BOXING / TIM KAWAKAMI : No-Win Fight: Forum vs. Olympic

June 24 seems like a grand waste. Two shows, one night, in a town that is not quite booming with boxing dollars these days.

On that date, the Forum and the Olympic Auditorium, venues straining to share a market that, over the long haul, might not be strong enough to sustain them both, will stage competing fight cards.

Neither the Forum nor Top Rank, which runs the Olympic boxing operation, wanted this, of course.

Nine months ago, when the Olympic was barely a glimmer in Bob Arum’s eye, the Forum decided to move, temporarily, from its traditional Monday slot to Fridays, and further decided to inaugurate the experiment on June 24.

Much later, ESPN slotted the same date for one of its weekly Top Rank shows. Arum, Top Rank’s president, said he approved the card because he never guessed that the Forum would have a Friday show.

“We don’t want two fights on the same day,” said John Jackson, vice president of Forum boxing. “I’m sure they don’t want two fights on the same day. But we both have television deals (the Forum with Prime Ticket, the Olympic with ESPN), and once television becomes involved, it’s hard to move dates.

“Unfortunately, we’re going to go head to head. It’s not preferable. But it’s a fact of life.”

Said Arum: “Boxing doesn’t have that many fans that you can afford to have two venues go on the same night.”

For those who want to portray this as a showdown of sorts, the competing cards are a microcosm of how the venues operate.

Having sent out its most consistent draw, Jorge Paez, to more lucrative paydays at other sites this summer, the Forum, which has a largely Latino audience, features a couple of popular Mexican fighters, headlined by super-flyweight Marco Antonio Barrera.

Top Rank, which has a roster dominated by American talent but is short of big-drawing Mexican nationals, leads with Long Beach heavyweight Jeremy Williams against veteran Bert Cooper.

Not including the blockbuster crowd of 10,000-plus it drew for the Michael Carbajal-Humberto (Chiquita) Gonzalez rematch last Feb. 19, Forum crowds have averaged about 4,000 recently, significantly higher than the five cards the Olympic has had, including the March 5 reopening. Even so, Forum cards are down from previous years.

“This whole year has been down, but that was happening before the Olympic opened,” Jackson said. “Whether it’s the down economy or because of the controversies that everyone is aware of in boxing recently, we don’t know yet.”

But the Forum, which has 22 Prime Ticket-telecast shows a year, has other things going, including providing Paez and two more of its top fighters for the undercard of the June 11 Riddick Bowe-Buster Mathis Jr. card at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. In the kickoff of a four-show deal with the Forum, KCAL will televise the undercard.

Also, the Forum is assisting the Bowe-Larry Donald bout July 15 at Hollywood Park--and taking a cut of the deal--by making light-flyweight champion Gonzalez, another top Forum fighter, available to fight on the undercard.

Meanwhile, Top Rank, which has guaranteed its season-ticket holders 24 cards a year, has made one major concession to the economic realities: Because the live gate hasn’t been nearly big enough to make it profitable, there will be no more non-televised cards.

So far, Top Rank has multi-fight deals with ESPN and the Spanish-language network, Univision, which isn’t enough to sustain 24 shows a year.

That makes the Olympic’s recent deal to stage a July 24 show on CBS, a possible July 16 fight featuring Rafael Ruelas on ABC and ongoing negotiations with a major network Arum will not name to show tape-delayed fights in the 12:30 a.m. slot all the more important.

“Our goal is to get as close to 24 as possible in a year,” said Top Rank executive Todd duBoef. “For our season customers, we’re going to give them 24 if it takes 14 months or 12 months, that’s our obligation.”

In the meantime, Arum is taking comfort in the last Olympic show, featuring Gabriel Ruelas, which drew more than 2,000, second only to the grand re-opening night--including walkup sales of more than 1,100.

“I’m encouraged, I really am,” Arum said. “Since the Forum has essentially a Mexican national card (June 24), we’re appealing to, I think, a different audience. So maybe we’ll surprise everybody and we’ll both do well.”

*

Words first, fists later: It won’t happen until spring of 1995, at the earliest, but in the wake of their knockout victories on last week’s MGM Grand card, the anticipated Oscar De La Hoya-Rafael Ruelas matchup is providing plenty of heat.

“They’re already jealous of each other,” said Arum, who promotes both. “That’s why I had them on the same card. It’s how you build up a rivalry.”

A rivalry, Arum hopes, that will blossom into pay-per-view gold.

Ruelas’ trainer, Joe Goossen, didn’t appreciate De La Hoya’s postfight comments that implied Ruelas was a brawler with little boxing skill--especially after Ruelas’ two-round devastation of Mike Evgen.

“Nobody likes to open up the paper and have somebody that has 13 pro fights saying you have no skill,” Goossen said. “Especially when you’re the (International Boxing Federation lightweight) champion of the world, and you beat (former champion) Freddie Pendleton, who is a very skillful fighter, like Rafael has.

“Oscar, look, before we get any more skilled, fight us. I don’t want to wait until they’re both old men. He can’t have it both ways. He can’t say Rafael has no skill, and then duck us.”

Boxing Notes

With the Michael Moorer-George Foreman bout all but set for Nov. 5, to be televised on HBO (the first non-pay-per-view heavyweight title fight in years), and held either at the Superdome in New Orleans or the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, Moorer’s manager, John Davimos, is already looking to the next fight. Davimos said he was leaning toward fighting former champion Riddick Bowe, widely considered the most talented man in the division--and someone it might be best for Moorer to avoid--for a spring pay-per-view bout. That is, of course, assuming Bowe gets through his three scheduled summer fights--June 11 against Buster Mathis Jr., July 15 against Larry Donald and an August date against an opponent to be named.

A unification bout against World Boxing Council champion Lennox Lewis remains a possibility for early 1995, Davimos said, but right now, Moorer-Lewis barely elicits a PPV pulse. Plus, a Bowe fight would earn Moorer two valuable commodities: big money and, in the aftermath of fighting a 45-year-old, major respect.

“I think with both Bowe and Lewis you’re looking at the same thing: big men with big right hands,” Davimos said. “Teddy (Atlas, Moorer’s trainer) thinks they’re basically the same. If you can beat one, you can beat either one. With Bowe, the money could be substantially more. Bowe is a proven pay-per-view commodity, and Michael and Lennox are not. Plus, there’s some credibility to be gained, I think, by fighting Bowe.”

Moorer recently underwent surgery on a knuckle on his left hand and will be in a cast for the next six weeks, Davimos said. There is obviously no love lost between Moorer and Foreman, whose commentary on the telecast of Moorer’s victory over Evander Holyfield was sharply criticized by many in the Moorer camp. “Michael doesn’t like George at all, which is good, because it’ll give him the passion he needs,” Davimos said.

No. 1 contender Gabriel Ruelas is expected to receive an offer from Don King, the promoter of WBC junior-lightweight champion James Leija, to promote Ruelas’ mandatory challenge, which is supposed to be held by Aug. 7. If the offer for the bout is not acceptable to Ruelas, the fight will go to a purse bid. . . . Another fighter unhappy with De La Hoya: World Boxing Assn. junior-lightweight champion Genaro Hernandez, who was bypassed twice by De La Hoya, is passing around T-shirts describing De La Hoya as the “cardboard chumpion of the world.”