Columnist Dean Juipe: Steele opens ‘big’ club in old lumber store

Dean Juipe

Thursday, March 25, 2004 | 9:35 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.

Just off Washington Street on Avenue A in North Las Vegas, the new Richard Steele Boxing Club is open for business in a renovated warehouse that was once an 84 Lumber outlet.

To say the facility is spacious is to understate the obvious.

"This has got to be the biggest gym in the world," Steele said as he gave a tour of the building and an update on the planned improvements. "I'm real happy. We've got 20,000 square feet and this place is so big that we'll be able to do shows here."

Expanding bleachers will soon be added, allowing Steele (or an outside promoter) to hold both pro and amateur cards.

"We can fit 1,000 people in here easy," he said. "The bleachers will seat 600."

Steele and the 200 youngsters who comprise his club moved into the building earlier this month after Nevada Partners closed its boxing gym. They've been joined by the usual array of pro fighters who need to train on a daily basis.

CMX Sports & Entertainment owns the building and plans to upgrade an adjacent building, allowing it to rent gym space to professional fighters who are looking for privacy as they train for upcoming fights.

"This is going to be a fight site," said CMX boxing operations director Kirk Cashwell. "We've got big ideas."

CMX, a Chicago-based firm run by Eric and Tony Brown, has been involved as a sponsor for assorted cards promoted by Don King. The firm has a sponsorship role in King's April 10 card at Mandalay Bay.

"Eventually we want to branch off," Cashwell said of CMX doing its own promotions, independent of King.

There's plenty of room for growth at the new gym, which has three rings in place.

"This reminds me of the old days," said former lightweight world champion Livingstone Bramble, a trainer who moved from Nevada Partners with Steele. "I started my career in arenas like this in the Caribbean, before casinos started doing fights.

"This gym is big enough to serve everybody's needs."

Another former lightweight fighter and current trainer, Jeff Mayweather, agreed.

"This place has a lot of possibilities," he said. "It's already the main gym in town and it's only going to get better as Richard gets things fixed up."

As for the location, Avenue A runs through an industrial area populated by such businesses as Ewing Brothers (car repair and auction).

"To be honest, this area is safer than the area around Nevada Partners," Mayweather said. "There's nothing else on the street except businesses, so nobody's just out there walking around. It's secluded but safe."

It's just what Steele had been looking for after Nevada Partners gave him notice that he would have to get out.

"We've still got a lot of work to do, but we're off to a good start," he said. "CMX is into boxing and this whole property is going to be nothing but a place to train for sports."

"I'd like to get with a second-tier promoter and be his No. 1 guy," Wells said this week. "I'd like to be with someone who will push my career.

"I could be a small promoter's dream."

Wells -- whose ongoing legal battle with his ex-manager was the subject of a Tuesday column in the Sun -- is a junior middleweight with a record of 17-1-2. But he feels King has lost interest in him as the result of losing a Sept. 20 fight to Alejandro Terra Garcia in Uncasville, Conn.

Wells fractured his right hand during the bout.

"I feel I can beat Winky (Wright), Shane (Mosley) and Oscar (De La Hoya), but Don, he don't care," Wells said. "I'm one of the best fighters he has, but it's hard to get in contact with him once you lose."

Wells, 27, an Olympic bronze medalist in 1996, was regarded as a rising star until his career was sidetracked by Garcia.

"Once I hurt my hand, my mind was elsewhere for the rest of that fight," Wells said. "I'd like to fight Garcia again.

"But I'd like to fight anybody, for that matter. I feel I'm in limbo."

The sports book at Mandalay Bay lists Zab Judah at a minus 160 and Cory Spinks at a plus 140 for their April 10 welterweight main event at the same site. ... A World Boxing Association lightweight title fight has been added to the April 10 card, as Mongolia's Lavka Sim will take on Panama's Miguel Callist for a title vacated by Leonard Dorin. ... Heavyweights Anthony Thompson, 21-1, and Derek Bryant, 17-2, are paired in the main event of a Saturday card at Caesars Tahoe. Cliff Etienne, 26-2-1, vs. Gilberto Martinez , 18-6-1, is the chief undercard fight, and a third heavyweight bout features Las Vegan Charles Shufford, 20-5, vs. Ramon Earl Hayes, 10-16-1, in a scheduled six-rounder.

Lou Falcigno, a promoter who did numerous shows in Las Vegas, has died in New York at the age of 66. ... A report from the Philippines indicates Manny Pacquiao, who is fighting two-belt featherweight king Juan Manuel Marquez May 8 at the MGM, "let himself go" physically after he defeated Marco Antonio Barrera last November. Nonetheless Pacquiao, who was in Los Angeles with Marquez for a news conference Wednesday, said he not only expects to defeat Marquez but wants to fight lightweight world champion Erik Morales in July.

Local heavyweight Cliff Couser is back from Japan, where he lost his debut in the mixed martial arts sport K1. "But I loved it," he said. "It's like the NBA of boxing. It's a lot of fun and everything's very professional." Couser, who hopes to fight here on a Cedric Kushner card next month, is at least the third U.S. heavyweight to try his hand at K1, as Butterbean Esch and Frans Botha already took the plunge.