Jim Rock had entered the ring wearing pink trunks and accompanied by the strains of Henry Mancini's Pink Panther theme, but what the Castleknock boxer hadn't reckoned on was his hair turning pink while the fight was in progress.
A third-round clash of heads opened a scalp wound which freely lubricated Rock's blond head for the duration of Friday night's fight against Tommy Attardo. The game opponent from South Boston also cut Rock's left eyelid in the sixth round, but his rally fell short as Rock won a unanimous decision in their main event bout at the Worcester Centrum.
"He was nutting me with his bleedin' head all night long," said Rock, who came away from his US debut with enhanced admiration for his durable American foe.
"I knew from people talking he was going to be very resilient," said Rock, after winning for the 18th time in 19 professional fights. "He's tough as nails and just kept coming."
As originally advertised, Friday's bout was going to be for Rock's Irish lightmiddleweight championship. The Boxing Union of Ireland had withdrawn its sanction after serious questions arose over Attardo's ancestry, which was probably just as well. Not only was Attardo not Irish, but by the time Thursday's weigh-in rolled around, he wasn't a lightmiddleweight either.
For promotional purposes both boxers and the Massachusetts Boxing Commission had agreed to hold the official weigh-in a day before the fight, at a Boston pub. (The fighters, at any rate, knew it was a pub. Massachusetts Commission chairman Nick Manzello was outraged to discover that the Irish Embassy was a saloon and not a diplomatic mission.)
Attardo, who had weighed himself on a gym scale that morning and thought he had a few pounds to spare, stopped for lunch on the way over, with the result that he tipped the scale at 156lb - two-and-a-quarter pounds over the limit.
The commission appeared prepared to enforce the contractual limit and force Attardo to re-weigh on Friday night. Rock and his Irish promoter, Brian Peters, let him worry about that for an hour or so before agreeing to waive the weight limitation for the non-title bout.
Rock had been on a promotional whirlwind since arriving in the States on Wednesday, flitting from one radio show to the next, and must have stopped to say hello at every pub from Boston to Worcester. Rock was expected to have little difficulty with Attardo, who came into the bout riding a five-fight winless streak, and for five rounds matters proceeded according to form.
"I think when he cut my eye he smelled blood," said Rock. "He seemed to catch a second wind."
Rock decked Attardo with a right hand at the end of the sixth (ironically, Attardo's best round of the night), but the knockdown was disallowed when referee Bob Benoit ruled that the punch had been delivered a millisecond after the bell.
Three ringside judges awarded the bout to Rock by scores of 79-77, 77-76, and 7775. (Our scorecard matched the latter tally.) Attardo's record, which was once 80, is now 8-5-1.
Ken Kosla, whose BoxAmerica promoted Friday's bout in conjunction with Peters, intends to feature Rock atop a St Patrick's Day card. The Pink Panther appears more than willing. "I've enjoyed every minute of it," said Rock of his American introduction. "I'm looking forward to coming back here and fighting again."
