Boxing / Earl Gustkey : Biggs, Foreman Are Prompting Some Doubts

Add two more occupants to the heavyweight division’s crowded doghouse.

Lately, it seems as if every heavyweight but Mike Tyson is in somebody’s doghouse. Tony Tubbs is too fat. Michael Spinks breaks contracts. Tim Witherspoon can’t get fights because he’s suing Don King. James (Bonecrusher) Smith only wants to go the distance. Frank Bruno can’t fight . . .

Now, add two more. A young one and an old one.

An overweight Tyrell Biggs is working out in Las Vegas this week with stablemates Evander Holyfield, Mark Breland and Meldrick Taylor. Biggs dropped out of sight after Tyson demolished him in Atlantic City last October. His trainer, Lou Duva, was asked if Biggs’ presence meant that Biggs has a fight coming up.

“I don’t know and I couldn’t care less right now,” Duva said. “This is the first time we’ve seen him in a gym since the Tyson fight. Tyrell has to show me he wants to be a fighter by getting his fat . . . in the gym every day before we invest any more time in him. I’m down on him right now.”

Aw, Lou--really?

Also checking into the doghouse recently was George Foreman. Bob Arum, Foreman’s promoter, like many others, has grown weary of the string of stiffs Foreman has beaten. Arum asked Foreman to take on a rated heavyweight, and Foreman apparently told him he wanted more stiffs.

“George has to start fighting credible guys,” Arum said. “I like George, I admire him, but I can’t keep booking non-competitive fights for him. I suggested five or six guys, and George rejected them all. Now, I have an offer from Brazil for $400,000 if he’ll fight Adilson Rodrigues in Rio. If George turns that down, it’ll tell me something about how serious he is about this comeback.”

And what of Hagler-Leonard II?

According to Arum, Marvelous Marvin Hagler may decide to be a movie star instead.

“(Sugar Ray) Leonard badly wants to fight him again, but Marvin is in the Philippines working on a film,” Arum said. “And Marvin told me he may be offered the role of Hurricane Carter in ‘The Hurricane Carter Story.’ ”

The recent rematch in Edmonton, Canada, of the 1984 Olympic Games heavyweight gold medal bout between gold medalist Henry Tillman and Willie deWit ended in a close decision for deWit.

Two judges had deWit ahead by two points, the third by five. DeWit may yet wind up with a big payday with Tyson in a couple of years, but you have to wonder now if there’s any point in Tillman, who suffered his fourth defeat, going on.

Tillman, who learned to box in a California Youth Authority facility and wound up an Olympic champion, might be better advised to find someone who could write “The Henry Tillman Story” for the movies.

Seth Abraham, HBO executive, said that his network’s $26.5-million, 7-fight deal with Mike Tyson makes the heavyweight champion the “third-highest paid TV performer in America, behind Bill Cosby and Oprah Winfrey.”

A postscript to the recent death of Jimmy Jacobs, Mike Tyson’s co-manager and many times the U.S. handball champion:

Jacobs was both a compassionate man and an intense, aggressive businessman who wasn’t above an occasional threat.

Pat Nappi, three-time U.S. Olympic boxing coach, told recently of a phone call he got from Jacobs after the 1984 Olympic team trials, where Tillman had beaten Tyson out for the heavyweight berth on the Olympic team. Jacobs believed the decision to have been a bum one.

“He told me if I didn’t put Tyson on the Olympic team, ‘You will never again coach a U.S. Olympic team,’ ” Nappi said.

On the compassionate side, Jacobs was a major contributor to a children’s muscular dystrophy research fund at a New York hospital.

The Toronto Globe and Mail reported recently that the Ontario boxing commissioner, Clyde Gray, permitted more than 40 unlicensed boxers to compete over the last eight years, and allowed other irregularities to occur because he believed it “would help keep the sport alive.”

“If I had to play hard and fast (with the rules) on promotions, 75%, maybe 90% of them wouldn’t come off,” he said.

Negotiations are under way for Olympic champion Paul Gonzales to land a world flyweight championship bout in June at Caesars Palaceagainst Thailand’s Sot Chitalada.

In the proposed Las Vegas matchup, Gonzales would earn about $50,000. In the event Gonzales wins, a mandatory rematch would be held in Thailand.

Boxing Notes

It’s class of ’84 Days in Las Vegas. Evander Holyfield and Meldrick Taylor each won at Caesars last Saturday night, and Mark Breland will try to reverse the only loss on his record this Saturday at the Las Vegas Hilton. He will fight Marlon Starling, who stopped Breland last August and took away Breland’s World Boxing Assn. welterweight championship. On the same card, Julio Cesar Chavez will defend his WBA lightweight title against Rodolfo Aguilar.

On April 25, Don Fraser presents a heavyweight 10-rounder between Avery Rawls of Los Angeles and Mark Wills of Compton at the Irvine Marriott. The winner will get a bout with state champion Mike White, Fraser said. On the same card, hot lightweight prospect Genaro Hernandez of Los Angeles will fight Henry Lugo of San Jose. . . . On May 11 in Fresno, at the Holiday Inn Centre Plaza, Rocky Cazares of Blythe meets Rico Velasquez of Los Angeles for the vacant state lightweight title.

Holyfield’s sparring partner last week was Van Nuys High School senior John Bray, who hopes to be the heavyweight on this year’s Olympic team. Bray, 17, who trains at Frankie Goodman’s gym in Van Nuys, was asked how he liked getting battered by Holyfield all week. “It’s been a real educational experience,” he said. . . . Whatever became of Gerry Cooney? He’s promoting fights now, with adviser Dennis Rappoport. Their first show is being presented Thursday night at the Tropicana in Atlantic City, N.J.: Roberto Duran vs. Paul Thorn, with the winner possibly getting a middleweight title fight against the winner of the Frank Tate-Michael Nunn fight.

NBC plans to show Barry McGuigan’s first fight since he was upset by Steve Cruz in Las Vegas 22 months ago. McGuigan will fight Nicky Perez of Tucson May 22 at London. The network also has signed lightweights Vinnie Pazienza and 1984 Olympic champion Jerry Page for May 29, from Atlantic City. NBC also has middleweight Robbie Sims, Marvelous Marvin Hagler’s half brother, meeting Sumbu Kalambay of Italy June 12 at Turin, Italy.

Welterweights Kenny Lopez of San Jose (15-8) and Rosenda Medina of Phoenix (29-4-1), headline an April 20 card at the Riverside Convention Center. . . . On the undercard of the Holyfield-Carlos DeLeon fight last Saturday at Caesars, in a heavyweight 6-rounder, Rodolfo Marin of Puerto Rico knocked out Tony Foster of Denver at 1 minute 4 seconds of the first round. A Nevada State Athletic Commission immediately entered the ring and checked out Foster. Afterward, the doctor said Foster asked him: “Has the round started yet?”