BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : Lou Duva, 69, Finally Beats a Relentless Foe

One of boxing’s lovable gym rats was hauled kicking and screaming into open heart-surgery this week for some overdue work.

Lou Duva tried to tell his doctors he was too busy for surgery. But he had used that line too many times. According to a Duva aide, the conversation went something like this:

“Hey, Doc--get serious. You ever hear of Pernell Whitaker, lightweight champion of the world? This here kid is fighting Oct. 5 in Reno. You ever hear of Evander Holyfield, the heavyweight champion of the world? He’s my fighter, you know. He’s fighting Mike Tyson Nov. 8. Hey, this is the biggest fight in history . . . “

It didn’t work. Not this time. Family members finally stonewalled Lou. He underwent a triple bypass in Houston Tuesday, will catch Whitaker’s fight with Jorge Paez on TV but expects to be in Holyfield’s corner on Nov. 8.

At 69, Lou Duva is one of boxing’s cherished figures, a kind of Bowery Boys throwback to the 1930s. He is boxing’s “this here” man: “This here fight,” “This here referee,” “This here promoter. . . . “

He has a sagging, jowly face that breaks into a hundred different parts when he smiles . . . or he can give you his freezing, drop-dead sneer.

When Holyfield knocked out Buster Douglas and won the heavyweight title nearly a year ago, most in boxing were happy for Duva, who labored in boxing’s trenches for decades. And at the morning-after news conference with Holyfield, Duva gave the media a first-rate show.

He paid a Mirage Hotel bellman $20 to wheel him into the press room on a baggage cart. He came in, a fist raised high, like some pot-bellied Roman conqueror, inspecting the spoils.

But there were no laughs after his heart checkup last month. Duva suffered a mild heart attack in 1979, and there had been chest pains over the years. Six months ago, he underwent surgery to clear his clogged heart arteries.

A checkup three months ago showed the arteries had remained clear, but he flunked the most recent checkup. Bypass, the doctors told him. And now, not later.

“I’m doing fine; I chased a nurse down the hallway this morning,” Duva joked during a phone call Thursday.

“Everything is going fine. The doctors tell me I can be in the gym in two or three weeks. Hey, (rival promoter) Don King sent me flowers. I told the nurse to take ‘em outside first and check ‘em for a bomb.”

The Duvas--Lou and his son, Dan, promoter of Holyfield-Tyson--are saying that Whitaker’s Reno match with against Mexicali boxer Jorge Paez may be Whitaker’s last as a lightweight.

Whitaker has defended his title seven times, foresees no lucrative fights in the lightweight division and will probably move up to the 140-pound ranks, where matchups against Julio Cesar Chavez or Hector Camacho would be possible.

Whitaker’s departure from the lightweight ranks will set off a scramble for 135-pound championships, since all of the sport’s governing bodies--six, at last count--will have vacant lightweight titles.

California’s boxer pension plan received another blow this week, this time from the release of an auditor-general’s report that says the State Athletic Commission continues to mishandle the plan.

In fact, in the report is an item saying that commission controls over the pension plan contributions “are so loose, a Department (of Consumer Affairs) employee’s $14,000 embezzlement of the fund went undetected.”

The commission has also muffed the hiring of a new executive officer to replace Ken Gray, who retired in June. It will soon be six months since Gray announced his retirement, and the commission still hasn’t hired a replacement.

One report making the rounds in commission offices is that Gov. Pete Wilson is considering firing some of its members.

The embezzler, by the way, was Jane Sinclair Cook, convicted on Nov. 2, 1990. She is serving a four-year prison sentence.

Jeffrey Modisett, the man who will prosecute the rape charge against Mike Tyson early next year in Marion County, Ind., is a heavyweight in his own right, according to one source.

“He knows his way around a courtroom,” said Robert C. Bonner, who was Modisett’s boss in the U.S. attorney’s Los Angeles office.

“I would say he was one of the superstars of the U.S. attorney’s office.”

Modisett, 37, worked six years as an assistant U.S. attorney and won convictions in cases involving illegal arms sales to Iran and sales of helicopters to North Korea.

He was Phi Beta Kappa at UCLA, a Marshall Scholar at Oxford in England and is a Yale Law School graduate.

Modisett will be up against Vincent Fuller of Washington plus other Washington attorneys from the firm of Williams and Connolly, and Indianapolis attorney James H. Voyles.

Boxing Notes

Scheduled Forum championship fights: Luis Mendoza vs. Raul Perez, World Boxing Assn. junior featherweight, Oct. 7; Manuel Medina vs. Lupe Guiterrez, International Boxing Federation featherweight, Nov. 4, and Humberto Gonzalez vs. Domingto Sosa, WBC light-flyweight, Dec. 9. Gonzalez recently had a cast removed from his left hand after surgery but was pronounced fit to train. . . . Carlos Lopez, a longtime State Athletic Commission inspector, will switch to the State Department of Real Estate as a deputy commissioner next month. . . . The World Boxing Hall of Fame will hold its Banquet of Champions--this year honoring Alexis Arguello, Lou Nova, Bobby Chacon and Ray Lunny--on Oct. 26 at the Airport Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles.

Ring magazine recently hired a computer programmer to conduct a hypothetical all-time heavyweight tournament. The winner: Muhammad Ali, on a unanimous decision over Joe Louis. En route, Ali also scored unanimous decisions over Gene Tunney and Jack Johnson.

Calendar

Monday--Gilbert Baptist vs. Ron Amundson, junior middleweights, Forum, 7 p.m.

Thursday--Amateur card, 10 bouts, Pasadena Elks Club, 7 p.m.