Columnist Dean Juipe: Buffalo Jim looks North for survival

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Aug. 4, 1999 | 9:44 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

The recent history of professional sports in North Las Vegas can best be summarized with this remark: There is no recent history of professional sports in North Las Vegas.

Since the Silver Nugget dropped its monthly boxing cards a few years ago, the North Las Vegas sportscape has been reduced to hollow promises. Not one but two massive sports arenas have gone from the drawing board to either the trash bin or a perpetual holding pattern, leaving some city residents exasperated.

Saturday the situation changes ever so slightly, if you accept the caveat of professional wrestling qualifying as a sporting event. Moving from what had been monthly cards at The Orleans, the Buffalo Wrestling Federation will initiate what it hopes could lead to twice-monthly cards in a Silver Nugget arena that has been reduced to hosting the occasional wedding in lieu of the sporting events it was originally constructed to house.

"I can't lie, I've got butterflies about this," promoter Buffalo Jim Barrier said Tuesday of moving his shows closer to downtown. "I grew up in North Las Vegas and it's a fact that they don't have much in the way of sports. I think people will be pretty stoked about this."

Barrier was doing OK at The Orleans but couldn't get the busy hotel to commit its 1,600-seat ballroom to regular dates for wrestling. As a result, he'll try the 1,800-seat arena at what is now called Mahoney's Silver Nugget, even though the switch will cost Barrier additional money in that he now has to cover rooms, meals, set up and security at the new site.

"I get the food concession, but other than that I'll be paying out quite a bit more," he said. "But that's all right if we can just break even. Actually, I can absorb a little loss for a while."

He thinks wrestling is a better fit at Mahoney's and he likes the aesthetics.

"Mahoney's arena has a good, old-time boxing feel to it," he said. "It's not plush or like some fancy ballroom. It's like the Blue Horizon in Philadelphia."

Continuing the boxing motif, Barrier has local pro heavyweight Cliff Couser set to participate in Saturday's show as a "special enforcer." Couser, for those unfamiliar with him, is stunningly similar to Mike Tyson in every way and will reprise Tyson's role in one of the Wrestlemanias that habitually do so well on pay-per-view.

Another pro boxer, former heavyweight champ Michael Dokes, is said to be nearly ready to debut as a wrestler. He's going by the name "The Player" and has been studying the sport at Barrier's wrestling school.

Each of Barrier's wrestlers is conscious of putting on a good show and sticking to Barrier's edict of giving something back to the fans.

"People are spending their good money, so I have to provide a good, quality show," Barrier said. "I've got to give them more than their money's worth back, or else I'm a one-time shot and I'll be out of there."

He's fidgety and a little nervous, having so much time, effort and money wrapped up in this thing. But it was working off the Strip, so it ought to work on it.

"I'm hoping," he said. "We've got a cult following, so to speak, and now we're moving to a place that's a safe family center that has plenty of security. North Las Vegas needs something like this."