It Was a Struggle, but Sims Defeats Proa in 5 Rounds

Lightweight Ruben Proa, suffering from cuts around both eyes, was unable to answer the bell Tuesday night for the sixth round of his scheduled 10-round main event against Walter Sims at the Country Club.

But if you think that battle was fierce, you should have seen the struggle going on behind the scenes just to get Sims (17-3-2, 12 knockouts) into the ring.

Plan A had called for Sims, who fights out of the Ten Goose Boxing Club of North Hollywood,to meet Erick Madrid of Sylmar, but that bout was KOd when the two sides couldn’t agree on money.

So on promoter Dan Goossen moved to Plan B. The opponent would be Martin Morado of Mexico. That fight, though, was canceled by a flu bug, which knocked Morado out of training.

Onward to Plan C. The opponent would be Raul Bencomo of Mexico. That bout was KOd by an inaccurate record.

When the California State Athletic Commission checked the won-lost mark that Bencomo had given matchmaker Jerry Niss, it discovered that Bencomo had left out a few losses.

But give Goossen and Niss points for perseverance.

They came out for Round 4 of their battle to get Sims a fight with Plan D.

Proa (11-5, eight knockouts) of San Diego had been scheduled to fight Monday night in Bakersfield. Instead, Niss got a substitute for the Bakersfield fight and got Proa into the Country Club ring.

Although he was clearly in command of Tuesday’s main event from the start, Sims--who weighed 135 pounds to Proa’s 133 1/2--said he still didn’t have his rhythm by the time the fight was stopped.

But he wouldn’t blame the musical-chairs matchmaking that had left him with a constantly changing picture of his opponent.

“Maybe subconsciously it affected me a little,” he said, “but the bottom line is, I was ready to fight. I was just putting combinations together when it was stopped. Sometimes it takes me six or seven rounds to get going. It would have just been a round or so until I knocked him out.”

Proa was knocked down early in the first round by a right cross, but battled back to dominate the final minute of the round.

But by the end of the fifth, he had cuts on his forehead over the left eye and under the right eye. At the point, referee James Jen-Kin stopped the bout.

Sims’ next fight will be July 21 in a tournament at the Forum. That is, if the promoters can find a healthy, reliable opponent.

In Tuesday’s first preliminary fight, middleweight Milford Kemp of North Hollywood and the Ten Goose Boxing Club boosted his record to 2-0 with a second-round knockout of Kola Hava of Somoa, now fighting out of Riverside.

The fight was stopped at 2:05 of the second round, handing Hava a defeat in his professional debut.

The next fight marked the professional debut of two men--Richard DeMarco of Orange and John Robinson of Los Angeles.

DeMarco dropped Robinson with a left hook in the first round and went on to win a split decision in their four-round junior middleweight bout.

Bantamweight Javier Lara (3-3) of North Hollywood knocked Robert Lopez (1-1) of Glendale down in the first round of their scheduled four-rounder and went on to win a unanimous decision.

Erick McNair (3-0) of San Diego was a last-minute replacement for Rodney Stark in a six-round junior middleweight fight.

He fared much better in that role than did Proa, winning a split decision over North Hollywood’s Otis Pimpleton (1-1).

In the final preliminary, Tony Chicoine (5-3) of Orange won a scheduled six-round super middleweight bout over Tom Lillard (1-2) of Pasadena. The bout was stopped at 2:01 of the fourth round because of a cut over Lillard’s right eye.