BOXING : Irvin’s First Boxing Card Sacked for Loss

LeRoy Irvin, the Ram defensive back who says he wants to be a boxing promoter when his football career ends, is telling people he “pretty much broke even” with his first show, the Nov. 21 Tony Tubbs-Orlin Norris bout at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

However, the numbers in documents filed with the State Athletic Commission indicate that Irvin lost more than $20,000.

The fighters’ purses for the card came to $33,200, and rent for the building was $9,000. Irvin reported 581 tickets sold, 225 given away. Net income from the gate was reported as $19,795. Ticket prices were scaled down from a top of $100. But the will-call line for free tickets outside was considerably longer than the one at the cash ticket window. Furthermore, there was no live television.

Irvin said this week “a beer sponsor” made up some of the difference.

“I learned things from this promotion,” Irvin said. “One thing is, you don’t do big fights without TV. But I said all along my main objective was not to make a bunch of money. I wanted a successful show.”

The Tubbs-Norris bout popped back into the news a week later after the State Athletic Commission announced that Tubbs, who won a split decision, had flunked his drug test. He tested positive for cocaine.

The commission will meet Dec. 15 at the Sheraton La Reina Hotel in Los Angeles to review the Tubbs-Norris affair and will decide then whether to reverse the decision or rule the bout “no contest.”

Either way, Norris would regain his North American Boxing Federation heavyweight championship.

The commission was also to have reviewed an application by Irvin for a regular California promoter’s license but won’t do so until its January meeting, at the earliest. He had been issued a one-show-only license for the Nov. 21 card.

Dept. of Stiffs: Commission assistant executive officer Don Muse received a call recently from a Southland promoter who wanted to match heavyweight Tony Tucker, on a comeback, against Dave (Bigfoot) Johnson at the Hollywood Palladium later this month.

“I checked Johnson’s record and found he’d lost 14 fights in a row, the last one being in 1984,” Muse said. “When I called the promoter and told him, he said: ‘Oh, Dave’s fought since then.’

“When I asked when, he said, ‘Oh, just a couple of months ago--in Israel.’ ”

No way, the promoter was told.

Dept. of Greed: Featherweight Marcos Villasana, who has taken beatings from Jeff Fenech and Antonio Esparragoza since April, can no longer pass California’s required neurological examination for boxers. He previously had passed the test.

But Villasana’s people are threatening to sue the commission, claiming the test is too tough.

Comment: Reason No. 14,357 for a tough federal boxing commission.

And here’s another reason: Monroe Brooks, a late addition to that LeRoy Irvin show in Santa Monica on Nov. 21, is a Houston light-heavyweight who was flown into town on the day of the fight to meet Olympian Anthony Hembrick.

Brooks arrived at Los Angeles International Airport at 1 p.m., went to a San Pedro medical office to take his neurological examination, then was driven to an ophthalmologist’s office for an eye examination also required of first-time California boxers. Then he checked into a hotel.

Brooks arrived at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium at 6:30 p.m., and two hours later, lost a decision to Hembrick.

And still another reason: Hembrick, eight days after his six-round match with Brooks, fought in Auburn Hills, Mich., raising his pro record to 10-0.

Comment: Slow down, Anthony.

Rick Kulis, Southland pay-per-view boxing mogul, says if Sugar Ray Leonard beats Roberto Duran decisively Thursday, then Leonard-Hearns III would be a likely candidate to become boxing’s first $100-million fight, not a Mike Tyson-Evander Holyfield bout, nor a Tyson-George Foreman match.

“Mike Tyson doesn’t have a single opponent out there who could generate that level of interest,” Kulis said.

“But if Leonard beats Duran decisively, then I’d say Leonard-Hearns III would be a very big fight.”

Kulis, the major Southern California franchiser for Leonard-Duran, reports brisk, possibly even record, sales.

“We’re at 70,000 (household) sales now,” he said Friday, “and normally we double what we have in the 24 hours preceding the fight. The Southern California record is 140,000 households (for the Tyson-Michael Spinks bout). But right now, 120,000 is our goal, which would be roughly the same as what Leonard-Hearns II did.”

Boxing Notes

State super-flyweight champion Ricky Romero (17-1) of Torrance will make his second defense Tuesday at the San Diego Sports Arena against Martin Cardenas (22-6-1) of San Diego. Romero’s trainer, Red Shannon, says Romero has sparred eight to 10 rounds daily in training.

The Forum has scaled the house from $80 to $15 for its Dec. 11 Juan Estrada-Jesus Salud World Boxing Assn. junior-featherweight title bout. Estrada will get $50,000, Salud $15,000.

Caesars Palace didn’t do all that badly on its wounded Nov. 18 show that featured Julio Cesar Chavez defending his WBC super-lightweight championship against Sammy Fuentes. A few days before the show, a second title bout fell apart when WBA junior-middleweight champion Julian Jackson was discovered to have a detached retina. Still, Caesars had 2,557 paid fans and a gross of $120,400.

Wonder no more about whatever became of Tyrell Biggs, who was destroyed by Mike Tyson in 1987. He will fight Carl Williams Jan. 11 in Atlantic City, N.J.