Thursday, April 4, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
He has trained four world champions and currently has two fighters with world-title bouts on the horizon. Yet, Kenny Adams says, by the end of next year he expects to be out of boxing.
Forthright and outspoken, Adams never fails to make himself clear. And he made it fairly clear the other day that at 55 years old he's beginning to see his association with the sport coming to an end.
"Boxing keeps you uptight all the time, and I'm just at the point where I need to relax and not be uptight all the time," he said. "I'm getting too many gray hairs."
Adams put in 30 years in the U.S. Army and trained four straight Army teams that won armed-service championships (1984-87). He was also a coach for the U.S. Olympic boxing team in 1988.
The following year he moved to Las Vegas and began training professional fighters. He has always kept his stable of fighters to a minimum, taking on only potential world champions and men willing to accept discipline and commitment. His fighters are habitually well-schooled.
Two of his proteges will be fighting for world championships soon, as welterweight Vince Phillips has an April 12 fight with WBA champ Ike Quartey in the Caribbean islands, and junior welterweight Jan Bergman is ranked No. 1 by both the WBC and IBF. Phillips is 33-1, Bergman 31-0 with a May 11 fight scheduled in his native South Africa.
"I think Phillips will win and I want to stay with Bergman until he gets his title," Adams said. Bergman is looking at a mandatory shot at either IBF champ Kostya Tszyu by September, or, should it fall into place sooner, a mandatory with the winner of the June 7 WBC title fight at Caesars Palace between Julio Cesar Chavez and Oscar De La Hoya.
"Nobody is running me out of boxing, I'm just tired of it," Adams said. "I like the boxing part of it, but there's just too much B.S. in this game."
Around the ring
* MAC'S BACK: Another of Adams' fighters, former IBF super bantamweight champ Kennedy McKinney, has moved back to Las Vegas and is training for a May 5 fight on CBS against John Lewus. Forum Boxing of Los Angeles had hoped to use McKinney in an undercard role on a May 4 show in Anaheim, but McKinney's manager, Akbar Muhammad, confirmed Wednesday that McKinney would take the CBS date instead; the site of that fight remains uncertain. "Nobody is ever going to beat me again," said the 28-2-1 McKinney, who is coming off a loss in Los Angeles to Marco Antonio Barrera. "He'd have won that fight, but he played Barrera's game," Adams said. "I wasn't happy with him and his performance. He did just what we didn't want him to do, which was to go in there looking to end it with one shot." McKinney acknowledged the mistake, saying: "I lost because I brawled with him. I couldn't get it out of my head that I wanted to fight that boy and hurt him. Then, when he was hurt, I saw the quit in his eyes and that tempted me even more." Barrera, the unbeaten WBO champ, won by TKO in the 12th round.
* WAYNE'S WORLD: Irishman Wayne McCullough, the WBC bantamweight champion who lives in Las Vegas, survived a scare Saturday in Dublin when he took a split-decision victory over former 115-pound world champ Jose Luis Bueno. "I need a good rest," McCullough said after the bruising fight that left him battered and weary. "Bueno's a good puncher and he hit harder than I thought he would." Bueno was ahead by three points on one judge's card, while McCullough gained the decision by being ahead by four points on each of the other two judges' cards. The victory was McCullough's 19th without a loss and kept his spot on the June 7 Chavez-De La Hoya undercard intact. He'll face Luigi Camputaro, 29-8-1, for a bout in which Top Rank is paying McCullough $450,000.
* BOWE STALLED: The man who trains McCullough, 82-year-old Eddie Futch, also trains WBO heavyweight champ Riddick Bowe and he's not happy about Bowe's recent return to his undisciplined ways. "I'm disappointed," Futch said of Bowe not training and not having a fight scheduled. "I haven't had any conversation with Riddick or (manager) Rock Newman since last November. He needs to be fighting regularly." For what it's worth, the WBO is threatening to strip Bowe of his title if he doesn't agree to fight Alex Zolkin by July. Bowe has not fought since Nov. 4 at Caesars Palace when he defeated Evander Holyfield. Newman has spent his time trying to extract Bowe from his contract with HBO, which is an unusual move except that it would free Bowe for a November fight with Mike Tyson on Showtime.
* McCALLUM-TATE: Futch, who lives in Las Vegas, also trains three-time former champion Mike McCallum, a 40-something ring technician who will come back from a 10-month layoff to fight Frank Tate next Tuesday in Indio, Calif. The USA cable network will televise the bout, which pits the 48-3-1 McCallum against the 35-4 Tate, an ex-middleweight champion who is now 31 years old. McCallum has had 17 world-title fights and has lost only to Sumbu Kalambay, James Toney and Fabrice Tiozzo, the latter last June in France.
* QUICK HITS: The official announcement has yet to be made, but The Mirage will host a May 18 card that will feature IBF welterweight champ Felix Trinidad vs. veteran Freddie Pendleton in the main event. Promoter Don King will probably add two title fights to that card, including WBA featherweight champ Eloy Rojas vs. Wilfredo Vasquez, and WBC strawweight champ Ricardo Lopez vs. an opponent yet to be determined. ... Top Rank's June 1 card outdoors at Boulder Station is a go, with the WBC junior lightweight title fight between champion Azumah Nelson, 38-3-2, and former champ James Leija, 30-2-2, headlining. The winner will fight Gabe Ruelas later this year. Fellow 130-pounders Ricardo Vargas, 20-5-3, and Enrique Sanchez, 17-0, top the June 1 undercard. ... Legal reasons are slowing the formal announcement, but Mike Tyson vs. WBA champ Bruce Seldon looks to be on for July 13 at the MGM. Tyson, by the way, said this week he would marry Monica Turner before that fight. She recently gave birth to a daughter, Rayna, who is Tyson's second child. ... There's nothing on the local schedule until April 27 at the Aladdin.
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