BOXING : Quarry Still Not Cleared to Fight

Jerry Quarry appeared at the California Athletic Commission meeting in Sacramento Friday, asking for a boxing license. The commission did not turn the 45-year-old heavyweight down, but it didn’t give him what he sought, either.

Quarry, who wanted to appear in a Sept. 15 sparring exhibition with former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes in Ontario, was instead issued a sparring permit. His proposed exhibition with Holmes would have been for five rounds, with 16-ounce gloves and headgear. It would also have required both men to have California boxing licenses.

The problem is, Holmes wasn’t there. By state law, Holmes had to appear in person before the commission to be awarded a similar sparring permit, and the next scheduled commission meeting is not until Sept. 21.

Dale Ashley, assistant executive officer for the commission in Los Angeles, said it would be up to the commission’s L.A. office to decide on Quarry’s California boxing future.

“Our instructions from the commission are to evaluate Quarry in the gym, to observe him sparring and to make a recommendation to the commission as to whether he’s fit to be granted a full boxing license,” Ashley said.

Was the bout between Meldrick Taylor and Primo Ramos vindication time for Richard Steele?

Some saw it that way. Steele, the veteran referee, received considerable criticism--as well as considerable praise--for stopping the March 17 Taylor-Julio Cesar Chavez fight with two seconds remaining. Ahead on points but hurt badly in the final round, Taylor lost his junior welterweight championship.

Last Saturday at Caesars Tahoe, in his first outing since that controversial fight, Taylor was, on the whole, unimpressive. He couldn’t put the determined but outclassed Ramos away and was, in fact, hit hard several times before earning a decision.

Some saw Taylor’s behavior during the late rounds as decidedly uncharacteristic. After the two exchanged punches in Taylor’s corner in the ninth round, for example, Taylor backed off and stuck his tongue out at Ramos.

That came at a time in the fight when Ramos was weakening, and one wondered why a world-class fighter would choose to back off and taunt an opponent who many thought shouldn’t have made it past the fourth round.

Lou Duva, Taylor’s trainer, said afterward that the tough 10-rounder was good for his man, adding: “I could have put some bum in there he would’ve knocked out in the first round, but he wanted and needed a tough fight coming back.”

Recommended reading: “A Neutral Corner . . . Uncollected Boxing Essays by A. J. Liebling.” The veteran boxing writer, who for 28 years brilliantly described the sport’s rascals and characters, its subculture and its grit and grime for The New Yorker, still captures boxing like no one else in a North Point Press volume of 15 essays written between 1952 and ’63. The book will be published in October.

Liebling, whose work in a previous book, “The Sweet Science,” is considered by many a classic of ring literature, presents boxing people as warm, lovable types . . . and at times, delightfully funny.

Sample:

Liebling described a 1955 conversation with New York trainer Whitey Bimstein about how fighters of yesteryear were smarter and more technically sound than 1950s fighters.

“What a difference from the kids today,” Bimstein was quoted as saying. “I have a kid in a bout last night and he can’t even count. Every time he hook, the guy is open for a right, and I tell him: ‘Go twicet, go twicet!’ But he would go oncet and lose the guy. I don’t know what they teach them in school.”

And in describing the fears managers harbor that their fighters might get to like their day jobs too much, Liebling wrote this, about a promising 1950s welterweight named Earl Dennis:

“Dennis won a voice contest at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem . . . and now every time he sings a cadenza in the shower, a (frown) crosses his manager’s face.”

And a 1955 Liebling description of New York’s historic Stillman’s Gym:

“Old Stillman, as this building is named in honor of the founder, is three stories high, covered with soot instead of ivy and probably older than most Midwestern campuses at that. It is a fine example of a post-colonial structure of indefinable original purpose and looks as if it had been knocked down during the Draft Riots of 1863 and left for dead.”

Boxing Notes

Paul Gonzales, an entry in the Forum’s eight-man bantamweight tournament, will fight Javier Leon in the Aug. 27 show. The winner of the tournament earns $75,000. There are two other 10-rounders that night: super-featherweights Genaro Hernandez and Ben Medina, and featherweights Luis Espinoza and Fernando Teran.

Shelly Finkel, manager of former welterweight champion Mark Breland, has landed Breland a monthlong role in a play in Providence, R.I. Breland will play the second male lead, a boxer, in “The Golden Boy,” beginning Sept. 1. Finkel recently had this comment on whether East Los Angeles amateur Oscar de la Hoya, 17, who won the lightweight gold medal at the recent Goodwill Games in Seattle, should turn professional now, skipping the 1992 Olympic Games: “Absolutely not. If he wins a gold medal in Barcelona, he could turn pro in ’92 as a $200,000-a-fight fighter.”