BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : A Heavier Chavez-Taylor Rematch Being Discussed

Negotiations are under way for another Julio Cesar Chavez-Meldrick Taylor bout, at 144 pounds, possibly as soon as November or December.

Taylor’s New Jersey promotion team, the Duva family, has apparently convinced Chavez’s camp and HBO that Taylor can no longer make 140 pounds. Under discussion is a non-title fight for which both boxers would make several million dollars each.

Chavez and Taylor fought for two 140-pound titles at the Las Vegas Hilton March 17. It was a classic, one that will be remembered as much for the referee’s performance as for the fighters’.

With Taylor well ahead on points but fading badly in the 12th and final round, Richard Steele stopped the fight with two seconds left, giving Chavez the victory after Taylor wouldn’t or couldn’t respond to his “Are you OK?” query after a knockdown.

Taylor had great difficulty making 140 for that one, and it’s said that he goes up to 180 between fights.

If Taylor-Chavez II doesn’t come off, Taylor probably will go on to fight new welterweight champion Aaron Davis. Chavez, who was to fight lightly regarded South Korean Ahn Kyung-Duk on the undercard of the postponed Mike Tyson-Alex Stewart fight Sept. 22, probably would move on to a rich junior-welterweight fight with Hector Camacho.

There is a major unknown factor in the Chavez-Taylor talks: Tyson. HBO and Don King are still talking about a renewal of Tyson’s HBO deal, which was to expire with the Stewart fight. If Tyson and HBO renew their deal--talks have been going on for nearly a year--it might complicate Chavez-Taylor II.

The proposed new Tyson-HBO deal is said to be for 10 fights over four years. The present contract, signed shortly before the 1988 Larry Holmes-Tyson fight, is for $26.5 million for seven fights. This one would be for considerably more.

The hang-up in the talks is said to be escape clauses both sides are insisting on.

Paul Banke, the super-bantamweight champion from Quail Valley who survived a brutal first defense of his World Boxing Council title against Lee Seung-Hoon Aug. 18 in South Korea, looked like a mugging victim afterward. His right eye was completely closed, he had a cut lip and a deep brow cut.

No way, Banke’s manager, Bob Richardson figured, could he keep a September date at the Forum against nemesis Daniel Zaragoza. And when Banke told Richardson on the flight home from Seoul: “I’m beat, Bob--I want to take some time off,” that clinched it. Postponement.

But Banke loves tough fights. Prefers them, in fact, over vacations.

“Five days after he told me he wanted a couple of months off, he came up to me and said: ‘I’m fine. I want to fight Zaragoza in September after all.’ ”

The Forum’s September date was gone by then but the fight has been rescheduled for Oct. 8.

Boxing Notes

Michael Nunn will get about $650,000 for his match in Paris Oct. 18 against Donald Curry, which means his purses have dropped below $1 million for the first time in four fights. Curry lately has been portrayed as a desperate fighter, teetering on the edge of a sliding career. There’s a grain of truth to that, but what about Nunn?

Here’s a guy who’s 35-0, a middleweight champion who should be at or near Sugar Ray Leonard-class purses. Instead, his marketability is slipping. Nevada Athletic Commission figures show that when Nunn was booed for his lack of intensity in his easy decision victory over Marlon Starling at the Mirage in March, about half the tickets were giveaways. If he showboats his way to another uninteresting decision against Curry, Nunn’s next defense could be at the Irvine Marriott.

And speaking of ticket giveaways, turns out there was a lot of paper in that Aug. 11 announced crowd of 5,000-plus at Caesars Tahoe. Actual paid attendance, according to the Nevada commission, was 2,520. . . . Junior Olympic championships and open division semifinals begin at 7 tonight and open championships will be at 1 p.m. Sunday at the National Blue & Gold Invitational Boxing Tournament at the Baldwin Park Community Center. . . . Promoter Don Chargin says the ticket sale count exceeds 9,000 for his Tony Lopez-Jorge Paez bout Sept. 22 in Sacramento and that he’s hoping for a crowd of 15,000.

Feuds: Forum boxing staffers are upset with Mexican promoter Rafael Mendoza because they can’t find him. The Forum wanted his light-flyweight champion, Humberto Gonzalez, to fight on the undercard of the Sept. 22 Sacramento Tony Lopez-Jorge Paez bout. Mendoza was nowhere to be found. Another Gonzalez aide-de-camp told the Forum that Gonzalez couldn’t make it because “Humberto has to attend a wedding that day.” Attend a wedding? And this is a guy who wants to be better known to U.S. audiences?

John Jackson says the Forum pays about $250,000 a year for state-required neurological exams for boxers and suggests that managers and the fighters should pay for the $75 tests, not promoters. . . . The California Athletic Commission is in a six-month trial program to reduce the frequency of boxing draws by telling judges not to score even rounds. None did during the Country Club card in Reseda Tuesday, but there were two four-round draws on the undercard anyway. Simple solution: Make them five-round bouts.

Longtime Southland fight manager Nori Takatani has a good one in super-featherweight Genaro Hernandez, who improved to 20-0 at the Forum Monday. Problem is, despite his high rankings--second in the WBA and third in the WBC--champions of both organizations are booked for the next several months and it will be another six months before a title opportunity comes his way. The tall, well-schooled Hernandez will fight either Ben Lopez or Tyrone Jackson at the Forum on Sept. 24. Hernandez is the younger brother of former junior-welterweight Rudy Hernandez, who won the Forum’s first boxing tournament in 1983.