I know Damgaard is undefeated but I've never seen him fight. Gatti seems to be looking past him already and I don't know why he's talking about ending up at 154 - he was tiny compared to Oscar when they fought.
Gatti's future: moving up to welterweight and starting Montreal condo project
Updated at 19:38 on October 4, 2005, EST.
MONTREAL (CP) - Boxing star Arturo Gatti is back on his feet after his crushing loss to Floyd Mayweather Jr., talking about moving up to welterweight and going into the real estate business.
The Montreal-born Gatti will fight Thomas Damgaard of Denmark at 147 pounds on July 28 in Atlantic City to begin his bid to win world titles in three weight classes. Gatti lost his WBC junior welterweight (140-pound) title to Mayweather in a one-sided sixth-round TKO on June 25. He had previously been IBF super-featherweight (130-pound) champ.
"It's no excuse, but I really had a hard time making 140," Gatti said Tuesday. "The last couple of fights, it's been a problem. I'm 33 years old. I walk around at 170. The seven pounds will mean a lot.
"I think my speed at 147 will be better," he added. "I'll have more meat on me. And my punching power's not going anywhere."
Gatti, who has lived in New Jersey since 1991, was back in Montreal to launch a $22 million condominium project with friend Tony Rizzo in the largely Italian district of St-Leonard, a short drive from his boyhood home in Montreal North.
He was informed by his managers Monday that his next opponent will be 34-year-old Damgaard (37-0), who has never fought outside his home country.
"It's a great opponent and it will be a great victory for me," he said. "He's a left-hander, but I'll have to deal with it.
"They wanted me to fight Julio Cesar Chavez and I said 'no way.' After a loss with Mayweather, I'm not going back into the ring against Chavez, who is 47 years old. I wouldn't have got anything out of it."
The bruises and the psychological shock of the pasting he took from Mayweather have faded even though Gatti, a crowd favourite for his courage and brawling style in the ring, said he can't bring himself to watch the bout on tape.
"I fought the Michael Jordan of boxing, so that doesn't make Larry Bird a bad basketball player," was how he described it.
"He's the best there is right now. I trained hard. I did everything I could, but he was too quick. I couldn't touch him."
The loss did nothing to dampen Gatti's determination to keep boxing and the HBO network in the United States stuck with the consistent viewer magnet. Gatti has a three-fight contract with HBO.
"I'll definitely win a title at 147," he said. "I'll be champion three times.
"That was my dream. If it comes true, I might move up to 154 for a title and then retire. I still feel I have another three or four years of boxing in me. Six or eight fights.
"HBO knows I didn't have to fight Mayweather," he added. "I did it because of who I am. I'm a competitor. I could have fought someone else for the same amount of money and still had my title. But I wanted to fight the best."
Gatti said he has made more trips home since he first discussed investing in the condo project in April with Rizzo. Soon he'll have a second home here.
Their company, Groupe Gatti-Rizzo, is to build joined eight-story towers. Gatti will have one of the penthouse apartments and his younger brother Fabrizio will also live there.
Gatti, the fifth-born in a family with six children, said he doesn't foresee a large profit from the buildings but the pair have other projects planned.
"l live in the United States, I make money there, but my heart is in Quebec," he said. "My family is here.
"I have a lot of memories here. I come here and I see places I hung out with my dad when I was a kid."
However, he expects to keep his home in New Jersey when he retires.
"New Jersey's where my home is now, but I'll come back a lot," he said. "You'll see me every weekend. The thing is when I come here, I get in trouble (partying), so I've got to go back home."
There was talk this year of Gatti going into the fight promotion business, as Oscar De La Hoya has done, but he said he would do so only in a limited way. He has had talks with Montreal promoter Yvon Michel about lending his name to promotions.
A handful of Michel's fighters attended the news conference, including the promising Herman Ngoudjo and Adam Green, who got a picture taken with his boxing idol.
Gatti-Damgaard
He is WBO and WBA mandatory. I doubt that there is enough money in Denmark for a Kessler fight so I think they are aiming for a Calzaghe fight. Mogens Palle was in London last week to negotiate a Calzaghe fight for either Kessler of Markussen (Newspaper story, Team Palle havent said anything about it)