BOXING / TIM KAWAKAMI : Forum Boxing Considers Dip Into The Pond

Facing ever-dwindling crowds and a leaner television contract, and with sweet memories of last spring’s money-making pay-per-view card at The Pond of Anaheim, Forum Boxing is casting an interested eye south.

The deal hasn’t been completed but there are strong reasons for Forum Boxing to move some of its regular Monday night shows to The Pond, possibly by early next year, says John Jackson, the company’s vice president.

Why continue to get hammered show after show at the Forum when The Pond is, well, a more profitable forum?

Orange County proved it will fill place for boxing by packing in 12,000-plus for the Forum’s “Mucho Machismo” card featuring Humberto (Chiquita) Gonzalez, Genaro Hernandez, Jorge Paez and Marco Antonio Barrerra.

The March show was moved to The Pond because of a conflict with a Laker game and the roaring crowd opened everybody’s eyes--especially those of Ogden Entertainment Services, which helps operate both the Forum and The Pond.

In July, with a pay-per-view card that featured Gonzalez and Barrerra, the Forum drew fewer than 6,000. And the Forum’s average announced crowd for its regular Monday night cards is about 3,500.

“Put the fact that we had a very successful show down there together with the fact that Ogden is very desirous to have boxing at The Pond, and that encouraged all of us to look for a formula to make it possible,” Jackson said.

“Talks have continued and it may be close to happening.”

Peter Broudy, promoter of the less regular Grand Olympic Auditorium fight shows, argues that in the current L.A. market, everybody has to cast around for new ideas and more profitable venues.

Before replacing Bob Arum’s Top Rank, Inc., as the promoter at the Olympic, Broudy was negotiating to promote fights at The Pond.

“In the soft economy, the days of supporting boxing with unconditional love might be gone,” Broudy said. “Days of five, six thousand showing up at every show, that’s over. If a fight fan misses a Forum show, maybe in a couple days he goes to the Irvine Marriott, or to the Olympic, or goes to Vegas. . . .

Forum Boxing, which averages about 24 shows a year on its regular every-other-Monday schedule, has also taken hits to its marquee fighters, with Paez, Hernandez and Gonzalez all suffering major losses this year.

Jackson acknowledges that the Forum crowds are down, but promises that Forum Boxing will always conduct the majority of its boxing events at the home building.

“We may increase the number of fights we do, but we won’t reduce the number of fights we do [at the Forum],” he said. “That is one of the things still under consideration--whether we should just do more fights and do them at two venues or do the same number of fights at two venues.”

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Another major reason for weakening crowds at the Forum has been the shortage of major title fights since the recent change of ownership at Prime Sports, which televises the Monday night cards.

Under the old contract, Prime ponied up extra rights money to ensure the Forum would put on eight or nine world title fights a year.

But, saying it was possible they could renew the package later, Prime’s owners decided to let that part of the deal expire.

“It changed our economics and our ability to deliver as many world title fights,” Jackson said.

Thanks to the confusion surrounding the two Nov. 4 heavyweight cards in Las Vegas, however, the Forum did land a major fight for Monday, Nov. 6--a World Boxing Council super-bantamweight rematch between champion Hector Acero-Sanchez and Daniel Zaragoza.

They fought to a controversial 12-round draw on June 2 in Ledyard, Conn., with most observers believing that Zaragoza, 37, should have won.

The rematch was originally slated to be on the Riddick Bowe-Evander Holyfield undercard at Caesars Palace two days earlier, but fell out during the furious reshuffling that is surrounding the competition between Bowe-Holyfield and the MGM Grand’s Mike Tyson-Buster Mathis Jr. bout.

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In a bit of intra-city cooperation, the Forum is lending Paez, riding an embarrassing losing streak, to the Olympic for a Nov. 16 show. Paez needs a few victories to raise his profile and, Broudy says, the Olympic needs a name to draw people.

“If I can put him in a good fight where he looks good, get him some better publicity, that’s good for the Forum, good for me, good for Paez,” Broudy said.

Boxing Notes

There was one little nugget this week from the ongoing federal wire-fraud trial of Don King in New York that shed light on both the shadowy world of boxing finance and the complexity of trying to pin a criminal act on anybody in that world. After delivering key testimony for the prosecution, Julio Cesar Chavez was asked if King, his promoter, had ever cheated him. “No,” said Chavez, who admitted that he owed King several million dollars on loans he has taken out. But later, Chavez added that King didn’t always follow through on his promises. In a case that centers on whether King illegally faked a rider in the contract to receive insurance payments on a canceled 1991 Chavez bout, what does that mean? Does that help or hurt the prosecution? Who knows?

The King trial, which could last two more weeks, is complicating the promotion for Mike Tyson’s bout with Buster Mathis Jr., Nov. 4, at the MGM Grand and one part of the dueling heavyweight shows that night in Las Vegas. The competing card is the pay-per-view Riddick Bowe-Evander Holyfield card at Caesars Palace. Seth Abraham of Time Warner, which is televising Bowe-Holyfield, bid unsuccessfully for Tyson when he came out of jail, and is perhaps King’s fiercest enemy. He concedes that he watches the trial wondering what will happen to Tyson should King go to prison. “Sure, I think about it a lot,” Abraham said. “But that’s in the hands of a jury, not me. At that point, we’ll see. We’re not making any Tyson plans. But we have an interesting group of heavyweights in Bowe, Holyfield, Lennox Lewis and Michael Moorer, and all of these are interesting fights for Mike Tyson. And none of those fights will be made if Don is around.”

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Calendar

Monday: Sammy Fuentes vs. Juan Soberanes, junior-welterweights; Enrique Sanchez vs. Alejandro Landeros, super-bantamweights; Young Dick Tiger vs. Ronald Wright, junior-middleweights; Forum, 7 p.m.

Wednesday: Justin Fortune vs. George O’Mara, heavyweights; Gary Ballard vs. Esteban Cervantes, light-heavyweights; Warner Center Marriott, 7:30 p.m.

Thursday: Johnny Vasquez vs. Jesus Jimenez, bantamweights; Jerry Moran vs. Gil Martinez, heavyweights; Irvine Marriott, 7:30 p.m.