Fight panel nixes Butterbean bout in Alabama

Dean Juipe

Monday, Jan. 19, 2004 | 9:06 a.m.

Before push literally came to shove, the Illinois boxing commission representative who was overseeing the scheduled fight this past Friday in Birmingham, Ala., involving Eric "Butterbean" Esch stepped in and determined there would not be a bout.

Esch, as was reported in Friday's Sun, was set to face an opponent, Wally Kienbaum, who had never taken part in a professional boxing event. They were to have fought up to four rounds as part of a card promoted by Jimmy Logan at the 5,000-seat Boutwell Auditorium.

Esch, with a pro record of 64-3-4, had already seen his name surface in Las Vegas in reference to an FBI raid of the offices of Top Rank Boxing Inc. A number of his fights, some of which while he was fighting for Top Rank, have drawn suspicion and it is known that the FBI took particular interest in acquiring videotapes of fights involving Esch that were filed within Top Rank's offices.

The booking agent who participated in getting Esch on the Birmingham card, former lightweight world champion Livingstone Bramble of Las Vegas, told the Sun that the fight with Kienbaum barely qualified as legitimate.

When the Illinois commission member who was working the card -- Alabama has no boxing commission -- saw the article in the Sun and examined Esch as part of a routine prefight physical, he denied the 340-pound slugger a license for the bout.

"It was kind of comical in a way," matchmaker Harry Barnett said Sunday. "Your friend Bramble created quite an uproar with his preaching."

Having injured his right knee in a mixed martial arts exhibition two weeks earlier in Japan, Esch was deemed to be physically incapable of fighting on the Birmingham card. That determination was made the afternoon of the night the fight was scheduled, although Barnett said the crowd of about 2,000 took the deletion in stride.

"He signed autographs and made himself available," Barnett said. "He didn't duck anybody.

"I think the fans know these kinds of things can happen."

Esch and Kienbaum were both paid, although they did not fight.

Barnett, who told the Sun Friday that he was thinking of having the Esch vs. Kienbaum fight labeled an exhibition, said he would never knowingly allow such a questionable fight to occur.

"I don't go for that kind of stuff," he said. "When I learned of the circumstances, it was my intention to have the fight be an exhibition."