Holmes’ Entourage Believes He Was Robbed

Larry Holmes walked out of boxing Saturday night. At least, that’s where his friends said he was headed.

Behind the seats in the Las Vegas Hilton’s jammed 9,000-seat arena, Holmes walked slowly through a blue curtain, toward a 30-foot beige trailer, his dressing quarters.

“You got robbed, champ!” shouted a friend from Easton, Pa. Holmes heard him but looked straight ahead with a smile that bespoke chapters of his opinion of Nevada judges.

Actually, they weren’t all Nevada judges. More on that later.

Is Larry Holmes finished?

Both his brother and his trainer said so.

“I’d like to see Larry get his title back awful bad, but I don’t see how he can in Nevada,” said Mark Holmes, a middleweight with a 33-1 record.

“He’d need to knock somebody out. Yeah, I think he’ll quit.”

Trainer Richie Giachetti, so furious at the decision he was shaking, concurred.

“Larry’s done,” he said. “Why should he box any more? Why should he put up with any more of this bleep? I’ve been in boxing a long time, and I can’t believe what I’ve seen in these last two fights.”

The Holmes entourage as it entered the trailer: sullen, angry men in white jogging suits, with I AM BACK! and THIS IS IT! emblazoned on their backs. They entered the trailer with Holmes, and several large objects were sent flying. The sounds of wooden or metal objects being broken up could be heard through a window, along with the expected profanity.

Then, it became quiet inside.

“May I go in?” a reporter asked.

“No bleeping way,” the man at the door said.

Diane Holmes appeared. She was let inside, and those outside the trailer saw her sit next to her husband, the old champion, and kiss him.

There were no tears. But 10 minutes later, Diane Holmes walked out. Stoically, she looked straight ahead at a friend. She’s a pretty, quiet woman and she put both hands on a stack of clean towels by the far wall, and the sobs came pouring out, as her shoulders slumped. A friend put an arm around her.

Then Holmes’ brother, Mark, came out, and appeared to be near tears himself as he told of a remark his brother had made as the first judge’s decision was read, in favor of Spinks.

“When that first vote was announced for Spinks, Larry said: ‘That’s it, I’ve got a big mouth.’ ”

Reference was to some harsh accusations Holmes made of Nevada boxing judges, including a charge of drunkenness while on the job. Holmes later apologized.

Then a Las Vegas friend of Holmes’, Richard Gordon, emerged from the trailer.

“Larry told me on the phone yesterday (Friday) that if he didn’t knock Michael out, he wouldn’t win,” said Gordon, who said he was a retired Nevada liquor distributor.

Gordon, like everyone who emerged from the beige trailer, was very angry.

“I’ve been a boxing fan all my life, but that decision was the biggest farce I ever saw in my life. Did Larry win nine rounds or not? That’s the last dollar of mine the boxing business in Nevada is ever going to get from me!”

Then, almost as an afterthought, Gordon said: “Oh, and how about this: Larry broke his right hand in the third round. How’s that for courage? And for what?”

A Nevada State Athletic Commission physician, Dr. Flip Homansky, confirmed Holmes did suffer a hand injury.

“He has an injured thumb; he said it was in the same area as a thumb break he had earlier in his career. He’s going to the hospital for an X-ray.”

Holmes had the thumb placed in a splint at Valley Hospital late Thursday night. It’s the same thumb he broke against Bonecrusher Smith, in 1984.

Next, Duane Ford, vice chairman of the Nevada commission, walked out of the trailer.

Holmes and Giachetti, Ford indicated, read him the riot act.

“Larry feels he can’t get a fair shake in this state,” Ford said. “He partly blamed himself and talked about his big mouth. But I explained to Larry that the two out-of-state judges (Joe Cortez from New York, who voted 144-141 for Holmes, and Frank Brunette, from New Jersey, who voted 144-141 for Spinks) both got in last night and weren’t likely to have been influenced by all the talk here this week.

“And I told him that the reputation (for fairness) of the Las Vegas judge (Jerry Roth, who voted 144-142 for Spinks) is impeccable.”

Ford, however, said he didn’t like the decision either.

“Speaking to you as a boxing fan, I must tell you that my personal observation is disappointment at both the decision and at the gap in the scoring. You can’t like it when two judges have a six-round turnaround.

“I’ll also tell you I see no impropriety. If Larry wants to ask the Nevada attorney general’s office to take a look at it, we’d be happy to cooperate, but I don’t think he’ll do that.”

But he wasn’t speaking for Giachetti, whose voice was rising to shout volume while speaking to two reporters outside the trailer.

“I love boxing, but I’ll be damned if I’ll sit back and take this quietly,” he said. “Larry had his man hurt four or five times. Spinks never hurt Larry. All you guys wrote about what wonderful condition Spinks was in, but he was right at complete exhaustion at the end, a 29-year-old man. Larry, at 36, was in twice the physical condition Michael was.

“Here it is, what Larry’s up against: They (judges) can’t stand Larry because the guy is a maverick. He goes against the system.”

Giachetti was even more angry at the spectacle of Butch Lewis, the bout’s co-promoter (with Don King), cheering Spinks on from beneath Spinks’ corner.

“There is no way the rules permit a promoter, who has a financial interest in one of the participants, to cheer right on the ringside apron. It’s in the rules of boxing, in any state you want to name.

“This night is just more evidence of how badly we need a federal commission of some kind to govern boxing. We absolutely need it.”