On the Road Again : One Year Later, Paul Gonzales Is Ready to Make Pro Debut

There have been no main events for Paul Gonzales for a year, ever since he won a gold medal at the Olympics when he fought four times with a broken hand.

Gonzales, who claims his right hand now is “210%” will make his professional boxing debut Sunday at the Hollywood Palladium as part of a made-for-TV fight card that also features two other Olympic gold-medal winners, Henry Tillman and Frank Tate.

For Gonzales, 21, from East Los Angeles, much appears to be at stake. In his first professional fight, Gonzales is the star attraction headlining the entry of CBS-TV into the Olympic boxing field, where the network hopes to challenge ABC, the reigning champion.

Gonzales will make $20,000 for his first pro fight, which may not sound like very much in these high-buck days, but his attorney believes there could be a lot more where that came from, if Gonzales is moved in the proper direction.

“He is not a piece of meat,” said James E. Blancarte, a lawyer from the firm that represents Gonzales. “We think he’s got a great future, not only in boxing, but with the potential to become a figure like Sugar Ray Leonard.”

Gonzales is ticketed for big places, perhaps in as short a time as two years, but he can’t get there until he has his first fight, even if the purse he will take home from it is a little on the light side.

“The only reason to do this at such a bargain price is that you cannot attach a dollar value to the exposure he’s going to get,” Blancarte said. “He should have gotten more.”

Gonzales is clearly the star of this show, since Tillman will get $15,000 and Tate $10,000. But those in Gonzales’ corner firmly believe he will also be the star of many other shows.

Movie rights to the Paul Gonzales story are currently being negotiated, Blancarte said. So is a possible television series spinoff from the movie, revolving around the story of Al Stankie, the Los Angeles policeman who discovered Gonzales and turned him into a fighter.

“It would be a combination of ‘The White Shadow’ and ‘T.J. Hooker,’ ” Blancarte said.

The plan is for Gonzales to become, sometime soon, a pleasant combination of champion and rich.

Blancarte said Gonzales is probably two years away from fighting for the flyweight title, at which time, Blancarte also said, Gonzales will become the first flyweight to make $100,000 a fight.

Gonzales’ six-round fight against Jose (Pulga) Torres should answer many of the questions about the condition of Gonzales’ right hand, which has given him trouble since 1982, when he had surgery to remove a bone spur.

He did not fight again for 11 months until he upset the Soviet Union’s Shamil Sabirov, the 1980 Olympic champion, in early 1983. It was that fight that propelled Gonzales into world-wide recognition.

But Gonzales continued to have pain in his hand up to the Olympic trials tournament at Fort Worth, Tex., in June of 1984. Then in the first round of his first Olympic fight, Gonzales broke a bone on the back of his right hand when he hit South Korean Kim Kwang Sun.

Even so, Gonzales won that bout and three others as well, then won the gold medal because his opponent, Italy’s Salvatore Todisco, had broken his thumb in the semifinals.

Nearly four weeks after the Olympics, Gonzales had surgery to correct a hairline stress fracture, and has not been able to fight until now. He is the last of the 12 U.S. Olympic boxers to turn professional.

“The decision was made that he wouldn’t be allowed in the ring until his hand was 210%,” Blancarte said. “We were thinking about his future. He isn’t a one-shot guy.”

Gonzales said he agonized over not being able to fight, especially when he saw five of his Olympic teammates--Meldrick Taylor, Pernell Whitaker, Mark Breland, Evander Holyfield and Tyrell Biggs--united again by ABC for a series of televised bouts.

“I watched them box on TV and I cried about it,” Gonzales said. “That’s what I did. I was supposed to rest my hand, so I did that, too. Some people might call me a late starter, but I’m just a baby crawling out of my cradle. I have to learn to walk first.”

Gonzales said there is nothing wrong with his hand now.

“The hand is great,” he said. “I have no worries about it. I have confidence in my right hand.”

Tate and Tillman have been training with Gonzales for their fights, which CBS has scheduled for the one-year anniversary of their winning gold medals. Tate said he has been studying Gonzales in the ring.

“He’s been looking really good,” Tate said. “He just had a slow recovery from a hand injury.”

Tate, 20, is 7-0 as a professional and will fight a six-round junior middleweight bout against Thomas (Mad Dog) Smith, who is trained by John (Wolf) Morgan.

That puts a Mad Dog and a Wolf in the corner opposite Tate, who has recorded six knockouts, but he said he will not fight fire with fire by changing his name.

“I’m sticking to the name that won me the Olympic gold meal, and that’s Frank Tate,” he said.

The third Olympian, 25-year-old cruiserweight Henry Tillman of Los Angeles, will fight Lightning Larry Phelps in a six-round bout. Phelps is a replacement for Original Oscar Holman, who had replaced Phelps in the first place only to drop out because of a managerial conflict, according to co-promoter Don Chargin.

Tillman is highly respected for his potential and has knocked out four opponents in his five professional victories. Mercer Smith, who trains Tillman, said the plan is for Tillman to try an eight-round fight next.

“We’re not going to rush anything,” Smith said. “We’re taking our time.”