Columnist Dean Juipe: Mahamadkadyz Abdullaev could be one of the biggest names in boxing

Dean Juipe

Thursday, March 1, 2001 | 9:48 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.

He doesn't speak English.

And his name's a tongue twister.

But for all the recent publicity and hoopla associated with the U.S. Olympians turning pro, bear in mind that the supposed best of the Americans -- Ricardo Williams -- was denied a gold medal in Sydney when he lost in the junior welterweight final to Mahamadkadyz Abdullaev of Uzbekistan.

Hard as it may be to pronounce, he has a name to remember.

"Nobody knows him yet, but here he is in America," said his new trainer, Kenny Adams. "He's very humble and he probably doesn't know enough to get a big head.

"The fact that he isn't known here might make him fight that much harder."

Adams has been signed to groom Abdullaev for a pro career that will debut April 7 at the MGM when he participates in an undercard bout beneath the Prince Naseem Hamed vs. Marco Antonio Barrera main event.

Abdullaev and Adams, who were paired last week, are training at the Ringside Gym.

"He's a terror," Adams said. "He has determination and drive and he's so explosive.

"He's a mean guy in the ring."

Abdullaev showed that tenacity in taking a 27-20 points victory over Williams in the Olympic final. That decision earmarked Abdullaev as a likely future world champion.

"I think it'll only take a year and a half to two years," Adams predicted. "This guy will be ready to face the best professionals in the world by then.

"The amount of pressure he puts on an opponent is unbelievable."

Adams, who has trained eight world champions and co-trained another, is, of course, a former U.S. Olympic coach. When he saw Abdullaev on TV from Sydney, an episode of wishful thinking ensued.

"I said to myself, 'Man, if I had that 140-pounder,' " he remarked. "Well, God must have been looking out for me because now I've got him."

Abdullaev's managerial team -- which has IBF cruiserweight champion Vassiliy Jirov among its clients -- contacted Adams and made arrangements to move the fighter here.

"His manager said he did his homework and wanted me to train his new guys," Adams said. "I was ecstatic. It felt really good and it pleased me that they would pick me."

Two of Abdullaev's stablemates are also in Las Vegas and have begun associations with Adams. The trainer says communication, in spite of a language barrier, is not a problem.

"I do it by showing them what I want," he said. "I speak a little bit of everything to them and try to make my point visually and with motions. After one week, everything is working out fine.

"They're doing exactly what I want."

For all of Abdullaev's strengths, Adams is trying to get him to take the loop out of his right and shorten the punch. Adams says Abdullaev, who had more than 200 amateur fights, will make the adjustment.

"Unlike American fighters these days, this kid is agreeable to coaching," Adams said. "He's going to listen and adapt. He knows I'm not a 'yes' man and he's going to do everything in his power to become a world champion.

"It's already obvious he's a very, very hard worker."

Bunema is 18-2-1 with 11 knockouts and counts a 2000 win over J.C. Candelo as his career best.

Marshall is 34-8-6 with 12 KOs and has faced a number of quality fighters in his career, including Aaron Davis, Winky Wright, Keith Mullings and Glenwood Brown. He has won 12 of his 13 most recent fights.

Six other bouts are scheduled, including: Juan Diaz, 7-0, vs. Mahan Washington, 14-8, six rounds, junior welterweights; Rocky Juarez, 1-0, vs. Mike Jones, 0-1, four rounds, featherweights; Panchito Bojado, 1-0, vs. Alejandro Rivera, 3-4-1, four rounds, junior lightweights; Jeff Lacy, 1-0, vs. Tom Attardo, 8-5-1, four rounds, super middleweights; Roger Vargas, 1-0, vs. James Green, 1-1, four rounds, super middleweights; and Troy Kirkpatrick, pro debut, vs. an opponent yet to be determined, four rounds, heavyweights.

Cruiserweight Arthur Williams managed to squeak past Gary Wilcox in a 10-round bout Saturday in Tampa, getting the nod from two of the judges by 95-94 scores but losing on the third judge's card by a one-point margin. The split decision upped Williams' record to 34-5-1 and dropped Wilcox to 15-2-1.

A night earlier in Austin, Texas, Dennis Allen ran into a buzz saw named Cory Spinks and suffered a second-round TKO loss in a welterweight fight that was scheduled for 10. Allen fell to 22-4 while Spinks improved to 25-1.

A third fighter with local ties, heavyweight Jimmy Thunder, had been scheduled to face longtime WBC cruiserweight champ Juan Carlos Gomez in Hamburg, Germany, but Gomez -- who now wants to fight as a heavyweight -- failed to show Saturday and didn't turn up until earlier this week in Florida. With German tax authorities looking to collect $200,000 that Gomez supposedly owed the government, he, instead, went into exile and will now try to become a U.S. citizen.