Gate Tops ’73 Record as Lopez Beats Paez : Pro boxing: Receipts total $601,000 for junior-lightweight fight at Arco Arena. Champion wins by unanimous decision.

On an afternoon when the cash register didn’t stop dinging until it hit a California boxing record $601,000, workmanlike Tony Lopez successfully turned back a challenge to his junior-lightweight championship by Mexico’s Jorge Paez.

Lopez, who won a unanimous decision Saturday before 15,008 at Arco Arena, didn’t attract the biggest crowd to see a California fight, but the gate broke the record of $476,000 Muhammad Ali and Ken Norton have held since their second fight in 1973, at the Forum.

Paez, the International Boxing Federation featherweight champion, was trying to add Lopez’s IBF junior-lightweight championship. He failed, he said later, because he fought a better man. “He’s better than me this day,” he said, with his manager, Nacho Huizar, interpreting. “I wanted to fight him, but I couldn’t catch him. But I thought it was close, I thought the judges’ scores showed the noise of the crowd, not what happened in the ring.”

All three judges had Lopez winning comfortably and by the same score, 117-111. The Times card favored Lopez, 116-112.

By fighting a careful, low-risk fight, Lopez (36-2-1) positioned himself for a seven-digit payday with the undisputed lightweight champion, Pernell Whitaker. There is some disagreement in the Lopez camp, however, on whether this popular Sacramento fighter should take that fight. His trainer, Will Edgington, suggests a road toward easier money.

“I’ve been in this business about 45 years and I say the toughest fighter in the world to beat is a fast-moving southpaw, and that’s Whitaker,” he said. “They (Lopez and his father/manager, Sal Lopez) may disagree with me, but they know how I’m going to vote.

“There are three fights out there for Tony now that would earn him a total of $1.5 million, all less risky than fighting Whitaker. I’d like to see him fight Brian Mitchell (from South Africa) and take his WBA junior-lightweight championship.”

Lopez wouldn’t commit himself.

“The only thing I want right now is a vacation,” he said.

Lopez dominated Paez (35-3-3) with his left jab in his best rounds and simply eluded the charging Paez in the others. At 5 feet 7, Lopez does not have a reach advantage, but he jabs effectively.

He did it to near perfection Saturday, particularly in the early rounds when he put Paez further and further behind on the scorecards. All three judges had Lopez winning at least eight of the first nine rounds. Larry Rozadilla gave Lopez the first nine rounds, Paez the last three.

Paez was greeted by boos when he entered the ring with a shaved, sunburst-style haircut and trunks bearing swirling fringes in Mexico’s green-red-white colors. Paez, who has worked as an acrobat and clown in his parents’ Mexicali circus, gestured to the crowd to produce even louder derision.

Lopez, who weighed 130 pounds to Paez’s 129 3/4, began hitting the Paez early in Round 1 and didn’t let up until Round 6, which Lopez took off to catch his wind. Early on, Paez came in on Lopez from a low crouch, firing hooks to the body and uppercuts to the head.

Lopez was under control, fighting comfortably within himself and throughout showed superb defensive work. He was never hurt until the 10th, when Paez rocked him with a wild left hook to the head. That shot would be Paez’s best punch of the fight, yet only for a second did Lopez wobble.

Paez suffered his first loss in 30 bouts dating to 1986 because he couldn’t hurt Lopez, who said he knew that would be the case. A fighter who is certain he will not be knocked out often can dictate pace and action, is comfortable at risk-taking and all the psychological advantage that implies.

“I just didn’t feel I was going to get hit hard enough to get knocked out,” Lopez said, repeating what he said often in the week before the fight.

“Also, I listened to my cornerman (Edgington). I did everything he told me to do, even stuff I didn’t think would work. In the late rounds (all three judges had Paez winning at least two of the last three rounds), Will told me to jab-jab-jab and move, not to slug it out. We assumed we were ahead on points then.”

Paez was gracious in defeat, but still the clown.

“Yes, he hurt me once with a punch to the head, but it was when I was looking at three girls,” he quipped.

“I was prepared 100%, it was a good fight . . . and everyone goes home happy but me.”

Lopez, on by far his biggest payday, earned $250,000, plus 35% of the gross over $500,000, or about another $36,000. Paez made $135,000. The crowd, which fell about 2,000 seats short of a sellout, paid $27 to $100 to see Lopez defend his title for the sixth time.

Afterward, Edgington praised Paez.

“I’ve watched most of his fights, I had a good idea of what he could do, but Paez showed me a lot today with his endurance and his courage,” he said.

On the undercard, featherweight Rafael Ruelas (21-1) of Arleta had difficulty with journeyman Felipe De Jesus (28-7) of Mexico until Ruelas stopped him in the seventh round.