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LITZAU'S NEED TO THRILL COST HIM
By Ray Kilgore

Several months ago Jason Litzau told Minnesotaboxng.com before he faced Nicky Bentz on ESPN 2 that he would be crushed if fans seen him as a, "Pus*y fighter with no heart." Litzau said he would be "dead to the world" if he lost a fight, but unfortunately, this past weekend on HBO boxing After Dark, Litzau received his first professional loss 20-1 (18) against Jose Andres Hernandez. Not only must Litzau deal with the first defeat of his professional career, he now faces the challenge of understanding what it means to be a fighter.

Psychologically Litzau has put pressure on himself that no boxer can live up to; the stress of trying to please others brought him to tears in the dressing room before his fight against John Nolasco in July of 2005; at the time, Main Events promotions was interested in signing Litzau to a contract, however, Litzau viewed the deal as a way to financially support family and friends.

Litzau developed an addiction to pleasing people early in life as he never got the love and respect from his parents that all children need to grow emotionally physically and psychologically. "All he's been talking about leading up to this fight [was] how boring HBO's fights had been and how he didn't want be like that" insists Litzau's head trainer Bob Van Syckle. "He's probably thinking about things most fighters wouldn't. Most fighters are thinking about survival and how 'I am going to win this fight', he, [Jason], is thinking about 'how I have to entertain people."' Johnny Johnson, owner of Rice Street Gym, also works with both Jason and his brother Allen agrees with Van Syckle's assessment, "I don't know that his mind was all there. You don't know what's going through a young kids' mind being on HBO for the first time."

Van Syckle acknowledges after the fight in the dressing room Litzau was more worried about how fans and others felt about his setback. "All he was concerned about was how he let Main Events, the people who invested time and money and the fans down. We had to keep telling him he didn't let anyone down at all."

Litzau's "disease to please" is a bigger problem than the boxer might understand. "He is a gambler type person and sometimes he doesn't think about the consequences," confided Van Syckle. "That's a lesson he needed to learn and he likes to learn the hard way at times, and he's almost too much of a gambler in that way."

HBO's commentator Max Kellerman observation about Litzau being only offensive minded cannot be overlooked. Litzau's seem to invite the knockout by his refusal to keep his left up and defend himself, but Johnson says that theory is nonsense. "That doesn't matter about his hands being low. That punch hit him on the tempo his hands could have been up and it would have landed anyways." Johnson adds, "Did you watch the final fight with [Edison] Miranda? Didn't [Willie] Gibbs have his hands up? And he still got knocked out."

Van Syckle says Litzau is psychologically hurt over the defeat, "Right now he feels he let everybody down in St. Paul and he doesn't want to show his face," but both Van Syckle and Johnson say Litzau wants a rematch with Hernandez preferably in March on ESPN 2.

The late former Heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson said, "It's easy to do anything in victory. It's in defeat that a man reveals himself," and it remains to be seen if Litzau has learned a lesson from this loss. Litzau might spend the next several days and weeks asking himself if he really needs to thrill fans with a life-and-death style, and this tumble is probably the best thing for him because now he can concentrate on being a fighter verses being a performer.