“Mighty” Ivan Robinson – Part II
By Boxing Reporter and Writer, Chris Cercola
I grew up on ‘Sugar’ Ray Leonard, ‘Sugar’ Ray Robinson, I wasn’t too much of a Muhammad Ali fan, everybody call Ali the greatest. Ali was great, but I still don’t call Ali the greatest, I always call ‘Sugar’ Ray Robinson the greatest.
People don’t know about ‘Sugar’ Ray Robinson so I try educating my fighters that I work with now. If you don’t know your history of boxing, how you gonna become a fighter? My dad was a great dude, a great father, I fought, I won, I lost, I competed, but one thing that was great, that some gentlemen today don’t have. my dad wasn’t your rich guy, he was a great dude, a great father, a great guy, and he understood the boxing game, and he taught me it well, and even though I boxed for a living, he still was hard on me about school, about education and one thing he taught me, that I don’t see a lot of trainers teaching their kids nowadays, my dad let me have the summer to myself. I pretty much played baseball, I played basketball and I played a little football. He didn’t let me do anything during the summer besides what Ivan wanted to do and when I went back to school, that’s when I did my fights.
When I was 15, I had my first amateur experience where I got on a plane, never been on a plane, I never left Philly except to go to D.C a couple times, Baltimore, I mean that’s really nowhere, but me being that young, like 13, 14, that’s somewhere to go for me. When I had to get on that plane, I was excited, I couldn’t sleep, I was thinking, “Woah, I`m gonna get on a plane tomorrow!”, then I was thinking, man, “I`m actually gonna leave my mom and them to go fight!
When they got me to the airport, and the lady was like, “Airplane leaving to go to Raleigh, North Carolina, you have to get aboard.” I looked at my mom and them, and they were leaving, I was like, “Where y’all going?” They said “You gotta go!” I just busted out crying man, it was crazy! The flight attendant was like, “We`ll take care of him, and make sure he get’s there”.
When I got there, I met a bunch of guys from California. You fight by regions; my region was region 2, so I was with D.C, Delaware, and all those guys. I was with the California team, sleeping and training with them, getting ready to fight the next day. When we went to the weigh-ins, region 2 stepped up, I was the 125 lb. champion, so when they was like, “Where`s your 125lb champion?” They was like “We ain`t never seen him,” so I said, “I`m right here, I`m with y`all.”
At the time I had Mark ‘Too Sharp’ Johnson on my squad. There was me and Danny Davis, from Philly, who was teaming up with them, and that’s when I first met Mark Johnson, and me and Mark Johnson became real tight, and his crazy pop, ‘Ham’ Johnson, and that was the first year I went. That year I fought Oscar De La Hoya in the, oh no my fault, that was the Mid-Atlantic, but that year I fought Oscar at the Golden Gloves Nationals in Knoxville Tennessee, and I lost to him, but I thought I beat him and everybody else thought I beat him, but Oscar was a hot guy, and he was on his way, but you know, the experience was great. I fought Oscar in the National Golden Gloves, that was the first time I fought him, then the second time I fought him, I fought him in the Mid-Atlantic Tournament in Colorado Springs, and lost to him, and then the third time I fought him, I fought him out in Vegas for the Goodwill Game Finals, ‘cause I remember the night before, I think we both fought Russia, or no, I fought a Russian, and he fought somebody else, he looked good, and everybody had doubted me, telling me I couldn’t win, and there wasn’t gonna be a showdown between me and Oscar ‘cause we had just fought like two months before that. Everybody wanted to see it again so I fought the Russian, and I knocked the Russian out. So it was time for me and Oscar to fight again, and I wanted that fight as bad as I don’t know what.
When I fought Oscar the first time in the Nationals, I had crazy Marvis Frazier with me, Joe Fraziers’ son, he worked my corner. That was a good fight, I had him and Barry Stump, but you know, I had my dad train me the whole time, so them trainers like that, pretty much don’t know the fighter, they kind of work off what the fighter do in the gym, or what the fighter did to get where he`s at, and I`ll never forget it, I`m wondering why you got me boxing a guy like Oscar, that’s a great counter puncher, you know what I’m saying? He hits good with the left hand, and you try to sit there and have me box this kid, and it just wasn’t happening, so my dad watched the fight, and when I got home we just adjusted to it. Now, the second time, I put a little more pressure on him and I still thought I beat him, but we just didn’t get it. Now, the third fight, me and my dad didn’t care about nothing, we didn’t care about who we was fighting, we were just determined to fight Oscar, and one thing I knew about Oscar, and it’s still to this day, Oscars a great puncher, he has great hand speed he could punch a little bit, but Oscar cannot back up.
If you back Oscar up, he’s gonna have all kinds of problems. He doesn’t know what to do. He’s not good with his feet. He doesn’t have real good movement with his feet. He don’t move well, and I’ll never forget it, Larry Kaneohe even said I won the fight, everybody thought I won the fight, but you know, like I said, Oscar was the man at that time, and you know, he got the decision, but honestly, I think the best thing Oscar did at that time was, after we fought, he moved up to 132, so I think I won the US Championships in Denver and the Goodwill Games Challenge, I think I beat him two out of the three, but everybody else you talk to, think I won all three of them, but you know everybody has their opinions. I beat Kenneth Friday, I finally got my National Gold Medal that I was looking for since the first day I met Oscar.
Then they brought in a computerized scoring system in and I didn’t like it, I didn’t like it at all, I thought that it could work to my advantage, because I was a guy with great hand speed, but I wasn’t a big puncher and that didn’t work in my favor because guys who were big punchers that knew how to punch, like Jeremy Williams, who was a great amateur knockout artist, and Oscar who punched pretty well, but he didn’t have too many knockouts, I thought that worked in they favor because by throwing that one solid shot, throwing four and landing one hard one, that worked for them, but for me, I didn’t think it worked ‘cause I was just a guy who racked up a lot of punches, scored punches.
I didn’t think that I slapped like that, but on some occasions, or some places that I look, yea it happened, but it happens to all of us, but I just didn’t like it, and I thought it came in at the wrong time, and especially when I fought in the Pre Olympics in Sydney, I knocked my first guy out, then the second guy I lost to by about two points, and there was no way in the world that he was beating me at all, I just didn’t see that, but you know, it was what it was, so I took the L, and I was gonna actually turn pro after that, but the great Pat Nappy, who was the Olympic coach for god knows how long, he encouraged me to stay around, and I was still young, so I didn’t wanna turn pro right exactly then without getting more…Well, I had a whole lot of experience, but I thought maybe just a little more might of helped me, and it did.
I’m not a big church dude, but I believe in God, and he knows what he has in store for you, and I think at that time the Olympics was not my calling. Even though I didn’t make the Olympic team, thank God for my manager Eddie Woods. I turned out to get just as big a signing contract as Oscar got…Oscar got a million, I got close to a million, so things work out in your best behalf, and it was just crazy how I knocked out the Russian, like six to eight months before that, and then Julian Wheeler gets in the Olympics, and I can`t remember, but he got knocked out or he lost, you know, that’s just crazy, how does that happen?
Hey, it just wasn’t my calling. I didn’t even care about the Olympics, because when he (Wheeler) got the calling to go to the Olympics, they have alternates, and I got the call to be an alternate, and my thing was, the only reason why they call you to be an alternate, is in case a guy gets hurt, but at that time, it was like taking money from me, and they want me to go work with this guy to get him ready for the Olympics?
I`m gonna go out there and I`m gonna try to kill him, I mean I`m not no puncher and I don’t be knocking guys out, but I`m a great boxer, and once I get my hands on you, I know how to get ‘em on you and keep ‘em on you. But it just wasn’t no good, so I told my dad that I want to stay away from it and I just want to turn pro, so that was a good suggestion from me.
Stay tuned for part III when Ivan talks about turning pro, some memorable moments as a professional, the business side of boxing, Emmanuel Augustus, Vivian Harris, and Arturo Gatti.
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