Arguello Wins It Just for Arguello

For three rounds Alexis Arguello recalled little of the splendor he had long bestowed on a boxing ring. The three-time champion was missing with his punches and just generally looking rusty. The man who had returned to the ring to restore his wealth, if not his legend, should have been advised that money can’t buy you timing.

And then it happened, as it had so many times before. With Billy Costello, himself a former super-lightweight champion, mysteriously backing into the ropes, Arguello floored him with a right hand, flush to the chin. Costello, whose chin had never been compared to anything on Mount Rushmore, got up but was a long time disentangling himself from the ropes. After the count of eight and an ensuing Arguello flurry it was over for good.

Arguello’s comeback, accompanied by a curious tale of the tape, was in earnest, Costello’s retirement in progress.

This was what Arguello, 33, meant to do three years ago, when he challenged Aaron Pryor for the 140-pound title. But in two fights with the erratic champion, Arguello was forcibly persuaded that not only was a historic fourth title out of reach, but so was the everyday world of boxing. He was done.

The retirement was less than satisfactory. His personal life was a disaster as he flirted with wine, women and song, not to mention stronger stimulants. His financial holdings dissolved in a pile of tax liens. A remembered past, however great it was, was dimmed by a dark future.

So he came back, like many fighters, hoping to recover his wealth, maybe win that fourth title, after all. Although he’d had one tuneup fight last October, this fight with Costello was meant to tell him and his fans if the reclamation of money and championships was possible.

The knockout Sunday afternoon, coming as it did over a former champion, may be persuasive. Especially as Arguello and his camp had an explanation for the poor showing over the first three rounds.

It seems that Costello’s trainer, Victor Valle, had asked Arguello to rewrap his hands in the dressing room, just minutes before the fight. There was too much padding. Arguello was aghast, not to mention furious. “The idea was to make me upset,” he said after the fight. “It worked.”

Bill Miller, Arguello’s manager, agreed. “It had nothing to do with the wrapping. It was just a ploy to keep Alexis cold.”

Trainer Eddie Futch said it seemed to have worked. “We didn’t have ample time to warm up. After the confusion with the bandages, I’d have liked to see him have six to eight minutes to warm up. He had two. He was cold, a little upset and it showed in the first three rounds.”

Arguello was upset enough even before the fight that he had threatened not to come out. It was hollow threat but evidence that it all worried Arguello some.

The tape tempest had another side to it, though. Duane Ford, vice chairman of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, said that Arguello, hero or not, had plainly violated the rules, using 18 yards of gauze when only 10 were permitted. The effect was to produce exaggerated knuckles. Futch claimed that the tape would only have lessened the impact of Arguello’s punches and certainly shouldn’t have been illegal. Ford ruled otherwise.

“When I told him he had to rewrap, he said he wasn’t coming out for the fight,” Ford said. “I said, OK, I’ll go tell the media. He sure started rewrapping fast enough.”

Who knows how much the tale of the tape figured in what even Arguello called a “poor performance” over three rounds. Arguello is and always has been a slow starter. He may have been more bothered by Costello’s in-and-out moves in the center of the ring than any pre-fight controversy.

But when Costello, 29, began backing into the ropes, the course of the fight was changed. Or, as Arguello said, “He opened his own grave.”

“In the middle of the ring he is better, he has a chance,” said Arguello, who weighed 143 pounds. “Against the ropes, it is better for me. He was doing a great job in the middle of the ring.”

That’s where Arguello caught him, after he was told to be more aggressive before the round. “I saw the opening and hit him flush on the chin,” he said.

Costello, 144, sagged immediately. He was up at the count of eight but the referee would not permit Arguello to rejoin the fray until Costello was untangled from the ropes. This didn’t make Arguello, who was motioned to his corner twice, very happy. But in any event the time didn’t buy much hope for Costello who, still trapped in the ropes, absorbed a subsequent beating. Referee Mills Lane stopped it at 1:42 of the round, Costello leading on all three judges’ cards.

Costello, who had announced a retirement after he lost his title to Lonnie Smith last August (it lasted three days), made no appearance at the press conference. But seen later he said he was once again “leaning toward retirement.”

Arguello, who earned a purse reported between $150,000 to $200,000, is now on his way to that fourth title, not to mention a new and substantial bank account.