Columnist Dean Juipe: Casamayor favored to get past Garcia

Dean Juipe

Thursday, Jan. 4, 2001 | 10:24 a.m.

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

Still relatively untested but obviously a fighter with tremendous potential, World Boxing Association junior lightweight champion Joel Casamayor will step into the ring Saturday night at Texas Station with all eyes upon him.

It's a position the man across the ring from him, former champ Roberto Garcia, once enjoyed as well.

A mere 15 months ago it was Garcia who was undefeated and, perhaps, graced with unlimited potential. But a loss to Diego Corrales, followed by a loss last June to Ben Tackie, has Garcia's stock dropping.

He may be 33-2 with 24 knockouts and only 25 years old, yet he's being given very little chance by the boxing community to pull off an upset when he faces Casamayor with Showtime televising.

"Casamayor is a very smart fighter, very quick," Garcia said during a disjointed conference call Wednesday that attempted to feature each of the main-event participants. "He's a good fighter; when you're a world champion you deserve respect.

"But I've got the energy to train hard every day and it's the first time I've felt this good. I'm a lot better than I once was."

That belief will be open to debate as Garcia begins to trade with Casamayor, a 29-year-old Cuban who won the WBA championship by stopping Jongkwon Baek last May in Kansas City. Overall, Casamayor is 23-0 with 14 KOs as he prepares to add Garcia's name to his resume and advance to a bigger fight with one of the many solid competitors available today at 130 pounds.

Promoter Dan Goossen of America Presents has Casamayor on a timetable to face fellow unbeaten slugger Acelino Freitas by the summer.

"This is the strongest division in boxing," Goossen said, and there's no objecting to his claim. "There's a lot of competition."

Casamayor has emerged as one of the division's leading men on the strength of a 1996 Olympic gold medal, a defection from Cuba, and 23 professional fights in which he frequently has appeared dominant.

Part of his purse money, he says, is routinely sent home to Cuba, where his parents and a 5-year-old daughter await.

"I couldn't feed my family (while living in Cuba)," he said. "They did not treat me as a champion. They never gave me the honor of someone who had done so much for my country. That stayed in my head. That made me strong."

His gift from prime minister Fidel Castro for winning a gold medal? A bicycle.

But he actually defected from Cuba prior to the Olympic Games, walking away from the team's training camp in Mexico.

Turning pro in late '96, Casamayor has handled everyone put in front of him. While most of his victims have been journeymen and inferior boxers, he did beat a competent fighter in Baek and he also has wins over fringe contenders such as David Santos and Radford Beasley.

He needs to beat Garcia and look good doing it to convince what skeptics may remain.

"I'm at the top of my game," Casamayor said through an interpreter. "I'm in tremendous shape. I'll take care of business."

With Garcia making similar claims, citing improvements in his diet and training, it's reasonable to expect a decent battle.

"I'll try and do the best I can," Garcia said. "I'm going to put all my heart into it."

With Casamayor being a southpaw, the fight has an added challenge for Garcia.

"When you're fighting a left-hander you're training totally different," he said. "It's made it a little difficult but I'm pretty familiar with southpaws and I have fought six or seven of them."

Asked for a little insight into his game plan, Garcia balked.

"I'd be kind of dumb to tell my strategy," he said, declining to elaborate.

Casamayor vs. Garcia tops a Saturday card that also includes a significant fight between Las Vegas featherweight Augie Sanchez (26-2) and former world champion Luisito Espinosa (45-9). They're scheduled for 10 rounds in a bout that Goossen said could result in "the end of the line" for the loser.

Texas Station also has a Sunday afternoon card which headlines former junior lightweight world champion James Leija in with Freddie Ladd at 140 pounds.