Channel 13 Hopes Local Boxing Still Can Pack a Punch

In simpler times, the days long before pay-per-view when cable TV was simply something you had to improve your reception, a television staple was local boxing.

The weekly shows from the Olympic Auditorium were almost always a hit.

Ah, the memories.

There was Dick Enberg calling the action in the 1960s for Channel 5, and there was Jim Healy at the microphone for Channel 13 in the ‘70s.

They say you can never go back. But, maybe, just maybe, you can.

Channel 13 is going to give it a try.

Local boxing returns to over-the-air television next Tuesday at 8 p.m., when the station will televise a card from the Country Club in Reseda featuring the Ruelas brothers, lightweight Gabriel and featherweight Rafael, in separate bouts.

The announcing team includes Barry Tompkins, who used to call fights for HBO, ESPN’s Al Bernstein, and Channel 13’s Tony Hernandez.

Tuesday’s two-hour show, to be called “Ringside Tonight,” is an experiment. If things go well, Channel 13 may look into more local boxing--possibly bimonthly.

“This could be the start of a trend in boxing that may spread to other parts of the country,” said Dan Goossen, the promoter of next Tuesday’s show.

Rick Feldman, Channel 13’s station manager, said: “I’m sure Dan would like for us to do a monthly show, but from our point of view, five or six a year would be the optimum.”

Whether local boxing on over-the-air television can come back remains to be seen, but one thing is almost a certainty: The plethora of pay-per-view bouts we have is going to diminish.

Major fights, such as the Mike Tyson-Razor Ruddock rematch at the Mirage in Las Vegas June 28, work on pay-per-view.

Just about anything less doesn’t.

Pay-per-view isn’t sport’s pot of gold, as a lot of people envision. It works only for major events. There have been more failures than successes, and that trend continues, particularly now during economically troubled times.

The heavily promoted Thomas Hearns-Virgil Hill fight had a minuscule buy rate, meaning that the financial losses were anything but minuscule.

TVKO, the pay-per-view sister of HBO, has had three shows. Evander Holyfield-George Foreman, a megafight, made megabucks. TVKO’s more recent shows, lesser attractions, did not.

Promoter Don King, who rambled on as usual during a news conference this week for Tyson-Ruddock, did make one sensible comment about pay-per-view amid all his nonsensical hyperbole: “The customer is the boss. He decides what he’ll pay for and what he won’t.”

Whether the fee is $19.95 or $29.95 seems to make no difference. The customer won’t pay for the caliber of fight he used to get free on the networks.

But he will pay $34.95 for Tyson-Ruddock. And he would probably pay $49.95 or so for Tyson-Holyfield. Or even Tyson-Foreman.

TVKO’s past two pay-per-view fights have been intriguing ones. It’s unfortunate so few boxing fans saw them.

James Toney’s knockout of Michael Nunn in Nunn’s hometown of Davenport, Iowa, last month and Edwin Rosario’s stunning, lopsided whipping of Loreto Garza in his hometown of Sacramento last Friday were worthy of bigger audiences.

Also, Jorge Paez’s wild 10-round victory over Tracy Spann on the Sacramento undercard made last Friday’s show particularly memorable.

Not only were the fights good, so were the announcing and producing, which is saying something, considering how much heat TVKO took, and rightly so, for its amateurish production of Holyfield-Foreman.

It was unfair to ask the inexperienced announcing team of Len Berman, no relation to ESPN’s Chris, and Joe Goossen, Dan’s brother, to break in on an event as big as Holyfield-Foreman. Three fights later, they are a more polished team.

The overall look of the last TVKO show was also vastly improved, although we probably could do without the insertion of the day’s sports news--golf scores, baseball scores and the Chicago Bulls’ victory celebration. Such things seemed out of place.

However, a recap of the Toney-Nunn fight made for good filler.

TVKO’s next show is a tripleheader July 12 at Lake Tahoe--Mike Weaver vs. Lennox Lewis, Mark Breland vs. Pat Lawlor, who beat Roberto Duran, and Tony (the Tiger) Lopez vs. Lupe Gutierrez.

Not a bad card, but it doesn’t belong on pay-per-view.

Pay-per-view’s failings don’t seem to be scaring away investors. Another major player, billionaire Marvin Davis, has entered the arena.

Davis’ two sons, John and Gregg, along with Michael Weisman, former executive producer of NBC Sports, have formed a new company, Davis Sports Entertainment, a subsidiary of Davis Companies.

It will be involved in pay-per-view sports as well as a wide range of sports production, including cable and network specials.

TV-Radio Notes

After the Angels’ Luis Sojo was beaned by Detroit’s Dan Gakeler Thursday night and Detroit’s Mickey Tettleton was hit by Chuck Finley, Channel 5 commentator Ken Brett said: “People at home may not like to hear this, but throwing at a batter is part of the game.” Brett was right in that there were people at home who didn’t like that comment. For one thing, Brett seemed to be defending Finley, who was ejected. Had it been a Tiger pitcher, he probably would have sung a different tune. Also, why is it baseball announcers who are former pitchers, such as Brett, refuse to take strong stands against beanings?

Another thing, Brett almost seemed to be promoting violence when he said of Tettleton’s half-hearted charge to the mound toward Finley: “He didn’t have his heart into it. If a guy has his heart in it, he runs out there. If you’re going to go out there, go out there. . . . If you’re (only) going to take a step or two in that direction, go to first base instead. If you’re going to be a man, run out there and go get him.”

UCLA Coach Terry Donahue and assistant coach Rick Neuheisel played key roles in getting former quarterback David Norrie the job as the Bruins’ KMPC football commentator. They, along with other school officials, pushed to get a former UCLA player into that position, and Norrie was among several candidates considered. John Sciarra and Gary Beban were two others. Jack Snow was knocked out of the running because he played for Notre Dame.

It is common journalistic practice not to use the name of alleged victims in sexual assault cases. So Maureen Siegel, the head of the city attorney’s criminal division, was among those stunned that KFWB used the woman’s name in the case involving three USC football players, who were acquitted last week. Bill Yeager, KFWB program director, said it was simply a mistake. “We blew it,” Yeager said.

The U.S. Open playoff Monday may have created some programming problems, but ABC can’t complain about the rating: a 6.6 in the nation’s 25 largest markets. It even beat Sunday’s rating of 5.4, the highest sports rating of the weekend. Jim McKay had to leave Sunday because of other commitments, leaving Roger Twibell and Dave Marr to anchor Monday’s playoff coverage. . . . ABC announced this week that Brent Musburger will anchor the network’s Pan American Games coverage Aug. 3-18.

HBO returns to Wimbledon for its 17th consecutive season. The pay-cable network’s weekday coverage begins Monday at 5 p.m. Jim Lampley is again the HBO host, with commentary by Arthur Ashe, Billie Jean King and Barry MacKay supplementing the BBC coverage. . . . The Wimbledon weekends belong to NBC, but commentator Chris Evert won’t be there. Evert will provide commentary from her home in Boca Raton, Fla., while she awaits the arrival of her first baby. Tracy Austin will take Evert’s place in England.

Beginning Monday, CNN’s 8:30 edition of “Sports Tonight,” with Nick Charles and Fred Hickman, will move to 8 p.m. Bill MacPhail, CNN’s vice president in charge of sports, said one reason for the move was to give East Coast viewers the sports news a half-hour earlier. Another was to avoid going head to head with ESPN’s higher-rated “SportsCenter,” although “SportsCenter” is often aired at 8 during the baseball season. . . . With Prime Ticket now showing “Wet N’ Wild Wednesdays,” featuring water sports, the cable network’s outstanding “It’s Your Call” program, with Bill Macdonald, has been moved to Friday nights at 6.