Thursday, June 26, 2003 | 9:47 a.m.
Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4084.
Seeing his fledgling boxing union with increasing clarity, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad said the Joint Association of Boxers is being groomed for success.
The union took its first formative steps last month by aligning itself with the Teamsters, which will oversee its financial operation and provide alternate work opportunities for JAB fighters.
"Give me four months," Muhammad said this week, when asked how long it may take for the union to be fully operational. "I want to dot my I's and cross my T's.
"Rome wasn't built in a day, but this is going to happen. I have a lot of naysayers who don't want it to happen, but it's going to work and it's going to be successful."
While JAB is not yet collecting dues, it has already come to the aid of one ex-fighter.
"We got Alex Stewart a job," Muhammad said of a former heavyweight contender who resides in Miami. "He had been training fighters but it wasn't working out, and he reached out to us and we did something to help him.
"The Teamsters got him a job driving a truck."
JAB will collect its dues not on a fight-by-fight or percentage-of-a-purse basis as originally implied, but on a scaled, per-year basis. "We're getting the structure together," Muhammad said of the fees fighters will be required to contribute.
JAB membership will be voluntary.
"If a fighter doesn't want to join, that's fine," Muhammad said. "But we want them to know this union is going to be there for them. When the day comes for them to retire, or if they can't fight anymore for whatever reason, we're guaranteeing that the Teamsters will be there for them offering jobs."
Muhammad, a noted boxing trainer and a former light heavyweight world champion, is committed to the project and says he has developed like-minded contacts throughout the country.
"Boxing will be like a regular job now," he said. "A fighter can be part of a union and get all of its benefits. We're not going to wait anymore for you to be down and out before we do something to help you -- we're going to be there for you whenever you need it.
"We've got corporations coming on board, like mortgage companies and credit card companies. This is corporate money that we never saw before and it's there because doors open when you form a union.
"This is going to help clean up boxing's image and do away with the dumb-fighter stereotype that we in this business have had to live with for too long."
"They might say it's because the room wasn't ready, but I think it's more than that," Steele said. "There were some financial terms they were unable to keep. They strung me out and missed a June 14 deadline for an initial payment and then told me Tuesday night that they couldn't go forward.
"For a hotel to not meet its financial duty is ridiculous. And the fact they did this at the last minute not only damages them, it damages my reputation and it hurts a lot of young people.
"I'm out thousands of dollars in airlines tickets, insurance and things like that, and the fighters that were supposed to fight are out, too."
A call to the Castaways' executive offices for comment was not immediately returned. The hotel-casino is in the midst of foreclosure proceedings initiated by a mortgage investment company that says a $20 million loan balance due this month was not repaid.
Steele had been excited about putting a fight card in the Castaways, which, as the Showboat, was once Las Vegas' premier club-fight locale. The room that once housed boxing at the facility was converted into a bingo parlor several years ago but has since been gutted and is once again available for boxing and related events.
"I wouldn't go back unless they paid me everything up front," Steele said of his current outlook toward the Castaways.
He added that he was trying to keep the card intact and was offering it to various other local casinos.
"I'm looking around," he said. "I'm looking for somebody to step up. I think another casino could take this card and be pleased with it."
The featured fighter on the card was to have been former world champion Miguel Angel Gonzalez, who recently moved to Las Vegas and is looking to resurrect his career. He is a former World Boxing Council world champion at 135 and 140 pounds who opened his career 39-0 and is currently 45-3-1.
"I want people to see me," Gonzalez said of getting back in the ring after a year's layoff. "I've only been on vacation. I feel very strong and I think I can do well as a welterweight."
His hair dyed platinum blond, Gonzalez was to have fought Rene Herrera at 154 pounds. But now they, like the other 10 fighters on the scrapped card, are on hold.
Also scheduled: Jairo Ramirez, 12-1, vs. John Trigg, 11-11-5, eight rounds, lightweights; Cornelius Lock, 9-1, vs. John Nolasco, 11-2-2, eight rounds, featherweights; Avelino Chavez, 5-0, vs. Anthony Wilson, 4-6-1, six rounds, welterweights; Jamar Nolan, 10-0, vs. Errol Banner, 6-7-1, six rounds, middleweights; and Juan Montes De Oca, 2-1, vs. Pablo Vallin, 0-1, four rounds, welterweights. First bell is 7 p.m.
"I've been in boxing now for 32 years and I've had my ups and I've had my downs," Holyfield said at the news conference. "I'm happy to be able to fight people that want to fight me. I will give a good showing and will be at my very best."
Toney will vacate his newly won International Boxing Federation cruiserweight title to move up a division, where he says he'll fight between 220 and 250 pounds.
"I have always wanted to fight as a heavyweight," he said. "I feel I'm the greatest fighter in the world, pound for pound. My thing is to go out there and fight the best opposition and that's what I'm going to do.
"He is a warrior and I am a warrior. That is all we know how to do. This is not a game -- you do not 'play' boxing."
Toney, 34, is 66-4-2 and coming off a April 26 decision win over Jassiliy Jirov in Connecticut.
Holyfield, 40, is 38-6-2 and had been involved in negotiations for a fight with Roy Jones Jr. until Jones turned his attention to Lennox Lewis and Toney became available after a proposed fight with Bernard Hopkins fell through.
Local heavyweight Cliff Couser, 24-8-2, has taken a televised July 11 fight with Malcolm Tann in Rancho Mirage, Calif. Tann is 7-0 as a pro after winning the 2002 Golden Gloves national championship. ... British heavyweight prospect Audley Harrison is coming to Las Vegas to work under Thell Torrence. ... The man Harrison is scheduled to fight July 25 in London, fellow Brit Herbie Hide, is already here and working with Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. "Herbie hits too hard and is too fast for Harrison," Muhammad said. ... Top Rank has a pay-per-view card Saturday in Puerto Rico in which Daniel Santos will look to establish his name at the expense of Colombia's Fulgencio Zuniga, who trained here under Miguel Diaz for the fight. Santos wants to move up a division and face middleweight king Bernard Hopkins next.
Sampson Lewkowicz, a Las Vegas resident who is suing promoter Murad Muhammad for assault and battery, has been given a trial date of July 7 in Carolina, Puerto Rico. Lewkowicz claims Muhammad struck him May 28 at the IBF convention on the island. ... Barry's Boxing will host an amateur card Saturday at its gym at 2763 S. Highland. First bell is 7 p.m. and 21 bouts are scheduled between fighters from Las Vegas, California and Arizona. ... Former Las Vegas resident and lightweight contender Justin Juuko continues to fight in his native Uganda, where he defeated Geoffrey Manica in a fight earlier this month.
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