THE 1987 PAN AMERICAN GAMES : Boxing : Banks Has Trouble Winning First Bout

Until Thursday night, Kelcie Banks had been acknowledged widely as America’s best amateur boxer--sort of a little Mark Breland, Class of ’88.

Certainly, his business card implies he’s a boxer of some importance. “KELCIE (MR. MIX) BANKS,” it proclaims, “WORLD AMATEUR FEATHERWEIGHT BOXING CHAMPION.”

The way he looked Thursday night, he’ll need more than business cards to get out of the quarterfinals of the Pan American Games boxing tournament, which began at the Indianapolis Convention Center before a crowd of 3,350.

Banks, who won the 125-pound world championship in Reno 15 months ago, took on a wide-bodied Argentine named Marcos Cristofalo in the preliminaries and beat him on a 5-0 decision, impressing only himself.

Cristofalo scored with looping, desperate right hands in every round. Banks, who exhibited almost flawless boxing skills in Reno, was hesitant and seemingly confused by the Argentine’s aggressiveness.

“He was no pushover, and he caught me with a few rights,” Banks said. “But he had an awkward style, and he was short. My plan was to work him with short combinations. But I feel good about tonight, I feel great about boxing (Arnaldo) Mesa. I’ll set the pace against him--I’ll make him do things he doesn’t want to do.”

Mesa is a Cuban, a bronze medalist from the world championships, who scored a 5-0 decision over Venezuela’s Omar Catari, a a bronze medalist from the Los Angeles Olympics. The Banks-Mesa showdown will be Sunday afternoon. Banks is 6-2 for his career against Cubans, and he registered a 4-1 decision over Mesa last December. But some American boxing officials were left wondering Thursday if Banks has lost something.

Pan Am boxing Coach Roosevelt Sanders was one.

“I haven’t seen Kelcie look really sharp since Reno,” he said. “That was a novice he boxed tonight; a slow, stationary target . . . and Kelcie made him look good.

“Our hope is that that’s his bad bout for the tournament. The way he looked tonight, he’s up against it against Mesa.”

Mesa, by the way, said of his win over Catari: “I dedicate tonight’s fight to my home and to Castro, who is 61 today.”

Both the United States and Cuba went 2 for 2 Thursday.

In a battle of awkward light-heavyweights, the United States’ Andrew Maynard stopped Argentina’s Oscar Gonzalez with eight seconds left in the first round. Maynard knocked down his outclassed opponent with a right with 25 seconds left in the first, then put him flat on his back with a right-left combination, and El Salvadoran referee Maurice Castillo immediately stopped it.

Maynard then immediately retired to the bleachers to watch his next foe, Cuban world champion Pablo Romero, hold off determined Canadian Brent Kosolofski, 5-0, in the best of the evening’s 12 bouts. Maynard-Romero, a semifinal, will be Wednesday afternoon.

Maynard, a soldier from Ft. Carson, Colo., complained after his one-round win about the air-conditioning in the 7,000-seat Convention Center arena. Boxers like air-conditioning like cats like water.

“Man, it’s like a refrigerator in here,” he said. “I like to go into the ring with a sweat. I couldn’t even break a sweat in this place warming up.”

Then Maynard noticed microphones being thrust toward his mouth, and he said: “I want to say hello to Fort Carson, Colo., and to the United States Army! I wanna take this Cuban out, I’m on my way to the gold.!”

For a moment or two, it looked as if he might start passing out business cards, too.

After watching one round of Romero’s bout, Maynard added: “This guy, Romero, there’s a lot of guys in the USA who could take him.”

Shortly after he said that, Maynard was drowned out by the shouts of several hundred Canadians who cheered wildly as their man Kosolofski valiantly tried for a major upset. With two minutes left in the bout and the smooth-working Cuban comfortably ahead on points, Kosolofski suddenly shook Romero with a thunderous right-left combination.

When the Canadian wobbled Romero’s knees with a few more desperation punches, the Canadians were on their feet, roaring. Unhappily for them, Kosolofski wasn’t in the same shape as his opponent. Romero held on until the bell.

Against Mesa Sunday, the taller, right-handed Banks will be facing a left-hander who sets up in the most exaggerated low-hands style since Muhammad Ali. Mesa employs an extremely effective right jab that’s practically halfway to his opponent’s chin when he lets it go.

Catari is a proven world class featherweight, but he never broke Mesa’s rhythm and was constantly off-balance from the quick Cuban’s jab. In the third and last round, Mesa staggered Catari with a right hand, and referee Max Andrade of Ecuador gave Catari a standing-eight.

One American and three Cubans box on tonight’s 15-bout card.

American flyweight Arthur Johnson opens against a Canadian, Corey Burton. Two Cuban world champions, light-flyweight Juan Torres and light-welterweight Candelario Duvergel, open tonight, as does a Cuban newcomer, flyweight Adalberto Regalado.

The boxing tournament runs 11 days, with six finals each scheduled for afternoon sessions Aug. 22 and 23.