By Dan Hanley
In early ’73, as I was wallowing in anything that had to do with
pushing leather, I caught a short paragraph in one of the many boxing
magazines of the day that stated very pointedly, “In the slam-bang,
colorful tradition of a young Rocky Graziano is Vito Antuofermo, a 21
year old, Italian-born middleweight. His dogged, rough-house style has
won Vito a large, vocal following.” Oh, man! When I read that I pounced
like a middle-aged cougar on a law graduate. I just had to see who was
taking the east coast by storm.
DH: Vito, I know you’re Italian-born, but where in Italy do you hail from?
VA: I’m from Bari, Italy.
DH: What brought the family to the States?
VA: Well, we were farmers, but the farm wasn’t doing too well. We had
relatives here and decided to give it a try. I was 15 at the time and
we packed up – with five kids – and we moved to Brooklyn, New York.
DH: Was the language barrier a problem for you?
VA: Not really. We were in an Italian neighborhood and probably
because of our age, us kids picked up English real quick. Within a few
months I could…(laughing) sort of hold a conversation.
DH: What got you interested in boxing?
VA: Well, back in Italy, Nino Benvenuti was my idol. I remember
staying up late, heading out to anywhere that had a TV to watch his
fight with Emile Griffith. I was just a kid saying, “I’m going to fight
Griffith someday!” Little did I know that within six years I would be
fighting the main event against him in Madison Square Garden.
DH: How did you get started in the game?
VA: I was about 17 and getting into a lot of fights. It was always
over some argument and we’d go at it in some vacant lot. So, one day the
cops break us up and they’re going to drag us into the police station,
but one of them is asking our names and I tell him mine and he looks at
me and says, “Oh, I heard about you.” Well he takes us to a PAL gym next
door to the station and asks the coach to see if he can do anything
with us. I’m acting tough and he puts me in with a kid who knows what
he’s doing in the ring and he works me over. They probably thought
they’d seen the last of me, but I came back the next day to learn. That
coach, by the way, was Joe LaGuardia. He taught me how to box and was my
amateur coach.
DH: How did you make out in the amateurs?
VA: I won the 1970 New York Golden Gloves and lost in the finals in
’71. Both times to Eddie Gregory, who later became Eddie Mustafa
Muhammad the light heavyweight champ.
DH: Did you box in the National Golden Gloves?
VA: No, the year I won the Gloves it was for the Novice title. The
following year was for the Open title, so I wasn’t eligible as runnerup.
DH: Still, the finals of the NY Golden Gloves was pretty
good. Now, you turned pro in late ’71 – so close to Olympic year. Was
your style just not meant for the amateurs?
VA: Joe LaGuardia was so disappointed when I went pro. He wanted me
to try for the Olympics in ’72, but I had no job and was doing this for a
couple of years already. It just sort of happened. I was attending a
fight card at Sunnyside Garden and the promoter was shy a couple of guys
on the card. Well, he spots me and knows of me and offers me $300.00
and I jumped at it.
DH: Who did you turn pro with?
VA: Tony Carione was my manager and Willie Felice was my trainer.
Willie was a very good teacher, but he wasn’t the best cornerman.
DH: You ran off 18 straight at the start of your career
without a loss. I began hearing about you around the time you fought
Tony (Kid) Durango, but I didn’t read anything in depth until the Harold
Weston fight. That was the fight they called ‘Bloodbath at the Felt
Forum’. Tell me about that one.
VA: Harold Weston was a real cutie, but to tell you the truth
(laughing), I was beating the shit out of him until I caught a butt in
the 4th round and my eye opened up. We normally had Artie Curley in the
corner with us – Artie was a great cut man – but we couldn’t get him for
this fight. Like I said about Willie, great trainer but not a great
cornerman. Willie couldn’t get the cut under control and it was stopped
in the 5th.
DH: Your next fight was in August of ’73. At this time
Madison Square Garden and ABC had begun a summer series televised from
the Felt Forum and you were matched against Danny McAloon. This was the
first time I got a chance to see you. McAloon was tough but it wasn’t
very competitive.
VA: McAloon was very experienced and very tough. I won pretty wide, but at least I got some national exposure.
DH: You were also getting a lot of exposure fighting on
those Garden cards. But let me ask you, in March of ’74 you fought on
one very big show and they brought in a kid from the Pacific Northwest
to fight you. Undefeated John L. Sullivan. But this was your town. How
were you the underdog?
VA: Sullivan was 24-0 coming into this fight and with his name and
the fact that New York is an Irish town, they made him the favorite. But
I gave him a pretty good going over. I think I won every round.
DH: In September of that year, Teddy Brenner brought in
former junior middleweight champ Denny Moyer for your first real name
opponent. Tell me about that fight.
VA: Moyer didn’t hit very hard but he was slick and tough and I won a
pretty comfortable decision. But let me tell you about Teddy Brenner
for a second. Brenner was a fight fan’s matchmaker. He would make a
match that was designed to go to war. And he never gave me a break. He
always gave me a tough fight.
D
H: You had a tough one two months after Moyer. Tell me about
your fight with one of the all-time greats of boxing, the veteran Emile
Griffith.
VA: Griffith was very cute. I don’t even know how he did it, but I
came back to my corner after the first round with a cut. But in this
fight I had Artie Curley working the corner and he got it under control
immediately. After about seven rounds Griffith tired and I accelerated
and took the decision.
DH: Over the course of ’74 and ’75 you were back and forth
fighting in Italy five times. Was this just a pilgrimage back home or
was the long term plan to fight for the European title?
VA: Oh, no, we wanted to fight for the European title. What happened
here was the Italian promoter Rodolfo Sabbatini contacts us with this in
mind. So we have a few fights to get my name out there and then I had
to have the Italian title before I could go for the European title. So
we sign to fight Italian champ Antonio Castellani, but he won’t put his
title on the line against me. I knock him out in five rounds of a
non-title fight but I got the title shot anyway.
DH: In January of ’76 you arrive in Germany for your shot at
the European title. But it was at junior middleweight. You went from
161 against Bruce Cantrell in November to 153 against Eckhard Dagge two
months later. Was it a comfortable weight?
VA: Dan, (laughing) I’m Italian. What can I say, I love to eat.
Everyone in my family was a great cook. My wife is a great cook. So I
really had to sweat in order to make that weight.
DH: Tell me about the fight.
VA: Eckhard Dagge was very tall and could really hit. I was outboxing
him pretty easily until the 10th when I went after him. He hit me in
the forehead and I didn’t know where I was. I cleared my head and from
the 11th on it was my fight. But it was a big mistake to slug with him.
DH: You defended your European title twice in ’76. Was there good money in Europe?
VA: Not really. I was only making between $10,000 to $15,000 even with the title.
DH: Tell me about your title loss to Maurice Hope.
VA: Well, (laughing) I really think I should have trained harder. It
was pretty hard making the weight for this fight. But he was a good
fighter and I didn’t have as much experience against southpaws at that
time.
DH: You immediately returned to the States and the
middleweight division and entered a tournament in early ’77 called the
World Television Championships. Tell me how that came about.
VA: This was a tournament run by Don Elbaum with a $1,000,000 purse for the winner. But the whole thing collapsed.
DH: For as long as it lasted I loved their matchups. Your fight with ‘Cyclone’ Hart was a scorcher. Tell me about that fight.
VA: I had seen ‘Cyclone’ Hart fight Sugar Ray Seales shortly before
our fight and believe me he pounded on Seales for 10 rounds. I remember
thinking, “Holy shit! What’s holding him up?”
DH: Was the ‘Cyclone’ Hart left hook all it was cracked up to be?
VA: I think it was around the 4th round he caught me square with it
and I actually felt weak from it. But I got myself together and knocked
him out in the 5th.
DH: Your style changed dramatically from the first time I saw
you fight against McAloon to the time you fought Hart. It wasn’t the
speedy combinations anymore as much as it was pressure and infighting in
a bruising style. Was this something you had been working on?
VA: My early style was more boxing and speedy combos like you said,
because I considered myself a boxer. But my manager wanted me to fight
more as a slugger because of an issue I had. See, a lot of people don’t
know this, but I actually have a handicap. My right foot is completely
flat and I can’t get any bounce on it all. When I would fight, I would
drag it behind me and my manager thought it would be better if I fought
in close to compensate. But, because of that foot I could never get any
power on my right hand. There just wasn’t anything there to push
against. That’s why I think I should have stuck to boxing.
DH: Shortly after the Hart fight your name came up on a short
list of possible title-challengers to world champion Carlos Monzon.
Were you aware of this at the time?
VA: I was. As a matter of fact I was in Monte Carlo for Monzon’s
first fight with Rodrigo Valdes when this came up. My manager Tony
wasn’t for this match at all, but I told him, “I can beat this guy!” and
to make the match. Obviously it never came off but I would have loved
to have fought Monzon. I would mentally start working out angles to
fight someone and I had him mentally beaten already.
DH: You helped your cause in early ’78 when you took on one
bad dude in the Garden. Tell me about your fight with Bennie Briscoe.
VA: You’re right, he was bad. ‘Cyclone’ Hart hit me the hardest in my
career, but Briscoe was right there too. I still feel those overhand
rights and his shots on the inside. But I took the decision.
DH: You stayed busy and in January of ’79 you got your crack
at the world middleweight title against world champ Hugo Corro. But you
were off for about seven months leading up to this, which was unlike
you. Why?
VA: That was my manager Tony’s idea. We were trying to get a shot at
the vacant title after Monzon retired, but they gave the shot to Briscoe
instead. So then we were trying to get a crack at Rodrigo Valdes and
Tony was afraid of me getting cut during negotiations.
DH: Tell me about the fight with Corro.
VA: Hugo Corro was a real hard guy to fight. He was like a snake. He
could disappear right in front of you. Around the 10th round, Alex
Wallau, who was an announcer, said to my manager that he had Corro ahead
and that was all I needed to hear. I tore into him and hit him with
everything the last five or six rounds, including (laughing) shoving him
with one hand into the ropes. Howard Cosell was announcing for ABC
television and he said that, (laughing) “Vito didn’t beat him, he mugged
him!” Well, whatever I did, I was now the world middleweight champion.
DH: When did Freddie Brown enter the picture?
VA: Shortly before the Corro fight. Willie Felice walked out over
something, which wasn’t very smart with the title fight signed. Freddie
was the opposite of Willie. He wasn’t a great teacher but he was a great
cornerman.
DH: Your first title defense was signed for Caesar’s Palace
for November of ’79 against the feared Marvin Hagler. I saw odds as high
as 4-1 in his favor leading up to this fight. It must’ve felt like the
John L. Sullivan fight all over again. They were writing your obituary.
But tell me, was there legitimate bad blood between you and Hagler?
VA: Marvin and I are friends today, but back then, yeah, there was
bad blood. It all stemmed from Hagler believing he deserved the title
shot before me and he was pissed about it. And then he started with that
crap calling me ‘Vito the Mosquito’ and brought a fly-swatter to a
press conference and said he was going to swat me like a fly. Well, I
had worked for Coca-Cola for a couple of years beginning as a mechanic’s
helper and by now I was doing a bit of PR work. So I get together with
Coke and we have a couple of boxing shoes made in Hagler’s size with an
advertisement on the soles. And I present them to Hagler at another
press conference and say, “Hey, Marvin, I’d like to give Coke some
exposure, so would you wear these?” He looks at me funny and then I show
everyone the soles with the ad. One says, ‘Drink Coke’ and the other
says, ‘Good Night’. I tell him, (laughing) “When I knock you out
everyone’s going to be able to read the ad.”
DH: Didn’t you pick up a bug before this fight?
VA: What happened was they had me training down in Miami for this
fight and of course it was hot down there. I leave Miami wearing nothing
but a pair of shorts and a guinea shirt and when I get off the plane in
Vegas it is cold and wet. We had to walk some distance from the plane
and I get all wet and must’ve pick up something. That was on Tuesday and
the fight is set for Friday. I open final prep in Vegas sparring with
Sugar Ray Seales and we knew something was wrong ’cause he made me look
bad. The doctor checks me out and tells us I’ve got bronchitis and that I
should postpone the fight. Tony suggested I do so but I was so pissed
off from everything that went on between Hagler and me that I says to my
manager, “Tony, this fight is on! He’ll have to kill me to beat me.”
And what I did for the next few days was just sit in my room idle. This
bronchitis feeds off of you, so being idle is what kills it. And I felt a
lot better by Friday aside from a cough. I thought I won the fight but I
retained my title on a 15 round draw.
Antuofermo, at right, connects with the right hand against Alan Minter
DH: Was this your career-high purse?
VA: No, the first Alan Minter fight was my highest. I made $250,000
for that one. For Hagler I made $150,000. But after taxes and expenses
do you know I ended up with only $75,000 for fighting someone like
Marvin Hagler?
DH: In March of ’80 you made the second defense of your
title against Alan Minter in Vegas. Now, I’ll be the first to say that I
thought Minter got off to a brilliant start. In fact, I gave him the
first four rounds. But starting in the 5th, you started to turn the
fight around. By the end of the fight, I had you a comfortable winner.
Your views on the fight.
VA: Dan, I was the world champion but I got no breaks in that fight.
They announced me as being from Bari, Italy, yet, I didn’t have an
Italian judge. Minter had Roland Dakin from England. The guy who was
supposed to be giving the Minter corner the ‘thumbs-up’ between rounds.
You know he gave Minter 14 of the 15 rounds? The only round he gave me
was the 14th when I scored the knockdown. And that was because he had
to. I was robbed of my title on a split decision.
DH: I was particularly amazed at the partiality of the
referee Carlos Padilla, in not allowing you to fight inside. Yet, three
months later, he allows Roberto Duran an inside fight against Sugar Ray
Leonard.
VA: It was the complete opposite of my fight. He allows Duran to
pound Leonard on the inside for 15 rounds and the only thing he says
through 15 rounds with me was, “Break!” And with Minter’s height and
reach, where else was I going to fight him? And the worst of it was that
we had a Hagler rematch in the works with my purse being $1,000,000.
What can you do? The story of my life.
DH: You two rematched over in London. How early were you cut in this fight?
VA: I was actually cut before the fight, sparring with an English
fighter. I was hoping Tony would postpone the fight, but I would never
ask. (laughing) Who the fuck knows, maybe he needed the money.
DH: Shortly after this, didn’t you undergo surgery to correct the issues with cutting?
VA: Yes, I did. See, the problem wasn’t so much my skin as it was my
bone structure. I have a high brow with edges sticking out. When the
punch lands the skin tears along the sharp bones. The doctor filed down
the sharp edges along the brow, but I guess not enough.
DH: You got a rematch with Hagler, who was by now,
middleweight champ. I think I was more bummed out at seeing you down
rather than being cut. You always had such a rock jaw. What happened?
VA: It was actually more of a slip. With Hagler being a southpaw I
stood on his right foot with my left and he pulled it out from under me,
but he hit me at the same time. The punch really wasn’t that hard but I
went on my ass and it was scored a knockdown.
DH: Your last three fights you had cut so easily. Was this why you packed it in?
VA: Yeah, I was just getting cut too much now. It was time.
DH: What did you get into before you got the itch again?
VA: Well, one of the things I got into was as a beer salesman. There
was a distributor who was pushing an Italian beer called ‘Raffo’. They
needed a presence in Little Italy in New York. So I went around and got
an unbelievable amount of orders for Raffo beer. The distributor never
saw anything like it. The problem was that it was me coming around that
got them to place their orders, but they never re-ordered when they ran
out of stock. It was a good beer but, come on! Italians make wine,
(laughing) we don’t make beer.
DH: Three years later you made a comeback and won four straight. How did it feel?
VA: It felt good. Before this a friend of mine wanted to show me
something. He takes me to a pickle factory and tells me to look at the
skin on these guys. Their hands and faces were like leather from years
of working around the pickling agent. So I got the idea of giving myself
a treatment to toughen up around the eyes. And it seemed to work
because I didn’t cut again.
DH: Your final fight you took on undefeated future world champ Matthew Hilton up in Montreal. What happened in this fight?
VA: I had one of those form-fitting mouthpieces made for this fight.
You know, the one that fits in the top and bottom. But wearing this
caused me to have to breathe through my nose. Well, I have a deviated
septum – my nose has been broken so many times – and I had to open my
mouth to breathe. Even though I thought I was handling him, Hilton
catches me with my mouth open with a double-uppercut and the mouthpiece
rips open my lip. The fight is stopped in the 5th with my lip
practically hanging off.
DH: In boxing retirement I will always remember you as Joey Zasa’s bodyguard in Godfather III. How did that come about?
VA: I got a call from the office of Fred Roos, who was the Executive
Producer of Godfather III. Apparently he saw my picture in an Italian
restaurant and wanted to meet me, because they didn’t want an actor for
that part, they wanted a real guy. So, they contact me and I say, “Yeah,
whatever!” I had a pizzeria and it wasn’t doing too well and I had to
leave someone in charge who I really didn’t trust, so I was already
pissed off keeping this appointment. I show up in a bad mood and say
something like, ‘I’m Vito, what the hell do you want?” It was about six
months later they call back and say, “Congratulations, you got the
part.” I thought to myself, “What part?” I had forgotten about it. My
wife had to remind me.
DH: Was much of it filmed locally?
VA: The only part I was in locally was the scene where I was killed.
That was filmed in Little Italy in New York. Most of the time I was over
in Italy. I had a great time there with Al Pacino, Joe Mantegna and
Andy Garcia. It was a great experience.
DH: What’s life like today for Vito Antuofermo?
VA: Life is good. I live in Howard Beach, in Queens, New York. My
wife Joan and I have been married 39 years, we have 4 kids and 3
grandchildren. Today I’m a Longshoreman, I work as a machine operator. I
bring in the containers off the ships. I’m 60 years old, still work out
and feel great.
DH: Vito, looking back, do you have any regrets or anything you would have done differently?
VA: Ahh…if there was something I would have done differently I think
of all the running I did and wonder if it was necessary. I mean, I ran a
lot, which was always difficult with my bad foot. Well, one day I run
into Jake LaMotta and I ask him how much he ran. He looks at me and
says, (laughing) “Vito, I never ran a fuckin’ day in my life.”
If I had a regret it would be that first Minter fight. I mean, here
we are staring in the face of a million dollar payday with a Hagler
rematch and I can’t even get an Italian judge. I was so pissed off at
Tony for not speaking up. He should have said something at the rules
meeting when they asked for an English judge. I mean, I was the champion
for God’s sake.
But if there was one thing I wanted most in my career, it would have
been a title fight with Carlos Monzon. I admired him as one of the
greatest middleweights of all time. Too bad he retired when he did. I’m
one of these guys who loves challenges and I really thought I had a
shot.
# # #
Vito’s style is a matter of artistic taste. To put in perspective, I
have attended or watched fights where suddenly, a ballet breaks out. One
could never assume such pageantry during a Vito Antuofermo fight, for
the storyline was simple; Vito pounds his way inside and provides the
public with hard-nosed action. A good, honest pug who offered value for
money. Now, if one day I ever attend a performance of ‘Coppelia’, and a
Vito Antuofermo fight breaks out! Oh, man! I’d be in heaven.
See ya next round,
Dan Hanley
pugnut23@yahoo.com
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