BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : Cutbacks Jeopardize Fighters’ Safety

These are bad times for the health and safety of professional boxers in California.

The California Athletic Commission’s staff in Sacramento and Los Angeles was already reeling from unprecedented budget cuts and layoffs when the current state budget crisis began.

California, the nation’s busiest boxing state, is charged with approving and supervising about 100 boxing shows per year. The commission is also supposed to protect the health and safety of boxers by inspecting boxing gyms, where abuses have historically occurred.

But the commission’s Los Angeles office, which a year ago had three full-time staff members checking gyms and approving bouts, has been virtually closed. It’s down to one part-time investigator, Marty Denkin.

A year ago, Dale Ashley, a former police officer, was the Los Angeles office’s pit bull. He enjoyed nothing better than walking into a gym and saying: “OK, everybody, let’s see some licenses.”

Once, in a Southland gym, he found a 16-year-old amateur, without headgear, sparring with a 26-year-old pro, who was 15 pounds heavier. He closed the gym.

But Ashley was laid off. Budget problems, they told him. He’s in Washington state now, working in a political campaign.

And no one is checking gyms anymore.

It has become apparent the cutbacks have weakened the commission’s regulatory powers to the point that only a death or major injury in a gym or at a boxing show will spur politicians into correcting the problem.

Last April, for example, California boxer Art Serwano boxed top contender Roy Jones in Reno. When struck with a punch to the side of the head, Serwano went down and began having convulsions, which lasted about a minute.

But then he quickly recovered, got to his feet, and left the ring unaided.

Serwano later checked out OK in neurological tests but many who had seen him that night figured Serwano for a tragedy waiting to happen.

But that didn’t stop Southland boxing promoter Roy Englebrecht. Tonight, Serwano is boxing in Englebrecht’s show at Adelanto. Englebrecht says he didn’t know anything of Serwano’s knockout by Jones.

“Serwano was available, he and his manager wanted the fight, and the commission approved the contracts a month ago,” Englebrecht said.

“He passed his neuro (test) and a CAT scan. If he shouldn’t be boxing, what are we paying the commission $2 per ticket for? Why don’t they tell us these things?”

The Nevada Athletic Commission, which suspended Serwano after the Jones fight, later told him he would be reinstated if he passed California’s neurological exam.

Two years ago, the Nevada Athletic Commission’s neurological advisory panel described the California exams as “not valid” as a means of detecting neurological impairment in boxers.

As another example, consider heavyweight Ramon Perez. At least the California commission thinks that’s his name. Richard DeCuir, commission executive director, discovered recently that Ramon Perez has also boxed under the names of Juan Ramon and Juan Perez.

Last March and April, Perez was knocked out three times in seven days, in Henderson, Nev.; Bakersfield, and Juarez, Mexico. The promoter of the Bakersfield show was Harold Cox.

Further, it was discovered that Perez’s record is something like 0-15.

Passing off stiffs such as that as legitimate pro boxers is fraud.

Also under scrutiny is Javier Hurtado, who also recently boxed on Cox’s card in Bakersfield. His record is 0-12.

In the commerce of boxing, promoters, matchmakers and managers who trade in such boxers are known as “coyotes” or “meatpackers.”

The matchmaker for those two was Benny Benjamin of Bakersfield, who was licensed by the athletic commission.

These aren’t cracks that Benjamin, Cox, Perez and Hurtado are falling through, they are gaping holes. And the state of California needs to restore commission staff funding to a level where lives are no longer in danger.

One of the outspoken critics of the computer system used to score the recent Olympic boxing is Dr. Robert Voy of Las Vegas.

Voy was one of 12 International Amateur Boxing Assn. physicians assigned to work the tournament, and midway through the 15-day marathon tournament, he criticized the scoring apparatus, but for reasons quite different from others’.

“It’s turned amateur boxing into a puncher’s game,” he said, pointing out that Olympic judges were not crediting boxers for left jabs and body punches.

“I have to stand up in front of the AMA (American Medical Assn.) and defend amateur boxing, and it gets harder every year.”

Fact is, judges weren’t scoring much of anything at the tournament. Scores of 3-1, 4-2 or 4-0 were common early, but scores climbed near the end. One explanation was that judges were conservative at first, fearing to turn in a questionable score.

Another was that the one second given judges to score a blow on a key pad was not enough time.

But Voy saw the judges’ ignoring body punches and jabs as a clear-cut health-and-safety issue. He recently wrote this for the USA Boxing newsletter:

“(The computer system turned) boxing matches into slugfests, where the head was the only real target. Of the thousands of punches scored during the tournament, I would estimate less than 1% were body shots. So who’s going to box with an emphasis on working the body? Nobody.

“What was the result? Cut statistics were up, as were RSCHs (referee stops contest because of head blows) and knockouts. The scoring system weakens my ability as a boxing physician to argue our case against critics who say this is a brutal sport. So, if only for that reason, as a medical doctor, I have to demand changes in the scoring system.”

Historically, other USA Boxing people say, international amateur judges have tended to score bouts with a tilt toward head blows, in contrast to western European and North American judges, who try to award equal value to jabs, body and head blows.

Also, many of the bouts stopped by cuts--nine of 322--were attributed by many, including Voy, to the German-made headgear, adopted by AIBA as the official Olympic headgear.

The rubber headgear has a sharp edge that was responsible for many of the cuts, doctors said.

Considerable tinkering with the scoring system remains to be done, including lengthening the one-second time window, most felt. Indications in Spain were that judges would be working with 1.5 or two seconds at the 1993 World Championships in Helsinki.

A major revision of the state-required neurological testing program for pro boxers is in the works. Most of what’s happening is off the record for now, but DeCuir, the commission’s executive director, did say recently that being reconsidered is what constitutes a flunk of the exam. “I’ve asked the commission to come up with another definition of what a failure is--is it one flunk, two or three?” he said.

Since January of 1986, 3,100 boxers have taken the test and 225 have failed. Recently, outside neurologists examined the test and found, among other things, that Latino boxers who take the exam with an interpreter have had a slightly higher fail rate than English-speaking boxers.

Boxing Notes

At 34, former world champion Thomas Hearns said he plans to return to boxing and won’t quit until satisfied. “If I don’t win again, I can tell people Thomas Hearns gave his all to his profession,” Hearns said from Detroit. Hearns, who lost his last fight to Iran Barkley in April, didn’t say when his next fight would be.

Looking for a head start on picking U.S. Olympic team prospects for 1996? Melanie Ley of Irvine, a district USA Boxing official, says to keep an eye on Michael Becerra of Blythe, Carlos Navarro of Los Angeles and Fernando Vargas of Oxnard. All are in their mid-teens.

One of the best pro prospects to emerge from the Olympic tournament in Badalona, Spain, was Orhan Delibas, a Turk who boxed for the Netherlands. A power-hitting light-middleweight, Delibas first turned U.S. boxer Raul Marquez inside out in the quarterfinals, then advanced to the gold-medal match with Cuba’s Juan Lemus, who got a 6-1 decision. Delibas may turn pro in Texas with the Bob Spagnola-Jesse Reid group of Houston.

The Blue & Gold National Invitational Amateur Boxing Tournament will be held Friday and Saturday at the Baldwin Park Community Center, 4100 Baldwin Park. Open-class championships will be held at noon Sunday. . . . Governor Pete Wilson has made two recent appointments to the California Athletic Commission: Andrew Kim, 53, of Fullerton, and Kim Welshons, 42, of Carlsbad.