Top Rank’s duBoef slugged after fight

Dean Juipe

Monday, Oct. 9, 2000 | 10:55 a.m.

Aside from some swelling around his right ear, Paulie Ayala looked pretty good one day after defeating Johnny Tapia in a hotly contested fight.

Also looking pretty good Sunday in spite of taking a shove from Tapia and an uncontested punch from the fighter's brother-in-law was Top Rank Boxing promoter Bob Arum's right-hand man, Todd duBoef.

DuBoef was the victim of an attack initiated by Tapia and completed by a relative and cornerman, Robert Gutierrez. The latter was arrested by Las Vegas Metro police following the incident with duBoef, which took place in the ring at the MGM Grand Garden and just seconds after Ayala had been announced as the fight's winner.

"I didn't even see it," duBoef said of getting hit on the right side of his face by Gutierrez, who also had been arrested for creating a ringside disturbance at the first Ayala vs. Tapia fight, 15 months earlier at Mandalay Bay.

The post-fight scenario was caught on film and will be reviewed by the Nevada State Athletic Commission. DuBoef said he would not press charges but felt the commission should intervene.

"If it was (Mike) Tyson or one of his people, they'd throw the book at 'em," duBoef said.

NSAC executive director Marc Ratner promised to take action.

"Definitely," he said. "We can't have something like this happen without making an appropriate response."

Ironically, duBoef was in the ring because Arum is banned from entering the ring as part of a six-month probation he accepted from the NSAC for "bringing disrespect to boxing" by participating in payoffs to the International Boxing Federation.

"I've got to thank the commission for keeping me out of harm's way," Arum said with a laugh. "Todd's a tough kid. He takes a better punch than me."

DuBoef said he was caught off guard by Tapia and never saw the punch from Gutierrez.

"After they announced Paulie as the winner, I went over to Johnny to congratulate him for another great fight," duBoef said. "Right away, he blamed me for the loss. He said I was the reason, or Top Rank was the reason, he lost and then he shoved me.

"That knocked me off balance and I'm thinking 'What the hell' when this other guy punches me from out of nowhere and knocks me down."

More than an hour later and apparently after Gutierrez had been released by police, as duBoef was leaving the arena he ran into Gutierrez again.

"He acted like he was going to take another run at me," duBoef said. "But someone who was with him held him back. Can you believe that?"

Arum did, barely.

"This kind of criminal conduct can't go unpunished," he said. "Tapia pushes Todd and says 'It's all your fault,' then his brother-in-law gets involved."

While neither Tapia nor his family have apologized for their actions, Arum was on the receiving end of something of an apology from an occasional friend and acquaintance, former baseball star Dean Chance. Sunday at the Plaza, while a Top Rank boxing card was taking place, Chance attempted to explain his bizarre actions following the Ayala vs. Tapia fight.

Chance, as head of the minor International Boxing Association, awarded that organization's featherweight championship to Tapia in spite of the latter's decision loss to Ayala.

"That's so absurd," Arum said. "No way can you do something like that. I know he wants Tapia as his champion, but make the guy fight someone and win first.

"You can't give a championship belt to a fighter who just lost."

Chance, nonetheless, did just that, bringing to mind the actions of another minor boxing group, the World Boxing Organization, after its super bantamweight champion, Marco Antonio Barrera, lost to Erik Morales last February at Mandalay Bay. Because the WBO felt Barrera had won, it continues to rank him as its champion.

As for Ayala, the World Boxing Association bantamweight champion appeared none the worse for wear Sunday, although his eardrum may be slightly injured. He'll take the remainder of 2000 off and Top Rank hopes to match him with either Prince Naseem Hamed, IBF bantamweight champ Tim Austin or ex-champ Danny Romero sometime early next year.