On Saturday, for the umpteenth time, Vegas will transform into Fight City. Thousands will pack the MGM Grand Garden to see boxing's "Golden Boy" (Oscar De La Hoya) battle its "Executioner" (Bernard Hopkins) in a middleweight championship fight billed as a "Quest for History." Hundreds of thousands will likely watch on pay-per-view, making it one of the richest non-heavyweight bouts in history. No matter who wins, with their hefty paydays (Goldie's $20 million, the X-Man's $10 million) each guy should feel like a champ. And Vegas wins. Another feather in Fight City's cap.
But in a barnyard-looking gym over on Highland Avenue—miles from the MGM in distance but a continent apart in scale—obscure fighters and young pugilists will duel for pride, for the chance to put training to use, for the satisfaction of seeing hard work pay off, for fun. They'll do so under the watchful eyes and instructive voices of Dawn and Pat Barry, whose gym, Barry's Boxing Center—where they "teach the science, not the violence" of boxing—has used pugilism to build and repair thousands of lives over the past years.
Afternoons here is where you'll find Augie Sanchez, the city's last great hope for boxing glory. The Cheyenne High graduate trolls the gym, correcting form, barking instructions, demonstrating—a coach. He looks training-camp fit, much like the up-and-coming featherweight he was three years ago, like he could still mix it up with the world's best 122-pounders. Not that he'll get the chance.
After suffering vicious knockouts in 2001 and 2002, the Nevada State Athletic Commission refused to re-license him. Since athletic commissions in other states defer to NSAC rulings, Sanchez's career is effectively over. "If you can't fight in Vegas," he told the Weekly in an interview several months ago, "where else are you going to fight?"
With Sanchez out for the count, prospects for a homegrown contender are dim.
How dim?
Vegas has produced only two Olympic boxers in the last 30 years: Sanchez and Ross Thompson. That's two more than the number of homegrown world champions. (By contrast, the Kronk Gym has bred more than 30 title-holders over roughly the same period.) And two more than the number of top-ranked fighters in the three major boxing organizations.
Put another way: none.
To call this a drought misses the point: A drought assumes there was once fertility.
Vegas has been professional boxing's mecca for decades—host of the biggest fights, home to top gyms (including the legendary Johnny Tocco's Ringside Gym), top trainers (Floyd Mayweather Sr., Kenny Croom), former and current world champions (heavyweight champions Chris Byrd and John Ruiz, and super-talent Floyd Mayweather among them) and a once-thriving amateur program.
And still no contenders.
Ask why, and the reasons come as fast as a Roy Jones combination:
Some say the Golden Gloves amateur program has faltered since the deaths of its creators, Hal and Faye Miller. Others blame the casinos—back in the '80s, the Showboat (later Castaways) hosted bouts featuring world champions like Alexis Arguello, Wilfred Benitez and Cornelius Boza-Edwards, among others; today, only the Orleans consistently holds both amateur and pro fights.
A boxer requesting anonymity says that an expensive and cumbersome licensing process deters many athletes from turning or staying professional here and elsewhere. Basic requirements include: an ophthalmologic exam, tests for HIV, Hepatitis B Surface Antigen and Hepatitis C Antibody, an MRI brain scan and a regular physical exam. Add these stipulations for amateur boxers, kickboxers and martial artists: electrocardiogram, urinalysis and blood tests. And these for professional fighters 36 years old and older, those who've fought more than 425 rounds since being licensed as a professional boxer or kickboxer, and those who haven't fought in the last 36 months: neurological exam, additional blood tests, chest X-ray and a comprehensive physical exam.
"I spend $800 on medical exams ... the license itself is only $25," the pro boxer says.
Dawn Barry points to media snubs. Media blitzes usually accompany her promotions. Such was the case for her Las Vegas vs. London card Saturday at the Orleans. No press showed. (The Vegas team won nine of 13 bouts).
A local boxing writer who also requested anonymity blames fighters—he claims they're not that talented. "You've got to use the same people over and over, so you end up not having enough good people to put on cards every week," the writer says. "You can't get people to pay to see fights every week, even if the ticket's only $20, if you don't have exciting fighters."
Luis Tapia, owner of the legendary Johnny Tocco's Ringside Gym, cites frugality among the business community and the rich fighters who live here. Some boxers donate, but most don't. "They often visit the gym, but it's mainly for small talk and to take Polaroid shots with the kids," Tapia says.
Fighters without HBO or Showtime contracts or backing from heavyweight promoters like Don King, Bob Arum or Dan Goossen—essentially, most pro boxers here—compete in front of dozens, sometimes hundreds of fans. It can be worse for amateurs. Such is the situation of talented Henderson high-schooler Avelino Chavez (10-0). Lawrence Hidaka, a writer for lvboxing.com, says Chavez is made for TV.
"He's young, handsome, undefeated and has an entertaining 'hit-and-get-hit' boxing style, which is the best style to attract mainstream sports fans," Hidaka says. "Think Arturo Gatti and Mickey Ward. He'll probably never be a top world contender, but his journey will be extremely entertaining. Yet no one knows who he is. You've got to be kidding me! His face should be on the front page of the sports section every time he fights. He should be all over the local news, he should be talking to the morning DJs on the radio. With proper exposure, he would pack the Orleans Arena every time he fights."
If Hidaka's correct and Chavez doesn't break into the big time, he'll probably need a second job if he wants to continue boxing. One fighter, according to a local trainer, earned $600 for a recent bout.After paying his trainer and cornermen, he left the arena with $60.
Or Chavez could join the boxing exodus out of town.
"All the good Las Vegas fighters," says Tapia, "are packing up and moving to California."
Hidaka isn't one for ambiguity: Fight City is a misnomer.
"There's no reason to expect that Las Vegas would produce more than its share of top pro boxers," he says. "The phrase 'boxing capital of the world' is largely a self-proclaimed title, articulated by ring announcers and referring to the fact that Vegas hosts more than its share of high-profile boxing matches. The people involved in these high-profile boxing matches are not necessarily Las Vegas people.
"In fact," he continues, "it has been my experience that Las Vegas people are not even familiar with the phrase. When I explain to people that I moved to Las Vegas because it is the 'boxing capital of the world,' I'm usually met with a blank stare."
He's just getting started.
"Professional boxing is a true international sport, so it's practically impossible for one city in the world to stand out. Las Vegas boxers are not just competing with California boxers and Texas boxers. Ultimately, they're up against Mexico, the Philippines, Thailand, South Korea, England, Russia, Nigeria, Ghana ...
"The popularity of other sports in this country is another factor. If you're a big, strong, athletic kid in this country, chances are you're not hanging out in a boxing gym. You're on a basketball court, or on a football field, or taking batting practice, or doing something else that might get you a scholarship and doesn't involve getting punched in the face on a regular basis."
"World famous" proclaims the voice on the answering machine, hinting at a reputation forged in blood, sweat and championships. For a half century, Johnny Tocco's Ringside Gym has been the local version of Detroit's famed Kronk Gym, professional boxing's best. Consider the ring royalty that has sweated within its confines on the corner of Charleston Boulevard and Main Street: Muhammad Ali, Sonny Liston, Larry Holmes, Roberto Duran, Mike Tyson, Mayweather.
Like it has on much of Downtown, time has done a number on the old gym. On this hot summer afternoon, the front and back doors are open to let air in; black, steel screen doors keep visitors out.
Against the buzz of Charleston traffic you can't hear the goings- on inside, but squint through the front-door screen and you can see mirrors, punching bags (one smaller to build speed, one larger to build strength) and two bodies in motion. Owner/trainer Tapia is on the left, an amateur fighter facing him. Maneuvering on the balls of his feet, the practicing pugilist bobs and weaves under and away from Tapia's telegraphed punches, then counters with crisp jabs, uppercuts and hooks that snap within an inch of Tapia's grill. About 5-foot-6, muscled yet lithe, the young man has quick feet and Spider-Man reflexes.
But this is training and the ring. And without a way to measure the intangibles—heart, character, peel-yourself-off-the-canvas fortitude—there's no way of knowing whether this youngster has what it takes to make it in this prizefighting jungle.
Can he build on Augie Sanchez's success?
Butch Gottlieb is hemming and hawing. The co-owner (with partner Mary Owen) of boxinginlasvegas.com is talking about the type of people who choose a boxing career. He's talking around his point, which isn't as explicit as these people gotta be nutso, but that boxers are ... "a different breed than the kid in high school playing football or basketball or baseball.
"Those kids get to look forward to zillion-dollar contracts," says Gottlieb, who worked 15 years as an NSAC inspector, supervising the wrapping of boxers' hands in the dressing room and making sure folks in a fighters' corners obeyed rules. "In boxing, I don't care who you are, you're lucky if you make $600 your first fight. You have to be really dedicated because there is no money in this sport until you get to the big fights or win a medal in the Olympics and sign with a big promoter. Ricky Williams won a silver medal in the Olympics (in Atlanta in 1996) and got a $1 million signing bonus. In his eighth pro fight, he got $180,000. Some guys, most guys, don't make that in a career."
Remember the boxer with the $60 payday? He entered the ring in arrears.
Before he came to the arena, put on his trunks and gloves and answered the opening bell, he paid nearly $500 for a battery of mandatory health exams—no tests, no license.
Few argue with the necessity of such rules—for years, boxers, trainers and observers have called for stricter safety measures, in addition to a federal oversight commission. What many take issue with is how the NSAC enforces the standards, and its enormous sway. Rulings from the world's preeminent boxing regulatory body are edict-like. Witness the hot potato that was Tyson's reinstatement attempt in 2002. After athletic commissions in other states balked, Tennessee eventually agreed to license the ex-champ to fight Lennox Lewis. There'd be no such reprieve for Sanchez who, many argued, was at his physical peak at age 24 when the NSAC refused to re-license him.
From talking to boxers, trainers and writers about NSAC emerges a picture of a regulatory body that's well-intentioned but too powerful, more attuned to megafights than the amateur and club circuits.
NSAC Executive Director Marc Ratner disagrees. "We're the only commission in world where every ticket sold in Nevada, we put 50 cents or $1 back into an amateur fund. We give out $50,000 a year for travel," Ratner says. "Amateur boxing is a tough proposition, not just here but everywhere ... I'm not sure why businesses don't support it more and, honestly, I don't see a hotel saying, 'Let's be a big sponsor.' The last person like that was (Kirk) Kerkorian, who was Nevada Partners' benefactor." (Nevada Partners ran an on-site gym for eight years before closing to make room for its expanding Culinary Academy training program.)
As it relates to Vegas, Ratner says television isn't a panacea. "A hot sport like basketball doesn't draw here. Neither does high- school football. I don't know why that is. Boxing is never going to be a widely attended amateur sport, unless you get a hot-hot kid who looks like he's going to the Olympics and that's maybe once in a decade. There's a lot of education needed about boxing."
To Hidaka, television may not be the cure for what ails amateur and professional boxing, but it's a suitable placebo.
"The lack of exposure boxing suffers from today results in sports fans becoming apathetic," he says. "This wasn't the case back in the '80s, when even non-boxing fans talked about Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns and Ray 'Boom Boom' Mancini," Hidaka says. "Even more so back in the '50s, when boxing was on every week on broadcast TV and everyone talked about Sugar Ray Robinson and Rocky Marciano and Archie Moore."
While television has made household names of some fighters, it's also exposed boxing's underbelly: unscrupulous promoters, fighters allowed to compete way past their prime, rigged bouts.
"What else is new?" Janne Romppainen wrote on eastsideboxing.com after the judges sided with Shane Mosley in his fight against De La Hoya. De La Hoya landed 94 more punches, including more power shots.
"There are times when boxing matches and their outcomes almost seem to resemble those of wrestling," Orlando Rios wrote on doghouseboxing.com.
Tyson and King have taken turns blackening boxing's eyes. Remember the former's ear-biting, threats of emasculating a photographer and eating a fellow boxer's children and his expressed desire to rape the woman who accused him of the crime (for which he served three years)? The histrionics have made him boxing's biggest draw.
You can now catch King's minstrel act this election, as he's one of the blackfaces of Bush's re-election campaign. An uber-patriot when the cameras are on, King is cutthroat behind the scenes. Lest you think he has scruples: King not only negotiated with homicidal Zairean presiedent Mobuto Sese Soko in order to pull off the Ali-vs.-George Forman "Rumble in the Jungle," but got the tyrant to donate millions to make the fight a global spectacle.
He's been sued by several fighters (Tyson for $100 million before settling for $14 million), lambasted by commentators and vilified by fellow promoters. By controlling so many big-name fighters and champions, he's fashioned himself into a virtual boxing monopoly and made himself, as far as promoters go, the face of boxing.
Some spokesman.
The room is cavernous, more car dealership floor room than gym. A handful of fighters jump rope or shadow box. The ring is empty for now. Welcome to the Richard Steele Boxing Gym on A Street, between Owens and Washington avenues.
Perhaps you know Steele, perhaps you don't. While Judge Mills Lane might be the most famous referee, Steele might be the best, manning more than 160 championship fights, including epochal battles, pictures of which hang in his office—Hagler vs. Leonard, De La Hoya vs. Fernando Vargas, Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Duran, Leonard vs. Hagler. Steele looks fighter-svelte. The only notable differences between the man in the office and the one in the pictures are hair (thick then, none now) and a few wrinkles. Next to Steele is Jose Banales, who coaches junior Olympians 16 years old and under.
Asked about Vegas' inability to groom fighters, Banales begins rattling off names and stats:
Melinda Cooper, five national titles; Alfonso Mecinas, three national titles; Enrique Avila, two national titles. Another girl, whose name he can't recall, has three U.S. crowns, and another boy has one championship. Expect some Olympians from this group in a few years, he says.
That's the future.
What about the past and present?
Banales repeats the same systemic failings—not enough money to send local boxers out of state to fight the nation's best, not enough venues hosting amateur boxing, not enough people filling the limited seats. Banales admits that for every Cooper, there are five fighters like Jesse Feliciano, a gusty, heart-on-his-sleeve 135-pounder who deserves notoriety; for every Avila there are six like Danny Felix, a talented amateur with scant backing.
So Steele's focus has largely been using boxing to draw youth into his extensive self-help program. Tutoring, mentoring, gang and drug awareness, self-esteem and leadership development all come before you step in the ring. It's the model upon which most of the handful of amateur programs were built: Offer services for free or cheap membership. But with increased popularity came additional costs, which necessitated modest fees. Groups like the United Way and Lindsey Foundation offered support. In recent years, business and civic organizations have ignored pleas for help.
Interest among youth remains high. There are hundreds of kids in local programs; Steele's has 300, with hundreds more interested. Girls comprise a growing demographic, Latinas especially. One night at Steele's former gym at Nevada Partners saw a predominantly Latino crowd, from professionals to pudgy little girls with gloves bigger than their heads fighting their hearts out.
That was this summer.
As of last week, Steele's gym was closed (he didn't return a call for comment). December saw the shuttering of the Gloves Gym on Gragson Lane.
Gym closures hurt amateur boxing in more ways than the obvious—the hundreds of youth who now have idle time. Dawn Barry says the lack of stability deters businesses from supporting gyms. "Businesses want accountability for their money and they want to know that your program is successful or can be successful," she says.
Largely through shrewd marketing and charging higher prices at the food-vending outposts during events, Barry's Boxing Center has been able to cater to its 355 boxers and send fighters across the country to compete. If more gyms would focus on self-sufficiency instead of relying on NSAC's limited funding, Barry says, the business community might be more willing to pony up.
"They need to stop begging and start working," she says.
Boxing can be beautiful. Not the violence, but the physical artistry, the end result of the physics of knowing how to throw a punch, how to use every part of your body to deliver a concussive blow. It's something to see the kill-the-body-and-the-head-will-follow adage in motion. One night at the Golden Gloves Gym, before its closure, a trainer made a man throw flurries of body shots. Come sparring time, the drills worked to brutal perfection; he dropped his opponent.
Equally satisfying is watching young children fight, timidity evolving into windmill punches followed by the knockdowns, followed by the post-fight smiles.
Boxing is more personal than sports played with—and under—equipment. Punches—and the reaction to them—tell stories more intimate than dunks, touchdowns, home runs, goals or 120-mph aces. They may pull up in the parking lot of Barry's Boxing Center carefree, music playing too loud, but once inside, they're transformed into boxers, respectful practitioners of the sweet science of hand-to-hand- combat. You see emotion in their eyes, in their punches.
Local boxing is experiencing its own standing 10-count. Without money (to keep gyms from closing) and fan interest (to convince casinos to open their showrooms and arenas) to prop it up, amateur boxing will continue to struggle—the Barrys, Tapias and Steeles of the world doing the best with what they've got; fewer talented kids given the opportunity to train, compete and grow and fewer turning into professional fighters.
There is hope.
UNLV's boxing club has won nine national collegiate crowns in six years (Moon Kim captured the 112-pound championship this year) and Floyd Mayweather, who's steadily building Hall of Fame credentials, honed his craft in Las Vegas.
"Mayweather came here as an amateur and developed his career here (at Tocco's)," Tapia says. Of the 150 fighters that use Tocco's, he trains seven, including a female world champion. "So this is a place where fighters can come learn and improve."
Also promising is growing casino interest in hosting fights—in a two-week stretch the Gold Coast, Orleans and Silverton held bouts (on July 7 and June 25, 26, respectively). While cards at the Orleans are nothing new, "now you've got CMX (Sports and Entertainment) and Guilty Boxing is hosting monthly cards and weekly cards," says Gottlieb, who's cautiously optimistic about the ambitious schedule.
"I'm worried if it won't eventually drain the pool of fighters."