Breland Has to Face Test Under Fire : Starling, Who Took His WBA Title, Now Challenges His Courage

Is Mark Breland a stiff?

For a long time, he certainly didn’t look like one. As an amateur, he put together the greatest record in the history of the sport, 110-1, and capped it with a gold medal at the Los Angeles Olympic Games.

Then came the professional management, endorsement and television contracts that made him a millionaire. Between 1984, when he turned pro, and last August, the Brooklyn-born welterweight with the shotgun right hand had:

--Been a model.

--Acted in films.

--Appeared in music videos.

--Won 18 pro fights.

--Been knocked out by one of boxing’s journeymen, Marlon Starling.

Since the Starling defeat in August, Breland has been on hold.

Here was a guy on the yellow brick road. He’d never had a tough fight in his life. Everything came to him on a platter. They were comparing him to Sugar Ray Leonard and Sugar Ray Robinson before he turned pro. He’d done just about everything except answer one question:

Can he fight?

In the 1984 Olympics, Angelo Dundee, Muhammad Ali’s former trainer, said of Breland: “With his skill, his ability, you gotta love Mark. He can hit, he can move, he can box with any young kid I ever saw.

“But sometimes I don’t see that fighter’s fire in him, that certain look in his eye, you know? I guess I want to see how he reacts some night when he gets hurt, maybe gets cut, and some guy with nothing to lose has him on the ropes and is really puttin’ it to him. And when he loses one, what kind of a fighter will he be when he comes back?”

Exactly that kind of predicament arose for Breland on the afternoon of Aug. 22, 1987, in his hometown, Columbia, S.C. And how did Breland react? He went down and stayed down. Breland himself has used the word pathetic to describe his performance that day.

Starling, who put him down, is even more blunt. “Mark Breland quit, like a dog,” he said.

Starling took away Breland’s World Boxing Assn. welterweight championship that afternoon. And he says he’ll beat him again tonight in another WBA title bout, at the Las Vegas Hilton. Breland’s million-dollar career, almost everyone agrees, is on the line tonight. Another loss to Starling, they say, will just about finish him as a major attraction.

Also on tonight’s card is Mexico’s Julio Cesar Chavez, unbeaten in 56 fights and described by most in boxing as the sport’s best fighter, pound for pound. He will defend the WBA lightweight championship against Panamanian Rodolfo Aguilar (20-1).

On most cards, Chavez would be the focus. But tonight, a golden boy’s career is on the line.

Watching the 24-year-old Breland as closely as anyone will be Breland’s promoter, Dan Duva, who compared Breland to cruiserweight champion Evander Holyfield.

“Even before the Starling fight, I wondered if Mark was too nice a guy to be a fighter,” Duva said. “Evander Holyfield is the nicest guy in the world. But once the bell rings, he’s ready to take your head off. We’ve never seen that kind of fire in Mark.”

All week, Starling has rubbed it in.

“Things weren’t going good for Mark in our first fight and he started looking for a spot (to quit),” Starling said. “See, Mark had had everything go his way all his life. I was the first really good fighter he’d met. And he quit.”

Breland, who was ahead on all score cards at the time, was knocked out in the 11th round by Starling. It wasn’t pretty. All the Brelands were there at ringside--mom, dad, brothers, sisters, even his horrified grandmother.

Some wrote him off immediately. KO magazine came out with a Breland cover story headlined: “Why Breland Never Hit the Mark of Greatness--the Collapse of an Olympic Hero.”

Later, it was reported that two weeks before the fight, Breland had suffered what was thought to be a minor injury, a small tear, high up on his left side, near the armpit. His balance was affected, he said later. Breland fell down six times and was thrown into the ropes three times during the bout.

Hogwash, said Starling.

“The guy quit,” he said. “You (reporters) have been building this guy up for years, and I’m telling you he can’t fight. Last time, I knew from the first round the guy couldn’t beat me. See, you can get a guy to beat a lot of amateurs, get him in the Olympics, give him lots of money, but eventually the guy has to fight , and he can’t.

“And you know what? It’s going to be easier the second time.

“People said I was insane to go down there (to Columbia) and fight him in his hometown. But I figured all along he wasn’t much. They talk about his great right hand. Let me tell you something: I’ve been hit harder by guys you never heard of.

“You know what the difference between us is? The difference is I like to fight. He doesn’t.”

For Starling, 29, there was no yellow brick road. First and always, there was the ghetto in Hartford, Conn., known as the Brickyard. There were no Olympic Games for Starling, no big pro contract, no movies, no music videos. His first trainer was a guy who owned a muffler shop.

Starling (43-4) was for most of his career a spoiler, or fodder for guys on the way up. And for some of those, he was a poor selection. Breland was the fifth undefeated fighter he beat. He reached the welterweight top 10 rankings in 1981 and he’s still there. Only now he’s on top.

He has always been regarded as one of boxing’s best defensive boxers. And he likes being called, “The best fighter you never heard of.”

Breland has been relatively quiet. His trainers say he has worked exceptionally hard to prepare for the rematch. Of Starling’s mouth, Breland said: “What can I say? The man’s an . . . “

Breland believes that when the subject of the quality of his pre-Starling opponents comes up, he’s in a can’t-win situation.

“For 18 fights I did what people expected me to do,” he said. “I hit guys, and they’d fall down. Then people would say, ‘Yeah, but look who he fought.’ ”

Starling is making $450,000 for this one, Breland $175,000. For the winner, a big payday lies over the ocean. The winner should wind up with Britain’s Lloyd Honeyghan in London.

Said Starling: “Sure, I’ll fight Honeyghan in London--for $2 million.”