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 Calvin Brock: Coming to a Television Near You (Hopefully)
 By Thomas Gerbasi (January 1, 2004) Photo © Mary Ann Owen
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On January 1st, everyone’s an optimist. Fresh starts are in the air, and whatever negatives happened before 2004 are brushed aside in favor of positives that can be achieved in the coming 12 months. Heavyweight prospect Calvin Brock is no different, and his resolution for the New Year is simple and to the point.
“To get on television,” laughs the affable Brock, who at 19-0 (17 KOs) is knocking on the door of greater recognition in a heavyweight class in need of an infusion of new blood.
So far, the 2000 Olympian has done everything asked of him as a pro, with only one opponent (Antonio Colbert) lasting the distance (twice) with the native of Charlotte, North Carolina. But despite the gaudy record, great story, and ease with the media, the attention that has been afforded some of Brock’s fellow prospects has eluded him thus far, yet another mystery of this strange game.
“It’s not frustrating for me because I’m gonna get the attention,” said Brock, one of those guys who will find the patch of blue sky in a sea of clouds. “Everybody had better do as much winning as they can before I get up there and they start getting in the ring with me. Because once they get in the ring with me, all those guys are going to be getting knocked out. So they need to enjoy themselves and get the limelight while they can.”
That limelight may be shining on Brock soon enough, with Main Events’ Carl Moretti working hard to find the right situation to bring “A Sure Right” into the viewing public’s consciousness, much in the same manner Main Events stablemate Dominick Guinn burst onto the scene in 2003 with HBO-televised victories over Michael Grant and Duncan Dokiwari.
“I see myself doing pretty much the same thing as Dominick did,” said Brock, who issued the unbeaten Guinn his last defeat when both were in the amateur ranks. “A lot of people know me, but I’m not a household name because I haven’t been on television. Main Events is working on that, and as soon as the first date comes along, then I’m going to be on television. When I get on there, people are going to see me take the whole heavyweight boxing world by storm.”
If it were up to Moretti, Brock would be making a high-profile television debut in the spring against one of the division’s leading new moneymakers.
“If my wishes came true, we’d fight Joe Mesi on March 13,” said Moretti. “He’s approved by HBO, and it’s a fight that we would love. It’s a question of whether the Mesi camp will take him.”
Based upon Mesi’s less than earth-shattering performance in December against Monte Barrett, and given Brock’s record and lack of mainstream recognition, the odds of Team Mesi taking such a bout may be slim and none based on the old risk and reward adage.
“I would hope that HBO holds Mesi to the same standards that they hold other young prospects on the network,” said Moretti. “And if they apply that standard, then I think Cal Brock would have a good shot of being the opponent.”
For his part, Brock, who was friendly with Mesi in the amateurs, would like nothing better than to pin the first loss on the Buffalo native’s record.
“I really want him bad,” said Brock. “I think Joe Mesi would be a really good foe as far as getting me to the top ten, but he doesn’t impress me that much. He’s a likeable person, he’s humble, he carries himself real well, and I think he’s great for the sport. But as the boxing banker, I am a businessman, and when I get my chance to get in the ring with Joe, I think he’ll come to the ring as he always does, as Baby Joe Mesi, and I think he’ll be leaving the ring as a messy Baby Joe. I think I’d knock him out real early. He hasn’t shown me anything.”
But the boxing banker (Brock, a graduate of UNC - Charlotte, was an Operation Call Analyst for Bank of America before turning pro) is also a realist when it comes to the likelihood of landing a fight with Mesi in March.
“I understand I’m not in the top ten and I don’t know if I would have anything to offer him as far as stepping up the rankings, but he has to step up and fight somebody,” said Brock.
Luckily for the 28-year-old, if a Mesi fight falls through, he’s with a promoter that has five NBC dates in hand for 2004, and that’s the next course of action for Main Events and Brock, making it almost a certainty that he will be appearing on some network before the year is out.
In the meantime, Brock just has to keep active and keep winning. On January 22, he returns to the ring for his third fight in as many months with a bout against Derek Berry (8-3-1, 4 KOs) in Charlotte that will take place as part of a Black Tie fundraiser entitled Fight Night for Kids.
But while Brock is keeping busy while doing his part for a local charity, cynics will question his level of competition.
“As far as fighting lesser opponents, I’m just fighting the best opponents money can buy,” said Brock. “You get what you pay for, and Main Events is getting me the very best you could possibly buy. I’ve been knocking out opponents like David Vedder and Jim Strohl, fighters that other guys in the top ten are going the distance with. I’ve taken on Shane Swartz, who was 16-1 with a big amateur background as a two-time national champ, and knocked him out.”
Moretti explains the difficulty inherent in bringing along a prospect such as Brock.
“The best opponents you can get cost the most money, which is fine, and I don’t have a problem paying for them,” said Moretti. “But when they’re not slotted on television, your budgets are really out of whack to afford that type of fight, besides paying Brock as well as the opponent in excess of $25-30,000 and up, total, for an undercard fight. Usually the whole undercard costs that. To pay that for one fight is difficult to do.”
And it’s not like Brock would be tossed into a Telefutura show either, so Moretti does his best to get Brock exposure in other ways.
“We’ve tried to highlight him on the undercards of HBO shows and some other shows and tried to get him the best possible opponent available under the structure that we have, and he’s come through with flying colors,” he said.
Having done his part has placed Brock on the verge of breaking through to the next level, with only luck holding him back at this point. When Francisco Bojado appeared to be withdrawing from his January 24 HBO slot against Jesse James Leija due to the flu, Moretti proposed a Brock-Fres Oquendo bout, but a) Bojado decided to go on with the fight, and b) Don King already had plans for Oquendo to take on John Ruiz in March. An all heavyweight doubleheader with Guinn and Brock in separate bouts on NBC also fell through due to Guinn’s anticipated HBO date moving from February to March.
“There’s no doubt that both of us want to step up to that level of opponent, and I feel that he’ll be successful when he fights those guys,” said Moretti of Brock. “We’ve just had some bad luck as far as arranging the right slot to put it on. It’s almost the same as the Guinn-Michael Grant scenario. If you’re going to take that risk, you want people to see it and see him get made on HBO. That’s what happened, and we’re hoping the same thing happens to Brock.”
When the time does come for Brock, he’ll be ready.
“When everybody gets to see me at the same time, they’re going to be seeing something that they haven’t seen before,” he said. “They’ll be seeing skill, quickness, power, finesse, and ring generalship at it’s best. It’s going to blow everybody’s mind.”
Maybe not as much as finding out that the 6-2, 220 pounder is an accomplished tap dancer.
“Even before I started boxing, I was going to be a tap dancer,” said Brock. “That’s a talent I possess that a lot of people are going to be surprised to see. That’s what I do when I’m at home.”
He’s taken his show on the road as well, with two performances already under his belt. But while you’d think that performing in front of a crowd of dance fans would be nerve racking, when your day job involves someone trying to take your head off, nerves take a back seat.
“I was surprised that I wasn’t that nervous in my first recital,” said Brock. “The one thing about show business is that you already know what you’re going to do when you get out there, whereas boxing you don’t know what’s going to happen. You might know whether or not you’re going to win or lose, but you really don’t know what’s going to happen in the process; where in dancing, you already practiced the routine, you know all the steps, and you know how everything is going to fall. It’s just a matter of getting it together and controlling your nerves on stage. But I don’t have a nervous problem when I’m dancing because I enjoy it and I like being on stage in the lights. And no one’s hitting me.”
He hasn’t been hit much in the pro ring so far either, and with close to three years under his belt he’s come a long way since his early days in the ring, when as a 12-year-old he had to go through more adversity in a year than he’s seen in 15 years since.
“I started off with a coach that was 80 years old, and he couldn’t coach me anymore,” remembers Brock. “He didn’t have no interest in putting in the effort into coaching anybody, so I went into my first four fights not knowing anything, against other boxers that were trained properly. So I lost my first four fights. My next two, my dad started training me, and he had never boxed before. He started training me from Kenny Weldon’s ringside boxing instructional tapes right out of the house. He became my full-time coach, so we were learning together.”
So with an 0-6 record and his father teaching him off videotapes, the pugilistic future of Calvin Brock didn’t seem all that rosy. And he was encouraged to take an early retirement.
“At that time my mom and dad told me that maybe it really wasn’t for me, and they told me to quit,” said Brock. “And all the officials and other coaches that were watching these boxing matches were telling me that they didn’t think it was for me either, and they went to my parents and asked them why they were trying to make me box.”
But Calvin Brock was going to be heavyweight champion.
So with a determination rarely seen in a 13-year-old, especially a 13-year-old with an 0-6 record, Brock kept his gloves on, and never looked back.
“I just believed in myself, and my parents, being great parents, stayed beside me and kept supporting me, and my dad kept coaching me, and then I just started winning,” he said.
That teenager’s dream is coming closer and closer with each victory. And if you want to write off Brock, go ahead. He doesn’t care. He’s confident, he’s got a brutal right hand, and he’s not afraid to use it. And as far as the heavyweight division goes, he’s not impressed.
“I see a division that I can easily take over,” said Brock matter-of-factly. “Nobody’s really impressed me all that much, other than the Klitschko brothers, and I still think they’re beatable. But outside of them, I’ll take on anybody else in the top ten and knock them out. Anybody else. I respect everybody as people and respect their accomplishments, but I don’t really respect their abilities as great boxers, other than the Klitschko brothers. Me and my dad told Carl Moretti that he can match us up with anybody in the top ten and we’ll go in there and beat them.”
In 2004, he may get his chance.
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E-Mail Thomas Gerbasi at tgerbasi@mindspring.com
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