Boxer Is Finding Out If He Has the Right Stuff

In a year or so, the public will know what Paul Vaden is made of. Vaden also will know.

He’ll know whether he’s got the stuff to be a champion or whether he’s going to join the workaday world like the rest of us.

Paul Vaden is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School, a devout Baptist, a polite and studious man who will soon turn 25.

He’s also a good junior-middleweight boxer (155 pounds). But there are lots of good boxers who are driving trucks or working for Parks and Recreation.

Whether Vaden can become a great boxer is still undecided. He had a glorious amateur career (327-10) and he’s 13-0 as a pro.

But he’s yet to silence the critics who say he doesn’t have the punch or the guts. A sporting journalist of my acquaintance says of Vaden, “He’s the worst undefeated fighter I know.”

Vaden hears these things and is undeterred. He shares a home in San Carlos with his co-manager, Derrick Fox; each morning he can be seen running around Lake Murray and Seaport Village.

He trains at Irish Spud Murphy’s Boxing Gym in downtown San Diego and dreams of a crown. He’s got a new trainer, Abel Sanchez, who guided Alpine’s Terry Norris to a title (before a recent falling-out).

Sanchez is teaching Vaden the intricacies of the uppercut. Sanchez is teaching him to work inside and to drop the amateur style of scoring points and backing off.

Sanchez is teaching him to knock his opponents on their butts, quickly and decisively.

“I’m getting joy out of it,” Vaden says.

He’s learning. In his last fight, he broke Sergio Medina’s nose in the second round. Mr. Medina was finished for the evening.

Vaden also gets joy out of designing his own costumes and entering the ring to the blaring music of Michael Jackson.

“That ring is my stage,” he explains. “I’m fascinated with sequins. Sgt. Pepper military outfits are my trademarks.”

Besides boxing, his other passion is the television soap opera “The Young and the Restless.” Decide for yourself if the title is appropriate.

For Lack of a Fireplug . . .

A dog, a convict, a condom.

* El Cajon cop Ron Smithson chased a guy suspected of assault with a deadly weapon into a field of tall brush.

Smithson couldn’t find the guy until his police dog decided to relieve himself on a bush.

Out popped the suspect, asking to surrender and pleading for a towel to dry off. He needed it.

The dog’s name is Gusher.

* Dick Silberman has reportedly written a Christmas letter to the San Diego Daily Transcript reminding everybody that he’s due out of prison next year:

“This should be my last turkey in the barren desert of Boron. . . . Today I have new feelings of love, loyalty, family and faith.”

If he visits his ex-wife at the mayor’s office, he’ll recognize some of the furnishings. They graced his business digs on the western edge of Balboa Park.

* BAY 63, the new “low-power” television (visible from Hillcrest to Chula Vista) has become the first San Diego station to air a condom ad.

Only Channel 63 would run an ad for Condom Kiss of Pacific Beach, run by 19-year-old Tonja Robertson.

“We’ve been airing it for more than a week without complaint,” says 63’s president and general manager John Willkie. “The Republic didn’t fall, and people seem as moral as ever.”

Illuminating Interrogation

Here’s a transcript of a cop interrogating an arson suspect (to be published in the next Law Enforcement Quarterly by the San Diego district attorney’s office).

Cop: So, what other fires have you started?

Suspect: Well, I lit a canyon.

Cop: And you lit a sleeping bag last year, didn’t you?

Suspect: I admit that too.

Cop: And the fire spread to a shed, didn’t it?

Suspect: Yeah, but I was just trying to wake up a buddy of mine who was sleeping in the bag.

Cop: You were going to wake him up by lighting his sleeping bag on fire?

Suspect: Yeah. He’s a real sound sleeper.