TREVOR BERBICK
Last boxer to fight Muhammad Ali
Rob Steen
The Guardian, Monday 30 October 2006
Trevor Berbick...was one of a string of modestly talented world heavyweight boxing champions to achieve fleeting fame in the mid-1980s. He was best known for beating Muhammad Ali in a unanimous decision over 10 rounds in Nassau's "Drama in the Bahamas" in 1981. The drama came afterwards, since this was the fight that finally drove Ali into permanent retirement.
Five years later Berbick supplied Mike Tyson with his passport to notoriety. This was when, in the second round of their World Boxing Council (WBC) world heavyweight title fight, the 20-year-old knocked Berbick out.
A shrewd if lumbering fighter, his life outside the ring echoed that of Tyson. Born in Norwich, Port Antonio, Jamaica, Berbick claimed to have had a religious experience at 16. He was 19 when he took up boxing as a means of self-defence while working alongside Vietnam-bound US marines at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Four years later, after just 11 amateur bouts, he represented Jamaica at the 1976 Montreal games, losing to the eventual silver medallist, Mircea Simon.
Remaining in the city, he turned professional, working under the tutelage of Archie Moore, the former world light-heavyweight champion, and the equally legendary trainer Eddie Futch; Berbick, asserted the latter, was the only pupil he ever liked. Acquiring durability and cunning, he won his first 11 fights, 10 by a knockout, and hardened a reputation for wayward behaviour.
Having won the vacant Canadian title in 1979, he gained a notable and unexpected scalp by stopping the former heavyweight champion John Tate a year later. This led to a challenge for Larry Holmes's WBC crown at Caesars Palace in April 1981, where he was outpointed by the cautious champion. In order to obtain the fight, he had agreed to give the arch-promoter Don King options on his next three contests, but promoter James Cornelius refused to allow King a piece of the action when the fight with Ali was relocated to Nassau. King threatened to sue, then turned up at Berbick's training camp, demanding satisfaction. The next day King was admitted to a Florida hospital, severely beaten.
Ali had already suffered a severe mauling at Holmes's hands two months earlier. The fight with Berbick that December was the only fight that Ali's daughter, Maryum Ali, wanted her father to lose. "I remember saying to myself, 'if he loses, he won't fight again'." Berbick, 13 years Ali's junior, inflicted plenty of damage en route to the verdict.
In 1984 Berbick left Canada for the US. King, under indictment for tax evasion, found him at his Las Vegas hotel doorstep every morning at 6.30 sharp, cross and Bible in hand, reading the 91st Psalm: "Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked..."
Las Vegas was the scene of both Berbick's proudest, and most humbling, moments in the ring. In 1985, having won the US Boxing Association title, he outpointed Pinklon Thomas to take the WBC crown; eight months later, Tyson bludgeoned Berbick to defeat, becoming, at 20, the youngest ever heavyweight champion. As Berbick staggered from one knockdown to the next, Reg Gutteridge, the English television commentator, likened him to "a baby in a playpen".
Berbick won 50 - 33 by knockout - lost 11 and drew one of his 62 bouts, but that drubbing by Tyson precipitated a rapid decline. He got into a street fight with Holmes, whom he claimed had helped turn Berbick's second wife against him. He also assaulted his former business manager, pushing a gun in his mouth, and was found to have forged his ex-wife's signature in order to secure a mortgage.
In 1992 he was convicted of raping a family babysitter; sentenced to four years in jail, he served 15 months. Five years later he was deported to Jamaica, then fled to Canada; though stripped of his landed immigrant status, tried for non-payment of income tax and falling asleep in court, he was permitted to stay. He won the national title and held aspirations, at 45, for another world title tilt before a failed brain scan led him to retire in 2000. Returning to his homeland, he took up training, and preaching, still, according to Neil Hunter at JamaicanPride.com, "a Jamaican hero".
- Trevor Berbick, born August 1 1955.
Last boxer to fight Muhammad Ali
Rob Steen
The Guardian, Monday 30 October 2006
Trevor Berbick...was one of a string of modestly talented world heavyweight boxing champions to achieve fleeting fame in the mid-1980s. He was best known for beating Muhammad Ali in a unanimous decision over 10 rounds in Nassau's "Drama in the Bahamas" in 1981. The drama came afterwards, since this was the fight that finally drove Ali into permanent retirement.
Five years later Berbick supplied Mike Tyson with his passport to notoriety. This was when, in the second round of their World Boxing Council (WBC) world heavyweight title fight, the 20-year-old knocked Berbick out.
A shrewd if lumbering fighter, his life outside the ring echoed that of Tyson. Born in Norwich, Port Antonio, Jamaica, Berbick claimed to have had a religious experience at 16. He was 19 when he took up boxing as a means of self-defence while working alongside Vietnam-bound US marines at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Four years later, after just 11 amateur bouts, he represented Jamaica at the 1976 Montreal games, losing to the eventual silver medallist, Mircea Simon.
Remaining in the city, he turned professional, working under the tutelage of Archie Moore, the former world light-heavyweight champion, and the equally legendary trainer Eddie Futch; Berbick, asserted the latter, was the only pupil he ever liked. Acquiring durability and cunning, he won his first 11 fights, 10 by a knockout, and hardened a reputation for wayward behaviour.
Having won the vacant Canadian title in 1979, he gained a notable and unexpected scalp by stopping the former heavyweight champion John Tate a year later. This led to a challenge for Larry Holmes's WBC crown at Caesars Palace in April 1981, where he was outpointed by the cautious champion. In order to obtain the fight, he had agreed to give the arch-promoter Don King options on his next three contests, but promoter James Cornelius refused to allow King a piece of the action when the fight with Ali was relocated to Nassau. King threatened to sue, then turned up at Berbick's training camp, demanding satisfaction. The next day King was admitted to a Florida hospital, severely beaten.
Ali had already suffered a severe mauling at Holmes's hands two months earlier. The fight with Berbick that December was the only fight that Ali's daughter, Maryum Ali, wanted her father to lose. "I remember saying to myself, 'if he loses, he won't fight again'." Berbick, 13 years Ali's junior, inflicted plenty of damage en route to the verdict.
In 1984 Berbick left Canada for the US. King, under indictment for tax evasion, found him at his Las Vegas hotel doorstep every morning at 6.30 sharp, cross and Bible in hand, reading the 91st Psalm: "Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked..."
Las Vegas was the scene of both Berbick's proudest, and most humbling, moments in the ring. In 1985, having won the US Boxing Association title, he outpointed Pinklon Thomas to take the WBC crown; eight months later, Tyson bludgeoned Berbick to defeat, becoming, at 20, the youngest ever heavyweight champion. As Berbick staggered from one knockdown to the next, Reg Gutteridge, the English television commentator, likened him to "a baby in a playpen".
Berbick won 50 - 33 by knockout - lost 11 and drew one of his 62 bouts, but that drubbing by Tyson precipitated a rapid decline. He got into a street fight with Holmes, whom he claimed had helped turn Berbick's second wife against him. He also assaulted his former business manager, pushing a gun in his mouth, and was found to have forged his ex-wife's signature in order to secure a mortgage.
In 1992 he was convicted of raping a family babysitter; sentenced to four years in jail, he served 15 months. Five years later he was deported to Jamaica, then fled to Canada; though stripped of his landed immigrant status, tried for non-payment of income tax and falling asleep in court, he was permitted to stay. He won the national title and held aspirations, at 45, for another world title tilt before a failed brain scan led him to retire in 2000. Returning to his homeland, he took up training, and preaching, still, according to Neil Hunter at JamaicanPride.com, "a Jamaican hero".
- Trevor Berbick, born August 1 1955.
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