PERNELL WHITAKER: SWEET PEA, THE SET UP AND ME

Pernell ‘Sweet Pea’ Whitaker’s untimely death, hit by a car while crossing a street in Virginia Beach last Sunday night, rekindled the recognition that he was indeed one of the great boxers of all time, as well as one of the unluckiest. Obituaries chronicled his rise from the projects via boxing: his gold medal at the 1984 Olympics where he captained a US team which included the likes of Evander Holyfield, Meldrick Taylor and Mark Breland, followed by an outstanding career in which he became one of the few men to hold world titles at four weight classes. I liked to make the comparison with the legendary Henry Armstrong, who held belts at three weights simultaneously, back in the days before the weight classes were doubled and multiple sanctioning bodies allowed for multiple champions at each. Armstrong could have made it five, but when he fought the middleweight champ Ceferino Garcia the match ended in a much disputed draw.

It was a similar much disputed draw that proved to the most memorable of Whitaker’s career. In 1997 he fought Julio Cesar Chavez, undefeated in 70 fights and claiming to be the pound for pound best in the world, and, in his own words ‘whipped his ass’. Virtually all of the 60,000 people in San Antonio’s Alamodome agreed, along with everyone watching on TV.

Everyone, that is, except two of the three judges who ruled the match a draw. Whitaker’s domination of Chavez was so complete even they couldn’t give Chavez the decision. The third judge did give Pea the decision, but the result was…