Columnist Dean Juipe: The fight will go on, weather or not

Dean Juipe

Thursday, March 2, 2000 | 9:51 a.m.

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

Past and present Caesars Palace executives can recall the misgivings they had anytime the hotel-casino sponsored a sporting event that was being held outdoors. Their concerns weren't with such trivialities as the facility or attendance, but with the weather.

It was an endless topic of conversation when Caesars hosted the annual Alan King tennis tournament some 20 years ago, and it occasionally surfaced when it acquired a major fight card that would be held outdoors. The fear was that it might be too hot, or maybe too cold.

Or maybe that it would rain.

With Caesars once again hosting an outdoor fight card Friday and with the weekend forecast for more of the same cool and rainy weather Southern Nevada has been experiencing the past two weeks, those involved can only cross their fingers.

Good weather or bad, there is no contingency plan and the fight card -- topped by David Reid vs. Felix Trinidad -- will go as scheduled.

"This will be a hot fight even if it's cold," co-promoter Don King bellowed Wednesday when asked for his thoughts on the subject. "But I'm appealing to the Lord to give us a decent evening. He's the only one who can do anything about it."

With the main event not starting until after 8 o'clock, at the very least it will be chilly.

"Everyone wanted to get boxing back at Caesars and reopen its outdoor stadium, so we'll deal with the weather no matter how bad it is," said co-promoter Dan Goossen, who handles Reid. "It's just another facet of the promotion.

"It might be cold and it might be wet. I might get my family to stand outside the gates and sell those ponchos fans can wear over their heads."

Any type of bad weather would seem to favor Reid, who was born in Philadelphia and has been training for this fight in Denver. Trinidad, meanwhile, is a Puerto Rican who has been in Las Vegas less than a week and could hardly be acclimated to the inconsistent weather.

"Reid told me he'll knock out Trinidad even if it snows," Goossen said.

Caesars has constructed a 10,100-seat stadium solely for this event, and although the ticket prices are high ($250 to $1,000) a good crowd is expected and some 7,000 seats are said to already be accounted for. Those who attend may be impressed by the facility, which stands only 18 feet off the ground at its highest point.

Fans who recall the permanent facility that once stood in the back lot at Caesars may also recall some fights in horrid weather there. One that's seasonally relevant here: March 10, 1986, with Marvin Hagler and John Mugabi in the main event of a card that was plagued by rain all the way until Hagler and Mugabi entered the ring.

* CAESARS UNDERCARD: After considerable shuffling and deleting, Friday's undercard appears to be in place and the first bell is scheduled for 4 p.m.

The lineup includes: William Joppy, 27-1-1, vs. Fernando Zuniga, 18-2, 10 rounds, middleweights; Julio Gamboa, 24-4, vs. Felix Machado, 18-3, 12 rounds for the vacant IBF junior bantamweight title that current champion Mark Johnson is unable to defend (due to legal problems); Felix Flores, 14-1, vs. Miguel Angel Ruiz, 21-6-2, 12 rounds, junior welterweights; Frederic Serrat, 9-0, vs. Gary Campbell, 3-5-2, eight rounds, super middleweights; Friday Ahunanya, 8-0, vs. Donald Macon, 4-2-1, six rounds, heavyweights; and a women's lightweight bout between Christy Martin, 38-2-2, and Belinda Laracuente, 17-3-1, scheduled for 10.

Off the card are earlier-announced fighters Julio Cesar Chavez and Ray Mercer, Chavez having declined for financial reasons and Mercer still bothered by hepatitis.

In addition, Joppy is fighting on the card but not defending his WBA middleweight title as his mandatory challenger, Rito Ruvalcaba, dropped out this week due to illness.

* SATURDAY CARD: There is, of course, another major fight card in town this weekend, as Mandalay Bay hosts a Saturday show that has WBA bantamweight champion Paulie Ayala defending his title against Johnny Bredahl.

Ayala is 29-1 with 12 knockouts, while Bredahl is 45-1 with 23 KOs.

The betting line for the main event may vary from one Las Vegas sports book to another. At Mandalay Bay it's Ayala minus 800 and Bredahl plus 550, while Ayala is a minus 1400 at Caesars Palace and a minus 1000 offshore.

Also scheduled: Nestor Garza, 37-1, vs. Bones Adams, 38-3-3, 12 rounds for Garza's WBA super bantamweight title; Yory Boy Campas, 74-3, vs. Oba Carr, 49-3-1, 10 rounds at the "catch" weight of 151 pounds; Butterbean Esch, 52-1-2, vs. George Linberger, 18-4-1, four rounds, heavyweights; Danny Romero, 37-3-1, vs. Adarryl Johnson, 11-3-2, 10 rounds, super bantamweights; Mikkel Kessler, 14-0, vs. Israel Ponce, 15-12, six rounds, middleweights; Simon Welms, 1-0, vs. Juan Maldonado, 3-2, four rounds, heavyweights; and a women's featherweight bout between Nina Ahlin, 5-1-1, and Tracey Stevens, 1-3.

Regular readers may recall Linberger, once a member of the now-defunct Las Vegas Sting of the Arena Football League, using this column a month ago to lobby for the fight with Esch -- and he got it.

"I'm real excited," he said this week. "This is the type of fight I've been looking for forever. I'm prepared and I anticipate beating him.

"I don't think he's fought anyone as strong as me and I guarantee you I'm a lot tougher opponent than he's used to seeing. I'm a banger, just like he is, but I'm also going to move and not get caught up in his game.

"If they thought it was going to be another easy win for him, they picked the wrong guy."

* SUNDAY CARD: As if cards Friday and Saturday aren't enough, Las Vegas also has a Sunday card at the New Frontier.

Scheduled: Robbie Peden, 15-0, vs. Carlos Rios, 48-3-2, 12 rounds, junior lightweights; Maselino Masoe, 14-0, vs. Santiago Samaniego, 28-5-1, 10 rounds, junior middleweights; Glenn Robinson, 10-1-1, vs. Jesus Ruiz, 14-0, eight rounds, light heavyweights; Artyam Galstyan, pro debut, vs. Jamel Hodges, pro debut, four rounds, lightweights; Jose DeJesus, 9-1, vs. an opponent yet to be determined, six rounds, welterweights; Awel Abdulai, 6-6, vs. Mark Saurez, 13-0, six rounds, junior welterweights; and Ted Padilla, 0-3, vs. an opponent yet to be determined, four rounds, featherweights.