LOOKING FOR A FIGHT : Tyson-Holmes Is Just One Battle in Boxing War

The people who are paid to book conventions for Atlantic City like to say that their 16,000 hotel rooms, soon to be 17,520, are “Within a gas tank of one third of the population of the United States--in a car that gets good mileage.”

Lately, Atlantic City has been getting a lot of mileage out of boxing. About 15,000 people will be in the 59-year-old Convention Hall Friday night for the Mike Tyson-Larry Holmes heavyweight title fight, the seventh title bout in the city since early 1987.

And so for at least the time being, the mantle of world boxing capital has been lifted from Las Vegas.

The reason for this is simple. Donald Trump, the New York City real estate magnate, is writing bigger site-fee checks for boxing events here than Caesars Palace or the Las Vegas Hilton care to.

Presumably, Trump figures these investments will work out better than did another of his projects, the United States Football League.

Trump, who in 1986 took over as sole owner of his Trump Plaza on the Boardwalk here, paid promoter Don King a reported--and disputed--$6 million for Friday night’s event, and $3.5 million for Tyson-Tyrell Biggs last October.

Does this mean Atlantic City has finished Las Vegas as a big-time fight town, just as Las Vegas finished New York?

No. But as long as Trump continues to outbid Las Vegas hotels for major attractions, there will be more big-time fights on the Jersey shore than on the Caesars Palace tennis court or the Las Vegas Hilton parking lot.

Mark Etess, 35, a Trump Plaza vice president who negotiates boxing deals for Trump, said any doubts that their organization had about the profitability of big boxing shows were dispelled last June, during the four days covering Michael Spinks’ knockout of Gerry Cooney.

“The cash drop those four days (gaming tables only) was about $10 million over what it would have been on a typical, non-boxing night,” Etess said. “Major boxing events have a way of bringing in a lot of high rollers. It’s good for business.”

The Trump Plaza is not only next door to the Convention Hall, it’s attached to it. Trump Plaza patrons can walk from the casino into the fight arena. More important, afterward they walk back into the casino.

Etess said: “One reason Mr. Trump wanted to own this property was its proximity to the Convention Hall. Our customers can walk from our casino directly into a covered, air conditioned arena. The Las Vegas Hilton and Caesars Palace can’t say that.”

They don’t need to, of course. Seldom does one need to stay indoors in Las Vegas because of Atlantic City-type weather. This week, it’s been cold, foggy and rainy.

“And let’s face it, Las Vegas is in the middle of a desert,” Etess said. “You have to travel great distances to get there. Here, we’re pretty close to New York, Philadelphia, Washington and Baltimore. That’s why, I think, we have the capacity to stage more big fights more frequently than Las Vegas does.”

Bob Arum, who promotes major boxing events at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, disputes the reported figure of $6 million that Trump is reported to have paid King for Tyson-Holmes.

“The Las Vegas Hilton was offered this fight for $2.5 million and they passed,” he said. “Trump didn’t pay anything like $6 million. I see Trump being a player at the $3-million level in Atlantic City, but I can’t see how he can afford to go higher than that. The hotels (in Las Vegas) keep their high rollers in the casinos for several days. In Atlantic City, they gamble a couple hours after a fight, get in their cars and go home.”

Las Vegas has another big edge on Atlantic City, if a bidding war evolves between the cities for big fights. Caesars and the Las Vegas Hilton have their own stadiums. Trump must use the Convention Hall--and only when it’s available.

Will Trump continue to write big site-fee checks? Like the really big one it’ll take to land Tyson-Spinks, if Butch Lewis, Spinks’ manager-promoter, and the Tyson camp kiss and make up?

“We’ll continue to keep buying fights that make sense for us economically, fights that complement our other marketing projects,” Etess said. “Let me put it this way--I’d hate to be bidding against us.”

Early morning on the boardwalk.

Two days before the big fight, there are small piles of snow on the edge of the boardwalk. The Atlantic Ocean, hidden from view by the fog and misty rain, hisses on the unseen beach.

A derelict, with holes in his pants, stands and shivers under the Convention Hall overhang, next to the brass plaque commemorating the Miss America Pageant.

A bundled-up elderly couple emerges from the Atlantis Hotel for a walk on the boardwalk. They take a few tentative steps northward, then retreat to the warmth of the casino.

Most of the hotels are full this week, and everyone is inside. The boardwalk, wet and cold, is nearly empty. The thought arises that the only two things Atlantic City and Las Vegas have in common are gambling and sand.

Look at the boardwalk neon. The names are the same--the Golden Nugget, Caesars, Showboat, Harrah’s, Sands, Tropicana . . .

From all over the Eastern seaboard, they come--like flying nighttime insects drawn to a light bulb. Every day of the year, about 1,000 buses a day roll down the Atlantic City Expressway from Philadelphia and elsewhere, bound for an old beach city that has added 25-cent roulette to the American culture.

Said John Fox, executive director of the Atlantic City Convention and Visitors Bureau: “Within a 150-mile radius, you’d be hard-pressed to find one restaurant, even a tavern, that doesn’t at least once during the year run a charter bus to Atlantic City.”

One afternoon this week, several hundred elderly people from New York were unloaded from buses outside the Atlantis lobby. Room keys were passed out and the line formed immediately for a free buffet. Many walked slowly with canes, some were in wheelchairs.

But all were smiling, laughing as they photographed each other in the buffet line.

“Do we have to eat now? I want to gamble,” one woman said to her husband.

Responded her husband with mock anguish: “I’ve seen you gamble. Better you should eat.”

All day, the buses roll in. Other visitors arrive by car and commuter airlines. And next year, by train. The city is building a huge Amtrak station at the terminus of the Atlantic City Expressway, in a complex that will include a new, bigger convention center. A $9-million airport expansion also is scheduled to begin this year.

In 1980, 240,000 people attended Atlantic City conventions. Last year, it was 622,600.

“And to those numbers, you can add the tens of thousands of people who came in for the big fights that Trump has put on,” Fox said.

It’s believed that the first visitors here were 17th Century New England whalers. In the early 1800s, a tiny summer resort appeared. In 1854, a railroad line from Camden, N.J., opened. In 1855, the first hotel was built. And in 1870, the city spent half its tax revenue, $5,000, on a boardwalk that today runs for 6 1/2 miles along the shore.

In the first half of the 20th Century, Atlantic City boomed. It was the dream vacation goal for millions of working Americans.

Then somebody invented Florida. And western national parks. And improved transportation systems. If you had a job and a car, you could go just about anywhere. By the 1950s, Atlantic City was hurting.

Obvious solution: Casino gambling.

The first time it was put to a vote, in 1974, New Jersey overwhelmingly defeated a state referendum that would have legalized gambling anywhere in the state, under local option.

In 1976, a new, Atlantic City-only referendum was drawn up that originally called for sports books. The sports book clause was blue-penciled after heavy lobbying by Commissioner Pete Rozelle of the National Football League, among others.

But the referendum passed, by nearly 2-1. It legalized Atlantic City casinos, but only for those willing to build 500-room hotels with 25,000- to 40,000-square foot convention space. Rooms were specified at a minimum of 325 square feet.

Since 1978, when the first quarter was eaten by an Atlantic City slot machine, gamblers have dropped about $12 billion here. The casinos, by law, must pay into the state’s Casino Revenue Fund, which helps pay for health care, prescription bills, property tax relief, utility bills and transportation assistance for senior citizens. Last February, money paid into the fund went over $1 billion.

And so once again, prosperity has returned to the boardwalk. But only to the boardwalk.

Walk one block off the beach, to the rear of the hotels, to Pacific Ave., and you’re on the mean streets. There are boarded up buildings, derelicts stumbling down the sidewalks, and hookers past their prime.

A block away from the boardwalk may as well be a continent away from the glitz and jangle of the casinos. On Pacific, then Atlantic and Winchester avenues, it could be a dying Pennsylvania or West Virginia coal town. Or Beirut.

As you reach the end of the 60-mile Atlantic City Expressway from Philadelphia, you see the city’s new, high skyline from several miles away. And you can still plainly see the old, nine-story, stone Convention Hall, one of Atlantic City’s last links to its past.

Lyndon Johnson was nominated for the presidency here, in 1964. Also in 1964, before domed stadiums, they played the Liberty Bowl football game indoors--West Virginia vs. Utah.

And on Friday night, in an old building wedged between the casinos and the mean streets, in an old city where dreams once died and then were reborn, they’ll put on a boxing match between two millionaires.

Don King is right. Only in America.