It was a rather cordial press conference at the Mandalay Bay last month, where both John Ruiz and Kirk Johnson were in Las Vegas to promote their upcoming bout for Ruiz's WBA heavyweight title.

Unlike the promotion for Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson, neither fighter had to be separated from each other and there wasn't a security guard in sight - and none was needed. Both Ruiz and Johnson are heavyweight gentlemen and the respect and platitudes flowed freely on both sides.

That is until Norman Stone, the hard-nosed, tough guy co-manager of 'the Quiet Man', took his turn at the mike after being introduced by promoter Don King.

"Daaahn, Daaahn, we gotta check this guy's EKG," Stone said to King in his New England accent that is as thick as that region's clam chowder. "We gotta check this guys EKG."

The inference was made. "Stoney", as Stone is called, doesn't think that Johnson has much heart - or 'haart' as he'd say. Stone didn't back down from his comments afterwards. "I've seen his fights, he's got a hole in his heart," Stone told MaxBoxing.com.

Stone has seen Johnson look less than stellar against the likes of Al Cole and Larry Donald, while his charge has gone 36 tough rounds against Evander Holyfield.

"And [Johnson] struggled with Dannell Nicholson," Stone added. "I don't think he has it. I can not see how Johnny is an underdog but I'm glad. I'm going to make some serious money, like I made serious money on the Holyfield-Rahman fight."

And Stone is quick to point out that his guy went tough rounds with the still dangerous Evander Holyfield.

"And he also knocked down Evander, he didn't admit that either," pointed out Stone. "He said that the only one that ever knocked him down was Riddick Bowe. So he's trying to go back on that a little bit, but as I said, Johnny is the best out there and he's only gonna go on to prove it when we fight Lewis.

"I can't see Johnson beating us. I can not see this kid beating us. I've seen his tapes, I've seen how many punches he throws a round, I really can't. We're training to be first and quick. I see they bought Lou Duva in to work the referee - I know the trick."

There are many things you can say about a fighter, but when you question their toughness and grit, that's what irks them the most. You're better off telling them that their mothers wear combat boots.

Fighters pride themselves on being tough guys. And just to step into the ring takes a certain type of toughness that regular folks will never comprehend. So what went through Johnson's mind when Stone called him yellow?

"Nothing at all," claimed Johnson. "Twenty years of me fighting and 20 years of me doing my best. When he said that, it's like I didn't even hear it. Nothing at all when through my mind."

But that's not entirely true according to Ken Lilien, the co-manager of Johnson.

"Kirk did say something to me (at the press conference podium), his exact quote to me sitting there the moment he said that was, 'It's a shame that these people that don't have to go in the ring say these things and get their man all busted up.'"

So does this provide extra motivation for Johnson?

"Not that Kirk needed to get anymore incentive for this fight because of how much is on the line and this is what he's worked for his whole life," said Lilien. "But Kirk Johnson's got more heart than anyone I've ever known and if you say that to a guy with no heart on the night that he fights you, he's going to fight his hardest on that night.

"We're not using it for motivation, we haven't even talked about it since we left Las Vegas because I don't think Kirk needed anymore motivation because of what's on the line here. But it's in the back of Kirk's mind, no doubt about it."

But according to Lilien, it's par for the course Johnson has taken.

"It's amazing," he said. "All I can remember, because I've been with Kirk for about nine years, people say all these things about Kirk. 'Kirk Johnson has no chin' or 'Kirk Johnson has no punch' or 'Kirk Johnson has no this or that'- and all he's done is every night that he's gone out is win the fight. So he's just gonna do it again on the 27th."

Curtis Cokes, who trains Johnson, says that neither he nor his fighter was fazed by Stone's comments.

"That guy talks like that all the time," pointed out Cokes, who was a formidable welterweight champion in his day. "And nobody pays it too much attention. He's so much in love with his fighter, he'll say anything. But Kirk Johnson has showed that he's got a lot of heart. He's fought everybody that we asked him to fight and he did well. So we don't question his heart. So that doesn't really bother me."

And Cokes believes that you're best off letting sleeping dogs lie.

"Yeah, you do," Cokes says. "That was really something. If's he's really trying to sell tickets and have a good fight and so everybody could be happy and make some money- he wouldn't say that the kid didn't have heart. Nobody said John Ruiz never had any heart. Kirk has won all his fights, so he's got some heart. So that was just not professional."

And even if you believe a guy has a faulty ticker, if you point that out beforehand, it could be the one time that that particular opponent fights with conviction.

Ruiz himself is preparing for a tough fight.

"I'm just looking at a good fight and I just got to be ready for that," he told MaxBoxing.com. "I can't just depend on him looking for a place to lay down. So I'm just training hard, being focused and hopefully everything will go well for me and I could move onto unifying the titles."

But while the Johnson camp bristles at Stone's notion of their guy having very little fortitude, they do concede that while their man may have better natural talent, Ruiz - with his three bout series with Holyfield - does have the advantage in experience.

"I agree with that 100-percent," said Johnson's promoter, Dino Duva. "I have so much respect for John Ruiz because the fights with Holyfield have to make him a better fighter, they have to. So he's going to be better than you've seen John Ruiz in the past. And that makes this a very tough fight. Look, on paper, talent-wise, natural ability-wise, I honestly believe Kirk Johnson, is a better fighter.

"John Ruiz, has the experience factor. He's got three fights with Holyfield, which can't be discounted, so that evens it out. It's an even matchup and it's a great matchup."

Lilien agrees with that assessment.

"I think that the 36 rounds with Holyfield have made Ruiz a much better fighter," he said. "I have a lot of respect for John Ruiz. Everyone is underestimating him, a lot of historians have said that when you become a champion that you become about 25-percent better on just confidence and experience. I think that's 100-percent true in Ruiz's case. I think it'll be true when Kirk becomes champion. But I think it'll be a very, very tough fight. I think Kirk is the better talented fighter, Ruiz does have a little more experience."

But Johnson looks at it differently.

"Well, y'know Holyfield had the experience over him going into the fights and in a couple of those fights his experience really didn't matter or make a difference," he said. "But I have the amateur experience and the professional experience and I have the experience as being a person being in the gym and what have you. So no matter what he brings to me, I'm going to be able to evade and do what I have to do as a fighter."

Will Johnson's gap in physical talent be too much Ruiz? Or, if Johnson finds himself in a dog-fight, does 'the Quiet Man's' experience and grit come through? We'll find out this Saturday night, but I get the feeling that the odds that have Johnson a 3-1 favorite are a tad wide.

DUVA BOXING

For the past couple of years Dino and Donna Duva have been struggling to get their promotional company into the upper echelon after their bitter separation from Main Events. After winning the bidding war for the services of Johnson (thanks to Michael King), they find themselves on the doorstep of bigger and better things, should the the former Canadian Olympian down Ruiz.

"The importance of this fight to my company is everything," admits Duva. "If Kirk Johnson wins this fight, it'll obviously take Duva Boxing to another level and we've promoted heavyweight champions before but we did it at our old company - this will be the first major champion for our new company. And it'll be a huge step in getting back into the picture in the promotional world."

REMEMBER IKE?

At one time Cokes was training both Kirk Johnson and Ike Ibeabuchi from his 'Home of Champions' gym in Dallas, Texas. While Johnson is now fighting for his first title, it was Ibeabuchi, who is currently locked up in prison for sexual assault, that most observers felt had the most upside.

"Sometimes I just sit and cry," said Cokes, of his enigmatic former pupil. "I had Ike as an amateur and he won the regional tournament, he won the state tournament, went to the nationals as an amateur. I had him and Kirk at the same time and I molded Ike. I was real proud of the work I did with him. But he was just a guy who was mixed up upstairs and you couldn't control him outside the ring and outside the gym.

"He was a pleasure to train because he would do everything you asked him to do. But when he walked out the gym door and got into the world, he was a different breed."

With all the hoopla being made over Lewis and his victory over Tyson and the recent showings of Wladimir Klitschko, Cokes thinks none of this happens if Ibeabuchi was still around.

"I think he would've been champion two years ago," states Cokes. "I think he would've beat everybody up there because he was really determined to be champion of the world. But he just needed some help and I guess I wasn't close enough to him to see that because I would only train him in the gym and I wouldn't socialize with him outside the ring so I really didn't know he was having those kinds of problems."

SMOKIN' JOE

A couple of months ago I wrote about the plight of Nicole Frerichs, who suffers from a rare progressive seizures disorder called the Lennox Gastaut Syndrome in which she has more than 100 seizures a day.

A benefit for her cause featuring heavyweight great Joe Frazier had to be cancelled because of a car accident that Frazier was involved in prior to the event. Frazier has recovered and the event has been rescheduled for this Tuesday, July 23rd at 7:00 p.m. at the Milan Restaurant at 13 Mt. Hook Road in Montville, N.J.

Tickets for this event are $40 and $75 dollars and the $75 tickets includes a picture with the former champ. Other celebrities from the entertainment and sports world will be in attendance.

BLACKJACK

I gotta give Antonio Tarver credit. He risked it all against Eric Harding - his number-one ranking and a possible shot at Roy Jones - and he came up big. It's not a risk I would have taken but this win is huge.

Tarver made himself into a viable mandatory challenger for Jones and probably goes in with a lot more bargaining power than he would have if he would have been content to sit on his ranking for another six months.

CRAPPED OUT

Shane Mosley gambled and lost by taking an immediate rematch against Vernon Forrest, but I wouldn't completely write him off yet, he is still a crowd-pleaser against anybody not named Vernon Forrest and a Marco Antonio Barrera-like rebirth isn't out of the equation.

But as Oscar De La Hoya has proven time and time again, the best rematches you make sometimes - are the one's you don't make. Unless of course it's a washed up Julio Cesar Senior Citizen.

But I have to say this, in listening to the often bizarre excuses he was making for his January loss to Forrest, it was as out of character as seeing Tom Hanks play a murderer in 'Road to Perdition'. Hanks is best known for playing feel-good roles like Forrest Gump or friendly cross dressers (remember 'Bosom Buddies'?) and seeing Mosley become an excuse maker was rather unbecoming and uncharacteristic.

But after this fight on Saturday night, he seemed resigned to the fact that Forrest will always give him problems and that it's time to move on. But like I said earlier, don't completely write off this guy yet. I have a feeling we haven't heard the last of Shane Mosley.

As for Forrest, he was effective as usual, but unless he gets a fight against the other big names around him, you have the feeling he'll be the Mike McCallum of his era. A fighter who may not have the transcendent appeal of some of his contemporaries, but someone who is highly respected (and sometimes avoided) by those in the game.

FINAL FLURRIES

When it comes to Mosley and his marketing, does IMG, now stand for "I'M GONE"? After all, how much can they do for him when he's Phil Mickelson to Forrests' Tiger Woods?... Juan Lazcano was sharp in his tuneup bout against Benito Rodriguez this Friday night... Is there a more dangerous journeyman in the game right now than Emanuel Augustus (formerly Burton)?... Oh, by the way, IBF bantamweight king Tim Austin also fights in HBO's 'Boxing After Dark' telecast on Saturday night against Adan Vargas... I'll make a prediction, the bout between Clifford Etienne and Frans Botha will be a better fight than Ruiz-Johnson.