BOXING / TIM KAWAKAMI : Past Eight Months Have Been a Downhill Tumble for Carbajal

For Michael Carbajal, the tumble began, as fighters’ tumbles almost always do, with a loss in the ring.

Carbajal admits he never imagined losing to Humberto (Chiquita) Gonzalez or anybody else, and it’s a surer bet he never contemplated the skidding his career would take from there.

Last February at the Forum, Carbajal was confused by, then beaten by, Gonzalez’s stuttering in-and-out attack during their highly anticipated rematch. Carbajal lost his light-flyweight titles, and, it seems, a little bit of the tight focus that had guided him.

Although Carbajal avoids putting an emphasis on how much losing the decision to Gonzalez affected his life and career, what followed was a chaotic series of events that even his most loyal friends say has caused at least temporary damage to his previously pristine image.

Before the second Gonzalez fight, Carbajal had climbed as high and earned as much money as any fighter in the lighter divisions ever had. Triggered by his devastating knockout of Gonzalez the year before, Carbajal was generally considered one of the top dozen fighters in boxing.

But after the loss in February, not only were many experts questioning his status, but Carbajal began jeopardizing it himself.

First, days after winning the lightly regarded World Boxing Organization 108-pound belt--since voluntarily relinquished--Carbajal shocked his long-time promoter, Bob Arum, by signing with Arum’s archenemy, Don King.

A few months later, Carbajal was arrested in an incident allegedly involving a gun outside a party and became the center of reports in Phoenix about his alleged ties to gang activity in his neighborhood.

“Everything was blown out of proportion like crazy,” Carbajal said last week, in town to promote his third light-flyweight showdown against Gonzalez, Nov. 12 in Mexico City. “Like my father would tell me, there’s always going to be people to bring you down once you get to the top.

“Man, now I understand what my father was telling me.”

Carbajal, a 1984 Olympic silver medalist, had been held up in Phoenix as someone who stayed in the downtrodden neighborhood in which he was born, but avoided the gang lifestyle that dominated it.

Now, members of the Gang Squad division of the Phoenix police say they believe some members of Carbajal’s family are gang members, and one Phoenix newspaper reported that Carbajal held a meeting in his home to coach some gang members on what to tell police after a shooting death outside his home last New Year’s Eve.

An acquaintance of Carbajal’s has been charged with murder in the case and, according to Danny Carbajal, the fighter’s older brother and trainer, that suspect is the source of most of the charges against the Carbajal family.

Then came the incident allegedly involving the gun, after which some witnesses said Carbajal flashed gang signals as he departed the scene.

“I’m not a gang member, I just know everybody from the neighborhood,” Carbajal said. “If you want to call them gang members or whatever. . . . They’re all friends that I grew up with. It doesn’t mean I get into the activities that they get into or do whatever they do. It’s just people I grew up with and I talk to.

“There was this big deal, like the Gang Squad saying they’re on my front porch and they’re talking to me. That doesn’t mean I’m associated with them. They talk to me, but all we talk about is boxing and whatever. It’s not like I’m involved in gang activities.”

Said Danny Carbajal: “There are people that live around that are in gangs, and we live in the neighborhood. That doesn’t make you a gang member. Why should we have to move?

“We live there because we’re comfortable there. We’ve lived there all our lives. My family has been there since 1930.”

Recently, his associates say, Carbajal, who was bothered at first, has been able to turn his focus back on the prospect of fighting Gonzalez once again.

The second rematch has been put together hurriedly and, interestingly, King’s first promotion of Carbajal will be Carbajal’s first professional bout outside the United States. Mexico City is Gonzalez’s hometown.

Given the two big cards already scheduled for November in Las Vegas, Gonzalez-Carbajal III clearly would have been a more profitable event if King could have scheduled it in February and put it in Las Vegas.

But Carbajal, intent on regaining the title, gave the go-ahead to Mexico City when it was offered--though his guaranteed purse is definitely less than the $1 million King offered him when he signed.

“Michael just wants to whup him,” Danny Carbajal said. “He wants to knock him out again. When a fighter has that kind of drive, you can’t keep him backing off of it. If you sidetrack him, it may not be good.”

So as Carbajal seeks to rebuild his boxing credentials, his camp hopes the passage of time--and the eventual dropping of any charges against him in the gun incident--will restore the faith of his uncertain boxing public.

“Undoubtedly the incidents in Phoenix have taught him,” said his attorney, Ben Miranda. “He’s learned to be a little more cautious about where he goes and not to get himself in compromising positions. But other than that, he’s still the same.

“People have asked us, ‘What’s wrong with Michael?’ But I think only time is going to assure people that it’s still the same Michael. And only time will show he still has the same talent he had throughout his career.”

Meanwhile, Carbajal insists that recent events have not shaken his desire to stay in the neighborhood--at least for now.

“I’m going to stay until my whole career is over,” Carbajal said. “Then I might get out of there. After my career is over, I’m pretty sure I’m going to move out. I know it’s going to be hard, but that’s what I’m going to do.”

Where will he move?

“I don’t know,” he said, laughing. “Nowhere too far.”

Boxing Notes

What’s next for Pernell Whitaker? Although the consensus pound-for-pound best fighter in the world still considers a rematch with Julio Cesar Chavez his No. 1 option, Whitaker lately has been talking about moving up to face World Boxing Council junior-middleweight champion Terry Norris, who is on the Nov. 12 undercard in Mexico City. Norris was set to fight Whitaker last year, but that fell through when Norris lost to Simon Brown.

Norris regained the title in a rematch last May and doesn’t deny that WBC welterweight champion Whitaker pops into his mind now and again. “I believe I could shut him down,” Norris said. “If he reads this, I’m offering him a challenge. We’re going to find out who’s pound-for-pound the best fighter in the world. I probably could just overpower him. But the way I’d probably fight him is box him, stick and move, outpunch and outbox him.”

Trainer Teddy Atlas did not deny reports this week that heavyweight champion Michael Moorer opened camp last month for his Nov. 5 title defense against George Foreman weighing 245 pounds--well above his usual fighting weight. But Atlas says that Moorer, a former light-heavyweight champion, has worked himself into excellent shape and will be down to a more natural 220 by fight time.

Former champion Riddick Bowe says it doesn’t matter if the two current title holders, Moorer and Oliver McCall, the WBC champion, try to avoid fighting him. “I can never be frozen out,” said Bowe, who fights Larry Donald Dec. 3 at Caesars Palace. “They may try to maneuver and go elsewhere, but when it’s all said and done, when you want to be the best, you have to fight Riddick Bowe.”

Calendar

Monday: Carlos (Famous) Hernandez vs. Fernando Rosas, junior-lightweights; Arnulfo (Chico) Castillo vs. Isagana Pumar, featherweights; Forum, 7:30 p.m.