Boxing: Joey’s Last Payday

After 18 years in the ring and 129 pro fights, Joey Giardello is too much of a pragmatist to rue what might have been. He has, after all, a wife, four children and a $35,000 home in Cherry Hill, N.J. How many fighters can claim that? But Joey was already an old man of 33 before he got a crack at the world middleweight championship. He was 35 when he lost it at Madison Square Garden last week to the same man he took it away from: Nigeria’s Dick Tiger. That did not really matter either. What did was the fact that Joey’s cut of the $161,964 gate came to $56,050, making it the biggest payday of his career.

It was also his last—as a fighter. In the second round, Tiger ripped a left hook to Joey’s jaw that knocked him halfway across the ring. Twice more, in the seventh and twelfth rounds, Joey was rocked by solid punches to the head. Legs rubbery, hair matted with sweat, blood trickling down his lumpy face from cuts over both eyes, he stubbornly fought on, even though his cause was hopeless. After 15 rounds, the judges’ verdict was unanimous for Tiger. Giardello had no excuses. “I wanted to show New York a good fight,” he said, and announced that he was retiring. At that, Champion Tiger could only wonder rhetorically: “How can he live if he does not fight?”