Berbick Camp Says Ex-Champion Might Have Read Too Much

According to the Trevor Berbick camp Saturday night, it was all some sportswriter’s fault.

That was the best explanation any of the handlers of the dethroned World Boxing Council heavyweight champion could come up with, outside a small beige trailer in the Hilton parking lot.

“Basically, in my opinion, Trevor fought a very stupid fight,” said Carl King, son of the promoter and Berbick’s manager.

“He read too many newspapers while he was training here. He read some stories where it was said he wouldn’t be able to stand up to Mike’s (Tyson’s) punches, and it became a manhood thing with him. He got in there and tried to prove something he didn’t have to prove.”

For two months, Berbick and his handlers carefully put together a game plan in one of Las Vegas’ old boxing emporiums, Johnny Tocco’s Ringside Gym. Succinctly, the plan was for Berbick to move inside early, work on Tyson’s body, slow him down, maybe win the fight in the middle or late rounds, or take it to a decision.

The flaw in all this is that no one was assigned to keep Berbick away from newspaper racks.

Johnny Tocco, for one, was appalled to see Berbick in the first round opening up from long distance, and carrying his hands low.

“I can’t believe what he did,” Tocco said. “He put in two months of quality work in my gym, he had a solid game plan and he was in great shape. The guy was ready. He sparred with good people, like Dwight Qawi, and they’ll tell you he was really ready to take it to Mike.”

Stupid was a word thrown around a lot outside the little beige trailer. Even the fighter called himself stupid. As he emerged, to enter the limo that would drive him 150 yards to the post-fight news conference, he said to a TV reporter: “You saw it. I fought a stupid fight.”

He said that five minutes after Tyson, on his way to the news conference, entered Berbick’s trailer. There was a long, warm embrace.

“Mike was very nice, he congratulated me for fighting a fair, clean fight,” Berbick said. “I congratulated him, I told him he’d be a great champion.”

Angelo Dundee, another Berbick cornerman, jerked his thumb disgustedly toward Berbick as the fighter spoke into the microphone.

“This guy read too many sports sections,” Dundee said. “He wanted to show everyone he could take Tyson’s best shots.”

Grudgingly, Dundee gave the youngest-ever champion credit.

“I never thought he’d take this guy (Berbick) out,” he said. “I thought it’d go to a decision. Tyson is as exciting as hell. But movement beats him. I give Tim Witherspoon or Tony Tubbs a chance to beat him, if they show Mike a lot of movement.”

Tocco said Berbick was badly hurt by a short Tyson left hook late in the first round.

“Trevor took a good whack from Mike and it seemed to me his legs went numb from it,” Tocco said. “He was clear-headed in the corner (between rounds) but his legs never looked the same to me after that short left in the first.”

Berbick, perhaps still groggy from Tyson’s punches, couldn’t make up his mind about whether he saw the final punch coming, the left to the temple that sent him reeling into a Charleston dance in the second round.

First he said he saw it coming, but that he couldn’t avoid it. Then he said: “He’s a very hard, very sharp puncher. I never saw the punch that put me down.

“I made a silly mistake. I tried to prove my manhood with him in the early rounds.

“I think he has a very good chance to be the undisputed champion.”

Carl King said Berbick jumped tracks early in the first round.

“He went out there and did a few things right early, but then he got careless and started doing the opposite of what we all wanted him to do,” King said.

“His hands got low and he started trading big punches with Mike. Trevor and all of us said it over and over: Mike is so dangerous in the early rounds, that Trevor had to stay inside, keep him tied up and work the body.

“Instead, he started getting caught with a lot of short punches, the kind of punches he never should have been hit with.

“It’s happened before, boxers forgetting their game plan and doing the very thing that will cost them a fight. Ali did it in the first Frazier fight. Leonard did it against Duran the first time.”

Few expected such a demolition as was witnessed Saturday night. But there it was, Tyson destroying a quality heavyweight in exactly the same manner he flattened a stream of stiffs in late 1984 and throughout all of 1985. One can’t minimize the power this 5-9 blockbuster generates with his short, whistling punches. On Saturday night, some of his punches exploded right through Berbick’s gloves when he attempted to cover up.

In Trevor Berbick, nearly everyone agreed, here was a real test for the young hunk from Bedford-Stuyvesant.

Berbick, most agreed, would be the first guy who wouldn’t be afraid of Tyson.

He didn’t appear to be. And that’s how he lost his share of the heavyweight championship.

Plainly, what the heavyweight division needs now is a pug who doesn’t have a problem with his manhood . . . and who never reads sports sections.