Boxing : Hagler Decision Expected Sunday

Sunday is the day, boxing fans. We’re supposed to learn whether Mike Tyson-Michael Spinks will be the only boxing blockbuster of 1988--or the first of two.

Marvin Hagler will be working half-brother Robbie Sims’ corner Sunday in Sims’ challenge to World Boxing Assn. middleweight champion Sambu Kalambay (NBC, 1 p.m., PDT) at Ravenna, Italy.

Immediately afterward, someone will put a mike in Hagler’s face, and he is supposed to reveal if he’ll fight again, presumably against Sugar Ray Leonard. If the answer is yes, Bob Arum, who promoted Hagler-Leonard I 14 months ago, will do this one, too. And Arum indicated in Las Vegas last weekend that you can all but count on it.

“If I had to predict right now, I’d have to say Marvin Hagler will say he wants to fight Leonard again,” Arum said.

“He hasn’t told me one way or the other, but that’s how I think he’s leaning. The only thing that would give him second thoughts, I think, is the training factor. To train properly for Leonard, you’re talking about an extraordinarily long and difficult training period.

“And Marvin is 36. I know he wonders how many big fights he’s got left in him. He’s told me more than once he’s determined to get out of boxing with all his faculties. One time, at a charity dinner in Boston, some old boxers got up and spoke, and some of them were slurring their words.

“ ‘That’s never going to happen to me,’ ” he told me. “Leonard? He wants the fight. Mike Trainer (Leonard’s lawyer) calls Hagler’s people (Pat and Goody Petronelli) constantly, trying to get it set up.”

When?

“November would be the earliest, depending on Leonard’s involvement with the Olympic team,” Arum said.

For anyone planning a wager on Tyson against Spinks later this month, the Thomas Hearns-Iran Barkley result should suggest caution.

The lesson to be learned: Sometimes, the big socker winds up being the big sockee. In the 1980s, no one in the welterweight and middleweight divisions hit with more impact than Hearns. When Hearns hits a heavy bag in a gym, from an adjoining room it sounds like someone using a baseball bat.

And yet there he was, on his back, put there by first a wild, desperation right hand and then a follow-up right, thrown by a supposedly inferior puncher last Monday at the Las Vegas Hilton.

Tyson, like Hearns, is vulnerable to knockout velocity punches when he misses with big blows of his own. And he misses a lot. But against Tyson, no opponent has yet found a way to have both feet planted and, following up a Tyson miss, quickly deliver a powerful counter blow.

Someday, someone will. And Tyson, like every champion before him, will also go down. There is no defense for a hard punch that lands right on the button.

Is Spinks the guy? Maybe he isn’t the power hitter Tyson is, but he probably hits hard enough to win if he connects.

Hearns and Barkley were class acts after their memorable three-rounder Monday.

Hearns counted his blessings, expressing gratitude for his physical gifts and a long, solid career. For Barkley, whose $350,000 purse was 10 times higher than his previous biggest payday, it meant moving day for Mom.

“My Mom raised a big family and we’ve been in the Bronx all our lives,” he said. “She gave me everything she had. Now I can do something nice for her. I’m going to buy her a house in New Jersey.”

Last Add Hearns-Barkley: If Hearns ever fights again, one thing’s for sure--Jerry Holly will not be out of work. Two of the three men who defeated Hearns, Iran Barkley and Marvin Hagler, both employed the same sparring partner, Holly.

The suddenly-busy Paul Gonzales may have a shot at a world flyweight championship this summer after all.

Gonzales, the East Los Angeles boxer who won a gold medal at the 1984 Olympics and is unbeaten in eight pro fights, faces Ray Medel in San Antonio June 17. But this week, while training in Reno for that fight, he was contacted by World Boxing Council president Jose Sulaiman about challenging Thailand’s Sot Chitalada in Los Angeles or Las Vegas July 17.

“It all depends on the Medel fight,” Gonzales said. “If it turns out to be an easy fight for me, I’d be inclined to take it. If it’s a tough one, maybe not.”

Gonzales, who would make about $50,000 to face Chitalada, indicated a hang-up could be a rematch guarantee.

“There’d be a rematch guarantee if I take the fight, and if I won, and I don’t want to fight him again in Thailand,” he said. “We’re hoping he’d agree to a rematch in the U.S. or Japan.”

Boxing Notes

Joey Olivo of East Los Angeles meets Fernando Varguez of Merida, Mexico, for the North American Boxing Federation flyweight championship Monday at the Forum. In the co-main event, Jesus Salud will box Yoo Woon Park in the Stroh’s super-bantamweight tournament quarterfinals.

Eleven Southern Californians qualified for the national Junior Olympics at Marquette, Mich., June 21-25. Qualifying at the recent Van Nuys regionals were Albert Guardano of Colton, Joe Monzano of San Pedro, Memo Moreno of Beaumont, Gerardo Sanchez and Leonel Rodriguez of Baldwin Park, Hector Fernandez of Coachella, Alan Velasco and Oscar De La Hoya of Los Angeles, Juan Blua of Thermal, James Roberson of West Covina, and Jeremy Williams of Long Beach.