Williams Gets Lucky, but Can He Seize the Moment?

Given the opportunity of his career tonight at the Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, will Jeremy Williams make the cut?

Summoned suddenly into the breach after Alexander Zolkin suffered a cut in training and had to bow out of his scheduled World Boxing Organization heavyweight title bout against Henry Akinwande, Williams has had five days to prepare for tonight’s moment in the Showtime spotlight.

Instead of an undercard fight, and $25,000 payday, against veteran Tony Tucker, Williams, the 23-year-old from Long Beach, has been handed a shot at the second-tier title (vacated recently by Riddick Bowe) and a $500,000 purse, by leaps and bounds the largest of his life.

The right time, the right place. . . . Is he ready to be the right fighter--or just another frail fill-in to make sure the show goes on?

“This is to show myself and everybody else that this is not just a hoax,” Williams said. “If you look at my record, I haven’t fought pushovers--I’ve fought Bert Cooper, Jesse Ferguson, Danell Nicholson, Garing Lane, a lot of tough guys.

“In my mind, there’s no doubt I’m ready to be the heavyweight champion of the world. Only four guys have one of those titles, and if I can get one, I’ll prove that I’m one of the best in the world.”

Of course, the 6-foot-7 Akinwande (29-0-1, 17 knockouts) isn’t exactly a household name either. But he does have an 84-inch reach, an impressive left jab and victories over Axel Schulz, Tony Tucker and Jimmy Thunder.

For Williams, an active, mobile puncher who moved up from light-heavyweight and has had trouble in the past with taller fighters, the short notice probably has helped.

“It makes it a lot easier to handle,” Williams said. “You don’t have months and months to dwell on it: ‘I’m fighting for the championship, I’m fighting for the championship. . . .’

“It’s very cool to be fighting for the championship of the world, 16 years of training is paying off. But I don’t want to dwell on what could be. I’ll think about that after I win.”

Akinwande, from England, has a similar style to the 6-5 Larry Donald, who dominated the 6-1 Williams in a 12-round decision in March 1994 when Williams had recently left trainer Kevin Rooney and was being trained by his father, Charles Williams.

The Donald bout was Williams’ last before hiring trainer Joe Goossen, who has since guided Williams to 11 consecutive knockout victories over a string of non-contenders.

“That Donald fight was years ago, man,” Williams said. “I’ve never even seen that fight, it’s a long-lost memory. The Donald fight and this fight, they’re completely different because of my mentality, and the way I’m training now.”

Since he and Williams were already preparing for the 6-5 Tucker, Goossen said they should have an easier time adjusting to Akinwande than Akinwande will have switching over from the left-handed, 6-foot-3 Zolkin.

“Look, we were fighting a 6-5 guy anyway in Tucker,” Goossen said. “And Akinwande’s about 25 pounds less than Tony Tucker. I hear he’s got some good long arms, throws straight punches like Tony Tucker.

“And they were training for a tall, plodding left-hander. And we’re exactly the opposite of that.

“I told Jeremy that we’ve got to approach this the same way we were approaching Tucker, and we’ll think about what it means afterward.”

*

In the wake of a recent U.S. District Court decision in favor of the Twenty-Nine Palms Band of Mission Indians, pending an appeal to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, the California State Athletic Commission is prohibited from overseeing bouts on Indian reservations if the reservation has, as the court ruled the Twenty-Nine Palms tribe has, set up its own tribal boxing commission, with rules and regulations comparable to the state’s.

Other reservation casinos, such as Fantasy Springs and the Foxwoods Resort, in Ledyard, Conn., have embraced their respective boxing commissions, and the California commission is scheduled to oversee tonight’s Don King-promoted bout in Indio.

But with many promoters looking to avoid California’s 5% gross tax, the commission is worried that this decision will result in recklessness.

“The scary part is that I think fights are going to pop up all over the place--I think you’re going to find individuals who could not get a license from the commission because of their medical background or who have retired because of age, you’re going to find them surface on the reservations,” said Richard DeCuir, the commission’s executive director.

DeCuir acknowledges that there could be problems, even tonight, given the broadness of the ruling.

“I haven’t talked with the promoter, so I haven’t been able to talk about the fees, and whether they think this ruling makes them negotiable,” DeCuir said. “My position is that they are not negotiable. It’s going to cost the same as it costs if we did it at the Forum.

“But if the Indians decide to tell me to take a hike, we will probably have to take a hike.”

Anne Mendoza, the attorney for the commission, argued before the district court that the idea reservations--or any host of a boxing event--can regulate themselves and the boxers involved is “elusory,” and could easily be stained by promoters who are in business with the reservations and are uninterested in the safety of the fighters.

Boxing Notes

Oxnard junior-lightweight Robert Garcia is scheduled to fight a 10-round bout against Jose Luis Madrid tonight on the Fantasy Springs undercard, Garcia’s third fight since leaving promoter Bob Arum and the Oscar De La Hoya camp to sign with promoter Don King. According to Garcia, the move last January was caused when his former manager and trainer Robert Alcazar (also De La Hoya’s former head trainer) told him the only way he could stay with Arum is if he remained with Alcazar. “I decided that the best way for me to train [would be] with my dad [Eduardo, who also trains 18-year-old Olympic fighter Fernando Vargas],” said Garcia, 21. “They told me the only way I could be with Bob Arum is if we train you, and I didn’t want that.”

Under King and the training of his father, Garcia (24-0, 18 knockouts) has risen to the No. 2 ranking in the International Boxing Federation and No. 3 in the World Boxing Council, and is looking for a title fight by the end of this year.

Though a Top Rank Inc. executive was quoted recently saying that there was a final deal to stage the De La Hoya-Miguel Angel Gonzalez bout at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on pay-per-view, De La Hoya has not yet officially signed for the fight--and there is a strong possibility the fight, once the money details are ironed out, could be at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, which was host to several earlier De La Hoya bouts.

With former champion Michael Moorer having won the IBF title last weekend in a decision over Axel Schulz, he is expected to fight No. 1 contender Frans Botha on the undercard of Mike Tyson’s anticipated fall bout with Evander Holyfield at the MGM Grand. If both men win, Tyson could fight Moorer in a bout that would unify all three heavyweight titles.