A young Canadian boxing enthusiast with whom I sometimes correspond wrote just the other day to ask where I would place Pernell Whitaker in the pantheon of the sport's all-time greats.
I don't personally maintain one of those "pound-for-pound" lists, but after giving the matter some thought, I was forced to conclude that Sweet Pea probably wouldn't make my top 10. Although he was inarguably the finest defensive boxer of his age - and rates alongside Willie Pep and Wilfredo Benitez in that category as the best in the past half-century - his lack of firepower and profligate lifestyle would probably conspire to keep him from the company of the game's true immortals.
This exchange, it might be added, took place over the weekend just gone - a day after Whitaker fractured his left clavicle in the second round of what was surely his final professional fight.
It was also the day before Virginia Beach police, responding to an emergency call, broke down the bathroom door at his house to find the 37-year-old Whitaker writhing about in a foetal position, in the midst of a drug-induced seizure.
The constabulary had been summoned by Whitaker's girlfriend, Alinka Pollock. When a 911 operator asked Ms Pollock what might have provoked the seizure, she stammered "possibly cocaine".
I was there four years ago when Whitaker tested positive for cocaine after unimpressively defeating Russian Andre Pestraiev.
That fight took place at an Indian casino in Connecticut, and because the Mashantucket Pequod tribal elders apparently mishandled the chain of custody of the post-fight urine samples, Whitaker escaped with a fine - even though both his A and B samples revealed ample traces of the drug.
When he tested positive in Nevada the next year, it scrapped a scheduled fight against then-WBA welterweight champion Ike Quartey. In and out of rehab for the past several years, Whitaker hadn't fought in 26 months before last Friday night's match against journeyman Carlos Bojorquez in Lake Tahoe.
It now appears he has returned to the same place he's been in for most of that time span: in denial.
A day after the cops, the EMTs, and Emergency Room personnel saved his life, Whitaker was claiming that it had all been a mix-up, that he hadn't overdosed on cocaine at all, but that the seizure was produced by his mixing alcohol with codeine-based painkillers.
"I'm a grown, responsible person," protested Whitaker. "Just let me live my life. I'm not intruding on anybody's business, and I don't want anybody intruding on mine."
Whitaker was one of nine US gold medallists at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, and if that accomplishment might be marked with an asterisk (no Russians, no Cubans, no East Germans), it cannot diminish what he accomplished in his professional career.
Prior to Friday night's fight against Borjorquez (and he fought on for two rounds after breaking his shoulder, finally throwing in the towel in the fourth), Whitaker had incurred only one bona fide loss. That came two years ago against Felix Trinidad, when the then-35year-old Whitaker dropped a 12-round decision, fighting with a broken jaw from the sixth round on.
The decision awarded to Jose Luis Ramirez in their 1989 lightweight title fight in Paris was nothing short of highway robbery. In the estimate of most neutral observers, this one included, Whitaker won 10 rounds that night.
His 1993 "draw" against Julio Cesar Chavez in San Antonio was a result so ridiculous that even the overwhelmingly Mexican audience jeered and threw debris when it was announced.
And when Oscar De La Hoya got the verdict in their 1997 encounter at Caesars Palace, the verdict was so controversial (most ringsiders scored the bout for Whitaker) that the Golden Boy's refusal to agree to a rematch earned him the permanent sobriquet "Chicken De La Hoya".
"If he'd been clean," said Whitaker's longtime promoter Shelly Finkel, "he'd have beaten De La Hoya."
Although Whitaker won world titles at lightweight, light welterweight, welterweight, and light middleweight, rumours have suggested that he may have been abusing for his entire career - going back as far as Los Angeles. Michael Katz, the dean of American boxing scribes, once concluded that, poundfor-pound aside, Whitaker had to rate as "gram-for-gram and pint-for-pint" the greatest ever.
"It's really a crime," said Whitaker's long-time trainer Lou Duva. "He was a champion in the boxing ring. I hope he straightens himself out and becomes a champion outside the ring.
"We're willing to do everything we can to help him, but he's got to help himself. If he doesn't help himself, we got nothing. We're not talking about boxing now, we're talking about his life."
But from all indications, Whitaker doesn't want help. Two days after he was pulled off the bathroom floor, foaming at the mouth, and wheeled into the Emergency Room, he was insisting it had all been another misunderstanding.
"I'm not a bad person. I'm not a monster," he insisted.
"I don't want to stir up any conflict. There's no drama here. I'd appreciate it if people would just go away and let this die and let me live my life."
