BOXING : National Commission May Be on Horizon

If professional boxing is ever governed solely by an American commission instead of the ever-growing list of competing groups, it may be remembered that the first step in that direction was taken Thursday in a conference room at the Las Vegas Hilton.

Representatives of 18 state boxing commissions, in a 14-2 vote with two abstentions, voted to drop their memberships from all world governing bodies.

Some saw it as a move toward the formation of a national boxing commission, but no one seemed sure how that might come about.

The vote followed an impassioned speech by New York boxing commissioner Randy Gordon, who pointed out that 65% of all major fights in the world in 1989 occurred in the United States, generating 85% of the money in pro boxing.

“It’s time for us to clean up our sport,” Gordon said. “I’m tired of these sanctioning bodies coming to the United States, taking those big sanction fees and then telling us how to conduct fights in our states.

“We must rid our sport of the cancer that has been killing boxing for years. And if we walk out of here today having done nothing, that will be the biggest crime of all.”

He referred to the five self-appointed governing bodies that control the sport--the Mexico City-based World Boxing Council, the Venezuela-based World Boxing Assn., the International Boxing Federation of New Jersey, and two fledgling U.S. groups, the World Boxing Organization and the International Boxing Council.

The first three groups prosper on sanction fees, often hundreds of thousands of dollars a fight, extracted from promoters who conduct championship bouts. They also issue ratings which, critics charge, are not objective but are instead manipulated for financial advantage.

Gordon urged that the Assn. of Boxing Commissions, the group meeting in Las Vegas, form a national boxing commission and regulate the sport in this country before Congress creates a federal boxing commission.

Several bills were submitted in Congress during the 1980s, but all failed to gain support. More are on the way, the group was told.

“If Congress does it, we’ll wind up with non-boxing, politically appointed people running boxing, and that would end state boxing commissions as we know them,” Gordon said.

Jose Sulaiman, president of the WBC, reached by phone in Mexico City, said he favors a U.S. federal commission and lashed out at his critics.

“Randy Gordon criticizes me,” he said, “but has Randy Gordon contributed even one dollar to help boxers? The WBC has paid for medical help for many, many boxers, and paid for medical research that might one day help boxers.

“The WBC has accomplished more in the last 10 years for the safety of boxers than anyone else has in the last 200 years, and because of that, there is jealousy and contempt (in the United States) toward us.”

Duane Ford, a Nevada Athletic Commission member, after pointing out that 87 of 128 championship fights in the world last year were held in the United States, also seemed to lean toward the concept of a national commission growing out of the Assn. of Boxing Commissions.

“The only people who can clean up this sport are the people in this room,” he told the group.

Jerry Nathenson, chairman of the California Athletic Commission, who relieved referees from the added task of scoring bouts by adding a third judge, has begun a campaign for another long overdue rules change--the elimination of draws.

Nathenson, who already criticizes California judges who score a round even--”There’s no such thing as an even round,” he says--wants it written into the state’s ring rules that no round is to be scored even.

That wouldn’t eliminate draws, he admits, unless bouts were scheduled for five, seven, nine or 11 rounds. But he thinks the incidence of draws would be greatly reduced. Presently, he’s rounding up votes to authorize a six-month trial period barring even rounds.

Boxing Notes

Jerry Niss, once the busiest matchmaker in California, died recently of a heart attack. In recent years, he was also a boxing reporter for the Associated Press. . . . Young Kid McCoy, a prominent welterweight who fought often in Los Angeles in the late 1930s and early 1940s, died in Riverside Tuesday. In 1941, McCoy, whose real name was Adam Pianga, fought welterweight champion Fritzie Zivic to a 10-round draw in New York.

A 12-man team of Irish amateur boxers will meet a Southern California all-star team on May 26 at Loyola Marymount. . . . Jorge Paez (35-2-2), International Boxing Federation featherweight champion, will fight Troy Dorsey (11-3-2) on July 8 at the Las Vegas Hilton in a rematch of their Feb. 4 fight, won by Paez on a disputed decision. . . . Attention Jerry Buss: Why is it OK to smoke at Forum boxing shows but not at Laker games?

Sugar Ray Leonard’s immediate future in the ring is very much up in the air, particularly since his wife, Juanita Leonard, recently hired attorney Marvin Mitchelson to represent her in a divorce action . . . Evander Holyfield, awaiting resolution of the legal mess resulting from heavyweight champion Buster Douglas’ upset of Mike Tyson, has signed to fight journeyman Seamus McDonagh on June 1 at Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, N.J. . . . Tyson will meet Henry Tillman on June 16 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

A highly placed source has this interpretation of the June 16 Caesars Palace doubleheader involving Tyson and George Foreman: “Bob Arum and Don King are trying to hurt Steve Wynn with that card by “teasing” the pay-per-view exhibitors. They’re planting seeds of doubt that the fight Wynn wants at his Mirage Hotel, Buster vs. Holyfield, might not happen.” . . . Tyson, at Monday’s New York news conference where the doubleheader was announced, said of his upset loss to Douglas: “I was 100-1, and got my. . . . kicked.”

Tyson, by the way, is a father, according to the New York Post. The newspaper said Friday that the child, a boy, was born to Tyson’s 24-year-old Los Angeles girlfriend, Natalie Fears. The paper also said that a Los Angeles dancer, Trena Archie, 22, had claimed in February that Tyson is the father of her infant son, too, but that the ex-champion has not admitted paternity in the case. . . . Dick Mastro, veteran Southland boxing expert, lists Douglas’ record as 30-4-1, not 31-4-1. Mastro doesn’t count a 1981 “knockout” victory claimed by Douglas over a Dan O’Malley in Columbus, Ohio. Mastro says photos of the fight showed that O’Malley wore headgear. Also, there was no admission charged for the bout, according to Mastro, and Douglas’ father worked in O’Malley’s corner.

Rafael Ruelas, the Ten Goose featherweight who says that Jeff Franklin deliberately broke the right arm of his older brother, Gabe Ruelas, in a recent bout in Las Vegas, wants revenge. He instructed his manager, Dan Goossen, to arrange a match against Franklin, and Goossen is trying to make a July bout for network television. . . . Gabe, by the way, is healing nicely and will return to the gym in a few months. Dr. Robert Voy, who operated on Ruelas after the March 17 indicent, saw during surgery what had happened. “Gabe had broken the arm in the same place as a child and had never been treated, and the bone didn’t heal properly,” Voy said.

Argentina has 115 municipal boxing commissions, according to recordkeeper Ralph Citro. . . . Arena Tijuana, the old fight emporium that boxing fans used to call “Tijuana’s Olympic Auditorium,” is now a church. The city’s main boxing arena is the 5,400-seat Auditorio Tijuana, which routinely sells out its twice-monthly shows.

Boxoffs for the U.S. amateur team in the Goodwill Games July 20-Aug. 5 in Seattle will be held June 8-9 at the Mirage in Las Vegas. . . . Former heavyweight contender Jerry Quarry, 44, was recently issued a boxing license by Wisconsin. . . . Don Muse’s nine-month temporary appointment as assistant executive officer of the California Athletic Commission expires late this month, and he hopes to be named to the position full time.