that fight with a broken hand. Before the fight, my ex-wife and I got into a bad argument and I punched the cabinet and broke my hand. He stopped me in that fight and in the very next fight, I stopped him. I showed that it was a fluke. I regret taking the fight with Rahman and that first fight Cliff Couser and the fight I had with Odlanier Solis a few years later. When I fought Solis, I had just been evicted from my apartment and I took the fight on two days notice and he stopped me in the second. So in those fights, I wasn’t one hundred percent in my boxing game as far as the preparation – mentally, physically, spiritually, and emotionally. DL: As I mentioned, you’ve fought some giants in your day. And one giant who you faced was Nikolay Valuev, who stands seven feet tall and outweighed you by one hundred pounds. This was October of 2006 and you lost via eleventh round TKO. MB: Valuev is a big dude. And if you’ve got a nice sized ring, you can maneuver and do things. But when I got there, Don King had this little ring. The WBA minimum is fourteen and three quarters. And they had a fourteen foot ring and this guy is seven feet tall 320 pounds. And I thought that was ludicrous. I was just so bitter and pissed at King for pulling that bull crap that I just didn’t have my game plan on. And my trainer said to me, “Monte, you don’t have no room to move. So you’re just gonna have to fight this guy.†So I got in there and I ended up receiving a severe concussion. I had to stay in the hospital overnight and it was a trialing time for me, because it took me like three months after the concussion to get back to myself. DL: Another giant who comes to mind is Tye Fields who stands 6’8â€. It was June of 2008 and you knocked him out in the first round. MB: I was very prepared for that fight. I trained with a guy who was an alternate on the Olympic Team. His name was Nate James. He was a big heavyweight. Strong, fast… And he was actually the first person who ever dropped me in the gym. One day, he just caught me with a straight left and that really woke me up. So the next day, I wound up dropping HIM. But he got me up for that fight. He really busted my butt in the beginning. And I knew that Tye Fields was nowhere near as good as this guy. I knew Tye Fields was clumsy and methodical and that he was just going to come, come, come… And I’m a counter puncher. He threw a lazy left hand and I countered with a right and I kept on punching and he got stopped. DL: Who is the hardest puncher you’ve ever faced? MB: I tell everybody Eric Kirkland. Eric Kirkland hurt me from round one to round ten. Every punch he threw, he hurt me. I never knew what heavy handed was until I met Eric Kirkland. The guy’s got stones in his hands. I stopped him in the tenth, but I got busted up in that fight. I got stitches in my mouth, under my chin, over my eye… He’s just a heavy handed guy. And he’s small. He’s only 6’1†220. I’ve fought guys like Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye who have explosive punching power that comes out of nowhere. But Eric Kirkland is the hardest hitter pound for pound. DL: You’re talking about getting concussions and having stitches in your mouth and all the wear and tear that comes with being a prize fighter. What kept you going all those years? How did you find it inside yourself to take this abuse and come back? MB: I’ve been dealing with adversity all my life. When I came out of my mother’s womb, statistics said that I would probably be a failure. I’m black, I was in a broken home and I was in a situation where my mother had me at a young age. She was a kid having a kid. We lived in a basement. We were on welfare. Things were rough for me, living in the ghetto. I grew up around deprived people who were starving. That’s what was in front of me. But when things go hard on me, I go harder. You might stop me. I might lose a ball game, I might lose a track meet… But I’m not going to quit. I’m going to find a solution. For every problem, there’s an answer. And in boxing, the answer is to get up and fight. That’s what I get paid to do. I just get up. I have a tattoo that says, “The Fighting Spirit.†And I do have a fighting spirit. Just in life. So the boxing thing is second nature to me. I have a wire in my jaw right now from my last fight. You can’t do anything to me that hasn’t been done to me before and I’m not a quitter. That’s the best answer I can give you. I’m just not a quitter. BOXINGTALK.COM © BOXINGTALK INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
All Klitschko had on Monte was size. 6' for 6', 220lb for 220lb, Monte kicks his faggot ass all the way back to Whitesville.
Monte was slick. He woulda shucked and he woulda jived. In fairness, it would probably take almost every minute of a 15 round for Chuvalo to find and wear him down.
What a load of shit^ Barrett isn't Muhammad Ali and that's about the only guy that ever did what you are describing... far superior fighters to Barrett didn't win every minute of every round against Chuvalo Barrett is GARBAGE
Mesi was actually a pretty decent fighter, he just had horrible stamina. Monte Barrett was good early on, he just accepted his journeyman status a bit too early. Probably would've never gotten that far even if he hadn't been lazy, though. But for a while, he was a solid gut-check/gatekeeper type fighter.
I thought so too. Some arguments are either so absurd it either isn't worth discussing or you know the poster isn't serious. This one was both.
Chuvalo and Monte are still at it. Its into the 20th round. Chuvalo has an ear like a cauliflower and a nose like a turnip, but Monte is tiring badly now.:shadow:
