Thursday, Feb. 26, 2004 | 9:58 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.
As subplots go, this one is pretty interesting and extremely rare. It intertwines two championship-caliber fighters and three highly regarded trainers in a mix-and-match arrangement that takes a minute to decipher.
Here are the basics: When Joel Casamayor defeated Diego Corrales by sixth-round stoppage in October at Mandalay Bay, Joe Goossen was in the winner's corner and Kenny Adams trained Corrales.
Now Casamayor and Corrales are scheduled to fight again, March 6 in Connecticut, and both men will have different trainers on hand. Stranger yet, Goossen is now training Corrales, with Buddy McGirt having been brought in to work with Casamayor.
Adams is the odd man out.
"I did have a long and, should I say, loving relationship with Joel Casamayor," Goossen said during conference calls that featured the March 6 fighters and their trainers. "He was an easy guy to get close to and I feel I am, too.
"We had a great relationship (but) it came to an end about a month ago and there are all kinds of rationales and reasons anybody could point to.
"But, basically, it was shocking to me (and) I am going to leave it at that. I am not a vindictive person and I do not carry grudges, so it's all by the wayside with me."
Casamayor said he just needed a change.
"(McGirt) has brought back a lot of the old stuff in me that I had lost," he said. "The change was easy because great fighters and great trainers understand each other.
"I chose him because of the great chemistry."
McGirt tries to step delicately around the budding controversy.
"I didn't get into what happened between him and Joe," McGirt said. "It was none of my business. Joe did a great job with Casamayor, so my thing was just to come in and pick up where Joe left off.
"It isn't like I had to rebuild the guy. Joe pretty much made my job easy for me.
"My main concern is just worrying about what Goossen is going to have Corrales do to offset Casamayor."
Casamayor won that hotly contested first fight when a combination of vicious punches and the fact Corrales' mouthpiece was cutting into his cheek led the ringside physician to stop the bout.
Corrales, of Las Vegas, directly and indirectly blames Adams for those failures.
"There were some changes that needed to be made," he said. "The game plan (in the first fight) that my trainer arranged was to have me move consistently to the left, which obviously was not the right thing to do (because) all Casamayor has is a strong left."
Casamayor, 30-1, and Corrales, 37-2, are scheduled for 12 rounds at 130 pounds. The Showtime cable network will televise the bout, which has a betting line in Las Vegas of Casamayor minus 155 and Corrales plus 135.
Amusingly, each fighter feels he was getting the better of the other in their first fight, even though there was considerable give and take and both men were down.
"I will pick up where the first fight left off," Corrales said. "My strength and my power were showing in that last round before they stopped it. He was hurt very, very bad."
Casamayor countered by saying Corrales is lucky the doctor stopped it.
"He can be grateful that the first fight ended the way it did (because) he would not be in this conversation right now because he would have gotten knocked out flat," Casamayor said. "He was the one backing up after the fourth round.
"I was starting to hurt him with every shot."
Sounds like they need to fight again, doesn't it?
Simonyan, the focal point of the ESPN2 card, withdrew Tuesday.
Cruz, 26-5-1, was quickly signed for the fight with Ruiz, who is 16-1. They're scheduled for 12 rounds at 122 pounds.
The card, co-promoted by Banner and Guilty, also lost a semi-main participant, as undefeated middleweight Jamar Nolan begged off.
The undercard now offers George Walton, 14-2, vs. Adrian Lopez, 7-0, eight rounds, middleweights; Juan Carlos Santiago, 6-3, vs. Luis De La Rosa, 3-9-2, four rounds, bantamweights; Marlo Cortes, 2-3-1, vs. Alex Viramontes, 2-1, four rounds, junior welterweights; Hector Hernandez, 4-0, vs. Monroe Brooks, 4-6, four rounds, middleweights; and Melinda Cooper, 9-0, vs. Jeri Sitzes, 5-2-1, six rounds, women, bantamweights. First bell is 5:30 p.m.
The sports book at the MGM has yet to post a line on either of its two June 5 fights, although Oscar De La Hoya and Bernard Hopkins will be strong favorites, De La Hoya against Felix Sturm and Hopkins against Robert Allen. But the MGM does have a line up on a tentative Sept. 18 fight between De La Hoya and Hopkins, cautiously listing De La Hoya at a minus 105 and Hopkins at a minus 115. While that fight -- if it comes off -- will be for Hopkins' undisputed middleweight championship, there is a contractual "catch weight" of 157 pounds in effect. "Clearly gamesmanship on Oscar's part," said Top Rank matchmaker Bruce Trampler of De La Hoya insisting on the compromise in natural weights. ... Sturm has pulled out of a March 6 fight with Kingsley Ikeke in Germany. "It's sad, but with an offer like this (to fight De La Ho ya in June), we cannot take any risks," said Sturm's TV representative, Jean-Marcel Nartz of Universum.
Marco Antonio Barrera will fight for the first time since his November loss to Manny Pacquiao when he takes on Ivan Alvarez, 19-12, March 19 in Los Angeles. ... Trainer Eddie Mustafa Muhammad of Las Vegas has been working with Johnny Tapia in New Mexico in preparation for the latter's March 5 fight there with Frankie Archuleta. "Johnny is right where I want him," Mustafa said. "His weight is right on target and his conditioning is great. Johnny is picking up right where he left off and is anxious to get in the ring." Tapia, 53-3-2, is hoping to use a win against Archuleta, 22-4-1, to get back into the featherweight mix. ... NBC has signed a deal with Main Events to do a short series of Saturday afternoon fights, beginning in mid-April. ... Top Rank is continuing to pursue a site for its proposed May 8 fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Paul Spadafora. The New York State Athletic Commission denied Spadafora a license a! nd prevented the bout from going on as scheduled at Madison Square Garden; he is free on $50,000 bond after shooting his financee Oct. 26 in Pittsburgh.
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