Oliver wants more and Dunne may fit menu

America at Large: By quick calculation Mike Oliver must have been nine years old at the time. As a prelude to the 1988 New England Golden Gloves Tournament of Champions, Mike-Mike fought three two-minute rounds with another youngster named Joey Prado.

"I remember that when he sat on his stool in the corner his little legs couldn't even reach the canvas," recalled John Scully.

"When the bell rang between rounds, (trainer) Johnny Duke would have to lift him off the stool and put him down in the ring."

Scully fought South Boston's Joey DeGrandis in the middleweight final that night. When DeGrandis was disqualified in the second round his supporters erupted in anger, touching off a full-scale riot that was ultimately quelled by the arrival of the Lowell constabulary. But that is a story for another day. The point here being that John Scully is now Mikey Oliver's trainer.

While the record book says Oliver has been fighting professionally for six years, it seems as if he's been boxing forever. By official count he had nearly 150 amateur bouts, but Scully reckons if you include all those exhibitions and pre-pubescent Silver Mittens tournaments, the actual number is probably closer to 300.

After last Saturday night's win over Terry Lantz, Oliver is 13-0 as a pro. Seven opponents haven't survived to hear the final bell, all the more remarkable when you consider that Oliver doesn't punch hard enough to break an egg.

He is, however, blindingly quick with his fists, able to land astonishing, rapid-fire combinations while avoiding retribution from opponents. He can, and usually does, get through an entire fight without a single corn-row of his carefully braided hair having been disturbed.

In this latter respect Mike-Mike is reminiscent of an earlier Hartford featherweight, Guglielmo Papaleo, better known by his nom de ring, Willie Pep. Not for nothing was Pep called Will o' the Wisp: between rounds in a title fight he once told his corner, "Watch, I'm going to win this next round without throwing a single punch," and proceeded to do just that, making his opponent look silly by eluding everything thrown his way.

We've seen Oliver do likewise.

Last Saturday night at the Mohegan Sun he was matched against Lantz, a game Florida journeyman coming off a mild upset of Allen Litzau (then 10-1) in New Jersey and hoping to turn the tables against yet another hometowner by agreeing to meet Oliver in his own backyard.

For seven frustrating rounds Lantz gamely chased after Oliver, only to be repeatedly tattooed for his trouble, and the closest he came to landing a damaging blow was a first-round rabbit punch that drew an admonition from referee Eddie Claudio.

Oliver is a superb counterpuncher, and his most effective tactic was repeatedly allowing Lantz to attack his right glove with his face.

"He likes to come forward, so I just kept jabbing and jabbing and then threw the counter," said Oliver. "I was just taking my time and picking my spots."

By the eighth Lantz had a badly swollen left eye and had simply been worn down by the accumulation of punches, and when Oliver trapped him against the ropes to land an unimpeded barrage of seven or eight punches, Terry's head was swivelling around like a speed bag. Claudio halted the bout at 1:37 of the round, and Lantz was driven to hospital for observation.

"It was almost a carbon copy of his last fight," said Scully; in February, Oliver had similarly worn down the former Guatemalan Olympian Castulo Gonzalez with an evening-long barrage until Gonzalez succumbed in the ninth round.

"This is my time to shine," said Oliver later. "It's time to show people what I can do."

Perhaps even people in Ireland.

I'd been doing television commentary on the Oliver-Lantz fight and had my mobile switched off, but as I walked out of the Connecticut casino afterward there was a message to phone Brian Peters. By then it was quite late in Ireland, yet not quite early enough for Peters to be up and feeding his cattle, so it was the next morning before I spoke to the Irish fight impresario.

Now, I have no vested interest in Mike Oliver, but it was hard to resist playing transcontinental matchmaker. "Have I got a featherweight for you!" I told Peters.

Think about it. Oliver and Bernard Dunne are barely three months apart in age and of nearly identical weights (Oliver was 124 for Lantz, Dunne 123 ½ for David Martinez at the National Stadium earlier this month). Neither has lost as a professional, and while Dunne is marginally more experienced, with 21 bouts under his belt to Oliver's 13, Mikey-Mike's backlog amateur fights would more than balance the inequity.

"He's not King Kong," I pointed out. "But he's probably as quick as Dunne. It would be a hell of a fight."

"Hmm," replied Peters, clearly intrigued. "Let me think about that one."

Peters is otherwise occupied at the moment, trying to put together a Jim Rock-John Duddy fight for the Irish middleweight title in, of all places, Las Vegas, and in any case had promised Dunne a vacation after the Martinez bout.

If all goes according to plan, the Rock-Duddy fight could share an August 12th bill with the Hasim Rahman-Oleg Maskaev WBC heavyweight championship bout at the Thomas & Mack Center, so it seems unlikely Dunne will headline another bill at the National Stadium before autumn. Oliver would likely box at least once more before that.

Oliver would go to Dublin to fight Dunne "in a heartbeat". Whether Dunne wants to fight Oliver is somewhat more problematical.

We couldn't begin to tell you who'd win, but we could promise this much: for once, it would be a real fight.