BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : Familiar Story Still Awaits Happy Ending

Here it is again, the same old, sad story that has appeared in newspapers once a decade or so for the last century. All that changes is the name.

Theme: Another old champion, down and out.

A New York Post reporter recently found 1950s world welterweight champion Johnny Bratton sleeping on the cold floor of a grimy New York bus station.

The resultant story and pictures of the 63-year-old, destitute Bratton moved many in New York. It also moved Dana Bratton of Studio City, the former champion’s son.

“I’d lost contact with my father,” he said. “I hadn’t heard of him for years.

“Then a friend back East called about the newspaper story. I’m very emotional now. I want to find my father and bring him back home. I haven’t seen the pictures (from the Post story) yet, but we’re pretty sure it’s him.”

Dana Bratton, 46, is a physical training counselor. He said he has been working on a treatment for a screenplay of his father’s life.

He said his father has battled alcoholism for years. The Post’s account of Bratton’s plight quoted the ex-fighter as saying he wanted help in gaining admittance to an alcohol rehabilitation program.

Bratton, who briefly held a piece of the welterweight title in 1951, said his purses for major fights averaged $15,000 in his prime. But Bratton--who fought the likes of Kid Gavilan, Ike Williams and Beau Jack--also acknowledged decades-long alcohol and gambling problems. “What happened to the money? I gambled it away,” he told the Post. “I have a compulsion to gamble. I’d lose $4,000 a night, shooting dice.”

Billy Austin, a bus-station employee who said he looks after Bratton and sometimes buys him a meal, called on boxing’s millionaire superstars to help Bratton out.

“This is not befitting a champion, to be sleeping on the floor,” Austin said. “With all the millions they make from boxing now, it would be easy to kick something back to the old-timers. I’d just like to see him get some help.”

Later, it was learned someone had stepped forward with some money, enrolled Bratton in an Upstate New York program, and bought him a bus ticket.

In following up on the story, though, Post boxing writer Mike Marley learned that after boarding the bus, Bratton ordered the driver to stop the bus when it reached Harlem. Bratton left the bus there.

Junior-welterweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez has told his adviser, Alberto Gonzales, he does not intend to honor the promotional contract he signed with Bob Arum last December.

The contract, which was to take effect May 1, could have earned Chavez $35 million over three years, Gonzales said. Arum gave Chavez a $300,000 bonus check when he signed the contract.

Chavez will fight for rival promoter Don King March 18, on the Tyson-Ruddock card, and has indicated to friends he regrets signing with Arum.

Gonzales said, “Julio told me he’ll give Arum back the $300,000.”

Not according to Arum.

“What, is he crazy?” Arum said. “He takes $300,000 from me in December, signs a contract, gives me the money back in March and walks? No way. He fights for me or we go to court.”

Both Gonzales and the fighter’s lawyer, Leon Pizante, say King has an unexplainable hold on Chavez. Gonzales, until recently Chavez’s manager, now advises him only on marketing projects. “Julio is making a mistake, and I told him so,” he said. “The Arum deal was as good as any boxer could ask for. He could make $35 million for three years. He could make $15 million just over the next 18 months, defending his 140-pound title.”

Southern California boxers won three titles at the recent national amateur boxing championships, but they probably will fight in the Southland only once before the Barcelona Olympics in 1992.

That’s our No. 1 beef with the USA Amateur Boxing Federation--the silly rule prohibiting amateurs from appearing in exhibition bouts in pro shows. Some USA/ABF staffers say they have no problem with rescinding the rule, but the organization’s board of directors, they say, won’t budge.

So, national amateur champions Oscar de la Hoya of East Los Angeles, Pepe Reilly of Glendale and John Bray of Van Nuys fight on, virtually unseen in their own communities.

They might box here in July during the U.S. Olympic Festival. The boxing portion will be held July 13-14 at Loyola Marymount and July 16 at the Forum.

In case you wondered, there is no rule in the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s book covering the oddball situation that occurred before the last round of the recent Greg Haugen-Hector Camacho bout in Las Vegas.

When Haugen refused to touch gloves at the start of the final round, Camacho leaped in and started punching. Referee Carlos Padilla deducted a point from Camacho’s total, startling both ringsiders and Camacho.

Haugen had shaken his head and backed up a step, making it clear to both Padilla and Camacho he wasn’t going to touch gloves. At that point, Camacho was entitled to throw a punch.

Chuck Minker, executive director of the Nevada commission staff, said that Padilla was acting under a commission rule that says: “If a contestant fouls his opponent during a contest, or commits any other infraction, the referee may penalize him by deducting points.”

But hitting an opponent who has refused to touch gloves isn’t on a list of 18 fouls for which referees in Nevada are authorized to deduct points.

The controversy, only a warm one to begin with, was rendered moot when Haugen flunked his postfight drug test, showing positive for marijuana. He will learn his fate Tuesday, when he appears before the commission.

The California-required neurological exam for boxers claimed two fighters this week and the Forum might have lost its Monday main event between middleweights Fabian Williams and Reggie Johnson. Williams flunked his test Thursday and was to take the more extensive follow-up exam today.

And Kevin Childry, the heralded amateur from Michigan who recently turned pro with the Ten Goose stable of Van Nuys, flunked both the first test and backup test this week.

Forum matchmaker Tony Curtis and Ten Goose chief Dan Goossen--who only two weeks ago were nearly throwing chairs at one another in a Forum melee--are steaming, but this time not at each other.

Assemblyman Richard Floyd (D-Gardena), who has submitted legislation that would overhaul and even delete some Athletic Commission functions, also wants to investigate the testing program.

Boxing Notes

While waiting anxiously for results of Fabian Williams’ second neurological exam today, the Forum boxing staff was also holding its breath over Monday night’s scheduled bantamweight tournament final between Javier Leon and Victor Rabanales. Their fight was originally scheduled Jan. 14, but Rabanales became ill. They were rescheduled for Feb. 25, but Rabanales couldn’t get his work visa in time.

The Goossens’ heavyweight bout between Orlin Norris and Mike Hunter at the Reseda Country Club has been postponed from March 26 to April 2 . . . Dan Goossen wants to put together a Terry Norris-Donald Curry junior-middleweight championship fight in June and says he has bids from unnamed sites in Reno, Palm Springs and San Diego.