BOXING / TIM KAWAKAMI : Shapiro Takes His Sparring From Courtroom to Ring

The famous little guy was asking for it.

James Toney knew who he was-- everybody knew who he was--so Toney taunted him. And the International Boxing Federation super-middleweight champion does not taunt quietly.

“Who’s that old, bald man coming in here?” Toney recalls yelling at a less-than-six-foot-tall newcomer to the Outlaw Boxing Gym in Hollywood a few Sundays ago.

“You’re a lawyer ? I hate lawyers,” Toney sneered. “You want to get into the ring with me ? Don’t come in here with me, I’ll knock you cold. You hear that?”

Toney, considered by some to be, pound for pound, the best fighter in the world, says the newcomer talked back to him, but what he said was apparently en camera --not on the record.

“Everybody kept asking him, are you sure you want to do this? Are you really sure?” said Jackie Kallen, Toney’s manager.

Robert Shapiro, boxing aficionado and attorney at law, was sure.

Shapiro, known better for jousting in an arena where short pants and left uppercuts are not often allowed, wanted to do this.

A few nights earlier, as the O.J. Simpson preliminary hearing was set to begin, Shapiro encountered Kallen outside a restaurant. He told Kallen he had been working with a private boxing trainer for a while and practically begged Kallen to let him trade punches with Toney.

So down to the Outlaw Gym he went on July 3, the preliminary hearing still days away from completion, for two rounds of sparring--no headgear, no cup, and only a quick tape job to protect his hands beneath the boxing gloves.

He had his family and a video camera, and he had come to fight.

“He was such a great sport,” Kallen said. “I’ve had guys in to spar with James, professional fighters, and they’ve shown more fear than Shapiro did.”

According to all observers, Shapiro threw himself at Toney in the first round, keeping it up for as long as his 51-year-old stamina would allow. Toney threw a few light shots at the lawyer but spent most of the time amused, fending off the charge.

“Oh man, Shapiro, he came in here with a big mouth, we went at it for two rounds, he was tough,” a smiling Toney said after a workout in preparation for his fight July 29 against veteran Prince Charles Williams.

“He tried to pressure me. I think he did a better job than Prince Charles will.”

Tom Patti, a trainer who worked Shapiro’s corner for the sparring session, proudly describes the opening moments of the second round, when Toney sneaked up behind an obviously winded Shapiro while he was resting in his corner, his back to the center of the ring. Instead of shrinking back in surprise, exhaustion and fear, Patti says Shapiro immediately began throwing punches.

“I was impressed,” Patti said. “He was attack, attack, attack. He went right at James. I’ll tell you, there’s no dog in Shapiro.”

*

After the Shapiro and Williams bouts, Toney is hoping that his on-again, off-again, long-anticipated matchup against International Boxing Federation middleweight champion Roy Jones is coming back into focus.

Twice, scheduled dates for a Toney-Jones bout have been canceled because Jones demanded more money, but another tentative deal is in the works.

This time, the bout is proposed for Nov. 19, possibly in Atlantic City, to be televised on pay-per-view, with the fighters’ purses determined by percentages.

Does Toney think that staging a major bout so close to the Nov. 5 heavyweight title fight between champion Michael Moorer and George Foreman could be a problem?

“Nobody’s going to be paying too much attention to Foreman-Moorer,” Toney said. “This is the fight everybody wants to see--James Toney and Roy Jones--and that’s the fight that they’re going to get, if (Jones) signs a contract.

“He can’t break this one because if he turns this money down, he’ll never get it anywhere else.”

If Jones doesn’t sign this time, Toney cautions, he will move up to the higher earning potential of the light-heavyweight and, eventually, heavyweight divisions.

“I’m not the type of person who will wait around,” Toney said. “I’ve been waiting 16 months for him. I won’t wait any longer.”

Boxing Notes

The Forum’s recent decision to drop its experimental series of Friday night shows was a matter of simple logic. The Forum boxing audience wasn’t ready to move to Friday. The turnout of 3,334 for last week’s Humberto (Chiquita) Gonzalez tuneup--the second Friday night show--was the clincher. Gonzalez regularly has drawn 6,000 or more at the Forum.

The card featuring World Boxing Organization junior-middleweight champion Verno Phillips against Jaime Llanes will be moved from July 22 to July 25. The Aug. 26 card, possibly including a title defense by International Boxing Federation super-flyweight champion Julio Cesar Borboa, will move to Aug. 29 and the scheduled Sept. 9 show will shift to Sept. 12.

Meanwhile, plans to stage a third Gonzalez-Michael Carbajal bout in September or October appear to have been sidetracked. One problem was that Top Rank, Inc., and the Forum, the promoters of Carbajal and Gonzalez, respectively, were seeking to take advantage of the possibility that Julio Cesar Chavez wouldn’t fight as scheduled on Sept. 17, a Mexican holiday, opening the calendar for a Gonzalez-Carbajal bout that would be sure to attract Mexican fans and television sets.

But the Chavez bout is back on, scheduled as a lackluster rematch against Meldrick Taylor at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. The card, which also includes the World Boxing Council junior-lightweight title bout between champion James Leija and No. 1 contender Gabriel Ruelas, apparently will not be scuttled by promoter Don King’s recent nine-count indictment for insurance fraud.

King was feuding with the MGM over whom Chavez should fight in this contracted bout--the hotel was contracted to pay $4.5 million and had vetoed Taylor and Juan Coggi, seeking Pernell Whitaker, Frankie Randall or perhaps Tony Lopez as the opponent. But the sides compromised, with the MGM dropping its objections after King agreed to drop their payment to $2.5 million.

Also on the Sept. 17 card: International Boxing Federation welterweight champion Felix Trinidad against No. 1 contender Yory Boy Campas, and possibly a fight involving Randall, the man who beat Chavez in January, then lost a controversial decision to Chavez in May.

With Gonzalez-Carbajal III currently on hold until next spring, at least, there are tentative plans for Gonzalez to defend his IBF and WBC light-flyweight titles in September, possibly at Lake Tahoe. . . . Genaro Hernandez’s World Boxing Assn. junior-lightweight title defense, scheduled for the Aug. 29 date at the Forum, is currently in flux because of WBA machinations and could be moved to the Forum’s Aug. 15 date.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission has begun gathering medical information after receiving feelers from representatives of former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield about a return to the ring. “We expect him to apply to fight,” said Marc Ratner, executive director of the commission. Holyfield retired last spring after losing his title to Michael Moorer and was found to have a congenital heart condition in tests afterward. Later, Holyfield visited a faith healer, and says he is ready to fight again. If he wants to fight in America, the only things that can get in his way are the state commissions.