BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : Douglas Has Edge, Tocco Says

Buster Douglas, operating efficiently behind a superior left jab and quicker on his feet, will easily out-box Evander Holyfield on Oct. 25, win a comfortable decision, and retain his heavyweight championship.

That word comes from the guru of Las Vegas boxing, Johnny Tocco, who also cautions everyone not to attach too much weight to what Douglas did to Mike Tyson in Tokyo last February. But he does attach some weight to Douglas’ weight.

Tocco, 79, has trained hundreds of fighters in his 60 years in boxing, among them Sonny Liston. He’s a tough old guy, and he runs the toughest, meanest gym in Las Vegas, Johnny Tocco’s Ringside Gym. There, daily, he waits for some future heavyweight champion to walk through the door.

“I believe Buster will out-box Holyfield and win a decision,” he said Friday. “I just don’t see either guy taking the other out.

“I’m giving Buster the benefit of the doubt when I say this, because I believe he beat an out-of-shape Mike Tyson in Japan. That wasn’t the real Mike Tyson he beat that day. You ought to look at some of Buster’s other fights to get an angle on what kind of a fighter he is.

“I worked in Buster’s corner the night (Feb. 25, 1989) he beat Trevor Berbick on a decision at the Hilton, and he won nine out of 10 rounds.

“But he never knocked Berbick down, and I keep remembering how Tyson destroyed Berbick (in 1986), in two rounds. I felt Buster should have knocked Berbick out that night. So just because Douglas stopped an out-of-shape Tyson, he hasn’t convinced me he’s a great fighter. Not yet.

“Now Holyfield, here’s a slow guy with good power, but not great power. I don’t see him putting Douglas away. I can see him using his power in a boxing sense, maybe making Buster respect his punch, maybe forcing Douglas to fight very carefully.

“Now, an unknown factor in this is Buster’s weight. He was in my gym two months ago, shooting a commercial, and he was so fat he wouldn’t let them photograph him without his shirt on. You know, before he went into training, he was riding all over Vegas in a limo with Steve Wynn and eating like a hog. Like I say, I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt in some areas.”

Summing up, Tocco says he’s picking the better boxer but leaves himself an out.

“Buster’s got a very good jab, and if he uses it right, I don’t see Holyfield catching him,” he said. “But remember this if Buster starts to wear down, he’s been a strong finisher in only one fight in his career, in Tokyo.”

Mirage Hotel president Steve Wynn says Sugar Ray Leonard’s return to the ring, as the ring announcer for the Douglas-Holyfield fight, came about this way:

“Ray and I were eating a pizza at the hotel when I ran some names by him of people we were considering for the PA announcer’s job. He heard them all, then said: ‘A two-bedroom suite, and I’m your guy.’ So I hired him.”

Odd that Leonard would work for no wages, particularly since his wife, Juanita, will ask at a Nov. 2 hearing that Leonard’s child-support payments to her be raised from $12,000 a month to $50,000, according to Juanita Leonard’s attorney, Marvin Mitchelson.

Light-heavyweight champion Virgil Hill of the World Boxing Assn. began a six-day, 17-city tour through his native North Dakota Thursday.

Hill isn’t running for office--although some in North Dakota suggest he should--he is expanding his already considerable popularity in the state where he grew up, learned to box and where he has fought often since becoming a pro champion.

“Virgil’s just staying in touch with people, and maybe making new friends,” said his manager, Gary Martinson, before the tour began. “We’ll start in Williston, where he went to high school, and finish up in Dickinson on Tuesday.”

In between, Hill will appear at luncheons, fund raisers, dinner parties, training sessions and socials in Minot, Grand Forks, Fargo, Wahpeton, Valley City, Jamestown and Devils Lake.

Hill has a 10-round, nontitle fight scheduled Oct. 27 in Bismarck against Frankie Minton. He has a mandatory title defense coming up in 1991 against unbeaten Michael Moorer, a fight the Forum would like to have on a pay- per-view show in January.

Boxing Notes

Julio Cesar Chavez will fight at the San Diego Sports Arena Nov. 6 against an opponent to be named. Olympic silver medalist Roy Jones will box on the undercard. Chavez will defend his junior-welterweight championship against Ahn Kyung-Duk Dec. 8 in Atlantic City. . . . IBF middleweight champion Michael Nunn might be box office poison in Las Vegas, but he’s playing pretty well in Paris, according to Top Rank, promoter of Nunn’s Thursday title defense there against Donald Curry (delayed on Showtime, 7 p.m.). As of early this week, Top Rank reports, 12,000 tickets had been sold for the fight at the 17,000-seat Palais de Sports.

All-Heart Boxing’s super-bantamweight champion, Paul Banke, has moved to Monroe, Utah, where he is training for his Forum title defense against Pedro Decima Nov. 5. Banke formerly lived at All-Heart’s training camp at Quail Valley. The club has another training facility in Monroe. . . . The World Boxing Hall of Fame will hold a stag roast Wednesday for former fighter Art Aragon at the Los Angeles Marriott. Tickets: (213) 699-0904, (213) 723-8471.

Forum boxing publicist John Beyrooty is reaching when he claims it is “a record that will last as long as Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game hitting streak,” but it’s a fact that when Mike Phelps of Dallas boxes Oct. 22 in the Forum’s bantamweight tournament, it will be his third bout in the first round of the eight-boxer tournament. It happened like this: Phelps was stopped by Jose Luis Vega-Gil in the tournament’s first round last July, but because Vega-Gil had not made weight, it didn’t count as a tournament fight. Phelps next boxed Cesar Soto to a draw and it was decided that Phelps and Soto would box again Oct. 22 in a five-round bout--Phelps’ third opening-round bout.

Daniel Zaragoza, whose doctor ordered a postponement of his Oct. 8 rematch with Banke at the Forum when Zaragoza complained about severe headaches, has been cleared to fight and the Forum hopes to put Banke-Zaragoza III back together for December or January.

Arizona referee Roger Yanez, under fire for not quickly stopping Tuesday’s one-sided Alex Garcia-Bernard Benton fight in Phoenix, faces suspension, according to John Montano, executive secretary of the Arizona Athletic Commission. . . . The ratings-leaders for 1990 network boxing shows: 1. Mike McCallum-Steve Collins (ABC), 6.4. 2. Vinny Pazienza-Greg Haugen (NBC), 5.8. 3. Mark Breland-Lloyd Honeyghan (ABC), 5.3. . . . Unbeaten heavyweight Riddick Bowe (19-0), a silver medalist in Seoul, will fight Bert Cooper (22-6) on the Buster Douglas-Evander Holyfield undercard.

The 1996 Atlanta Olympics boxing venue will be Alexander Coliseum, at Georgia Tech. . . . Selections for the U.S. boxing team for next summer’s Pan American Games in Havana will be made at the national championships in Colorado Springs, Feb. 25-March 2, 1991. . . . Early favorite for the 1992 U.S. Olympic team’s coaching job is Joe Byrd of Flint, Mich., recently chosen USA Amateur Boxing Federation coach of the year. . . . Oscar de la Hoya of East L.A. and Shane Mosely of Pomona are first-team selections to the USA/ABF’s 1990 All-American team.