You just can't get enough Gomez madness by Terry Dooley Oct 18th 2007

BBN was at the home of Michael Gomez to discuss his upcoming fight with British super-featherweight champion Carl Johanneson. A character with often-conflicting moods Gomez could one day, bizarrely, ask you to touch shins with him in a pseudo-Masonic handshake (or legshake if you will) before, the next day, embracing everyone in a group hug whilst declaring that he can feel the love.  During my latest interview with him Michael had been considered in his answers so far, often impressively cross-referencing his replies by bringing in a multitude of fights he has seen.  Gomez had been relatively quiet up to the end of the interview but then, almost at the point of termination, a sudden wave of fresh excitement hit him and a cameo of the Gomez you see in front of the cameras appeared before us as Michael railed about a perceived slight on the part of Carl Johanneson: MG: “You know I went out of my way to help that kid when he was fighting Leva Kirakosayan again, yeah. I offered him advice on how to beat the kid and he said, “Yeah, whatever”. How disrespectful can you get? I went out of my way to help him and I get that. I'm gonna fuck him up and knock him out. “That British title is not Carl's anyway. I vacated that title after I beat Craig Docherty and Alex Arthur so it has been mine since 2000. “Carl has rushed back too soon. It makes me laugh him taking this fight. The last time he got banjoed he took his time coming back but this time he's getting straight back into being banjoed. “He loves eating right hands, whoo fella! Corcoran hit him and I thought “Oh yeah!”. He is going to get fucking splattered next week. I can't wait. It's going to be a war. “I'll be sat there afterwards with my family and the British title. I'll only get up to nip off and piss up some blood. I can't wait.” This fight also brings Gomez back onto our TV screens. Sky Sports are showing the bout so I asked Gomez if he was happy to return to the channel that had broadcasted so many of his fights: MG: “I'm not bothered about being on TV. I'm not one to be bothered about being famous. They do all this stuff about me, a book and a film, but I'm here for the dough and a legal tear up. I love a tear up without worrying about the charge sheet. That is what boxing is to me.  “I will be truthful with you. I never thought I loved boxing but I do love it. I realise that now. It gives you a chance to be someone in life and I'm going to take that chance. I'm going to stay sober this time as well.” Gomez's Dionysian excesses between fights are a matter of public record. Gomez does not shy away from the fact that being in a boxing ring is probably the best remedy for him at times: MG: “I had more fights during my retirement than I did in the ring. I would go out and have a few pints and someone would say something. I'd take (it) the wrong way because I was moody and probably a bit bitter and have a fight but I've got rid of those demons now and things are good in my life. It is my time to shine. “I know I'm going to have to get off the floor to win. I know I'm going to be pissing blood the next day but that is what I'm willing to go through and (what I) have put myself through in the past. Against (Javier Osvaldo) Alvarez I lost the fight on the scales. Against McDonagh I lost because I was bored. I'm back now and I'm gonna smash him. I'm gonna hurt this kid. I'm on fire.” When the fight was signed many believed that, even though Gomez might not present an in-ring challenge, Michael would certainly spice up the press conference and the weigh in.  Gomez himself, at this early point, was unsure of how he would carry himself through the weigh in and press conference. Although he did have an inkling that it would be spicy (and photos of the press conference confirmed this. One still showed Gomez leaning his head into Johanneson, either to go nose-to-nose or whisper into his ear, you be the judge. Carl, as is often the case, did not show any signs of discernable emotion): MG: “I never know how I'm gonna react at a press conference but I do react. No doubt I'll probably try and get in his face and land one on him. “Head-down, arse-up, keep swinging, someone's gotta go action! That's what it's gonna be.” In this fight, also, Gomez feels that the moment has now come for him to fight for atonement after the aborted attempt against Peter McDonagh: MG: “I'm fighting for my reputation as a hard bastard because I walked out of that ring against McDonagh. I never regretted it but some people did and this is a chance to put that right. I'll prove those people wrong. The ones who said I was finished after the McDonagh fight.” Gomez seems to be a person who goes into things with an almost pathological zeal. Billy Graham used to plead with him not to over-train in the run up to fights.  Gomez's new love, sprinting, was witnessed by BBN first hand as I watched Gomez go through round after round of varying sprints all set against a six times three-minute rounds backdrop (varying sprint bursts set within three minutes).  Gomez would sometimes talk to himself, then talk to us and, alternatively, shout greetings to passers-by, then, in the midst of this self-authored confusion, he would tell his trainer Bobby Rimmer, almost to the second, how much time they had until the end of a round. It is this a priori grasp of ring mechanics and pure fighting that could undo Johanneson. Gomez does not see things quite that way, he has merely re-found something that he once loved, and, consequently, he does it to the nth degree:  MG: “I do sprints now. Yeah man, all the time and at any time. I used to go on big marathon runs and would be too tired to get home after I finished. I've got to burn myself out in the daytime so I'm too tired to be getting up to anything. I'm too wired-up. I go out running then jump into a reservoir and then run all the way back home.” BBN: How is that working out for you? MG: “It is fucking cold man!” So, then, to the fight itself. In many ways this is an interesting and exciting, both positives, fight for a number of negative reasons. Gomez is predictable only in his unpredictability, add the unstable condition of age and ring-rust into the mix and one finds that his side of the bargain is as hard to predict as the movement of a series of involuntary leg-spasms. What we do know is that Gomez will bring pre-fight pressure, in-ring pressure, will to win, power and desire. What we don't know is how Gomez's skin will hold-up when he gets hit, and he will get hit. We also have to ask if, after seeing him momentarily knock-kneed in his two modest fights so far, Gomez's chin can consistently withstand the shots of Johanneson. I watched Gomez spar with Danny Harding on a few occasions. Harding is rangy and, power aside, not entirely dissimilar to Carl in punch delivery and range.  Once Danny overcame the shock of the Gomez experience - Gomez would come into Harding's corner between rounds and offer him advice or, alternatively a brief history of Gomez's own fighting career - Harding would land his own left hook in mid-ring before wrestling with Gomez along the ropes. For his part Gomez would ignore the sometimes flush shots and pour forwards incessantly, leaving Harding little room for manoeuvre. Despite the blood pumping from his infected sinuses Danny did have his successes with Gomez and it is hard, on that basis, to envisage Johanneson not landing shots on Gomez's chin. There is a certain amount of uncertainty here. What we can be certain of is that, in Johanneson, Gomez faces a fighter whose career has plateaued at the British level.  Carl has tried to step beyond British level twice and twice he has been knocked back to British level. Clearly he is not a European level fighter, whatever one may say about his preparations. European level fighters prepare well. Otherwise they just have European level aspirations and a British level performance ceiling. On the other hand Gomez has, in his pomp, proven himself as a European level fighter of some repute. This upsurge in predictive information on the part of Gomez, although countered by the downside of his age, should mean that his punches will trouble Carl should they land. On the other hand the same logic can apply to Gomez. Rumours abound, also, that Carl is not there in spirit for this latest training camp, if that is the case he truly has failed to recover from his last fight and is in a town called trouble for this one. For this writer, though, the perception of seeing Carl shellacked on TV by a proven force in Kirakosayan is less strong than seeing Gomez struggle almightily with Youssef Al Hamidi, himself not a force, in the flesh. As long as Carl sucks it up early and weathers the storm he should be able to pull off a win after the early firefight. As I stated earlier in his comeback the odds against Gomez reaching attainment in this comeback could be as high as 125-1 but, on the proviso that Gomez catches Carl early and hard, I'll cover myself with a little bit of that 125-1 just in case.

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