Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Columnist Dean Juipe: Couser can be like Mike in the ring, too

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4084.

Well, he is Mike Tyson's half-brother. So how surprising can it be when Cliff Couser goes a little crazy in the ring?

Couser, of Las Vegas, was involved in a bizarre fight Friday in Rancho Mirage, Calif., that is tentatively scheduled to be televised Sunday by Fox Sports Net.

Scheduled for eight rounds with former Golden Gloves national champion Malcolm Tann, Couser lost his cool when Tann repeatedly hit him in the back of the head. Couser wound up being disqualified 2:57 into the first round.

The California commission is withholding his $7,500 purse and has scheduled a hearing for Aug. 14. Couser, a heavyweight with a record of 24-9, faces a possible suspension as well.

Adding to his discomfort is the fact Couser not only warned referee James Jen Kin before the fight to be on the lookout for Tann punching to the back of the head, he predicted in a prefight interview taped by Fox that he would go ballistic if he was hit from behind.

"I said in the interview I was going to go crazy if I got hit in the back of the head," Couser said this week. "I think a guy who was listening in then went and told the other guy. I think they wanted to see me go off."

Couser claims Tann, 8-0, hit him in the back of the head four times. "I've got a knot on the back of my head to prove it," he said.

He said his advice to Jen Kin went unheeded.

"I told him I had a problem with tall guys hitting me from behind," Couser said. "I said 'Please watch out for this.' But he just said 'Let me do my job' and didn't seem to care.

"He already had it in for me."

A wire service account of the fight said Couser body slammed Tann, then "punched, wrestled and perhaps bit" him as they were intertwined. It added that the crowd taunted both fighters afterward and that Couser broke into tears.

"I was shedding tears of frustration," Couser said. "I looked over at my wife (Charina) and my heart just dropped.

"I was frustrated and angry."

He said he thought Jen Kin should have taken a point or two from him while allowing the fight to continue.

"What I wanted to do (to Tann) was pick him up and prove my strength," Couser said. "But he tripped and I fell on him. We landed with me on top and I faked that I was going to beat him up, but I didn't really do anything."

The mayhem in the ring lasted a full 10 minutes, after which Couser was disqualified.

"It's not going to hurt my career," he said. "I'm always going to be a bad man.

"People like me, that's why the place was sold out. Those people weren't coming to see him, they were there to see me."

Local heavyweight Charles Shufford won Saturday's 10-round main event at Caesars Tahoe by majority decision against late replacement Willie Chapman. Shufford, 20-4, was up by 6 and 2 points on two of the judges' cards, while the third judge had the fight even. Shufford was to have faced Gilberto Martinez, but the always available Chapman was summoned when Martinez withdrew due to family reasons; his wife's sister died, after which his wife took ill and had to be hospitalized. Chapman dropped to 16-18-3. ... What was to have been the main event at Caesars Tahoe, a heavyweight fight between Las Vegan David Defiagbon and Charles Hatcher, was scratched and moved to Aug. 23 at the Reno Hilton.

"I plan to beat Steve Forbes and get him out of the picture," International Boxing Federation junior lightweight champ Carlos Hernandez said at a press conference announcing their Oct. 4 title fight in Los Angeles. "I want to beat Forbes and make him go away." If Hernandez, 39-3-1, dispatches Forbes, 23-1, he would like to fight Erik Morales next. "Morales is the best out there," Hernandez said, "and I want to fight the best." ... Two Las Vegas fighters lost recent out-of-town bouts: junior lightweight Tony Avila, 5-2, dropped a decision to Ricardo Barragan, 8-2, in Monterey, Calif., and warhorse Livingstone Bramble lost by decision to fellow welterweight Armando Robles in Salt Lake City.

A fight between junior lightweights Diego Corrales and Joel Casamayor has been added to the Oct. 4 card at Mandalay Bay that features Evander Holyfield and James Toney in the main event. Corrales is 37-1 and Casamayor is 29-1 and each is a former world champion. The fight had been rumored as in the making, yet as late as this week Corrales' trainer, Kenny Adams, believed his man would, instead, be fighting either Goyo Vargas or Lamont Pearson Sept. 27 on a card to be shared with super middleweight prospect Jeff Lacy. ... HBO has arranged a featherweight unification fight between IBF champ Juan Manuel Marquez and World Boxing Association champ Derrick Gainer. They'll meet Aug. 16 in Uncasville, Conn.

Reports linking WBA heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr. to a Nov. 8 fight in Nairobi, Kenya, have surfaced. ... Showtime's Saturday card from Houston features featherweight Rocky Juarez, a former Olympic silver medalist who is 16-0, against Chelo Diaz, 24-3. "This fight will allow me to get bigger fights," Juarez said during a conference call. "It will be a tough fight but I'm prepared. I know in the next year I will have big fights. I'm just putting in the rounds now." He's coming off consecutive knockouts against Jason Pires and Frankie Archuleta earlier this year. ... Local heavyweight Duncan Dokiwari, 22-1 with 19 KOs, has a spot on the undercard of an Aug. 7 show in Temecula, Calif., that features former IBF cruiserweight champ Vassiliy Jirov in the main event against Ernest Mateen. No opponent yet for Dokiwari.

An insider says WBA/WBC welterweight champ Ricardo Mayorga was out until 3 a.m. Saturday, or only hours before his fight with Vernon Forrest at the Orleans. "They had to escort him to his room," the story goes, which is one that adds to Mayorga's colorful lore even if it isn't true. Mayorga won the fight, of course, and immediately mentioned Oscar De La Hoya as an ideal future opponent. But a more likely course of action for promoter Don King is to match Mayorga with IBF champ Cory Spinks, or, perhaps, minor champion Daniel Santos.

Top Rank has settled on a Jesse Brinkley vs. Danny Perez middleweight main event for its outdoor card Aug. 15 in Gardnerville. Brinkley, from nearby Yerrington, is 21-1 with 14 KOs and Perez is 28-3 with 17. Perez has won 12 of his 13 most recent fights, with Antonio Margarito handing him his only loss during that run. ... Top Rank was excited to sign prospect Jesus Gonzales and will have him make his pro debut July 25 on a card in Phoenix. A junior middleweight, Gonzales has been called "the most important company signing since Miguel Cotto" in a Top Rank release, with matchmaker Bruce Trampler adding "Gonzales is the best prospect in Arizona since Michael Carbajal."

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