For Boxers, Road to Seoul Starts Today in Reno : Teofilo Stevenson Is One of 235 to Answer Bell for World Championships

Four years ago this week, the world’s best amateur boxers gathered in Munich, West Germany. Two Americans--Mark Breland and Tyrell Biggs--won world championships.

Twenty-seven months later, those two, plus seven other Americans, won gold medals at the Los Angeles Olympics.

Today, the cycle will begin anew at the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, where 235 boxers from 37 countries begin the 11-day World Championships, providing a peek at the boxing prospects for the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Perhaps the biggest preview of all--or should it be billed as a curtain call?--will be provided by the boxer the Cubans call El Gigante, Teofilo Stevenson, three-time Olympic heavyweight champion. At 35, he is back again, in search of a third world title as he prepares to go for a fourth Olympic championship.

The Americans, of course, hope that Reno, like Munich, will be the start of something big.

Hopes aren’t high, however. This tournament will be a tougher one than the Los Angeles Olympics. Americans will not win nine gold medals here.

In fact, it’s possible that they may win none, said Roosevelt Sanders, assistant coach of the U.S.A. Amateur Boxing Federation.

“The Russians, the Cubans and the East Germans all look really tough here, and we don’t have anything like the talent we had for this tournament in 1982,” Sanders said.

“We have some talented kids, but they’re all young and inexperienced. None of them have had more than a half-dozen or so international bouts. Some of the Russian and Cuban boxers have had hundreds.”

Why is this tournament such a killer? It’s simple: No one is boycotting Reno. Hotels here are full of tough, scar-faced, mush-nosed boxers from the Soviet Union, Cuba, East Germany, Poland, Bulgaria and Hungary.

The 12-boxer Soviet team, just to name one, is eager to demonstrate that the Americans’ nine-gold haul at Los Angeles was achieved against inferior competition.

When Soviet Coach Artem Lavrov was asked if America’s Olympic team in ’84 had easy pickings, he slipped the question. Grinning, he would only say: “Results here will speak for themselves.”

The 6-6 Stevenson, amateur boxing’s Al Oerter, won gold medals at the 1972, ’76 and ’80 Olympics, then stayed home in ’84.

Many amateur boxing observers had written Stevenson off as long ago as 1983, when he looked bad in losing a decision to a fat Detroit boxer, Craig Payne. But Stevenson showed up here several days ago and weighed in at 211 pounds, trimmer than anyone had seen him since the 1976 Olympics.

Still, one American boxing official, Marco Sarfaraz, said the United States may do well in Stevenson’s weight class, thanks to Alex Garcia.

Garcia, 25, has had only 15 amateur bouts but came out of nowhere to win the U.S. amateur title in April.

“Alex is the kind of guy Stevenson has always had trouble with,” Sarfaraz said. “Alex should be able to get inside Stevenson’s long arms and rough him up inside.”

Super-heavyweight Garcia, like heavyweight gold medalist Henry Tillman from the class of ‘84, has a record. A nonboxing record, that is. At San Fernando High, Garcia alternated between being a promising middle linebacker and a street tough.

At 18, he was charged with stabbing a rival gang member to death. To this day, he maintains his innocence. But he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and served 9 1/2 months at Soledad.

Out of prison, Garcia started hanging around a Van Nuys boxing gym, the Jet Center, instead of the street. His trainer, Blinky Rodriguez, says that Garcia showed ability the first time he put on gloves.

“He’s got ring presence,” Rodriguez said. “There’s a quality you see in him. He’s got a natural punch and he’s not wild. When he hurts you, he’ll stay on top of you.”

Rodriguez entered Garcia in the national tournament in April at Beaumont, Tex., with only nine bouts under his belt. He won four decisions and a national title.

Then, at a subsequent Lake Tahoe box-off to determine the U.S. World Championships team, he lost a decision to Wesley Watson. But the next day he decked and then stopped Watson, earning a spot on the team.

“A lot of people think Alex has a pro future,” Sarfaraz said. “This could be a golden opportunity for him. If he does well here . . . well, just imagine--a good Mexican heavyweight from L.A.”

Garcia had luck going for him when they conducted a computerized draw for the tournament Tuesday. Three top-rated super-heavies--Stevenson, the Soviet Union’s Vycheslav Yakolev and Canada’s Lennox Lewis--are all in the top half of the super-heavy bracket.

Garcia is in the weaker half and won’t box until next Tuesday, against South Korean Park Hyun Man. Stevenson will open Sunday against East German Ulli Kaden.

Sanders says three Americans reaching the finals here is a lofty but reasonable expectation.

“Without studying the draw, I think Garcia, (heavyweight) Michael Bent and (featherweight) Kelcie Banks have the ability to reach the finals,” he said.

“Our other nine kids are really up against it. We have a lot of talent, but they’re all young. The Russian, Cuban and East German boxers are all older and much stronger in the upper body.”

Bent, a 20-year-old from Cambria Heights, N.Y., is a former lingerie salesman who has won 50 of 54 amateur bouts but finds himself in a division with perhaps the best amateur boxer in the world today, the Soviet Union’s Alexander Yagubkin.

Bent didn’t have Garcia’s luck of the draw. If Bent wins his preliminary match Sunday with Nigeria’s Duke Okoromaye, he will probably have to fight Yagubkin in the quarterfinals.

Banks, who turned 21 today, has improved so rapidly in recent months that some are already calling him the heir apparent in the 125-pound class to Meldrick Taylor, the gold-medal featherweight from the class of ’84. Banks, a tall, stand-up boxer who is also rated a good body puncher, has a preliminary bout Friday against Turkey’s Mehmet Kilic.

Preliminary rounds will be held daily, sessions starting at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m., today through Monday. Quarterfinals are scheduled Tuesday and Wednesday, semifinals May 16, and finals May 17 and 18.

The U.S. team: 106 pounds--Brian Lonon, Fort Worth; 112--Arthur Johnson, East St. Louis, Ill.; 119--Johnny Vasquez, Phoenix; 125--Kelcie Banks, Chicago; 132--Vincent Phillips, New York; 139--Nick Kakouris, St. Louis; 147--Ken Gould, Rockford, Ill.; 156--Kevin Bryant, New York; 165--Darin Allen, Columbus, Ohio; 178--Loren Ross, Nashville, Tenn.; 201--Michael Bent, Cambria Heights, N.Y.; Over 201--Alex Garcia, San Fernando.

Boxing Notes Reno is the fourth city to serve as host for the World Championships. The others were Havana in 1974, Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1978 and Munich in 1982. . . . Soviet coach Artem Lavrov told U.S. assistant coach Roosevelt Sanders in the Soviet Union last January that Soviet boxers now place far more emphasis in training on body punching, since headgear was made mandatory for international competition in 1984. . . . Three-time U.S. Olympic coach Pat Nappi is the head U.S. coach here, but his arrival has been delayed by the death of his brother. Ken Adams, coach of the Fort Hood, Tex., Army team is another assistant coach. . . . World Championship tournaments are held in even-numbered years at the midway point of an Olympiad. World Championship Challenge tournaments, in which a world champion is ordered to defend his title against a “most worthy opponent,” are usually held in the year before the Olympic Games. . . . How tough is this tournament? The top-ranked amateur boxer in the world is present in 9 of the 12 weight classes. . . . The two highest-rated Americans are featherweight Kelcie Banks and light-middleweight Kevin Bryant, each of whom is ranked No. 2.