Duarte’s Night to Seek Title

Frankie Duarte’s peculiar gift, like any drunkard’s, was that he could always-- always-- find a reason to lift a few.

“It’d be my birthday and I’d just have to celebrate with a beer,” he recalled. “Then, Fourth of July would arrive. Well, I’m a pretty patriotic guy . . .

“And then before you knew it, National Potato Picking Day would roll around.”

It didn’t take much of an occasion to situate Duarte on a bar stool. Of course by then, the one-time bantamweight contender had run out of big moments or any prospects thereof. After an alcoholic slide that stemmed his once promising career, there simply wasn’t anything of worth left to celebrate. National Potato Picking Day, or even the delivery of mail, would just have to do.

But tonight, after a rehabilitation only slightly less publicized than Betty Ford’s, when Duarte finally has something to toast, there will be no cocktailing. The party, after the fight that marks one of the sport’s most remarkable comebacks, will be, like Duarte himself, strictly nonalcoholic.

This alone, many people believe, makes Duarte championship material. Four years without a drink, after a three-year blackout before that, should impress some. But Duarte intends to prove his comeback for the rest, for good, when he fights World Boxing Assn. bantamweight champion Bernardo Pinango for his title in the Forum tonight.

This fight will be no easier than his fight against drink and drugs. Pinango, of Venezuela, is 26 and has successfully defended his title three times, the last two by knockout. His fists are sharp enough that his manager, veteran Luis Spada, boasts that five of his last six fights were stopped on cuts.

Duarte, on the other hand, is 32, has only been back to boxing for three years after a three-year layoff in the early 1980s, and cuts easily.

Ah, but there is Duarte’s heavyweight determination. His comeback, since he was taken in by the Ten Goose Boxing stable in Reseda three years ago, was never all that promising, certainly not in the beginning. Until he won the North American Boxing Federation championship, along with the Stroh’s tournament last summer, there was no reason to believe Duarte would get attention as anybody but a recovering alcoholic.

Yet he’s been dreaming of this night all along. “I remember me and (trainer) Joe (Goossen) sitting in the backyard, talking about it. What if I won the title, there’d be a book, a movie. And that was only after three fights. I was a long way from it. But now that it’s here . . . “

Now that it’s here?

“It’s do or die,” he said. At 32, the oldest man ever to challenge for a bantamweight title, he recognizes that this shot “is pretty much it.” So there will be a certain desperation that attends his fighting style tonight.

Of course, Duarte has always been a game fighter. He has fought with a style that requires him to take shots to get any in. He does not finesse opponents, he crowds them. It’s an exciting way to fight, but dangerous, too.

Yet Duarte thinks temperance has touched more than his party habits. “I’m older and wiser,” he said. “I still get hit a lot but not as often and not as cleanly. Every punch I had in mind was a bomb.

“I do more things now.”

One thing that hasn’t dimmed as he has aged is his confidence. He doubts that it will take more than 10 rounds of the scheduled 15 to polish off Pinango.

“He’s a good fighter, but no super champion, no Carlos Zarate,” he said of Pinango. “A good fighter who makes mistakes, like coming in. He backs up pretty good but not fast enough to get away from me. He’ll be in range and have to punch with me. And I’ll be taking his shot to deliver six of mine. I’ll be dead in his nose hole all night.”

For this effort, Duarte will get a mere $15,000, to Pinango’s reported $65,000. But this is not about money. His manager, Dan Goossen, said, “We’d have taken it for cab fare.” This is about a comeback, and the attention that belongs to a winner.

“Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been a showoff,” Duarte said, wallowing in the publicity. “When people came to my house, I’d lift furniture to show how strong I was. It’s all about hearing ‘Frankie! Frankie!’ when I walk down the aisle to the ring.”

Boxing Notes Also on the Forum card is a United States Boxing Assn. super-middleweight bout between champion Lindell Holmes and Lamont Kirkland. . . . The fights will be broadcast on pay-per-view by Prime Ticket and Choice Channel. . . . Frankie Duarte has won 9 of 11 fights in his comeback. There have also been a no-decision and a split-decision loss to then-champion Richie Sandoval. . . . Duarte began his career in 1973 and won 16 fights before his first loss. His record is 41-6-1 with 32 knockouts. . . . Bernardo Pinango, silver medalist in the 1980 Olympics, is 20-2-2 with 14 knockouts. . . . Including Duarte’s $50,000 first-prize fight in last year’s tournament at the Forum, both of his big fights have been partly sponsored by beer companies. Duarte now drinks soda.