U.S. Olympic Boxing Trials : Cole and Salters Allow Army’s Four Horsemen to Ride Again

The Army’s Four Horsemen are still alive, and on their way to play the strip in Las Vegas.

They’ll be accompanied by eight other U.S. Olympic boxing trials champions crowned here this weekend, including an angry little flyweight from Whittier, on a mission to reverse what he called a Sunday afternoon robbery in the oak-studded brown hills of northern California.

The Four Horsemen remained intact Sunday, when super-heavyweight Robert Salters of Ft. Bragg, N.C., decisioned New York’s Riddick Bowe, 4-1, and light-heavyweight Alfred Cole of Ft. Hood, Tex., beat Bomani Parker of Richmond, Calif., 5-0.

The other half of the Four Horsemen--a nickname Cole dreamed up for the four biggest guys on the Army team--won trials titles Saturday, middleweight Anthony Hembrick and heavyweight Ray Mercer.

On wrap-up day, contested before a sellout crowd of 3,500 in Concord’s picturesque outdoor, covered pavilion, there were several close decisions.

Sunday’s six winners:

112 pounds--Arthur Johnson, Minneapolis, def. Chris Carrillo, Whittier, 3-2.

125--Ed Hopson, St. Louis, def. Carl Daniels, St. Louis, 3-2.

139--Todd Foster, Great Falls, Mont., def. Lavell Finger, St. Louis, 5-0.

156--Roy Jones, Pensacola, Fla., def. Frank Liles, Syracuse, 3-2.

178--Cole def. Parker, 5-0.

201+--Salters def. Bowe, 4-1.

Sunday’s decisions--all 12 weekend bouts went the distance--were much closer than Saturday’s, and some in the crowd thought Salters, Hopson and Johnson had been handed gifts.

And in the cases of Carrillo (112) and Bowe (201+), both will be given second chances to make the Olympic team. Next Saturday and Sunday (if needed) at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, the 12 champions here will meet their “most noteworthy opponents.”

Immediately after the final bout Sunday, Salters-Bowe, a USA Amateur Boxing Federation committee went into a closed-door meeting and selected 12 most noteworthies, and in only 7 of the 12 weight classes was the finals loser selected.

At Las Vegas Saturday, the champions box their most noteworthies. If the champions win, they automatically make the team. If the most noteworthy wins, there will be a rematch Sunday. In other words, to make the Olympic team, the most noteworthy must beat the trials champion twice.

Probably the toughest call for the committee, on which USA/ABF president Col. Don Hull and three-time Olympic team coach Pat Nappi served, was at middleweight, where 1986 world champion Darin Allen had lost in Saturday’s final to the Army’s Anthony Hembrick, 5-0.

But the committee chose William Guthrie of St Louis, who’d lost a 4-1 semifinals decision to Hembrick. The kicker: Guthrie is 0-5 vs. Hembrick since 1986, and Allen is the current world champion.

But Allen, by his own admission, has slipped considerably since 1986, when he won a world title at Reno.

Said Hull, in releasing the most noteworthy list: “Darin Allen had a great 1986, but we felt he hasn’t done that well lately and we felt Guthrie right now had a better chance to beat Hembrick.”

Finger, a black lightweight, disputed his 5-0 decision to Foster, the only white boxer with a chance to make the Olympic team.

The Foster-Finger bout was perhaps the day’s best, and a rousing third-round rally by Foster pulled it out, the judges decided. But Finger was angry afterward, and when asked if he felt racism was present in the judges’ scorecards, he answered:

“Yes. He’s the only white guy with a chance . . . and I heard he’s got some kind of deal already with ABC.”

At that point, his coach covered Finger’s mouth with his hand, and hauled him away. Finger gets another chance at Foster--he was picked as the light-welterweight most noteworthy.

The crowd was really into the Foster-Finger bout. It seemed as if Finger had won the first two rounds by thin margins, but that Foster had won the third big. At the final bell, the crowd rose for a standing ovation.

Bowe, who at one time was the world’s No. 1-ranked super-heavyweight, thought he’d beaten Salters, the 25-year-old Army sergeant. He caught Salters with a short left hook to the chin in the first 30 seconds of the bout, and knocked Salters flat on his back.

“That’s the first time I’ve ever been down,” Salters said.

Salters said he was under considerable pressure, to be the fourth of the Four Horsemen to go to Las Vegas.

“With the other three guys having made it, I was under a lot of pressure. Bowe caught me with a good shot, it stung me but it didn’t hurt me. I’m glad that the first knockdown of my career was caused by a very good boxer. Bowe’s good, but he doesn’t hit as hard as Ray Mercer.”

Mercer is the hard-hitting Army heavyweight who defeated Michael Bent Saturday.

For a while, Salters and Bowe nearly put the crowd so sleep. After the fast pace of the earlier bouts in lighter weight classes, it was like watching two rhinos trying to maneuver each other around. Bowe came in at 231, Salters at 247. Both are glacier-quick.

But for about 40 seconds in the third round, the behemoths finally brought the crowd to its feet. First, a big Bowe right hand flush in the face put jelly in Salters’ knees. But he weathered the storm, and then a big Salters right sent Bowe reeling into the ropes.

There were two places where Bowe did not want to spend this bout, one is on the ropes and the other is boxing inside with the stronger Salters. Yet he spent virtually the entire bout in two places, and, predictably, lost.

“He’s so heavy, I had a hard time moving him,” said Bowe, who in the backstage interview room, ran a taped fist through a stage screen.

Both Carrillo and the crowd felt he’d been robbed in a 3-2 decision given to Johnson in the flyweight bout. All amateur boxing crowds have one thing in common: They’re unaware of major differences in scoring between pro and amateur boxing.

Simply put, the guy who lands the most scoring blows wins a decision.

The judges felt Johnson’s far busier and very accurate left jabs offset the shorter Carrillo’s work inside. In the last half of the second round, for example, Johnson connected with 15 scoring jabs.

“I was robbed,” Carrillo said. “At the boxoff, I’ll stay on top of him every second. I’m going all the way. The judges gave it to him because he’s been around longer than I have, that’s all.”

Another disputed decision was Hopson’s 3-2 victory over Daniels, who was passed over in the most noteworthy selections in favor of world champion Kelcie Banks, upset by Hopson in the semifinals.

Hopson got the nod despite losing a point for holding in the second round. He made it a roughhouse bout, leaping in Roberto Duran-style on Daniels, who was clearly disturbed by it all.