BOXING : Breland Should Act on a Career Change

Mark Breland’s knockout defeat by lightly regarded Aaron Davis last weekend has to be the year’s No. 2 shocker so far, but a distant second to Buster Douglas’ knockout of Mike Tyson.

Breland came out of the 1984 Olympic Games with not only a gold medal but general recognition as having put together the best record of any United States amateur, 110-1. And as an amateur, Breland beat them all--Soviets, Cubans, world champions.

The Olympics, many said, were merely his coming-out party. Surely, there would follow professional welterweight and middleweight championships, with his name in Las Vegas lights. How could he miss? After all, he had a right hand that knocked out most of his opponents.

As a pro, the Brooklyn fighter sailed along almost effortlessly at first with a fat ABC contract. His career seemed to be pretty much on schedule . . . until he ran into Marlon Starling in Columbia, S.C. Starling knocked him out.

In the rematch, Breland seemed almost ordinary in gaining only a draw with Starling. For Breland, the gleam was gone.

He regained the World Boxing Assn. championship that Starling had taken from him, but by then, expectations had lessened. Then, last Sunday in Reno, he faced Davis, an 8-1 underdog.

Breland was stunned by Davis’ first punch, a harmless-looking left jab, and was hurt repeatedly by a man he would have beat in the amateurs.

What happened? Now the whispers become hard questions. Does he have the heart for boxing at the highest level? Is he neurologically sound?

His manager, Shelly Finkel, has seen enough.

“I’ve told Mark I don’t want him to fight anymore,” he said. “He’s been checked out by a neurologist and he’s fine. I just don’t think his heart is into fighting.”

Mark Breland is a class act all the way. He’s bright, pleasant, handsome and has Hollywood connections who have placed him in several film roles.

Time for a career change, Mark.

Leftover esoterica from The Times’ look-back last Sunday at the 1910 Jack Johnson-Jim Jeffries fight:

--Sixty years after the bout, the 1960 Ring Record Book ranked the gross receipts from Johnson-Jeffries--$270,755--as 42nd on the list of heavyweight/light-heavyweight bouts, even though most of the fights ranked above it were staged decades later, in major stadiums and augmented by radio and television income.

Among the fights that earned less : Floyd Patterson-Roy Harris (1958), Joe Louis-Jersey Joe Walcott (1947), Joe Louis-Ezzard Charles (1950), Rocky Marciano-Joe Louis (1951) and Jersey Joe Walcott-Ezzard Charles (1949).

--With Johnson-Jeffries ticket prices scaled from $50 to $10, promoter Tex Rickard sold 1,258 tickets at $50, 150 at $40, 634 at $30, 1,505 at $25, 1,457 at $20, 1,706 at $15 and 9,050 at $10 in an era when a steak dinner cost less than $1.

--When sealed bids were opened from 35 promoters for the bout, the top bid was $150,000 by Bill Garen of St. Louis. And three other bids were higher than Rickard’s $120,000. But Rickard showed up for the bid-opening with money bags containing $120,000 in gold and was awarded the fight.

--Readings of Johnson-Jeffries illustrate how the term “boxing promoter” is defined differently today. Rickard was a true promoter, who had his life’s fortune on the line on July 4, 1910. He even built the 18,000-seat arena. Today, Don King and Bob Arum are more accurately defined as booking agents rather than promoters. Today, in most cases, major fights are “promoted” by hotel publicity staffs.

--George Foreman has nothing on Jack Johnson, who fought into his 50s. In 1926, at 48, he beat a young heavyweight, Pat Lester, in Nogales, Mexico, on a 15-round decision. In 1931, at 53, he fought a six-round exhibition with Dynamite Jackson, a leading Pacific Coast heavyweight. “Jack was an old man, but I never laid a glove on him,” Jackson said.

According to one Las Vegas oddsmaker, you can count on odds of somewhere between 15-1 and 20-1 on a draw at most major Nevada fights.

And the way things are going in Nevada, that’s starting to look like a good bet. Once again, Nevada’s otherwise progressive Athletic Commission has given the public a draw in a title fight, most recently the Jorge Paez-Troy Dorsey match last Sunday at the Las Vegas Hilton.

That makes three draws in Las Vegas in major bouts since April 1988, when Breland and Starling drew. In between, there was the Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns draw in April 1989.

Jimmy Vaccaro, race and sports book director at the Mirage Hotel, said the latest Nevada draw might bring about an odds reduction.

“We might shade it down to 18-1 now,” he said. “It depends on the fight. We’ve been around 20-1 for a draw at a fairly even fight, but for Tyson fights, we’ve had 100-1 on the board for a draw.”

The California Athletic Commission has begun a six-month test program in which judges are ordered not to score even rounds. That won’t eliminate draws but should reduce their frequency. Our favorite solution comes from the amateur ranks--a judge is permitted to score a bout even, but he must designate a winner at the bottom of his scorecard.

Boxing Notes

Joe Frazier gave up his most prized possession recently. At a United Nations reception for Nelson Mandela, leader of the African National Congress, Frazier put his jeweled heavyweight championship belt around Mandela’s waist, then told him, according to witnesses: “Mr. Mandela, you deserve this. This is from my heart.” . . . Pedro Fernandez, columnist for Flash Boxing Update, has a syndicated boxing radio show, heard in the Southland on Saturdays at 10 p.m., on XTRA (690). . . . Rich Marotta’s expert, well-paced radio broadcasts of major fights are pleasant reminders of boxing’s pre-TV days, when America heard the big fights called by Don Dunphy.