Boxing : Denkin’s Affiliation With WBC Is Questioned

When Bob Fellmeth, former chairman of the California Athletic Commission, said recently that he and his fellow commissioners were “never pleased” with suspended commission staffer Marty Denkin’s affiliation with the WBC, he echoed what a lot of California boxing people are now saying.

The WBC is the World Boxing Council, a Mexico City-based organization that gets huge sanction fees from the promoters of its championship bouts, issues monthly ratings and generally runs the sport of pro boxing, along with two rival organizations, the International Boxing Federation and the World Boxing Assn.

The WBC will be paid a $150,000 sanction fee for next week’s Mike Tyson-Frank Bruno fight in Las Vegas. It will earn $250,000 for the June 12 Las Vegas match between Sugar Ray Leonard and Tommy Hearns. For last week’s Donald Curry-Rene Jacquot bout in Paris, the fee was $18,000.

“No one has ever taken a good look at all those American dollars that flow out of this country to the boxing organizations, with no taxes paid on the money,” said promoter Bob Arum, who has complained about sanction fees for years.

What does this have to do with Marty Denkin? A lot of California boxing people, including Fellmeth, think that Denkin is closer to the WBC than he is to the California Athletic Commission, which pays his annual salary of $40,000.

Denkin has refereed many WBC title fights, going back to the 1970s. Denkin was also a very visible figure at the WBC convention in Mexico City last fall. Last year, after Miguel Lora of Colombia defeated Albert Davila at the Forum in a WBC super-bantamweight title fight, it was disclosed Lora had flunked his drug test.

At first, California procedures for the required second test were being followed. Then, Jose Sulaiman, WBC president, heard about it and the sample was taken to a drug testing lab other than the one the California Athletic Commission was contracted to use.

Denkin is the assistant executive officer of the commission, currently under suspension while two separate investigations are under way, looking into charges of extortion.

Then, as if Denkin didn’t have enough problems, it was revealed that he and executive officer Ken Gray quietly issued a California manager’s license to Harold Rossfields Smith. A high-rolling California boxing promoter of the late 1970s, Smith had served a 5 1/2-year federal prison term for embezzling $21.3 million from Wells Fargo Bank. He was paroled last fall.

Neither Denkin nor Gray could explain why Smith’s license application wasn’t put before the commission at one of its monthly, public meetings. In fact, both passed the buck.

“The L.A. office handled the whole thing,” said Gray. (Denkin runs the L.A. office.)

“I made the recommendation that Smith get the license, and Gray signed it,” Denkin said.

Fellmeth, the former commission chairman, also had a comment about that, too.

“If I’d learned while I was running the commission that someone had issued a license to someone with a felony background without informing the commission, I’d have canned him immediately,” he said.

The Lou Duva vs. Todd Foster lawsuit is an interesting case study on how amateur and pro boxing, two entities who both hate and yet need each other to survive, every so often wind up in divorce court.

Duva is the New Jersey pro manager who claims he lost $50,000 by sponsoring Foster’s amateur career for 18 months. Foster, who boxed in the Seoul Olympics, is now a promising pro junior-welterweight with a 1-0 record . . . but not with Duva.

“For 18 months we paid Todd $300 a month for his living expenses (legal under amateur rules) and I paid his trainer, Kenny Weldon, $300 a week to train him,” Duva said.

“The only reason I went to the Olympics was to see Todd box. When I got there, I saw he was surrounded by all the (Bob) Spagnola people.”

Spagnola is the Houston-based manager with whom Foster turned pro last month.

Duva, 72, and his son, Dan, say their company, Main Events, had two contracts with Foster, one naming the Duvas as his amateur sponsors, the other stipulating that if Foster turned pro, it would be with the Duvas.

“When I sized up what was going on over there (in Seoul), I told Todd: ‘Look, Todd--if you turn pro with those people, be sure you notify your attorney.’

“A lot of people might think this is typical of boxing, a ‘no honor among thieves’ story. But the truth is, of the hundreds of boxers I’ve worked with in my career, not one of them ever ran out on a contract like Todd did.”

Boxing Notes

The Forum will stage a Feb. 28 World Boxing Assn. junior-featherweight title bout between champion Juan Jose Estrada of Tijuana and Jesus Poll of North Hollywood. Estrada (37-7) won the championship in 1988 and defended it once. Poll (18-0) is a Ten Goose Boxing stablemate of middleweight champion Michael Nunn. On that same card, Jesus Salud of Honolulu meets Puerto Rican Ramiro Adames for the vacant North American Boxing Federation super-bantamweight championship. It isn’t clear how Adames qualified for such a “title” shot, since he lost to Paul Banke at the Forum Jan. 9. Same card: John Montes, Anaheim, vs. Sammy Fuentes, Puerto Rico, in a Forum super-lightweight tournament semifinal.

Darrin Van Horn, the University of Kentucky junior-middleweight, had heard the whispers. “A white fighter manufactured for television,” they said. Van Horn shut up a lot of critics with his recent thumping of highly regarded Robert Hines in capturing the International Boxing Federation’s junior-middleweight title. Now, there’s talk of a Van Horn-John Mugabi bout. . . . Breland-Starling III? That’s right, it’s ticketed for Atlantic City, April 15. First, Marlon Starling knocked out Mark Breland in Columbia, S.C., then the two fought to a disputed draw in a Las Vegas rematch. Starling then lost the WBA welterweight championship to Tomas Molinares on a knockout that occurred after the bell, then won the WBC title by stopping Lloyd Honeyghan earlier this month in Las Vegas. On the same card, Breland won back at least a little of his old luster by knocking out South Korean Lee Seung-Soon in 54 seconds.

On Feb. 26 at 3 p.m., NBC will show a one-hour retrospective of the first Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston fight. Feb. 25 is the 25th anniversary of the night Liston gave up the title while sitting on his stool, claiming a shoulder injury. . . . Semifinals and finals are scheduled for Feb. 18-19 for the Southern California regionals of the USA Amateur Boxing Federation’s national championships at the Azusa Athletic Club. . . . Abe Gomez, a substitute, meets Luis Hernandez of Redlands at the Irvine Marriott Feb. 23. Gomez replaces unbeaten Genaro Hernandez, who injured a hand in training. . . . Levi Billups, Quail Valley, defends his state heavyweight title Feb. 27 at Chuck Landis’ Country Club in Reseda against Lionel Washington of Bakersfield.