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"The
boxing commission is failing. The question is, do they want
to stop the slide?"
--referee Denis Ryan
Boxers
in the late Roman Empire used gloves studded
with iron or brass nuggets. Gladiators (usually slaves)
fought to the death.
The
Marquess of Queensberry introduced his famous rules in 1867.
They were actually drawn up by John Graham Chambers.
Could
have been
a contender: Portland matchmaker Thad Spencer Jr. (above)
was once tapped to succeed Muhammad Ali.
Oregon
Trail Productions co-promoted this year's Mariah Carey tour.
"I've
always said I love lost causes."
--Alan James,
owner of Oregon Trail Promotions
Katherine
Dunn, author of Geek Love, also helped write the
1987 boxing-reform legislation.
"We
would not have used those fighters, of course, if we had
known those guys were suspended."
--Bob Oleson, Alan James' matchmaker
Fred
Ryan, owner of the Grand Avenue Gym, MCs at the Roseland.In
1993, authority over the state Boxing and Wrestling Commission
was transferred to the Oregon State Police.
"He
didn't just win fights, he choreographed them."
--sportswriter Jim Murray on
Thad Spencer
Oregon's
newest boxing promoter, Alan James (above) dropped out of
high school and became a chuck tender, or driller's assistant,
for a construction firm before striking it rich as a railcar
tycoon. He started boxing, he says, because he was too young
to join his buddies in the taverns.
Last
year, citing First and 14th Amendment violations, HBO subsidiary
TVKO, Don King's KingVision and Bob Arum's Top Rank quit
paying the tax that funds the state Boxing and Wrestling
Commission. The three companies currently owe $45,000 in
outstanding taxes.
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The air is charged with excitement at the Roseland
Theater, a tension that mixes with the sweet smell of cigar
smoke coiling into the spot light. In one corner, at 140 pounds,
stands the muscular Awel Abdulai, short and stocky, in brightly
shimmering trunks. Facing him, also at 140 pounds, is Mohan
Washington, long, left-handed and quick. When the bell rings,
Washington darts sideways like a spider crab. Abdulai, on
the other hand, swings with the subtlety of a wrecking ball.
The match is a hit with the hundreds of fans in the Roseland's
darkened balcony. "Be first, be first," they shout to Abdulai,
realizing he's their best hope for a knockout. "Double up,"
they implore. But connecting on Washington is as easy as
applying mascara to a rattlesnake.
The February show has brought out many of the stars of
the local boxing firmament: Ray Lampkin, a former lightweight
contender once KO'd by Roberto Duran in the 14th round;
amateur legend Steve Chase, now the coach of the Kelso,
Wash., amateur boxing club; Ivan Kafoury, the show's promoter
and eldest son of one of Portland's most potent political
families; lantern-jawed Thad Spencer, once tapped as a likely
successor to Muhammad Ali.
The fans have come out to see five professional bouts tonight.
They've come for cigars and beer and blood. But above all,
they've come to celebrate boxing's return to Oregon. After
15 years in a virtual coma, the prodigal son of professional
sports is finally swaggering back to the spotlight.
At ringside, sporting a horseshoe of white hair and a face
full of gin blossoms, stands the man responsible for boxing's
resurgence: Jim Cassidy, 68, the director of the state Boxing
and Wrestling Commission, which falls under the Department
of State Police's Gaming Enforcement Division. Under Cassidy's
stewardship, the state commission has relaxed its notoriously
strait-laced attitude to the sport. Indian tribal casinos,
particularly Canyonville's Seven Feathers, have held successful,
well-attended bouts. Railcar mogul Alan James has put on
five cards in the past year, including last April's splashy
"Black Tie and Boxing" soiree at the Portland Art Museum.
Since taking the reins of the commission last May, Cassidy
has overseen nearly as many pro bouts in Oregon as in the
previous 10 years combined. "I've been in the boxing industry
for quite a while," Cassidy says, completing the sentence
with his customary soft chuckle. "I know the ins and outs
of what goes on in the industry. People are comfortable
with me."
That may be true. But even as the sport gains momentum,
Cassidy has come under attack from critics who contend that
he's more concerned with putting on fights than with preventing
injury to boxers and keeping the sport clean. Thanks in
part to questions raised by WW, the match between
Abdulai and Washington is now being investigated by the
Oregon State Police as a result of a falsified drug test.
The state police are also conducting an internal investigation
into allegations that the commission has played fast and
loose with its own rules. And as if things weren't bad enough,
the commission's main source of funding--a 6 percent tax
hitched to all pay-per-view events purchased in Oregon--is
under assault in Oregon Tax Court.
"If you put all these things together, you've got a mess,"
says Bruce Anderson, who was the commission director until
1998 and helped pen the legislation still governing the
sport.
"The boxing commission is failing," says referee Denis
Ryan, the former chief of officials for the Oregon Association
of U.S. Amateur Boxing. "The question is, do they want to
stop the slide?"
In the late '70s and early '80s, Portland had a thriving
boxing scene. An RV salesman named Fred McNally and his
wife, Delores, put on 82 boxing shows in the Northwest,
the majority of them in the basement of the downtown Portland
Marriott Hotel. McNally regularly filled the 1,000 seats
in the ballroom with crowd-thrilling young fighters like
"Sweet Baby" James Manning and John "Duke 'Em" Newcomb.
A Marriott fight was more than just a sports event, it was
a social occasion; women could often be seen wearing a rope
of rocks around their neck and a tuxedoed date on their
arm.
But in 1984, with cable TV already sucking fans away from
the clubs, the McNallys bowed out of the fight game. The
next blow came in 1987, when the Oregon Legislature created
a statewide commission, headed by Anderson, a retired stockbroker
and veterinary pharmaceutical salesman, to crack down on
the sport's unregulated "tough guy" fights.
Anderson drew up strict rules for licensing promoters,
managers and fighters, and he introduced new safety measures
such as a 72-hour pre-fight paperwork deadline, which gave
regulators time to conduct background checks on the fighters'
fitness.
Some fight men say Anderson's penchant for paperwork went
too far. "When he came on line, it just about killed boxing
here," says Fred Ryan, the brother of Denis and owner of
Southeast Portland's Grand Avenue Boxing Club.
"Bruce Anderson had a way about him that alienated him
from people in the industry," agrees Cassidy. "Bruce was
a dictator."
By 1990, when McNally drove a delivery-bound motor home
off the road, smashing into the side of the Mill Creek Bridge
in the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, his cards had long
ago acquired the sepia wash of distant memories.
Although Cassidy didn't change any rules after he took
over from Anderson last year, he made no secret of his mission
to revitalize the sport. Into this fight-friendly atmosphere
came the final piece in boxing's comeback puzzle--a railcar
tycoon with a weakness for underdogs.
Alan James is one of those larger-than-life characters
that boxing attracts like boozehounds to happy hour. He
grew up on the Coleville, Wash., Indian reservation where
his mother taught school. A restless teenager in the mid-1940s,
he dropped out of high school and worked for an itinerant
construction firm, boxing for amusement in towns like Wenatchee,
Wash., and Texas City, Texas. After a tour of duty in Korea,
he enrolled as a law student at Santa Clara College, where
he sparred with Max Baer Jr., the son of the former heavyweight
champion. Baer would go on to play Jethro on The Beverly
Hillbillies; James made a killing in the transportation
industry.
Today, at 70, the squat, avuncular James is the chairman
of Lake Oswego's Greenbrier Company, which owns and leases
railcars. Since making his fortune--his Greenbrier stock
is worth roughly $35 million--James has indulged his other
interests. His Oregon Trail Promotions is well established
in the pop music industry, and the offshoot Oregon Trail
Films recently produced Lakeboat, Joe Mantegna's
directorial debut.
James also got involved in politics. In 1992 he ran his
own very expensive, unsuccessful campaign for Clackamas
County commissioner against Democratic incumbent Darlene
Hooley. Two years ago he kicked in $30,000 to Bill Sizemore's
losing campaign for governor. And this year he's given more
than $6,000 to populist insurgent Ted Piccolo's uphill battle
to unseat City Commissioner Charlie Hales. "I've always
said I love lost causes," he cracks.
Four years ago, James came down with pneumonia--twice.
After his second bout with the illness, he began working
out at the Grand Avenue gym. It was there, standing amid
the rubble of the Grand's ancient heavy bags and sagging
ring, surrounded by the peeling posters of past Golden Glove
champions, that James decided to help boxing stage a comeback.
"To me it's very, very unfair for a public office to withhold
from the citizens what is rightfully theirs," he says.
James' foray into the world of boxing promotion has hardly
been lucrative. The five cards Oregon Trail has put on have
featured mediocre talent and routinely lost several thousand
dollars. More importantly, critics say James' inexperience,
combined with director Cassidy's accommodating attitude,
has led to several violations of the law.
The first problem is false advertising. There have been
several instances when Oregon Trail Promotions has advertised
fighters for shows at which they did not compete. For example,
the program for a Nov. 14 bout dubbed "A Night Of Champions"
at the Rose Garden listed a 10-round heavyweight match between
35-year-old Havana, Cuba, native Jorge Luis Gonzales and
29-year-old Jameel McCline, a New York fighter with a record
of 20-2-1 at the time. But the actual match featured Gonzales
against a flabby, 41-year-old geezer named Greg Page.
Contacted in New York by telephone, McCline's promoter
said he knew nothing about an Oregon bout. In fact, McCline
has never fought west of Georgia.
Katherine Dunn, a novelist, boxing writer and former WW
contributor, says this is a common ploy among boxing promoters:
Promise the world, deliver tomato cans. "It happens all
the time," she says. "'Oh, he sprained his ankle at the
last minute,' or 'he missed his plane.' But really, the
guy was never scheduled to fight."
A more serious issue is whether Oregon Trails has been
exposing boxers to unnecessary risks. Due to the nature
of the sport, boxing has strict rules governing injuries.
A boxer who is injured in the ring is typically put on a
national suspension list for 30 to 90 days so that his wounds
can heal. Last September, however, a James-promoted card
at the Salem Armory included three fighters who were on
the national suspension list.
"I don't know how those guys slipped through," said Bob
Oleson, James' matchmaker. "They were last-minute fights
we put together. We would not have used those fighters,
of course, if we had known those guys were suspended."
Cassidy accepts responsibility for the foul-up. "That was
completely my fault," he says, explaining that the matches
were made in such haste that he didn't realize the fighters
were still on the suspension list.
Cassidy's critics say these sorts of oversights are the
result of his willingness to waive the 72-hour deadline
for pre-bout paperwork. Matches have routinely been made
up until the last minute, even during the weigh-in the night
before the show, affording little time for in-depth medical
exams and background checks.
One of Cassidy's most vociferous critics is amateur judge
and referee Denis Ryan, who is also a Portland real-estate
broker. "Boxing is a dangerous sport," Ryan says. "And any
time you let it go beyond a certain point, you're putting
a fighter at risk."
In March, Ryan wrote a letter to the attorney general outlining
26 occasions when Cassidy, his state police liaison Capt.
Robert Miller, James and others in the fight game broke
the rules. Ryan's letter prompted an OSP internal investigation,
which continues as WW goes to press.
While the ultimate outcome remains unclear, the investigation
is certain to focus attention on Cassidy, who is already
facing scrutiny for another episode that highlights the
pitfalls of his relaxed approach--the Abdulai-Washington
match at the Roseland Theater show in February.
The first sign that something was wrong was the involvement
of Thad Spencer.
Thaddeus Spencer Jr. is one of Portland's greatest might-have-beens.
In 1967, Spencer was a serious heavyweight contender, as
good as any fighter not named Muhammad Ali. The iconic Los
Angeles Times sportswriter Jim Murray once wrote of
Spencer: "He had all the moves. The left was snake-like,
the right punishing. He didn't just win fights, he choreographed
them."
Spencer was due to fight Ali for the title in '67 when
Ali was suspended for protesting the draft. In an ensuing
tournament to determine the new champ, Spencer beat No.
1 contender Ernie Terrell. He never won again.
"I was flirting with the streets," says the tall, dapper
Spencer, who favors double-breasted suits and jaunty Kangol
caps. "All my friends were players and dope dealers. I was
flirting with them pretty heavy. I really hit the road.
I got another life. I decided I didn't want to fight any
more. I was doing drugs, there were a lot of girls. I was
a mess."
The ex-pug's nadir came in the mid-'70s when he was shot
seven times during separate late-night altercations. In
the early 80s, Spencer decided to make a comeback as a boxing
promoter. But by the end of the decade, both Washington
and California had determined Spencer was unfit for that
role, in part because of a habit of neglecting to pay people.
Spencer recently secured a matchmaker's license in Oregon,
however, and early this year, his old friend David Leiken,
who owns the Roseland Theater, hired him to work as the
matchmaker for the Feb. 19 card at his club.
Many of the fight fans came out to support Spencer, who
was working with a Tacoma stuntman and boxing trainer named
Dan Stenado. Between the two of them, Spencer and Stenado
struggled to put together the five-fight card. But on the
morning of Friday, Feb. 18, the day before the show, Cassidy
suspected he would have to call it off. The 72-hour deadline
had passed and he still hadn't received the licensing paperwork
for several fighters, including Abdulai, the bulldog from
Las Vegas.
In Oregon, every boxing show must consist of at least 26
rounds. Promoters typically pack together several bouts
of four to 10 rounds each to meet the requirement.
At 4:11 pm that afternoon, Cassidy received a fax from
Associated Pathologists Laboratories of Las Vegas. It was
a lab report showing that Abdulai had tested positive for
marijuana.
The fax should have derailed the show then and there. The
commission's rules are very clear that a positive drug test
will disqualify a boxer for at least 30 days. Abdulai would
have to drop out. If Cassidy disqualified Abdulai, the show
would fall under the 26-round minimum and collapse.
Rather than immediately call the show off, however, Cassidy
phoned the Best Western hotel near the Convention Center,
where several out-of-town fighters and their handlers were
staying, to break the bad news to Abdulai's manager, Luis
Tapia.
Tapia couldn't believe it. "They said it was impossible
that the test came up positive, that their guy doesn't smoke,"
Cassidy says. Tapia promised he'd sort out the confusion.
Thirty-two minutes later, a second lab report gurgled out
of the commission's fax machine. This time, it showed Abdulai
was clean. Puzzled by this turn of events, but relieved
the show could be salvaged, Cassidy announced that the fights
were on.
He had just been taken for a ride.
A close look at the two faxes suggests that Cassidy was
the victim of a clever fraud. In fact, WW has learned,
the second fax came not from the lab but from the Best Western.
According to Craig Brown, the manager of the toxicology
lab at APL, the lab's records show that the same positive
report was faxed first to the Oregon commission and then,
17 minutes later, to the Best Western. Shown the questionable
report, Brown said it was clear someone had simply cut Abdulai's
name off the top of the positive report and attached it
to a different fighter's negative report.
Tapia denies any wrongdoing. Instead, he and others blame
local booking agent Howard "Howie" Tanzman, a longtime friend
of Spencer's who was present when the managers learned about
Abdulai's positive drug test.
Tanzman says this is absurd.
"These are guys trying to cover their own asses," he retorts.
"If you're guilty of something, you're going to point the
finger at someone else."
In a sport with more cons than San Quentin, the fact that
some palooka from Nevada smoked a little weed before heading
to Oregon is hardly the stuff of screaming headlines.
But Cassidy's willingness to accept the miraculous second
drug test raises questions about how far the rules can be
bent before someone gets hurt. Critics say the current commission
has forsaken its duty to uphold the integrity of the sport
and has instead become a cheerleader for promoters.
"The point here," Anderson says, "is whether the commission
sees itself as a chamber of commerce, where the show must
go on, or as operating under a mandate from the state Legislature
to conduct itself in the public's interest."
"Encouraged by the OSP, Cassidy's attitude is to make boxing
happen," says Katherine Dunn. "Bruce Anderson's attitude
was to protect the boxers against injury and protect the
public against fraud."
Cassidy's supporters believe the director is doing as good
a job as he can while at once trying to satisfy eager promoters,
the OSP and law-minded observers. They say Cassidy is simply
trying to bring to life a sport that his predecessor almost
regulated to death.
As the debate over the commission's role rages on, it is
important to remember that both sides are, at heart, die-hard
boxing fans. While most of the country has turned away from
the sport in favor of wrestling's outrageous theatrics and
tawdry morality plays, for this small but vocal chorus,
boxing is the ultimate drama, a sweat-drenched dance at
once savage and civilized. Paradoxically, their own unregulated
competition may prove to be the sport's final blow.
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Willamette Week | originally
published April 26,
2000
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