The Pazmanian Devil Redux

A night of boxing was hosted at the Twin River Events Center in Lincoln, Rhode Island on Friday, the seventeenth of July. The card was cut up and changed around to accommodate unforeseen circumstances that had, at the last minute, affected a couple of the bouts. The main event featured Hammerin’ Hank Lundy, a junior welterweight who endeared the audience to him by handing his opponent, Josh Beeman, a native of Providence, a KO loss in the fifth round of their six round bout. The temperament of the crowd was relatively passive, the media presence covering the fight relatively thin. There was good reason though, for fans from the surrounding areas to converge on Twin River on that night: Rhode Island’s own native son, five time world champion Vinny Paz has a new book called Fight or Die. The book tells the story of his life, and he was on hand to sign copies.

A first round knockout in the opening bout allowed for a moment to slip out into the lobby to greet Paz. At the time that I went out to get in line, I was behind a man who was pushing a small, withered photograph of himself across the table for Paz to see. The man had suffered a broken neck, the same injury Paz suffered in November of 1991. He explained the circumstances quietly and I couldn’t quite hear. But I did note his suggestion that it was Paz’s tenacity in bringing himself back from his dire prognosis to box again that had inspired him during his own healing process. Paz smiled; it had me thinking that the man is a walking contradiction. The legend of the Pazmanian Devil has him remembered as all brash color, ready with a smart ass, incisive comment for everything. His ring conduct, the merciless bravado, the image he liked to cultivate for himself, all add to the observer’s perception of him. But Paz has his accomplishments to stand behind. A world champion five times over, he captured titles in two weight divisions. He was a crowd pleaser; in the least undaunted, if not utterly encouraged, by the appearance of his own blood. His ring uniform vied with the best of Hector Comacho. Meeting him alters that perception of him; he appears less a beast ready to drive a fist into you, more a man ready to extend a hand to you. He genuinely enjoys meeting people; he never seems to be labored by or resentful toward the attention he receives.

I had already met Paz personally by the time I showed up to have my copy of the book signed. He came in to be interviewed on a radio sports show called Krashing into the Big Field in Brockton, Massachusetts. Emboldened by his easy manner and wanting an opportunity to talk with him further, I asked him if he would mind me calling him at some future date and asking him a few questions. He agreed. I had the memories of watching Paz fight for years, from the 80s up to his retirement five years ago. I set out for a brief retrospective of his career, and to find out what he’s been doing since he hung up the gloves.

Boxing is a different breed of animal even within the sporting world. Adherents to the Sweet Science are of a particular vein, practitioners even more so. The mundane, repetitive question of how one begins in his chosen profession usually generates a predictable, if not dull, answer. With boxers, the answer is rarely dull. The kinds of requirements imposed by the sport ensure that those who are dedicated to it will more than likely have an interesting story explaining why they became dedicated. With that precept in mind, I began at the beginning, asking the question of why Paz chose to become a boxer. His answer was immediate. “The only thing I wanted to do was fight. I don’t know why. I was greatly influenced by Muhammed Ali. I loved him. I loved his whole aura. I liked the way he boxed; I liked how cocky he was. I liked how smart and witty he was. I took a page out of his book.” Growing up, Paz was always close to his parents. Their support throughout his career made an obvious impression on him. “My father came to every fight,” he said. “My mother never came to one fight. She’d watch the tapes on TV. She was very supportive, but never came to one fight. She could not handle that. She’d watch the tapes so much, I’d get sick of seeing her watch them.”

Paz never engaged in tedious combat. He kept his fights from being that way because he had an inherent disdain for the overly cautious, bloodless styles of fighting. “I loved contact,” he said. “I just loved to fight. I always wanted to be in an exciting fight. I never wanted to fight anyone that I could beat on easy. I always wanted to have some danger in my life. The heart was just born that way. You can change a lot of things; you can change your clothes, you can change your hairdo, you can change the way you talk. You can never change your heart – that stays the same.”

He had his ups and downs in the ring. Two of his most notable wins came against the great ‘Manos de Piedra,’ Roberto Duran. Paz is humble about giving himself credit for these two wins, citing Duran’s age. His respect for the Panamanian warrior is enduring: “I like Roberto. He was one of my heroes when I was a kid. He’s the hardest anyone has ever hit me, was by Roberto Duran. I couldn’t believe it; he hit me with a shot and it was like a Scud missile. He walked me into the ring for my fiftieth win and final fight, and I was very honored by that.” Paz acknowledges his 1991 bout with Gilbert Dele as the finest performance of his career. “That was my greatest win, best performance I ever put on. It was a great fight; he was a great fighter, undefeated, from France, WBA champion. It was unbelievable. It was just one of those nights; one of those days, you go to work, you just feel good, and that was my day. I remember waking up in the weeks preceding that fight and doing five hundred push-ups and five hundred sit-ups. I was so ready for that fight, more than any fight I’ve ever had. My father didn’t want me to fight him. My father never says things like that. I said, ‘Dad, this is for the title and I’m fighting him.’ Dad said, ‘He’s a bad dude.’ I said, ‘Dad, I’m a bad dude. I’m fighting him.’ And that was my best fight.”

Paz, like many other boxers, endured frustrations with the corruption that sometimes insinuates itself into the fight game. One of the most glaring was a thwarted opportunity for a rubber match with his famed nemesis, Dana Rosenblatt. In their first fight in 1996, Paz won by TKO in the fourth round. In their 1999 rematch, he lost a split decision. When asked about the nonexistent third fight, he replied, “He never wanted to fight me again – bottom line. I wanted to fight him the next day. I fought that fight with a broken hand. There’s no way he won that fight. His promoter traveled in with two of the judges and that gave him the decision. The other judge gave it to me by three rounds and the two judges, when I dropped him, they didn’t even give me a 10-8 round. If they gave me a 10-8 round, I would’ve won the fight. They marked it a 10-9 round. Things people don’t know.”

Paz’s most punishing setback is legendary. After the Dele victory in 1991, he was involved in an auto accident that broke his neck and all but terminated his boxing career. Against the advice of doctors and all who understood the severity of his injury, he vowed to make a comeback in the sport. “I was supposed to be done then,” he said. “I was supposed to be done a lot. People can’t get rid of me. That’s just one more reason why the book is called Fight or Die. I was hell bent on fighting again. My mom, when she found out I was working out, I told her, ‘Ma, listen, I’m gonna make this happen or I’m gonna die trying.’ Like I told you, you can’t change the heart – that stays the same.” Paz was voted Comeback of the Year fighter for 1991 by The Ring Magazine.

Paz’s aspiration before he retired was to achieve his fiftieth win. His opponent for this last bout was against North Dakota middleweight, Tocker Pudwill at Foxwoods Resort in Connecticut. “I had ten losses, thirty knockouts, five world titles, and I just thought that was a good number to go out on. When I was fighting my fiftieth win, I was losing in the beginning, and I was being in the third person with myself: ‘Pazmanian, you better pick it up.’ And I won the fight and that was it.”

Paz has had a full plate since vacating the ring. He has been working on a movie based on his life. He is featured in the EA Sports video game, Fight Night: Round 4, where he can be pitted against fighters from other eras. “It’s pretty neat,” he said. “I was walking in the mall and these young kids came up and said, ‘Vinny, you just knocked someone out last night!’ It was pretty cool. You can put the Pazmanian Devil against the Raging Bull.” Paz also served in the capacity of commentator for The Comcast Network, a position he enjoyed, but one that unfortunately stalled out, at least for the time being. As Paz tells it, “the boxing kind of took a southern dive. Hopefully, they’ll come back on the air with some more boxing. I worked on the book, now I’m working on the movie; I’m working on another movie called Thunder Doyle. I like doing motivational speeches. These opportunities – they just keep arising. Hopefully, next year, I get inducted into the Boxing Hall of Fame.”

Acknowledging the mettle alone, Paz should find himself in good company in Canastota next year. No one has sacrificed more for the love of fighting. Every boxer knows the risk that is inherent in the practice of contact sports. But it is one thing to accept the risk of serious harm as a distant possibility when in perfect health, quite another when you have had a vital part of your anatomy hanging by a proverbial thread. Most people faced with that level of physical adversity would not have chanced losing everything to get back in the ring. But Paz was never afraid of a little beating, whether at the hands of fate or a man standing in the opposing corner. He is a warrior throughout. He loves the sport, and that should be held in high regard, since it is not necessarily a sentiment shared by all professional fighters. His incredible comeback is perhaps the seminal element of his career, giving inspiration to all those who hear it. Paz appreciates the encouragement of all of his supporters who come to see him to this day. “I shed my blood for my fans and that’s about as much as you can give for anybody in anything, and that basically says it all.”

*The book, Fight or Die: The Vinny Paz Story by Tommy Jon Caduto with a foreword by Bert Sugar, is published by The Lyons Press.

Special thanks to Vinny Paz and Lindsey Kapp for their assistance and encouragement.