The fight with Tracy was a tremendous step up in competition for the young Gatti. Because apart from Sanabria, Taliaferro and Bostic, Arturo had not faced good competition. Arturo had a tough fight with Sanabria where he showed us for the first time his capacity to face adversity and to dig deep. But the rest of his career so far was almost only first rounds highlight knockouts where his speed and power did the talking. That’s why this fight against Tracy was a big test; He was much more experienced, won the New York Golden Gloves twice, and captured his first world title three years before.

In 1992, he stopped Frenchman Thierry Jacobs in the second round to become the WBC Super bantamweight champion. Tracy is the adopted son of the late, great world heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson. Tracy’s victory over Jacobs made them the first father and son to be world champions.

The big questions for this fight were how Arturo would do against a true world champion and whether he could go for twelve hard rounds if necessary.

Tracy Patterson I

Arturo was the bigger man of the two—5’8 to Patterson’s 5’5—but they had the same reach, 68 inches. They both boxed out of an orthodox stance. The reputation of them at the time was that Gatti was more a brawler while Tracy was a pure boxer. The power advantage was clearly for Arturo here but Tracy could pack a punch too.

“This is a young man potentially on the verge of stardom”, said Jim Lampley as Gatti was walking out to the ring to the cheers of the New York Crowd. The broadcast also told us that Gatti fought 74 rounds so far in his professional career, to Patterson’s 294.

Arturo spent the first round behind his jab, making sure to keep the champion at range. Very disciplined and focused first round for the challenger. Arturo still found some opening to land a series of hooks in the pocket. Arturo’s most dangerous punches was the deadly left hook. Great job behind the lead hand, mixing up from jabs to uppercuts when Tracy ducked under the jabs. Even though it was a great round for Arturo he went back to his corner with a small cut under the left eye and some swelling around it. Hector Roca was Gatti’s head coach at the time, he asked Arturo to stay behind the jab and to blast combinations when he sees the openings, but to be careful not to force it.

The second round was very similar to the first one, but this time Gatti capitalised on Tracy’s habits of ducking under the jab and caught him off guard with a quick uppercut that sent the champion to the canvas. Patterson wasn’t really hurt but never saw the uppercut coming. And if you’d expect Arturo to pressure and try to end the show right after this you’d be wrong: Arturo stayed very disciplined and stayed behind the jab, slowly but surely taking over that fight.

At the end of Round seven, Gatti was up 6-1 with one 10-8 round. It wasn’t the flashiest performance ever but he was out boxing the champion with ease: Almost double the volume, way more accurate, hurt him in the pocket and from the outside too.

Arturo eventually took some good right hand counters over his left hook from time to time and his cut under the left eye started to bother him. Except for this everything was going just fine. Arturo was surely on his way to become a world Champion.

During Round eight, the narrative changed for two reasons: First, the body work Patterson did all fight long started to catch up with the challenger, and some big body shots seemed to bother Gatti. Secondly, with a little less than a minute left in the round Patterson landed a hard right hand that stung Gatti and further widened the cut. Gatti seemed pissed of that he got caught with this punch even though he still won the round. He went back to his corner very frustrated.

Cornerman Hector Rocca said to Arturo, “Only 4 more rounds, don’t take a chance I don’t want a knockout Arturo, you understand what I said ?” They asked him to stay behind his jab, keep out boxing the champion for a few more rounds.

Arturo didn’t seems to listen at all.

Arturo decided to up his volume even more, less jabs and more power punches. He drew reactions from Patterson, slipped his punches and countered with big powerful combos.