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Trainer Sees New, Improved Tarver

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By EDDIE DANIELS, The Tampa Tribune

Published: December 1, 2007

TAMPA - You could say Antonio Tarver is digging into his bag of tricks.

Why not? They do call him the Magic Man.

The light heavyweight is in his second fight with his childhood "teacher" Jimmy Williams since parting ways in 2000 following Tarver's unanimous-decision loss to Eric Harding. In that fight, Tarver suffered a broken jaw and two broken ribs. Tarver then went to trainer James "Buddy" McGirt.

But the partnership with Williams is only natural.

"This is my teacher, Jimmy Williams. We've been together for a long, long, long time," said Tarver, who turned 39 on Nov. 21. "He laid the foundation way back when, when I was 10 or 11 years old in Orlando. ... We followed him all the way to Tampa and we made Tampa our home and everything else is history basically."

Williams was there when Tarver was an 11-year-old in Orlando boxing in the Police Athletic League. He then helped guide Tarver through his 158-8 amateur career; through his 1996 Olympic bronze medal; through Tarver's 1996 USA Amateur Boxer of the Year award, 1995 World Amateur, Pan American Games, National PAL championships; 1995 and 1993 U.S. National championship, 1994 National Golden Gloves and Olympic Festival championships.

The duo came together for Tarver's June 9 major decision victory against Elvir Muriqi and the reunion continues tonight as Tarver (25-4, 18 KOs) steps in the ring at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Mashantucket, Conn., against Danny Santiago (29-3, 19 KOs) for Tarver's IBO light heavyweight belt. The fight will air live on Showtime at 9 p.m.

Since the reunion, Williams has seen a marked difference in his pupil, which may have began with Tarver's marriage to Denise Booth in February.

"He's been dedicated," Williams said. "In other words, I've never seen him this way before. It's like being born again. New philosophies, new ideas. This man is a new man now. He's married, he's happy. Nobody beats this man when he feels good about himself.

"There's two types of fighters. There's the prize fighter and the proud fighter. We happen to be a proud fighter. All great fighters have pride. We have pride in what we're doing. It's not about the money, it's about who we are."

And right now, Tarver is a boxer out to prove a point. Leading up to tonight's fight, he aimed his aggression toward the ringside judges, who he deemed suspect and out to get him. He then pointed to the only loss on his record he's yet to requite, a 12-round unanimous-decision defeat to Bernard Hopkins on June 10, 2006.

Tarver also marvels at the fact the WBA and WBO have Roy Jones Jr., a man he beat two out of three times, ranked above him.

"There's still a lot of naysayers, still a lot of critics, so there's still a lot of mouths I got to shut up and I'm always motivated when I have to do that," Tarver said with a mischievous grin. "So we're back to the old. They want to make me the bad guy? You'll never see another bad guy like me. So be it. I welcome that. It's me against the world. That's when I'm at my best."

Reporter Eddie Daniels can be reached at (813) 948-4214 or edaniels@tampatrib.com.

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