Expansion Could Triple Boxing in Valley

The bell has sounded. The fight has begun.

The San Fernando Valley, devoid of a major professional sports team, is about to become a battleground for the attention and dollars of the boxing fan. By September, if all goes as planned, the number of boxing shows in the Valley will have tripled. Both the Sheraton-Universal Hotel in Universal City and the Warner Center Marriott Hotel in Woodland Hills are throwing their hats, as well as their fighters, into the ring with ballroom boxing.

Harry Kabakoff, who has been involved in boxing as a fighter, trainer, manager and promoter for 45 years, will stage monthly shows at the Universal beginning July 25th. The main event that night will pit his own fighter, super lightweight Elias Madrid of Sylmar, against Jo Jo Perkins. Kabakoff is talking to heavyweight Wimpy Halstead of Simi Valley about fighting in his August show.

Another longtime Southland promoter, Don Fraser, will run the Woodland Hills operation, beginning with a Sept. 23 date, possibly involving former Pacoima resident Jaime Garza, a former World Boxing Council super bantamweight champion. Beyond that, Fraser, who also stages monthly boxing at a Marriott hotel in Irvine, is taking a wait-and-see approach.

For the past two years, there has been monthly boxing at the Country Club in Reseda. Can this area, comprising roughly 1.5 million people, support three monthly shows?

“We’ll just have to count the bodies after three months and see who is still going,” Fraser says. “I don’t think we’re going after the same crowd. I wouldn’t think too many people from Woodland Hills would go all the way to the Sheraton-Universal or vice versa.

“We are appealing to the high-tech businesses in this area. We’d like to make this a good place for a businessman’s night out, although there are plenty of gals who are fight fans, too. The Country Club appeals more to the blue-collar crowd.”

Dan Goossen, head of the Ten Goose Boxing Club of North Hollywood and the main force behind the Country Club shows, doesn’t agree.

“We’re dealing with the same audience,” Goossen says. “We’re dealing with the person who steps up and spends money. I don’t care if they wear a business suit or have two showgirls on their arm, we need their money to keep the promotion going. I don’t care if they are white collar, blue collar, purple collar or ring-around-the-collar. We go after them.

“The new competition is fine. I love it. It’s what life is all about. It makes it exciting. It makes it fun. I feel we’ll all benefit from it--the fans, the promoters and the fighters. I love a good fight.”

The Country Club seats a little more than 900 for boxing and charges from $10 to $30 a ticket. Fans are seated at tables and can order food.

Kabakoff will hold his fights in the Universal Ballroom West. It will seat around 700, with tickets priced from $20 to $40. Fans will sit at round tables, accommodating 10 to 12 per table, and will be able to order food.

“I don’t want any riffraff at my fights,” Kabakoff says. “I want them pulling up in limos.”

Kabakoff plans to have a celebrity panel of judges, who will unofficially score the fights for the benefit of television. A production company plans to televise the fights and sell them to cable outlets.

At the Marriott, the fights will be staged in the Grand Ballroom, seating capacity around 1,100. There will be no tables, but rows of seats, costing $20 or $25.

Kabakoff was the first promoter at the Country Club but had trouble drawing a crowd. “You could have set off a machine gun in there for those first fights,” he says, “and nobody would have gotten hurt.”

Goossen routinely sells the place out.

For Fraser, a North Hollywood resident, it’s a homecoming after years of promoting everywhere from the Forum and the Olympic Auditorium to Irvine. In 1970, he promoted fights at the Valley Music Theater in Woodland Hills, drawing as many as 2,200 per fight before the facility was sold.

“This area is growing so much,” Fraser says, “it’s amazing there is no stadium of any sort out here. If the Valley wasn’t part of L.A., it would be one of the largest cities in the country.

“It can support boxing and we’ll start Sept. 23. That date is etched into concrete. Revolutions or earthquakes, we go.”