BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : Timing of Ruling on Firing Was Right for Denkin

The news couldn’t have come at a better time for Marty Denkin, the former California boxing official who was fired 2 1/2 years ago.

Denkin hadn’t heard that he had won his case until a reporter reached him by phone in San Ramon, Calif. There, he was being told by construction mogul Carl Dame that his Dame Boxing Club was being closed down.

In other words, Denkin needed a job. His old job.

“I’m definitely going back to my old job, no question about it,” Denkin said Thursday.

“I was very fortunate in that Mr. Dame gave me a job (as general manager of the boxing club) two hours after I was fired in 1989.

“I always did want my old job back. Even though Mr. Dame paid me more money than the state paid me ($40,000), I wanted my job and my good name back.”

Denkin took a long step in that direction Tuesday with the release of the ruling by administrative law judge Byron Berry. Berry presided over a four-day appeals hearing last January in Los Angeles. In effect, Berry ruled that all had accused Denkin of accepting bribes for regulatory favors had an ax to grind with the former assistant executive officer, who once ran the commission’s Los Angeles office.

Now, Denkin says he might want more than his job back. A lot more.

“I feel I’ve been vindicated, but it doesn’t seem fair to me that I would only get my job back. What about my family? My son is a sheriff’s officer. This has been a terribly embarrassing time for my family. It was never just about a job.”

Also to be worked out, he said, is how much back pay he will be entitled to. He notes that he was deprived of the opportunity to apply for the commission’s top staff job, chief executive officer, when Ken Gray retired last June.

Thus, the commission’s previously announced date to announce its new chief executive officer, next Friday, is now somewhat clouded. What happens if another judge later decides that Denkin must be considered for the post?

And since it has already taken the commission six months to get to this point in finding a staff chief, the process could stretch into a year or more, if the commission has to start all over with Denkin as a candidate.

An appeal by the Department of Consumer Affairs on Berry’s ruling is expected.

“A petition for a rehearing is almost a certainty,” said Chris Foley, who was the state’s attorney at the appeals hearing.

And will Denkin, if he also prevails in an appeals process, then sue the state for his firing on June 13, 1989?

Many expect that he will, but his attorney, Jerome Mandel, wasn’t returning calls this week.

It was a sight not soon to be forgotten.

At 10:45 p.m. last Monday, boxing fans leaving the Forum parking lot could see a hulking, lone figure sitting on the curb, staring forlornly at the pavement on West 90th Street, near the Forum’s tunnel entrance.

It was James (Bonecrusher) Smith. About 90 minutes earlier, his 10-year pro boxing career might have ended. He was ponderously slow and ineffective in losing a 10-round decision to journeyman Levi Billups.

For Smith, who in 1986 and ’87 held a piece of the heavyweight title, it wasn’t a pretty finish. It would have been better if he had quit the night he lost his title to Mike Tyson in 1987.

Twenty minutes after Monday night’s loss, he was asked if he would retire.

“I’m going to think things over, but why should I quit because I lost a fight?” he said. “(Francesco) Damiani got knocked out in his last fight and he’s fighting (Evander) Holyfield for the title (on Nov. 23).”

But there he sat, his head down and his arms on his knees. A passer-by patted him on the back and said: “Tough luck, Bonecrusher.”

Smith looked up, nodded thanks, then stared back down at the pavement.

The rematch of the controversial fight between Azumah Nelson and Jeff Fenech will be held on March 1 in Melbourne, Australia.

Nelson, from Ghana, and Fenech, from Sydney, fought to a much-disputed draw June 28 at the Mirage in Las Vegas, on the Mike Tyson-Razor Ruddock II card. The two battled furiously for Nelson’s super-featherweight championship, and while most thought that Fenech had won, the judges called it a draw.

What everyone did agree on afterward was that it had been one of the outstanding fights of 1991.

Both fighters will earn more than $1 million in the rematch, according to promoter Bill Mordey.

Attention, all boxers, trainers, matchmakers, managers, glovemen, cutmen, etc.: If you work any LBNT Pro Sports boxing promotions in the future, ask for cash.

The Athletic Commission’s staff reported that numerous LBNT checks written for its last two shows at Indio and at UC Irvine have bounced and that LBNT’s $15,000 performance bond might be cashed to pay claimants--unless LBNT officials start producing some cashier’s checks.

Two principals with the firm, Nick Bartlett and Neils Torring, are blaming each other for the bad checks.

Boxing Notes

Former middleweight champion Michael Nunn of Agoura Hills is scheduled to go on trial Dec. 13 in Calabasas charged with misdemeanor spousal abuse and battery against his fiancee, Loretha Boyce, last Aug. 28.

The Final Bell: Roscoe Jones, prominent Los Angeles boxing trainer for more than two decades, died recently at 89. Memorial services are scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday at Angelus Funeral Home, 3875 So. Crenshaw Blvd., Los Angeles. Frank Campos, prominent Southland bantamweight of the 1950s, died recently in an auto accident. He was 57.

Los Angeles lightweight Genaro Hernandez will fight Daniel Lodas of France for the World Boxing Assn. junior lightweight championship on a date to be determined, in Espernay, France. . . . Former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, after fighting four palookas--and going the distance with two of them--in his recent comeback, will fight Ray Mercer on Feb. 7 in Atlantic City, N.J. Mercer recently knocked out contender Tommy Morrison.