Fight between ‘friendly rivals’ is in the cards

Dean Juipe

Friday, Feb. 22, 2002 | 10:23 a.m.

If Paulie Ayala and Bones Adams were baseball players, a trading card company would have them pose with big smiles and crossed bats, just as yesteryear sluggers such as Joe Adcock and Ted Kluszewski once were asked to do. The term "Friendly Rivals" would be superimposed above their images, as if it weren't already obvious.

But Ayala and Adams are fighters, and by the very nature of their vicious sport there's a perception that they must not care for each other.

Yet Ayala and Adams, who fight Saturday at Mandalay Bay in a rematch of a fight from last August, are neither antagonistic nor hostile toward one another. In fact, they're actually "Friendly Rivals" as Topps called its series of lumber-laden cards.

"Why wouldn't I like him?" Adams responded when quizzed on the subject Thursday. "I've never been mad at anyone and there's no reason at all to not like Paulie.

"We got along fine last time, too, and we put on a great fight, so I just don't see why I should do anything but respect him."

Likewise, Ayala has only the highest regard for Adams.

"I don't have to be angry to fight with somebody," he said. "I'm just in there for the competition of it, not because I want to beat him up or because I think he's a bad guy."

Boxers routinely promise to "put a whipping" on an upcoming opponent, or find some manner of disgracing him in the public eye. The threats can either be mock or real, but they're frequently brandished nonetheless.

Ayala and Adams, however, seem to share a genuine fondness for one another.

"I've got nothing against him," Adams said. "But I've never had a problem with anyone I'm about to fight. It's just not my style."

Ayala said the only opponent in his background that he was even tempted to toy with prior to a fight was the quick-tempered Johnny Tapia. "I did some things intentionally to throw him off his game, but it was never serious," Ayala said. "Besides, he brought most of that on himself."

Congenial as they are, neither man would mind seeing the other fly into rage, although such an outburst does not seem to be on the horizon.

"I'd prefer my opponent to be mad, because it gets him out of his game plan," Ayala said. "But I don't expect that from Bones. He's fully focused."

Adams agreed, saying "If I get mad at all, it'll be at myself for getting hit or something. But there's no need to get mad at the other guy if he's just doing his job."

Ayala ($650,000) and Adams ($600,000) are being paid well for the job that's in front of them, which, in part, is to try to duplicate their Aug. 4 bout that Ayala won by split decision. The super bantamweights may not have forged a lasting bond, but they're making good money given there's no legitimate world title at stake and the crowd expectations are nominal.

The Mandalay Bay Events Center has been scaled back to seat just under 6,000, and some 4,500 fans are anticipated for a Top Rank card that will be televised by HBO.

Adams, 27, is 41-4-3 with 19 knockouts and is a minus 120 betting favorite.

Ayala, 31, is 33-1 with 12 KOs and is a minus 110.

It's a minus 250 that the fight will go its fully scheduled 12 rounds, and a plus 210 that it won't.

"If this second fight is as good as their first one, no one will come out of it a loser," said Top Rank vice president Todd duBoef. "People want to see fighters who come to fight, which these guys always do."

Should Adams win, duBoef said a third fight wouldn't be out of the question. But if either man insists on moving on, he believes they can be accommodated.

"These guys are 'name' fighters now," he said. "They're not unknown anymore. Whether they want to stay at the same weight or go up one (to featherweight), there are matches that can be made.

"There are a lot of different pieces to the puzzle, and those are decisions the fighters will have to make. But we see both men being perceived as winners by the general public."

Not that each won't be trying to lay the lumber on the other one.

Saturday's main event will go off at 9:15 p.m. The card opens at 6:30 and includes these bouts, a couple of which underwent alterations Thursday: Jose Luis Zertuche, 3-0-1, vs. Antonio Maldonado, 1-2-1, four rounds, junior middleweights; Kelly Pavlik, 11-0, vs. Robert Dasoyan, 12-6-4, six rounds, middleweights; Dmitriy Salita, 4-0, vs. Rashaan Abdul Blackburn, 4-8, four rounds, junior welterweights; Liborio Romero, 6-0, vs. Abel Ochoa, 4-5, six rounds, flyweights; and Rafael Marquez, 26-3, vs. Mark Johnson, 40-2, 12 rounds, bantamweights.