BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : After Two Upsets, Padilla Hopes to Follow in Bowe’s Footsteps

Victor Valenzuela, the manager of junior-welterweight champion Zack Padilla, spoke volumes about the state of boxing in a couple of sentences Friday.

Padilla was going nowhere six months ago. The 30-year-old from Azusa had quit boxing for four years, then started a comeback a year ago.

Now, since April, he has won two fights in a row, each time as a 3-1 underdog. Padilla is short on style and hitting power, but long on courage.

He’s a fighter cut from the molds of such as Jake LaMotta, Henry Armstrong and Gene Fullmer--he never stops throwing punches and never shows any sign of fatigue.

He has beaten Roger Mayweather and the previously unbeaten Carlos Gonzalez back to back.

“Zack feels like he’s entitled to an easy fight,” Valenzuela said.

“The guy has just been through brutally tough fights--fights no one expected him to win--and he won them both.

“Riddick Bowe wins the heavyweight championship and fights two sparring partners (Michael Dokes and Jesse Ferguson). Why should the heavyweight champion get special treatment?

“Is it asking so much that Zack be allowed just one easy fight?”

But this is boxing, a sport where a heavyweight champion can make 100 times more money than your guy at almost no risk.

Padilla made $25,000 for defeating Gonzalez last Monday. Bowe made $7 million for defeating Ferguson on May 22.

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News releases from promoter Bob Arum’s office describe Kim Kwang-Sun as “brutally tough.” Kim will fight Michael Carbajal at Caesars Palace on July 17.

How would anyone know how “brutally tough” Kim is? He has had seven fights. He is 6-1.

So here we go again, with another South Korean coming to America to fight for a championship.

Carbajal-Kim is for Carbajal’s International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Council light-flyweight championships. South Korean boxers have an uncanny ability to secure high positions in the WBC rankings, despite the fact they rarely box outside South Korea.

Recent example: In 1990, South Korean Ahn Kyung-Duk (29-1) was rated No. 1 by the WBC. He had never fought outside South Korea. Boxing Illustrated ranked him No. 17.

Don King signed Ahn to fight Julio Cesar Chavez in Atlantic City on the Mike Tyson-Alex Stewart card.

In a pathetic performance, Ahn quit on his feet in the third round. Even Chavez was outraged.

Now, Arum is saying that Kim is a worthy challenger, too. Ringside tickets for this one are $300.

Kim is ranked seventh by the IBF. But Kim’s last fight was in February, and a month later the IBF didn’t have him ranked among the top 12 light-flyweights. Kim apparently zoomed to the No. 7 spot because he signed to fight Carbajal.

And so it goes with boxing ratings.

Finally, how come Kim, who was a 1988 Olympic champion, has had only seven fights?

“He took a couple years off to go to college,” an Arum spokesman said.

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The Azusa Helping Hand Club estimates it raised about $25,000 for former boxer Johnny Chavez last weekend. About 1,500 attended a benefit for Chavez, who suffered major eye injuries in a Forum match last November.

Another big winner at the event was Ruben Castillo, the Prime Ticket boxing commentator.

“They auctioned off robes, and Jorge Paez’s went for $450,” Castillo said. “Mine went for $800.”

Boxing Notes

David Kamau, the South African junior-welterweight who aspires to follow the same path as previous African fighters such as Azumah Nelson and Cornelius Boza-Edwards, will face his stiffest test at the Forum on Monday. Kamau (18-0), who lives in Los Angeles, will face Fidel Avendano (39-2) of Acapulco. . . . HBO will show the Tommy Morrison-George Foreman fight Monday night at 9:30. . . . Mike Dixon’s knockout of Alex Garcia on Tuesday in Las Vegas wasn’t necessarily the upset of the week. In Melbourne on Monday, normally punchless Calvin Grove knocked out Aussie Jeff Fenech with one punch in the seventh round, at least temporarily ending Fenech’s comeback. . . . Garcia, by the way, hopes to rebound quickly from his stunning defeat by Dixon. “We’re going to offer Dixon a rematch at triple what he made ($7,500) Tuesday,” said Norm Kaplan, Garcia’s manager. “Even Joe Louis was knocked out before he was a champion. Alex will bounce back from this.” . . . Heavyweight Lionel Butler was suspended for six months by the California Athletic Commission staff recently. Butler tested positive for marijuana after his Feb. 23 match against Anthony Willis at Reseda.