A Bizarre Twist of Faith Indeed for Oliver McCall

About midway through an hourlong news conference at the Las Vegas Hilton last Saturday afternoon, 19 hours after he had fought for a heavyweight title, Oliver McCall furrowed his brow, stared out at reporters gathered before him, pointed his finger in their direction and raised his voice.

“When you leave here, you are going to walk out there,” he said, motioning toward the casino, “and pull the arms on those slot machines.

“When I walked through there with my kids on the way over here, we stopped at those slot machines and I told them, ‘You know what this is. This is Satan here.’ He’s in there, waiting for all of you.”

Welcome to the world of Oliver McCall, a world turned upside down by the ravages of drugs and alcohol. It’s a world in which McCall, after years of being the bad guy, is trying to cross over, becoming a crusader against all he perceives as evil.

But he’s having a devil of a time making the transition.

Take the night of Feb. 7, for example.

All the emotions bubbling inside the anguished mind of McCall burst to the surface that night in the midst of his World Boxing Council title match against Lennox Lewis at the Las Vegas Hilton.

McCall refused to fight, ignored his corner, burst into tears and generally acted in such a bizarre manner that the Nevada State Athletic Commission is holding his purse of $3.075 million until a mid-March hearing.

Some said McCall had a nervous breakdown in the ring. Some whispered that he had thrown the fight.

No one really knows. But a clue might be found in his statements last Saturday.

McCall, 31, who was arrested three times last year for drug- and alcohol-related problems and who admits to a drug addiction stretching back to his early teens, has turned to religion to help him escape his tortured past.

On one level, it causes him to preach angrily about the devil in slot machines. But on another, it gives him peace and contentment that he didn’t know before.

He brought a bible with him to the locker room to prepare for Friday night’s fight.

And after the fight, despite all the turmoil and controversy, McCall said he went back to his room, hugged his wife and picked up his bible.

“I prayed to the Lord to thank him for blessing me so that I didn’t get hurt,” McCall said. “The good part [about the controversial bout] is that I did not think one time about drinking or doing drugs. If I am going to go the rehab route, I am going to go the spiritual route.”

McCall said that part of his problem in the ring was that his conversion has taken from him his ability to work up hatred of his opponents. Love thy neighbor doesn’t work in the ring.

Talk about mixed messages.

You’ve got a man who has spent the better part of his life abusing his body with drugs and alcohol. Then he undergoes a drug rehabilitation program which includes a religious conversion.

In the midst of all this, he is sent into the ring to try to destroy his opponent. And then we are stunned when that man becomes an emotional wreck before our very eyes.

We label him insane and move on to the next bout.

And we consider ourselves the sane ones?

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More than fighting words: With all the deaths that have occurred in the ring in recent years, you might think that fighters are more sensitive to the dangers of the sport.

Think again.

Before their International Boxing Federation-World Boxing Organization featherweight title fight last Saturday in London, champion Naseem Hamed told challenger Tom Johnson, “You might not even get home. You’ll be in the graveyard.”

Hamed won on an eight-round knockout, but fortunately, Johnson got up.

Hamed’s irresponsible hyperbole should come as no big surprise. He learned at the knee of the master, promoter Don King.

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Fights we’d like to see: WBO super-middleweight champion Steve Collins successfully defended his title on that London card, getting a fifth-round TKO victory over Frederic Seillier of France.

It was the sixth title defense for Collins, who immediately challenged IBF champion Roy Jones Jr.

Jones is scheduled to fight Montell Griffin on March 21 and figures to win that one pretty easily.

If so, Collins might prove a worthy opponent.

Jones keeps acting as if he’s bored with boxing. He might not be so bored if he’d fight the best out there. It sure beats gimmicks like playing basketball on the day of his fights to make those bouts more challenging.

If Jones wants to be remembered as a great fighter, he ought to heed the example of Oscar De La Hoya. Fight the best your division has to offer and the reputation will follow.

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Sad story: Five and a half years after his retirement, former undisputed welterweight champion and WBC super-welterweight champion Donald Curry returns to boxing this week after going through $5 million in 11 years.

“I’m broke as a joke,” Curry told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. “I need money. I owe everybody. . . . This comeback is about a lot of things, but the bottom line is money. I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t need the money.”

Curry will fight someone named Gary Jones on Thursday in Winnipeg.

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Sad story II: Former San Francisco Giant and St. Louis Cardinal baseball player Orlando Cepeda is leading an effort to raise money for former champion Wilfred Benitez through a benefit dinner in New York on April 15.

Benitez, 39, earned more than $6 million in the ring while winning three world titles but is suffering from brain damage and no longer has enough money to care for himself.

He lives with his mother, Clara, and depends on a monthly $600 check from the Puerto Rican government for survival, according to Manny Diaz, a spokesman for Cepeda’s group.

Cepeda himself was one of Puerto Rico’s greatest stars.

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Add Benitez: A champion in the junior-welterweight, welterweight and super-welterweight divisions, he was one of eight fighters elected to the Boxing Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

The others were Marvin Hagler, Michael Spinks, Aaron Pryor, Wilfredo Gomez, Alexis Arguello, Carlos Zarate and, in the just completed election, Sugar Ray Leonard.

Leonard, of course, isn’t through working on his legend. He returns to the ring March 1 in Atlantic City, N.J., at 40, to take on Hector Camacho.

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One more time: Will anyone ever hold the World Boxing Federation lightweight title?

That may not be the question on the lips of boxing fans outside the Reseda Country Club, or even inside, but they will get an answer anyway on Thursday. Danny Lujan (11-3-2, four knockouts) and Juan Lazcano (12-1-1, eight knockouts), who fought to a draw for that vacant title in December at the Country Club, will return to the scene of their struggle for another shot at it.

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Quote of the week: Ed Schuyler of the Associated Press after trying to talk to McCall after his mental meltdown against Lewis, only to have McCall glare at him with such ferocity that it appeared for an instant as if McCall might throw a punch: “If he did, it would have been the first punch he threw in three rounds.”

Calendar

Thursday--Danny Lujan vs. Juan Lazcano, WBF lightweight title, Reseda Country Club, 7:30 p.m.