Gastineau Jeered Despite Scoring Early Knockout

More than 30 years ago, when boxing organizations began ranking the best fighters in the world, they inadvertently created a downside. If the top three or four fighters in the world can be identified, so too, logically, can the worst fighters in the world.

And if the 1,000 fans who showed up at the Reseda Country Club on Tuesday night to watch a bout between former NFL star Mark Gastineau and blown-up middleweight Jimmy Baker of Indianapolis didn’t see the two worst heavyweights in the world, they were at least looking down the right road.

Gastineau stopped the pudgy Baker--he weighed 27 pounds more than he did four months ago--at 1:09 of the second round, pushing his record to 5-0. His performance brought deafening boos from the crowd. And if Baker didn’t hurt Gastineau, the crowd certainly did.

“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hurt,” the 6-foot-6, 265-pound former All-Pro defensive end said. “I didn’t expect the booing to be that loud.”

The crowd, obviously, didn’t expect the fight to be so bad.

In the first round, the bloated, 213-pound Baker--a women’s hairdresser by day and a tavern bouncer at night who has wobbled his way to a 16-18-1 record in a decade of small-time boxing--hit Gastineau with a few hard punches, sending the huge man into retreat.

The trend continued in the second as Baker avoided all of Gastineau’s agonizingly slow punches and got inside to rattle Gastineau’s head with his own slow punches.

But Gastineau used his arms--arms that look like fence posts with a lot of hair on them--to push Baker against the ropes. He then thudded him high on the head with a looping right and Baker dropped.

Baker got up quickly and appeared unhurt, but referee Chuck Hassett quickly halted the bout.

“I wasn’t hurt, I know that,” said Baker, who was knocked out twice in his career by middleweight Wilber (Vampire) Johnson, who came into the ring for his fights in a coffin. “I got up, told the ref I was fine and put my hands up to continue. And he stopped it. What did he want me to do, sing a song?

“Mark hits hard, but all heavyweights hit hard.”

Gastineau said Baker was by far the toughest opponent he has faced. Stunningly, he is probably right.

“He had so much experience,” Gastineau said. “He just knew where he was all the time.”

In a real fight, 1984 Olympic silver medalist--for Mexico--Hector Lopez of Glendale, resuming his once-promising pro career after two years in prison on a kidnaping and assault and battery conviction, scored an easy, unanimous, 10-round decision over Jamie Castillo of Los Angeles in a junior welterweight bout.

Lopez is 20-1. Castillo is 10-4-1.

In a light heavyweight bout, veteran Ramzi Hassan of San Diego lost an eight-round split decision to Ernesto Magdaleno of Westminster. Magdaleno, 173, is 11-0. Hassan, 175, is 33-6.

In a heavyweight bout, Rocky Pepeli of Burbank knocked out Mike Gans of San Francisco at 2:59 of the second round. Pepeli, 221, knocked down Gans, 250, with a crunching left hook midway through the round and knocked him out with a heavy combination in the closing seconds. Pepeli is 13-3 with 12 knockouts. Gans is 10-8.