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West Sider Koranicki left mark on boxing in Valley
YOUNGSTOWN
The passing of Mike Koranicki, who died May 14 at age 60, should not pass without some mention of his imprint on the Youngstown boxing scene.
The former West Sider’s health slipped in the last decade and Koranicki spent the last several years in a wheelchair in nursing homes.
His career appeared headed for its zenith on April 19, 1980, when he stepped in the ring against Gerrie Coetzee in Johannesburg, South Africa.
A previous victory over Kallie Knoetze in Cape Town five months earlier vaulted Koranicki to a No. 9 heavyweight ranking by the WBA. Because of a title eliminator arrangement between the WBC and WBA, the Coetzee-Koranicki winner was to have faced Mike Weaver for the unified championship.
The Coetzee-Koranicki fight at Rand Stadium didn’t last long, however, when Coetzee (coat-zee-ah) scored a first-round knockout.
“He hit me with a right hand and I went down,” Koranicki recalled in 2009. “I heard the count, 6-7-8, then got up, but fell backwards through the ropes and hit my head.”
Bob Miketa, who trained former Niles boxers Rusty and Razor Rosenberger, was also Koranicki’s trainer at the time.
Due to personal problems that hit a nadir right before the fight, Miketa said that he should have postponed the fight, but found it difficult since the scheduled 10-rounder was to be broadcast worldwide on CBS.
“He didn’t have his heart in it,” Miketa said of Mike’s biggest money fight, which Koranicki, a 6-4, 205-pound pillar of punches, believed was worth $500,000.
Mike fought again in August of that year, losing a unanimous decision to James “Quick” Tillis.
“We beat Tillis in his hometown of Chicago, but they gave the fight to him,” Miketa said.
Tillis was up and coming at the time.
Miketa emphasized that Koranicki was a decided underdog when he knocked out Knoetze (k-note-zee) and an article at the time described Mike as a little-known American heavyweight.
“That catapulted him into the top 10 because Kallie was ranked No. 1 by the WBA and WBC,” Miketa said.
“I fought some bad cats,” Koranicki said back in 2009.
The Chaney High graduate’s pro career ended in 1983 in South Africa where he lived for a time.
However, because of that country’s apartheid policy, some of the experience wasn’t pretty.
Dan Birmingham, a Youngstowner who relocated to Florida where he trained several noteworthy pros, most recently the now-retired Winky Wright, said he was sorry to hear about Koranicki’s death.
“Mike was one tough guy, a skilled, quick, good boxer who could punch. Last time I saw Mike he was a bouncer at a bar on Elm and Rayen Ave. When I walked in and saw him and he saw me, he shouted at me: ‘Who’s the baddest dude in Youngstown?’ Of course I immediately said, ‘You are Mike’
“I remember when he went to South Africa to fight, he was told not to jab to the body because that would open him up for the ‘bionic right hand.’”