Duarte Puffy, but Confidence Is Inflated

By Wednesday’s morning light, there was little to indicate Frankie Duarte had been in a fight the night before--a few scratches around the nose, a little puffing around the eyes.

But then that was understandable, according to trainer Joe Goossen. His boxer, he maintained, hadn’t been in a fight.

Oh, he’d been in the ring Tuesday night, losing a split decision to WBA bantamweight champion Richie Sandoval in a 10-round non-title fight. But Sandoval, using a stinging jab, swift combinations and tremendous quickness, chose to attack Duarte from arm’s length throughout the fight, staying away from his opponent. Nobody could fault the skills Sandoval displayed or the results he achieved.

But 12 hours later, Goossen was still fighting mad.

“That fight must have inspired a lot of kids,” said Goossen, one of the members of the large North Hollywood family that runs the Ten Goose Boxing gymnasium and stable of fighters. “They must all want to get into boxing if that’s all you have to do when you’re champion.

“Without Duarte last night, there was no fight. Sandoval admits to not fighting. Well that’s putting it mildly. Here was the champion of the world putting on a poor and heartless performance. It was a gutless performance. I’ll tell you something. He’s not going to last long like that. The first guy that lassos him is going to beat him. I think he realizes he can’t mix it up with anyone. At least anyone who can break an egg. In his last fight, Sandoval got knocked down and I think he knew he couldn’t take it anymore.”

Said Sandoval Tuesday night of his tactics: “That was my strategy all along. That had to be the way I fought because he’s stronger than me. He’s really a featherweight. That’s why I carried a little extra weight.”

Duarte, 30, weighed in at 121 3/4 pounds Tuesday. Sandoval, 24, was a tad heavier at 122.

“He (Sandoval) contended before the fight that he was going to take Frankie out,” Goossen said. “As it was, he was content to just jab and run. I don’t mind if my fighter is outboxed or outpunched. But he was outrun. This was supposed to be a tune-up fight for Sandoval. But it was more like he was the guy being tuned up on.

“How does a champ of the world give a 30-year-old man, an unrated fighter who has had a three-year layoff and is washed up because of drugs and drink--Sandoval’s people said that before the fight--more respect than he gave Jeff Chandler, a legend?” Goossen asked.

Sandoval (26-0 record with 17 knockouts) stopped Chandler in the 15th round a year ago to win the title.

Duarte, now 35-6 and 3-1 in a comeback triggered by the end of his problems with alcoholism, had trouble excepting the congratulations of those who told him he had won a moral victory.

“I’m disgusted,” he said. “I never did fight runners very good. I went in there to win. I didn’t come out glad to have gone the distance with the champ. I went in there for the knockout. Anything else would be the attitude of a loser.”

So what happens to the comeback?

“This puts Frankie Duarte in the limelight again,” Goossen said, concluding perhaps the opening speech in a campaign for a rematch. “When the champ of the world gives him that much respect, he deserves a shot at someone in the top 10 if not Sandoval. Frankie would love to meet Sandoval in a short ring as long as the referee would make him fight. We know what he is made of.”

Dan Goossen, Joe’s brother and Frankie’s manager, is hopeful of signing his fighter to a top-10 opponent in the next couple of months.

As for Duarte, Sandoval can wait.

“I’m going out and get something I’ve dreamed about,” he said on his first day off his strict, prefight diet. “A bowl of cold cereal.”

Michael Nunn puts his undefeated 4-0 mark on the line Thursday night at the Showboat Hotel Sports Pavillion when he takes on Sergio Campos of Phoenix in a 6-round middleweight bout.

Nunn, of Davenport, Iowa, was an alternate on the U.S. Olympic boxing team, and fights out of the Goossen Gym in North Hollywood. The bout is the first scheduled on an eight-fight card which will be televised live by ESPN. The opening bout on the card starts at 6 p.m.

Two lightweight events share top billing: Brett Summers of Detroit, Mich., squares off against Chris Calivin of Nashville, Tenn., in one, while Terrence Alli of New York, NY, faces Charlie Brown of Philadelphia, Pa., in the second.