World Boxing Championships : Teofilo Stevenson, 35, Is a Winner

The legend lives . . . for another day, at least.

Amateur boxing’s Babe Ruth, Teofilo Stevenson, began a drive for a fourth Olympic gold medal at Seoul in 1988 with a 5-0 decision over East German Ulli Kaden Friday night at the World Championships of amateur boxing.

The 6-6 Stevenson, 35, trying for his third world title, showed up weighing a lean, trim 211 pounds. He moved well throughout the bout, scoring repeatedly with left jabs and body shots.

With his Cuban teammates standing near ringside and cheering wildly for him, Stevenson hurt Kaden, 6-5 and 215, with three right hands midway through the first round but couldn’t put him away.

Meanwhile, Americans fell a little farther behind the 8-ball while another Cuban boxing legend moved a step closer to his own third world championship.

Flyweight Arthur Johnson and lightweight Vincent Phillips both lost close 3-2 decisions--Johnson’s was mildly disputed--on the second day of the 10-day tournament involving 235 boxers representing 37 countries at the Reno/Sparks Convention Center.

The young American team of 12 boxers is now 2-3 against the field, with light-flyweight Brian Lonon still to make his debut this afternoon against Brazil’s Hamilton Rodrigues. Light-welterweight Nick Kakouris, who won Thursday in a one-round knockout, has a second-round bout tonight against West German Alexander Kuenzler.

Cuba’s 28-year-old Adolfo Horta, who has boxed in the shadow of super-heavyweight teammate Stevenson for his entire career, rolled into the second round with an impressive 5-0 decision over Italian Michele Caldarella.

Horta, now a lightweight (132 pounds), is trying, like Stevenson, to become the first boxer to win three world titles. If Horta does, he’ll have won them in three different weight classes. In 1978, he won the bantamweight championship at 119 pounds, and in 1982, he won the featherweight title at 125.

And as a lightweight Friday, he looked better than ever.

By the third round, the superbly conditioned Horta had worn his foe down. After one exchange, Caldarella was given a standing eight-count.

Curiously, despite being regarded as one of the world’s great amateurs, Horta has never won an Olympic championship. He was a silver medalist at Moscow in 1980 and was a victim of the East Bloc boycott in 1984.

“I have no thoughts of retiring,” he said. “I am in very good shape, and my goal is an Olympic gold medal in ’88. The same for ‘92, in fact. I feel fine at this weight--I was having trouble making 125.”

For a tearful American, U.S. Army soldier, Vincent Phillips from Fort Riley, Kan., the Olympics seemed like an impossible dream late Friday afternoon. When the judges’ 3-2 verdict for his opponent, Romania’s Daniel Maeran, was read, Phillips sank to the floor on both knees in disbelief and slammed the floor with his fist.

Phillips was the aggressor in the bout, carried the action for all three rounds and seemed the slightly stronger boxer at the finish. Unfortunately for Phillips, amateur scoring excludes from consideration those traits. Bouts are scored solely on the number of scoring blows.

The U.S. head coach, Pat Nappi, seemed mildly angry at the verdict.

“I thought he won every round,” Nappi said. “He won the fight--they just wouldn’t give it to him, that’s all.”

Phillips, 22, wouldn’t talk to reporters until 30 minutes after the bout. Even then, tears filled his eyes and his voice was a whisper.

“I felt I had the edge,” he said. “I felt I was more aggressive. I threw more effective punches. I kept my jab on target, he didn’t. These foreign judges just don’t see boxing the way we do. I feel we have to knock an opponent out here to win, or beat him up so bad there’s no question--you know, bust up his nose, bloody him up bad. It hurts. I trained real hard for this tournament. I fought real hard and I thought I deserved it.”

By “foreign judges,” Phillips couldn’t have been referring to Sig Sanon, from Burkina Faso, could he? Sanon, from the West African country once known as Upper Volta, scored the bout 60-57 for Phillips. A Canadian judge had it by one for Phillips, but judges from Yugoslavia, Taiwan and Venezuela had it for Maeran.

Johnson, the American flyweight, exited the tournament in a manner feared by Nappi before it all began--inexperience. Johnson, 19, was up against a tough Turk, Eyup Can, who has lived in Copenhagen the last 10 years.

Can used to be a waiter at the Copenhagen Sheraton. Not anymore. Not after he won a bronze medal at the Los Angeles Olympics.

“They told me I didn’t have to work anymore,” he said after his 3-2 decision over Johnson. “Now, I just train. My sponsors are Sheraton and Nike. I’ve had 23 bouts in the last four months.”