James Warring

2811 Industrial Plaza Dr. Tallahassee FL 32301
(850)216-1212

THE 100th BEST
Heavyweight
James Warring fell asleep in his hotel room in Salemi, Sicily, three hours before he was to fight James Prichard for the International Boxing Federation cruiserweight title in September 1991. This was unusual enough, being able to sleep so close to the fight. The dream Warring had was more unusual. "A figure came out of a black hole," he says, describing the dream. "The figure was dressed all in white, with a hood. His head was tumed, so all I could see was the hood. He came toward me carrying the championship belt. I put out my hands, and he handed me the belt. Then he started to walk away. I said, 'Wait, who are you? Let me see your face.' He tumed. And he had no face! His face was blank!" Warring remembers that he awoke and decided, well, he decided the figure was God. God was telling him something. At the time Warring had fought only 11 fights-10 wins and a loss. Everyone thought Pritchard, the champion, would win. Everyone except Warring. And maybe God. Warring's friends and handlers kept remarking on how big Pritchard was in the films, how muscular, sculpted. Warring kept noticing how slow Pritchard was. There was a certain look in Pritchard's eyes too. Warring thought the look was fear. He decided that Prichard fought in fear. The fight began. Warring threw a jab. Warring threw a left hook. Warring threw a right hand. Pritchard fell to the canvas, just like that. Gone. The entire process took 24 seconds, faster at the time than any championship fight on record. Warring remembers looking at Pritchard on the canvas and hearing the crowd roar and being lifted off his feet and thinking that none of this was real. BF cruiserweight champion of the world. "This was a gift from God," Warring says about his best athletic accomplishment. "That's all I can think." He sits behmd a desk in the office of his business Warring's World Champion Kickboxing Academy Inc., which is located on the outskirts of Miami in a small strip mall that also includes a heavy- equipment rental store and a Pentecostal church. His wife, Jean, is leading a class in the next room, the gym, little kids in kickboxing outfits bow and shout and then kick imaginary villains into submission.

James is tall and lean, 6'4", 225 pounds. He is in great shape for someone 39 years old. It would figure that the 100 ranked heavyweight boxer would have won a title at some time, because boxing has more titles and ranking systems than any sport this side of Vince McMahon. Warring's ranking comes from Independent World Boxing Rankings, an outfit in Bristol, England, that rates boxers according to some kind of computer format. Warring never heard of the firm. His boxing record is 17-4-1 with 10 knockouts. Only his last six bouts have been heavyweights, after he could no longer make the 190- pound cruiserweight limit. His last fight was in May, a 10-round loss to onetime phenom Alex Stewart. "I might even be retired as a boxer," Waring says. "I don't know what I'm going to do. We'll see what happens." He has an entrepreneur's flamboyance, a salesmanship he has used to create a one-man athletic enterprise. Besides the IBF title, he won the cruiserweight championship of the smaller North American Boxing Federation, in 1990, four world kickboxmg titles in the 1980s, and three tough-man competitions. He was also a Division II All- American wide receiver, at Eastem Illinois in 1978. He takes his Kodak All-America certificate down from the wall as proof. "That's what I thought I was going to be, a pro football player," he says. "I went to camp with the Oakland Raiders. I thought I was doing great, catching everything in sight. Two days before the first exhibition game, Tom Flores, the coach, called me into his office. He said, 'Warring, you're just not fast enough.' Just like that. I was shocked." He had been kickboxing since he was a kid in the Richmond Heights section of Miami, so he tumed to that, winning the four world titles, putting together a record of 30-1-1. The tough-man competitions came along on the side, and he found they were easy, dealing with big barroom bouncers and other brutes who really didn't know how to fight. The boxing career, which didn't begin until he was 28 years old came from training for kickboxing. In the gym Warring would spar against boxers

like Trevor Berbick and Razor Ruddock, well-known ring names, and have success. People said he should try boxing. Why not? It seemed easy, easier that kickboxing. You only had to worry about a man's hands. Boxing also was where the money seem to be. He still wonders why he never got much. "You know what I should have don?" he says. "I should have signed on with Don King. That way I would have made some money." Don King? "Oh, he might have ripped me off," Warring says. "But if he ripped me off for a million, I still would have kept a million. Don King's created more millionaires in this game than anyone." Warring concentrates on his gym, on giving lessons in kickboxing, boxing whatever people want. There's this fad now, aerobic boxing. He teaches stockbrokers and housewives how to throw a good jab. His days are scheduled, morning until night. To keep a door open to professional fighting-he might go back to kickboxing, too, because he can still get bouts-he still follows his own program. He runs daily. He spars three or four time a week. "This is the thing with boxing," Warring says. "It's always been hard for me to get fights, because they say I'm an awkward fighter, plus I'm in shape. People don't want to fight me. It's almost better for me to be quiet now. I've lost a couple of fights, I'm 39, going to 40. Maybe now I'm a
fighter they want to fight. Maybe this is when I get the big fight, maybe fight for a heavyweight championship." The absurdity of the situation is obvious. "I fight for the heavyweight championship," James Warring says with fine optimism. "And maybe I shock the world." Reprint in part from Sports Illustrated
July 1997

WARRING'S WORLDS CHAMPIONSHIP
K I C K B O X I N G A C A D E M Y
(305) 235-4496
13260 S.W. 120 ST
MIAMI,FL 33186