BOXING : He Wonders Why His Sport Isn’t Governed

The recent imprisonment of Pete Rose and the partial banishment from baseball of George Steinbrenner were noted with some sadness by a Florida man whose favorite sport is boxing. John Branca, chairman of the New York State Athletic Commission in 1983-84, saw the two baseball developments as graphic examples of how firmly baseball and other American professional sports can govern themselves while professional boxing remains in anarchy.

As Branca sees it, the non-result of the recent federal trial in New York that matched heavyweight champion Buster Douglas against his promoter, Don King, was yet another illustration of how badly boxing needs to be governed by a federal or national commission.

“Baseball’s governing structure observed outrageous conduct on the part of two of its members (Rose and Steinbrenner) and acted with great firmness,” Branca said.

“Rose was maybe the most famous player of his time, and Steinbrenner was a powerful owner. But the sport had a governing structure in place to handle both those cases. Boxing has no governing structure. It’s completely controlled by several promoters and too many international groups who care more about sanctioning fees from major fights than they do about boxing.”

Branca last year tried to interest Washington in a federal boxing bill and for a while predicted he’d get one. But Congressional interest cooled, he said.

Branca was disappointed at the Douglas-King settlement. Mike Tyson’s promoter, King, will be paid a reported $4.5 million not to promote the $32.1-million Buster Douglas-Evander Holyfield fight Oct. 25.

Also, Donald Trump will get a reported $2.5 million to drop his threatened suit against Mirage Hotel president Steve Wynn, who, Trump claimed, interfered with his planned Douglas-Tyson rematch in Atlantic City by offering Douglas and Evander Holyfield $32.1 million.

King called the result vindication of his rights, of his valid contract with Douglas. Branca calls it more of the same, the clearest case yet of why the murky commerce of boxing makes it the laughingstock of American sports.

“All that time, money and energy . . . and the subject of how promoters like King are allowed to tie up boxers for years with exclusive contracts never even came up,” Branca said. “Instead, the pie was just cut up in different pieces. King got his, Douglas got his, Trump got his and the WBC, IBF and WBA will get theirs. That trial was an opportunity for great change in how boxing is run, but nothing happened. Nothing changed. It’s very sad.”

Things have changed in the Buster Douglas camp, however. Everyone got along fine in Tokyo. But now, nobody seems very happy. The long, expensive Douglas-King battle has removed the smiles from the faces of the heavyweight champion and the men around him.

In a Tokyo hotel room last February, a couple of hours after Dougles had registered one of the century’s great sports upsets by beating Tyson, these same men laughed so hard they cried. But in their recent cross-country news conference junket with a very relaxed Team Holyfield, the jubilation of Tokyo seemed a distant memory.

John Johnson, onetime Ohio State football assistant to the late Woody Hayes and for years Douglas’ trainer-manager, denies that new people Douglas has brought aboard are a threat to him.

Rumor has it that Douglas is not happy over how the King settlement was worked out. Mirage people say the $4.5 million for King will come out of Douglas’ purse, not Steve Wynn’s checkbook. It’s also said that Douglas may hire Butch Lewis, who guided Michael Spinks to the heavyweight title, which would further widen the distance between Johnson and Douglas.

Even J. D. McCauley, Douglas’ affable trainer who performed wonders with his 42-1 shot in Tokyo, seemed tense and off stride at Tuesday’s news conference in Century City. And the fighter, too, was edgy, particularly when the relaxed, chatty Holyfield gently chided writers for suggesting Douglas would knock him out.

“You people shouldn’t be putting all this pressure on Buster,” Holyfield said, a remark Douglas didn’t seem to find amusing.

Of the decline of Johnson’s status, Douglas said only: “John and I are still as close as ever. We’ve been in the trenches together a long time.”

Maybe we’ll see the happiness of Tokyo again. Johnson indicated that Tuesday, when he said, with some enthusiasm: “Now, finally, we get to fight! This is what we do best, fight. Training camp for Buster starts Monday, and I feel like I’m back at Ohio State, going into spring practice.”

Boxing Notes

Julio Cesar Chavez has been added to the Mike Tyson-Alex Stewart card Sept. 22 in Atlantic City. Chavez will make a mandatory defense of his World Boxing Council light-welterweight championship--he’s also the International Boxing Federation champion--against top-ranked South Korean Ahn Kyung Duk, who has never fought outside of South Korea.

Al Stankie, adviser and coach to Goodwill Games featherweight boxing champion Oscar de la Hoya of East Los Angeles, flatly denies the rumor that his protege will turn pro before the 1992 Olympics. “Absolutely not true,” he said. “The kid wants to win a gold medal in Barcelona, period.” What is true, he added, is that de la Hoya, 17, will move up to lightweight, 132 pounds, soon.

Shelly Finkel, welterweight Mark Breland’s adviser, says he’s trying to talk Breland into retiring after his recent disappointing knockout loss to Aaron Davis. “I’ve got a Broadway play audition for Mark and I want him to do it,” Finkel said. “I don’t want him to fight anymore. He tells me: ‘Shelly, I don’t want to leave it (boxing) like that.’ Right now, you could say we’re having discussions about it. Soon, we will have arguments about it.”

Is the Forum boxing staff letting one of boxing’s most exciting new fighters, Humberto Gonzalez, slip away? Word is Gonzalez has signed to fight in Cancun, Mexico, Aug. 24, and that Sacramento promoter Don Chargin is making a big rush for a Gonzalez fight there in September. Forum matchmaker Tony Curtis tried to lure South Korean WBA light-flyweight champion Yuh Myung Woo (34-0) to the Forum to fight Gonzalez in a unification bout but was flatly turned down. “(The conversation) never even got to money, they just didn’t want the kid to fight Gonzalez,” Curtis said. The Forum has Nov. 5 reserved for Gonzalez, but no contract yet and no opponent.