While Some Dismiss Him, Goossen Still Finds a Niche

David Tua calls him Moses.

The Ruelas brothers called him their surrogate father.

Over the years, however, not enough big-name fighters have called on trainer Joe Goossen.

As knowledgeable and personable and effective as he has been, Goossen has been unable to slip the verbal jabs of those who dismissed him as the kid from the Valley, the kid who never had fought in the ring, the kid who worked in dingy little gyms, the kid who depended on his brother, promoter Dan Goossen, to get him work.

Much of it is true. Yes, Joe has spent his career in the San Fernando Valley. Yes, he works in small gyms. He started at rock bottom, in a ring under a tree on a rocky Wiffle-ball field on property owned by his family at the end of a North Hollywood cul-de-sac.

That was the beginning of Ten Goose Boxing, the family-owned business that would produce several world champions. Joe always was at the core of that business, the man who actually produced the fighters.

Bantamweight Frankie Duarte apparently was washed up at 30 when he was introduced to Goossen in the mid 1980s. Duarte preferred partying to training, having once referred to himself as “my own worst enemy . . . a loser.”

Goossen turned Duarte into a winner. With disciplined training, Goossen first helped Duarte regain his self-respect, then his status as a title contender.

Middleweight Michael Nunn was a raw talent without a knockout punch when Goossen started training him. Goossen turned him into an aggressive fighter who went on to win titles as both a middleweight and super-middleweight.

Gabriel and Rafael Ruelas were 13 and 12, respectively, when they showed up at the door of the Ten Goose gym, selling candy. When their eyes widened at the sight of all the boxing equipment, Goossen took them in. As they grew, both in size and skill, Joe began bragging about their skill to Dan. Dan kept changing the subject, to Nunn or Duarte or other established Ten Goose fighters. But Joe kept pushing his kids and both went on to win world titles.

“Joe always downplays himself,” said Dan, who is admittedly biased. “He doesn’t need the spotlight. All he cares about is winning. I always thought what stood in his way was his last name. People don’t understand that Joe is his own entity. He is not just a trainer because his brother is a promoter. Even if I was not in the business, he would still be as great as he is.”

MOSES AND HIS PEOPLE

Today, Joe doesn’t have to push his fighters. Their skills do that.

He is part of a company, DeCubas-Goossen Management, which has nearly 40 fighters.

Of course, Goossen, 47, can’t train all of them, but he is concentrating on three: heavyweight Lance Whitaker of Van Nuys, whose second-round knockout of Oleg Maskaev last Saturday at Caesars Palace has put Whitaker in the title picture; Tua, who lost a heavyweight title match by decision to Lennox Lewis last November but returns to the ring next Friday against Danell Nicholson, and Joel Casamayor, the World Boxing Assn. super-featherweight champion.

Six days a week until Whitaker’s fight, Goossen was training Tua from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., Whitaker from 1:30 to 4:30, and Casamayor from 5 to 7:30.

“By 10 p.m., I fall face forward into bed,” Goossen said. “It’s like boot camp. But I wake up refreshed and ready to go.”

It would seem to take a juggler to balance the egos of these fighters, each of whom naturally wants to feel he is the most important item on the trainer’s agenda, but Goossen seems able to connect with each of them.

Tua says it is Goossen who will lead him back to glory after an embarrassing performance against Lewis, one in which Tua appeared to quit after the second round.

“Now you know why I named him Moses,” said Tua of Goossen. “I cannot say enough about Joe. He has gotten me to look at my career, has helped me with my mental ability. He has me focused. Joe Goossen is always there. It is just he and I. His eyes are on me. I am very blessed to have him.”

Goossen prefers to give his fighters the credit.

“These guys make my life a lot easier,” he said. “They will all go to the wire with me. I ask a lot of them, but they give a lot back.”

KNOCKED OUT BY GREED?

Vernon Forrest may be pricing himself out of his 15 minutes of fame.

Forrest has been tentatively approved as Shane Mosley’s opponent when the World Boxing Council welterweight champion, fresh off his dazzling performance last week against Shannan Taylor, returns to the ring June 16.

But Forrest is asking for about $1.5 million, five times what Taylor made.

Unless Forrest budges, look for Mosley to turn to Ike Quartey.

STILL BITTER

Johnny Tapia faces Cuauhtemoc “Famosito” Gomez tonight at the Convention Center in Tapia’s hometown, Albuquerque (Showtime, 10 p.m.).

Tapia, a former International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Organization junior-bantamweight champion, and a former WBO and WBA bantamweight titleholder, claims he has put his tough loss to Paulie Ayala last October behind him.

“There are no bad feelings,” said Tapia, who also lost his first fight against Ayala. “I know I lost to the promoter [Bob Arum] and not the fighter. I’m just moving ahead. . . . Everybody knows what I went through in that fight. I wasn’t the judge and I didn’t have no promoter. That was . . . the best time I’ve ever boxed and I still lost.”

With Tapia convinced that Arum somehow had engineered the decision, Tapia’s brother-in-law, Rob Gutierrez, punched Todd DuBoef, Arum’s stepson, in the ring after the fight.

Exactly how did Arum pull off this alleged fix? Don’t ask Tapia. He’s moved on.