By Ray Kilgore: Boxer Tony Lee, and his trainer Otis Gage’s shared bond helps each other through the highs and lows they experience in the sport of boxing.
When Tony Lee made his amateur debut several years ago, he looked the part perfectly: good footwork, fast hands, polite, articulate, handsome, and above all, he was a fighter. All the aforementioned attributes came roaring into the public eye when he and local boxer Cory Rodriguez had an amateur showdown. Lee’s and Rodriguez’s animosity (which is surrounded by some mystery, as Lee has never publicly shared the details of what was said and how their feud started) was heightened even further, from the start of round one until the final bell; the intensity with which each boxer threw his blows left one wondering how both boxers didn’t end up with permanent bone damage. In the end, Lee got the decision, and in retrospect, the victory was befitting of his ring alias “2 Sharp.”
When Lee turned professional in December 2009, he was on target, going 4-0, until it happened. “I felt deflated,” Lee’s trainer, Otis Gage, told Secondsout.com, recalling the night last fall when Lee (5-1, 2 KOs) lost to Hector Orozco (4-10, 3 KOs). “I don’t think we were fully prepared,” he said. “We were heading down to lightweight, and we gave up some size. Mentally Tony wasn’t ready to fight a southpaw—Orozco’s stance.
It was bad enough for Gage to be in the same room, looking at the emotional pain on Lee’s face; he certainly didn’t need a visual reminder of what had taken place 30 minutes before. But the gash over Lee’s eye, which ran so deep required 17 stitches, told the story.
“I was so disappointed in myself,” Lee told Secondsout when asked about the Orozco debacle, losing to a boxer he had defeated by unanimous decision in Lee’s pro debut.
“That night showed a lot about what the mental aspect of the game [was]. My original opponent backed out at the last minute. I just wanted to keep the ball rolling by being active. I was just going off my sheer talent and just looking at who was in front of me,” added Lee.
Gage, who has been associated with boxing since age three, had envisioned an ideal plan for his 26-year-old boxing protégé. Gage saw his pupil building a solid fan base around Minnesota and going roughly 15-0, at which point they would turn their attention to fights outside of the state.
But this is boxing, and Gage has been involved with the sport long enough to know something about alternating plans. And so did Lee. But being conscious of a reality doesn’t block its overriding emotions.
The good news: when the best plans fall apart, sometimes plans B, C and D are even better, something that Lee and Gage said they are taking advantage of. “There’s a lot to work with [Lee’s skills] that makes my job easier,” said Gage. He added that Lee has a good grasp of the fundamentals of boxing, which leaves them more room to work. “When you’re working with someone with a lot of talent, you work on the mental aspect more than anything,” he says.
Lee fully grasps this concept.
“Once you fall off the horse, you get right back on,” said Lee. “It’s not good for a fighter to do that [taking long breaks] coming off of a loss the way I did, [but] it shows that I can handle adversity and come back stronger.”
And indeed, he did just that two months later, when he scored a solid decision win over Michael David. For Lee, a native of St Paul, this was his first professional fight, at the Armory in St. Paul. This Friday at the same venue, Lee looks to continue his streak when he takes on Joel Flores (4-2, 3 KOs) in the co-main event on a card which sees Cerresso Fort (11-0-1, 9 KOs) taking on Cheyenne Ziegler (3-6, 2 KOs) as the main event in a bout--this observer, incidentally, would rather see Lee and Flores as the main event--that should be either a first- or second-round wipe out in Fort’s favor, unless Fort decides to carry Ziegler, which most consider not likely.
The conventional wisdom is that while Flores might do well for the first several rounds, Lee’s precision and overall better skills should catch up with Flores, who has tendency to throw sloppy wide punches. This should make him an easy target for Lee down the stretch of the fight.
Part of Lee’s new regime (which now includes weightlifting, among other cardio training) has come from Gage scrutinizing the ins and outs of what went wrong against Orozco.
“When he was an amateur, he was moving around too much,” said Gage. “The thought process was to have him control the center of the ring [as a professional]. We probably went to the extreme because it was like every fight: we were going to control the center of the ring.”
Gage said not only has he examined himself, but he’s now helping Lee, retraining his mindset slowly, a bit at a time. “He got a fighter’s mentality. Now it’s trying to slow him down and use his assets,” said Gage. “We have to be a little bit more flexible in our thought process and get back to using some of the natural attributes like his foot speed.”
Lee, who didn’t take up boxing until age 14, has had past hand issues; in his first fight against Orozco, Lee broke his hand in an early round. The injury kept him out afterwards for over five months. In the rematch, Lee suffered a deep gash over his eye (which Team Lee said was mostly due to Orozco, who has a habit of charging in head first), and now there’s a risk in future fights—although to some extent, he has no control over this—of his being stopped on cuts as he moves forward.
“I’d be damned if I am going to put him in a situation where he can be harmed,” said Gage. “It’s my job to assess how someone is doing during the course of a fight. When he got those 17 stitches [in the Orozco rematch], I could have stopped the fight. I am always going to give Tony the benefit of the doubt because of his warrior mentality. But I am going to always take care of Tony, and you’re damn right I’d stop a fight,” added Gage but he doesn’t concern himself with such thoughts, since his boxer is crafty enough to stay out of harm’s way if need be.
Part of Gage’s approach and responsibilities is to try and protect Lee from the ugliness that can overshadow boxing at times; one way Gage does this is by being cautious of a trend some Minnesota boxers (and boxers in other states as well) have succumbed to during the course of their careers: accepting fights they can’t really win, not because of a lack of talent, but taking them on what Gage calls the “short.”
“I want to put Tony into situations, as he continues to grow, of where when an opportunity presents itself: we’ve seen some tough opposition. We want to be battle tested,” said Gage. “I am not taking those two- or three-weeks fight notices. I’ll be damned if I do that to him. When we go on the road, we are going there to win.”
Gage and Lee’s friendship dates back many years when Al Brunette, a member of the Brunette boxing family, who have been a permanent fixture in the sport locally, asked Gage if he’d be interested in training Lee as an amateur. At the time, Gage, whose professional boxing career ended with a record of 12-0 due to repeated hand injures, had moved on with his life, focusing on his career in the corporate world— although he still frequented boxing gyms.
After Lee and Gage met and talked, they knew chemistry was there, so much so that Gage didn’t take his purse for Lee’s debut, wanting his fighter to reap the rewards of his hard work. The strong emotional alliance between the men carries over in symbolic ways. If Lee bleeds, Gage feels the sting. If Lee is insulted, Gage defends. If Lee needs backing, Gage stands by the fighter’s shoulder.
When Lee steps through the ropes against Flores, there’s questions about his choice, from this observer’s perspective, of some sparring partners, a question Lee quickly addressed. “We’re getting the correct sparring,” said Lee. “Training is going real good; everything’s on point.” Gage agreed. “You got to get the work in when you can,” said Gage, addressing this writer’s misnomer. “The more you see different styles, it’s going to help you as a fighter. The bottom line is this: Tony is a kid who fought the best as an amateur and he has the skills to challenge anyone.”
In fairness, Team Lee has no obligation to explain anything to this observer (although they did and were very polite about it), nor to anyone else for that matter. The fact is, boxer and trainer are only obligated to themselves during the process of determining what’s working and isn’t during the weeks leading up to a fight. In effect, what and how Lee and Gage choose to conduct their business is their business.
Regardless, when the final bell sounds, Lee knows who he is and who he wants in his corner at the start of round one. “I don’t have anything to prove,” said Lee. “I don’t do any flexing. There’s nothing like having a stand-up, class act athlete. One on one with my friends I may talk stuff; you have to be confident in yourself. But there’s a fine line between being cocky and confident,” he said. “I try not to cross those lines, because at the end of the day, pride only gets you hurt.” If it does, you can wager, for now, that Gage and Lee will go down fighting side-by-side until the end. “I have full faith and trust in Otis. He knows what I am about and where I need to be.”
February 21, 2012
