U.S. OLYMPIC BOXING TRIALS : Legally In, Griffin Wins to Stay There

Montell Griffin, the Studio City light-heavyweight who needed a lawyer to get into the U.S. Olympic team boxoffs, put his fists to work Friday night and registered the only upset at the opening session of the U.S. Olympic boxing team boxoffs.

Griffin knocked off Olympic trials champion Jeremy Williams of Long Beach, 14-11, and wasn’t very polite about it.

In the pre-bout introductions, the 5-foot-7 Griffin went face to face with the 6-foot Williams, then hit him in the chest before the bout began. At the end of the second round, when he had a slim lead in the computer-scored match, Griffin put his face into Williams’ again and screamed: “Let’s work! Let’s work!”

And when the decision was announced, Griffin abruptly left the ring, refusing to shake Williams’ offered hand.

To make the Olympic team, Griffin must beat Williams again Sunday in the same 3,000-seat tent on the grounds of The Pointe at South Mountain.

Griffin-Williams was the only bout of six Friday night that forced a Sunday rubber match. On a night when all six bouts went to decisions and there were no knockdowns, these five clinched berths on the 1992, 12-man Olympic boxing team:

--Light-welterweight Vernon Forrest of Augusta, Ga., defeated Steve Johnston of Colorado Springs, 32-19.

--Raul Marquez, light-middleweight from Houston, put on an impressive demonstration of power punching, but never did put away Antwun Echols of Davenport, Iowa. Marquez won, 78-43.

--Middleweight Chris Byrd of Flint, Mich., son of Olympic team Coach Joe Byrd, rolled up a 44-16 decision over Michael DeMoss of the Marines.

--Heavyweight Danell Nicholson of Chicago was a 31-10 winner over Bobby Harris of Worcester, Mass.

--Super-heavyweight Larry Donald, Cincinnati, left-jabbed his way to a 25-6 victory over Edward Escobedo of McKinney, Tex.

This afternoon, Oscar De La Hoya of East Los Angeles and Pepe Reilly of Glendale will try to wrap up Olympic team spots.

Griffin, 22, virtually unheard of on the national amateur boxing scene six months ago, seemed to intimidate Williams with an aggressive style.

At Worcester, the two met in the finals of the Olympic trials tournament, where Williams won, 34-17. But to nearly everyone’s surprise, the boxoff selection committee picked Terry McGroom as Williams’ boxoff challenger, though Griffin had beaten McGroom in trials semifinals.

Enter Mitchell Stein, a Los Angeles attorney who threatened to sue USA Boxing unless the federation put Griffin in the boxoffs. In a compromise, a Griffin-McGroom “pre-boxoff boxoff” was arranged Tuesday at the Olympic team’s Ft. Huachuca, Ariz., training camp.

Griffin won, 2-1, on scorecard scoring.

In the interview room Friday, Griffin was as aggressive with his answers as he was with Williams in the ring.

“I took it to him. I countered him. I got off first in every round and I made him look stupid,” said Griffin, who won the national championship last February.

“I got to him mentally, too. He didn’t want to fight me. He doesn’t want to fight me Sunday, either.”

Of the threat of jurisprudence he needed to get to Phoenix, Griffin said: “This is America. Everyone gets a second chance. Besides, I deserve to be here. I’m the No. 1 light-heavyweight in the country.”

So Griffin (26-2) is one bout away from being this Olympic team’s first big summer story.

Friday night’s best match was Marquez-Echols, a light-middleweight war from bell-to-bell. Marquez rocked Echols throughout with his best power shots, but Echols countered successfully often enough to make it competitive. Echols, midway through the last round, hurt Marquez with a three-punch combination to the head.

Donald, nursing a sore right hand, jabbed the overmatched Escobedo continuously to secure his Olympic team berth. The computer called it 25-6, but most in the tent believed it should have been more like 125-6.