Forbes has a beef with promoter

Dean Juipe

Thursday, Dec. 6, 2001 | 9:57 a.m.

It isn't the least bit condescending to say Steve Forbes is only asking for what's reasonable and, from a business perspective, inherently wise.

The International Boxing Federation champion at 130 pounds, Forbes wants to strike while the iron's hot. He wants to fight ... be active ... let people see what he has to offer.

Yet the Las Vegas resident appears to be terminally sidelined and there is little doubt that the responsible party is his promotional firm, America Presents.

"I don't want to say I'm pissed off, but I'm to the point where I'm frustrated," he said this week. "I feel like a guy who's not supposed to be champion.

"My situation is one of the weirdest in boxing."

He's right, it is. Forbes, 24, is 20-1 and has been the IBF champion for precisely one year. Yet he fought only once in 2001, taking a 12-round decision over mandatory challenger John Brown Sept. 29 in Miami.

A back injury earlier in the year contributed to his inactivity, but Forbes rightfully contends that he should be part of the Jan. 12 America Presents card at the Cox Pavilion that features his fellow junior lightweight champions, Joel Casamayor and Acelino Freitas, in the main event.

"I'd like to fight on that card, maybe do my mandatory (vs. Lamont Pearson) in the spring and then fight the Casamayor-Freitas winner in the summer," Forbes said, laying out a sensible plan for 2002. "If those things were to happen, that would be great."

But there are no signs of any link in his ideal scenario falling into place.

"I don't see anything happening," he said, although an America Presents executive said the firm is seeking a cable-TV card for Forbes next month. "America Presents has two champions, me and Casamayor, and they have (Hector) Camacho (Jr.). I'd think they'd want to showcase those guys as much as possible, but I'm wondering where Forbes comes in.

"I wonder what the plan is."

And with good reason.

"The worst part of this is that everyone I know can see the same thing," Forbes said. "I feel disrespected. One of my goals when I became champion was to be active, but I'm anything but.

"When I call (America Presents promoter Mat) Tinley he says 'We're working on something' or "Call me back in a week' but it seems like a bunch of b.s.

"It makes me think I'm supposed to sit around until I'm the fall man."

There are those, including Forbes himself, who feel there's a chance he's being "used," yet even that wouldn't fully explain why America Presents hasn't capitalized on his status as a legitimate world champion. After all, if it wants to groom him for a unification fight with Casamayor, for instance, the logical approach would be to have Forbes on this same January card in Las Vegas.

"It makes me think me becoming a champion wasn't supposed to happen," Forbes said. "I know a lot of people in boxing feel I'm an accidental champion, although I think I'm respected by some of the older guys who've been around the game.

"But I have a lot of bitter feelings about how I'm being handled. I'm not saying those things can't be repaired -- and I want them to be repaired. But I'm feeling ignored."

Those types of feelings aren't completely new to him, however.

"I started at the bottom, of course," he said. "I moved to Las Vegas (in 1996) and lived in a hotel and didn't know anybody, and I've never been built up.

"The odds have always been against me, even back to when I was born and weighed 2 pounds and my heart stopped and my lungs gave out and they said I wasn't going to make it.

"But all these things prove I'm a fighter. I was born to fight."

Forbes -- who also has an arbitration hearing ahead with the Nevada State Athletic Commission concerning his desire to split from his former agent, Cameron Dunkin -- feels he's ready for the likes of Casamayor or Freitas, and claims he's conscious of upping his punching power as well as his public profile.

"I know I have the fewest knockouts (five) of any world champion," he said. "So I'm going to start dominating more and being more vicious. When I was an amateur (in Oregon) I was known for being vicious and going to the body, so I'm going to go back to my roots and be that way again.

"I'm a boxer, not a runner. And I'm going to take matters into my own hands when I get another fight, just like I did after I lost to (Alejandro) Gonzalez."

That March 11, 2000, decision in Indio, Calif., went against Forbes, but he has won all six of his fights since.

"Who would have thought two years ago that I'd be a world champion?" Forbes muses. "But I am because I can set goals and achieve them."

Bluntly, and with a smile, he's able to distance himself from his own feelings to contemplate the predicament he finds himself in.

"I'd think other fighters and promoters would see how few knockouts I have and say 'Let's fight that guy,' " Forbes said, wondering again why none of them have stepped forward.