BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : Officials Remaining Mum on Allegations

Questions, questions and more questions are being asked in the California boxing community these days . . .

A Los Angeles County district attorney’s team has been assembled to investigate charges by Southland boxing managers and fighters that a Forum assistant matchmaker accepted cash payoffs to secure bouts on Forum cards.

The charges, made by 10 people in a Nov. 22 story in The Times, indicated that managers of undercard fighters were told to return cash from expense checks--amounting in some cases to 25% of a boxer’s purse--to Merlin Petit, the assistant matchmaker.

A spokesman for the district attorney’s office reports that the investigation has begun and that some boxing people have been interviewed, but he would not reveal details.

Meanwhile, in Sacramento, Richard DeCuir, the new California Athletic Commission executive officer, is still asking questions about a boxing show at Arco Arena in Sacramento last Sept. 13, well before he took office.

Commission contracts for the show indicate that Meldrick Taylor, who fought Ernie Chavez of Westminster, and South African Brian Mitchell, who fought Tony Lopez of Sacramento, were fighting for purses of $1,000 each.

Taylor is a million-dollar fighter, the sum he earned when be fought Julio Cesar Chavez in 1989. For numerous engagements since, he has fought for six-digit purses. Mitchell, too, normally earns six-figure paydays.

So what happened? Someone paid them what they really earned after they got across the state line. And if you want to ask questions about it, no one is home.

A month ago, we called Dan Duva, Taylor’s promoter, and asked him what Taylor was really paid for the Sept. 13 fight.

“I can’t put my finger on that right now, but when I find it, I’ll call you,” he said.

We’re still waiting for the call.

If promoter Don King had pulled this one off, Duva would still be screaming.

As for Mitchell, one explanation that night was that his purse would be paid later, in South Africa, by South African TV interests.

The promoter was Don Chargin of Los Angeles, who said the fighters were paid by HBO. But HBO denied that and said Duva paid the fighters.

The commission staffer in charge of that show was Rob Lynch. DeCuir said he would have some answers next week on the subject.

Next ESPN fight date for Rudy Zavala, Costa Mesa’s unbeaten (15-0) super-bantamweight, is Feb. 16 in Phoenix, opponent to be named.

Zavala had stitches taken out of his left eyelid a week ago. He was cut badly in his Dec. 19 knockout victory over Tommy Valdez in Las Vegas, and the fighter’s manager, Herb Stone, said Zavala’s cutman, Mac Kurihara, saved the day.

“If it weren’t for Mac, it might’ve been stopped,” Stone said.

Stone added that the 10th-round knockout wasn’t necessarily the most exciting thing that happened to Zavala that day.

“When we drove up to the Hacienda (Hotel), Rudy looked up at the marquee and it said: ‘CALIFORNIA’S SENSATIONAL RUDY ZAVALA!’ He got pretty excited when he saw that.”

Nick Beck, boyhood pal of the late Jim Jacobs, who once co-managed Mike Tyson, is upset by quotes attributed to him in the book, “Mike Tyson: Money, Myth and Betrayal,” by Montieth Illingworth.

Among the alleged misquotes, claims Beck, a Cal State Los Angeles journalism professor, is one that has him saying Jacobs “betrayed” him on an old fight film deal.

“I deny (saying) that absolutely,” said Beck, who is challenging Illingworth to produce the tapes of his interviews with him.

Three non-title bouts are on tap at the Forum Jan. 13. Mexican super-lightweight Mauro Gutierrez, in his first local appearance since he knocked out Rafael Ruelas last summer, meets Jose Castro. Also: Jose Martinez vs. Alfred Rangel, and Ysaias Zamudio vs. Julio Borboa.

The next big fight at the Forum will be on Jan. 27, when WBC light-flyweight champion Humberto Gonzalez of Mexico defends his title against top-ranked Domingo Sosa of the Dominican Republic.

Boxing Notes

If-I-hear-it-one-more-time-I’ll-scream dept.: Enough already from those TV guys who make much over every boxer who enters a ring and is not freely perspiring. “Look, he’s dry--he didn’t warm up in the dressing room,” is the standard observation. Hasn’t it occurred to any of them that a cornerman might have toweled off his fighter? . . . Best recent quip: Boxing announcer Barry Tompkins, on boxing’s governing bodies: “These are guys in three-piece suits and stocking masks.”

On HBO Jan. 18: Meldrick Taylor vs. Glenwood Brown, and Pernell Whitaker, in his first try as a junior-welterweight, vs. Harold Brazier.