"This requires no commentary. If you've ever seen boxing before, and you have even the vaguest sense of when it's good, you know what you're looking at."

— Jim Lampley during Round 2 of Arturo Gatti-Ivan Robinson

When Arturo Gatti and Ivan Robinson stared across the ring at each other at the Atlantic City Convention Hall on Aug. 22, 1998, their HBO Boxing After Dark main event was perceived as a crossroads bout for the two 135-pounders.

Gatti, the ultimate blood and guts warrior, was coming off a loss on cuts to Angel Manfredy seven months prior. Having already participated in a Fight of the Year the previous year with Gabriel Ruelas, many were curious what he physically had left in the tank. They wondered — would the damage he sustained inside the ring, coupled with the damage he did to himself outside of the ropes, compound itself sooner rather than later?

Robinson was a Philadelphia native who had come up just short in his biggest moments. He barely failed to qualify for the 1992 U.S. Olympic team that would make Oscar De La Hoya a star. While De La Hoya fought for five- and six-figure purses after turning pro, Robinson made short money in the paid ranks, though he was a favorite on the long-running Tuesday Night Fights series on the USA Network.

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Prior to fighting Gatti, Robinson had suffered a couple of losses — a spirited effort in a challenge for Philip Holiday's lightweight title on HBO to wrap up 1996, and then a shocking knockout to Israel Cardona on Tuesday Night Fights seven months later. A cut he suffered in a win against a nondescript opponent kept Robinson from a big opportunity against Shane Mosley, but a call to fight Gatti came in its place. Robinson would earn $51,000 for the fight — Gatti, the network favorite, considerably more than that.

Gatti and Robinson were two fighters very familiar with each other. They shared more than one training camp, most notably as Pernell Whitaker prepared to face Oscar De La Hoya just a year before Gatti and Robinson would fight each other. Oddly, the two never sparred while helping Sweat Pea get ready.

"We were all under Main Events so they fought on each other's cards and were in the same camp," Top Rank's Carl Moretti — then the chief matchmaker and vice president at Main Events — told Sporting News over the phone.

"They were both good guys, and there were no bad beefs or bulls—. They respected each other."

Despite the loss to Manfredy, there was no hesitation to put Gatti's next fight on their airwaves.

"When I was the programming director, I couldn't care less about the losses," Lou DiBella, then the senior vice president at HBO Sports told Sporting News.

"Gatti was a star even when he was losing. He was who I coined the term 'Human Highlight Reel' for. He had so many fights that could have gone either way. And people forget Ivan Robinson was a pretty good fighter."

Gatti (29-2, 24 knockouts at the time) was a 4-to-1 favorite to beat the light-punching Robinson, who had just 10 knockouts amongst his 25-2 record. Many thought if Robinson had any chance against the hard-punching Gatti, he was going to have to use his handspeed and boxing skills to tame the charging bull. For Robinson, that was what he trained to do, right up until the moment he ran out to the ring.

***

"The last time I remember somebody running into the ring like that and down the runway was a guy named Buster Douglas in Tokyo, and we were wondering what the heck he had in mind."

— Larry Merchant as Ivan Robinson ran to the ring during his ring walk

"The whole training camp, all I did was box, box, box," Robinson said. "But the moment I ran out to the ring, I decided I was going to fight him and he was going to have to kill me, like Bugsy Siegel, who was either gonna get away robbing the bank or be killed trying. And my whole team did not like that."

Robinson had put himself through hell training for that fight. He was living in New Jersey at the time but moved his camp to northeast Philadelphia, staying isolated from his wife, his kids, and his entire family. If anybody saw Robinson during his eight-week training camp, it was only on his way to and from the gym.

One particular moment provided additional motivation to Robinson. When he met Gatti for a press conference to publicize the fight, Gatti took a shot at Robinson's lack of punching power. Gatti said that Robinson was bringing a knife to a gun fight.

"I was on my way home, and asked my friends what Gatti meant by bringing a knife to a gun fight," Robinson recalls. "'Damn, Mighty, you really that dumb? You don't know what that means?' And I said 'Whatchu talking about? Nah, dog, what did he mean?' And he explained to me Gatti said he punches harder than me, and he was going to knock me out.

"That didn't do nothing but feed me. I think we had another three or four weeks of camp, and all I did was train harder and think about what he was saying the whole time."

Otherwise, the two were nothing but complimentary of each other. "Though he fought out of Jersey City, Gatti is a Philadelphia fighter," Robinson said, which HBO commentator Larry Merchant rightly noted was the highest compliment a Philly fighter could pay another fighter. But Robinson himself was quite the Philadelphia fighter, often neglecting his boxing skills in favor of slugging it out.

"He fought like he was a bigger puncher and reminded me of Meldrick Taylor a lot," Moretti said. Taylor was another fighter with immense hand speed who opted to trade punches when he didn't need to.

"I think it was Larry (Merchant) making the point during the broadcast that we see him one way but he's from Philadelphia," Jim Lampley told Sporting News. "At the end of the day, if you're from Philadelphia and you've come out of the Philadelphia gym culture, even if you are a gifted boxer, you're going to throw down."

***

LARRY MERCHANT: "Gatti said you don't bring a knife to a gun fight. Gatti may have the bigger weapons, Jim, but knives do cut."

JIM LAMPLEY: "And you don't necessarily need a knife to cut Arturo Gatti; you can do it with a spatula."

Gatti inherited his big punch from his father Giovanni Gatti. Legend has it that Giovanni once knocked out a mule with one shot. When Arturo was a teenager, his electrician father passed away in his mid-40s after falling from a ladder. Gatti followed his brother Joe — then a promising junior middleweight — to America to pursue boxing.

He was quickly scooped up by New Jersey boxing manager Pat Lynch, who worked with Gatti the entirety of his boxing career. Together they slowly built up his fan base, first locally in north Jersey and a couple of times in Connecticut.

"Eventually, it got to the point where if we fought on a Saturday, win or lose, the phones were ringing off the hook by Monday asking when is Gatti fighting again," Lynch told Sporting News over the phone.

He became a favorite of HBO the moment he landed on their airwaves, flashing his boxing abilities in outpointing long-reigning 130-pound champion Tracy Harris Patterson in December of 1995. Three months later he would headline the second-ever HBO Boxing After Dark card against Wilson Rodriguez, a Dominican veteran who was mostly unknown. Gatti got beat up for five rounds before scoring a desperation sixth-round knockout with both his eyes nearly swollen shut.

A few months later, Gatti won with another come-from-behind knockout, this time against Ruelas at Caesars in Atlantic City. The fight stole the show that night from the lame-duck one-round knockout Lennox Lewis scored over Andrew Golota. It also earned Gatti the first of his numerous Ring Magazine Fight of the Year awards.

"He became a primetime fighter because of the drama that his fights virtually always guaranteed," Merchant said.

The loss to Manfredy was another memorable war, but it also felt as though the damage Gatti continued to sustain had caught up to him. The referee called a halt to the bout because of a cut that was too gruesome for him to be allowed to continue.

"The key to Gatti was we had so many great matchups," DiBella said. "I worked with Main Events and Pat Lynch on making the Gatti matchups, and from a television perspective I got a lot of the matches I wanted to make, and I was working with good boxing people."

As popular as Gatti was with television viewers, he was all that and more in Atlantic City. The Robinson fight represented his 13th trip to AC — he was basically a sports franchise there by that point.

"I remember pulling up to one of the hotels for one of the fights there and the bell guy comes to grab all of the stuff and he sees all the gear," Lynch says. "He said, 'You're Team Gatti? We love when Gatti fights, everybody that works here makes a lot of money.' You had to wait forever for a taxi."

For the Robinson fight, Gatti had jettisoned his trainer Hector Roca in favor of Bob Wareing, who had previously been the Montreal-born fighter's strength and conditioning coach. He had also already dealt with his fair share of troubles outside the ring, such as a July 1997 disorderly conduct charge that stemmed from a police chase in his red BMW.

Gatti's team knew that Robinson wasn't an easy opponent in the slightest.

"I remember when they offered us Ivan Robinson; he was basically coming off a couple losses, and they kept pushing him on us and I kept turning him down," Pat Lynch remembers. "I knew Arturo had problems with slick boxers, and Ivan was such a good one."

Against Robinson, Gatti was looking to right the ship. Another loss seemed like it would be devastating, perhaps even putting his career as a TV fighter in jeopardy. But those who had seen Gatti continue to deliver highlight-reel fights knew better. And many wondered if Robinson was the kind of foil that would provide another memorable Boxing After Dark bout.

***

"Gatti told us that he was sick of having to fight a desperate fight. We'll see if he can do anything about it here."

— Larry Merchant moments before the fight begins

When the bell sounded for Round 1, Robinson came charging out of his corner in the same fashion he ran to the ring during his ring walk. He threw a roundhouse right hand in the first second of the fight, and would throw four crisp punches before Gatti got his first punch off.

The first round proved to be a Round of the Year candidate (for the time being) and the explosiveness of Robinson caught everyone off guard. He also ate some punches from Gatti that would have staggered or hurt other men, but Robinson took them well.

"You can tell we're on Boxing After Dark already," HBO commentator and then pound-for-pound great Roy Jones Jr. remarked during the telecast. "Oh yeah, this is a Boxing After Dark Round 1, no question," Lampley replied.

"My expectation was he was going to try to quiet the storm and force Gatti into a technical boxing match," Lampley recalled. "That wasn't easy to do because Arturo was reckless in pursuit of mayhem. I thought Ivan had one way to win the fight, which was to take Arturo's weapons away by simply refusing to be part of that kind of combat."

"I was pretty deep into my career and I only had like 10 knockouts," Robinson told Sporting News. "God would've had to hit me with a lightning bolt to give me the power necessary to knock Gatti out. So I knew going into the fight he was a puncher and did not like facing boxers. But what people didn't understand was I could actually take a punch."

The loss to Pito Cardona was the first stoppage defeat of Robinson's career, but he blamed it on having to lose around 15 pounds in the days leading up to the fight. He went into the Gatti fight eager to prove he could stand toe-to-toe with one of the sport's most explosive punchers.

"I had a chip on my shoulder because nobody gave me a chance," Robinson said. "When we got to the fight that night, I bumped into Gatti and his team. One of his muscle guys just looked at me and shook his head and started laughing. It pissed me off."

In Round 2, Robinson landed a 10-punch combination highlighted by a right hook-right uppercut that turned Gatti's head like it was on a swivel. In Round 3, blood began to start flowing from near Gatti's left eye. Robinson was landing laser-like jabs and furious combinations, but went back to his corner to take a tongue lashing for electing to trade with Gatti.

In Round 4, the fight turned on a Gatti right hand behind the ear. Robinson went down in the corner but returned to his feet with his senses. But the two-point swing was enough to close the gap after Robinson got the better in the first three rounds. Both fighters went to their corners smiling.

The fight quickly switched back in Robinson's favor, as he actually managed to box Gatti without engaging in too much of a firefight. But that all went out the window again in Round 6.

Robinson punished Gatti with a minute left in the round, landing a monstrous eight-punch combination. It was the first time Gatti seemed at all hurt, as he didn't fire back.

"When Gatti got into this kind of trouble against Gabriel Ruelas, Ruelas left openings and Gatti landed the left hook that won him the fight," Lampley noted during the broadcast as Robinson looked for an improbable finish. "Robinson has to be careful ..." Lampley continued, before a massive straight right hand stagged Robinson against the ropes. "And there it was!" Merchant exclaimed. "Can you believe this guy?"

Referee Earl Morton looked in closely on Robinson, who was able to make it to the bell without leaving his feet.

The two touched gloves to begin the seventh, and the left eye was definitely beginning to bother Gatti. Both fighters were noticeably tired at this point but kept throwing haymakers. Gatti couldn't keep his hands in front of his face. He missed with big shots in the eighth, and Robinson began to snap his head back with a jab with regularity.

The two looked for a break in the ninth round, but Morton did a great job at separating them whenever they laid on each other on the inside. Robinson had Gatti hurt a bit again, wobbling him to the ropes. Gatti tried landing a combination but Robinson ducked all the punches and landed a left hook of his own.

***

"Right now Gatti needs the U.S. cavalry because he's probably a couple points behind."

— Larry Merchant prior to the start of the 10th round

Gatti entered Round 10 needing at least a knockdown to avoid a defeat. Robinson was still standing in front of Gatti, and it nearly cost him. With 50 seconds left, his hands were down following a combination. A left hand right on the money staggered Robinson into the ropes, and this time he was badly hurt.

"When Gatti hit me with that left hook, I didn't know where I was at — but I thought I was on the boardwalk in Atlantic City," Robinson said.

"I don't know how the hell I recovered. I don't know how I was able to get my senses back and get out of the way of his shots. But I had always been taught that when you get hit with a shot you can either hold or, because I had good defense, I thought I could slip, I could slide, and get side-to-side. But he had exerted a lot of energy and I don't care who you are, you tend to tire out. In the 10th round he exerted so much energy he couldn't finish me."

"If that punch happens in the first minute of the 10th round, he might've got him out of there," Carl Moretti said. "The fact Ivan was able to get through it is a testament to him. It was clearly the most devastating punch of the fight."

Gatti tried landing a follow-up barrage, but ultimately came up short. Robinson would earn a split-decision, the 98-93 score of Melvina Lathan and 96-94 score of Steve Weisfeld overruling the bad 96-93 Ed Leahy score in favor of Gatti.

"Faced with the hard music, you're gonna throw down," Lampley told Sporting News. "And Ivan Robinson threw down that night in a way that I didn't think he would and I think a lot of ringside observers didn't think he would. This was an all-Philadelphia showing by Robinson. That came out of his deep background in Philly gyms and reminded us of where the epicenter of the fight culture in the United States really is, in Philadelphia. Philly is still Fight Town USA and Ivan Robinson showed it that night."

***

"I was in LA at a Clippers playoff game and ran into Dana White. He told me he kind of modeled the UFC after Arturo in the sense that win or lose, if you give us your all, we're putting you back on."

— Pat Lynch on the extension of Arturo Gatti

The two would rematch just four months later in another Boxing After Dark classic, and this time Ivan Robinson earned $400,000 for the fight. The third round of the rematch would earn Ring Magazine's 1998 Round of the Year award, a crazy anomaly in which a pair of fights between two fighters would earn both the Fight and Round of the Year in the same year.

Gatti lost the December rematch to Robinson, this time by unanimous decision. He is the only fighter in the 45 years HBO has televised boxing who fought three times on the network in a calendar year to lose all three fights and still be an attraction.

Robinson would lose an HBO-televised lopsided decision to Gatti's former conqueror Manfredy four months later and never recaptured the glory he gained with the two wins over Gatti. He retired in 2008 with a record of 32-12-2.

Gatti would go on to have the longer-lasting career, earning two more Ring Magazine Fight of the Year awards thanks to his first and third fights with Micky Ward in 2002 and 2003. He would retire 40-9 with 31 knockouts, extending his career much further than those who saw his ascent could have ever predicted. He would tragically pass away July 11, 2009, in Brazil amid questionable circumstances. His death was originally investigated as a homicide, though the local police eventually ruled it a suicide.

He was arguably the last fighter to transcend the win-loss record. After the two Robinson losses, he went 11-5 the rest of the way, almost all of which were televised by HBO.

He was voted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2013, an achievement that always inspired great debate amongst boxing die-hards. Did the drama he create inside the ring matter more than the actual achievements he earned?

"I think he personally belongs in there," Robinson told Sporting News. "I'm glad he got his just due. I'm sad the way he left. Regardless of what the drama was outside the ring, he was just a good guy."

"He was a warrior spirit," DiBella said. "Who gave a f— if he won or lost if it's World War 3? Anybody who thinks Arturo Gatti doesn't belong in the Hall of Fame doesn't understand what the hell the Hall of Fame is and doesn't understand boxing. He was one of the biggest stars of his generation and a guy you're still writing articles about years after his death. He's a f— legend."

"It's not a hierarchy of who were the greatest fighters, it's a Hall of Fame," Lampley reasons.

"And that term in and of itself suggests it's about, did the audience care about you? Did the audience remember you? To this day, all you have to do is say Arturo Gatti to a boxing fan and you're not talking about one fighter, you're talking about a style. You're talking about a kind of commitment and heart and devotion to the cause of entertainment, which is an indelible and inescapable part of boxing. More than any other sport, this is about theater. He is the ultimate proof that fame is the product of the way you do it. Did you get to the people's heart and souls? He did."

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"His appeal to the audience was so overwhelming that it truly didn't matter if he won or lost," Lampley said of Gatti's lasting legacy.

"He fell in love with the roar of the crowd. He couldn't distance himself from it, he couldn't get away from it. He had to give them what they wanted. And what they wanted was mayhem. And the mayhem unquestionably shortened his career and robbed him of technical effectiveness over time. But he gave the audience what they wanted in a way that no other fighter of his generation consistently gave."

The dressing room where performers get ready at Boardwalk Hall was dedicated to Gatti, according to Lynch. He fought the last nine fights of his career there and was a legendary draw.

"When he would do a fight in Atlantic City, it was sold out and people were scalping tickets," DiBella recalls. "They would play (AC/DC hit) 'Thunderstruck', and the crowd sounded like it was Springsteen playing Atlantic City."

One of the things that always stood out about Gatti was, unlike some boxers that just don't seem feel the punches, when Gatti got hit, he winced. He felt the blows. But he just never wilted.

"Arturo had a unique ability — some of it was born, some of it was made — to project his humanity in the ring," Lampley said. "He had a unique capacity to show you what you're looking at here is a picture of your life. You get up every day and you fight to feed your family, and you fight for your place on the planet, and you fight to keep going. And that's what he did right here in the ring in front of you. He had a unique capacity to show that. And that's at the center of the sport's appeal, and that's why he was such an appealing fighter."

"There's no question in my mind that both his career and life were shortened by the choices he made," Lampley added. "But he knew what he was doing. He knew why he made those choices. He could not within his heart or soul have gone any other way. I will always love the feelings and the images in my mind that are generated simply by the recitation of his name. Arturo Gatti."

Don't we all?