Columnist Dean Juipe: UNLV hosts card pros can’t match

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, April 2, 2003 | 9:49 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Boxing fans can be pretty gullible and are routinely exploited by promoters and fighters alike.

Cards -- both in Las Vegas and beyond -- are regularly stacked with a succession of one-sided, predictable bouts as the promoter protects his interests, builds his fighters' records and capitalizes on the blind passion many fans have for the sport.

It's a self-serving industry with little in the way of scruples.

That said, consider the contrast that is at hand. Thursday through Saturday at the Cox Pavilion, the UNLV club team will host the National Collegiate Boxing Championships and this much is certain: There are no preordained winners.

"It's a neat environment," UNLV head coach Skip Kelp said Tuesday. "There's nothing predictable about the fights themselves and it seems like every bout is up in the air.

"The only predictable aspect of it is that Air Force and Navy will contend for the team championship, but teams like ours and Penn State's have sort of thrown a monkey wrench into that the last couple of years."

This is the fourth year for the UNLV program and it has already produced two individual national champions. This weekend, eight Rebels -- including 112-pound defending national champion Xenon Mallari -- have qualified for the tournament.

College boxing, which is limited to the "club" level in that it is not financially supported by the NCAA or its individual universities, features athletes who lack scholarships but not guts. They pay their own tuitions and pay again in bumps, black eyes and bruises.

UNLV landed the tournament by submitting the most competitive bid and by the good graces of the the club team at Nevada-Reno, which was in line to host the event but deferred to the Rebels.

The expense is fairly significant. It's $20,000 to rent the Cox for three days, plus the UNLV team -- unlike Navy, which hosted the nationals last year -- is covering the cost of the hotel rooms for those coming in from out of town. Kelp and Bruce Korbin, who handles the team's fundraising, got a group-rate deal from the San Tropez but they're looking at a total outlay in the area of $35,000.

They're hoping to recoup that money via ticket sales, although admission to Thursday's session is free and the university (via the Cox) gets $3 of every $10 that comes through the door Friday and Saturday. Tickets for the latter two sessions are $10 and $25 each day.

Those who attend will see fights in two rings, with eight regional qualifiers in each of the 12 weight divisions. The bouts are each scheduled for three, two-minute rounds, are scored by five judges on the 20-point-must system and feature participants wearing headgear and 12-ounce gloves.

It has the potential to be fairly exciting.

"It's a chance to see fighters from all over the country, including a lot of guys from the military academies," Korbin said. "I'd like to think we can't miss. It's the best $10 a fan could ever spend on boxing."

It is, at the very least, an honest endeavor and the rare boxing card in which everything is on the up and up. Shenanigans, fixed fights and predictable outcomes are out of the question.

It's amateur boxing doing what the professionals can't, or won't.