Goossen Tries to Get His Foot Back in the Door

P.J. Goossen has shed the surfer look. And he isn’t trading in his boxing gloves for a surfboard, either.

While the San Fernando Valley sweltered this week, a sweaty Goossen, instead of hitting the beach, was hitting the body bag in a North Hollywood gym.

Goossen, 28, of Studio City, former International Boxing Organization junior-middleweight champion, is attempting to jump-start a career that seems to have, well, slipped through the cracks.

Goossen suffered a devastating blow last November when an 11th-hour foot injury forced him to withdraw from a scheduled 10-round bout with Roberto Duran in Johannesburg, South Africa.

After traveling halfway around the globe for a fight that would have earned him about $10,000--the biggest payday of his career--Goossen broke the metacarpal bone in his left foot after falling through a canvas-covered hole during sparring.

Only four months removed from wearing a cast, with 187 pounds on his 6-foot-1 frame, a slimmed down Goossen prepares to enter the ring for the first time in 14 months when he headlines a card of local fighters Sept. 9 at the Reseda Country Club.

“It is so easy to get out of shape and so hard to get back into it,” Goossen said. “Even when I wasn’t fighting, I never laid off from the gym--except when I hurt my foot.”

Considering the layoff, Goossen doesn’t look bad. He has shed about 25 pounds and is closing in on his fighting weight.

“The foot feels fine,” Goossen said. “Everyone told me I was going to have pain, but it’s been no problem at all.”

He has shed his identifiable, bleached tuft of hair in favor of its natural sandy shade, although he still sports the tanned torso of a surfer.

Goossen, who began fighting on the streets of North Hollywood, attributes the make-over to maturity.

“I had it before everyone else did,” he said. “Before Billy Idol or Dennis Rodman.”

With 13 knockouts and only one loss in 19 professional fights, Goossen wants to start making money or get out of the fight game.

Goossen will fight an opponent to be determined at the Country Club, no strange venue to the boxing family of Goossens. But Pat Goossen has his sights set higher for his son, who he trains and manages.

While a payday with Duran likely has slipped away, the Goossens have their sights set on another aging, though marketable, veteran--Hector “Macho” Camacho.

Pat Goossen, who is co-promoting the Country Club card, is negotiating with promoter Mike Acri, who handles Duran and Camacho. Acri has been interested in a matchup with Goossen since he won his title with a 12-round decision over Greg Lonon at the Warner Center Marriott in June, 1996.

A victory and, equally important, an impressive showing will move Goossen closer to a fight with Camacho, perhaps in Southern California, in the fall.

But first things first. Foremost, how much, if at all, have Goossen’s skills eroded?

A plodding, hard-punching middleweight, Goossen ballooned while his leg was in a cast.

“He was depressed,” Pat Goossen said. “Very depressed.”

After Goossen’s withdrawal, Duran won a unanimous eight-round decision over David Radford. Goossen, bandaged and on crutches, watched the fight on television from a hotel room.

“The way Duran looked there, I don’t think there was any way he could have beaten me,” Goossen said. “He looked like an old man.

“Everybody says things happen for a reason, but I still don’t know what the reason is. Basically, it just set me back for a year. I could be fighting for a world title right now.”

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Jimmy “The Stump” Buffo, a 5-foot-5 heavyweight from North Hollywood and a crowd favorite at the Country Club, will join Goossen on the Sept. 9 program. It will mark the first time the fighters, who are cousins, will fight on the same card.

Buffo, 36, who has two knockout victories in as many pro fights, was a linebacker at Valley College and Cal Lutheran, and fought in the “World’s Toughest Man” competition.

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Fernando Vargas of Oxnard, scheduled to fight Jose Rivera on Aug. 22 at Bally’s Park Place in Atlantic City, will fight a different opponent.

Darren Maciunski, a 29-year-old journeyman from Trenton, N.J., will replace Rivera, who suffered torn ligaments in his right hand during sparring.

Vargas, ranked No. 1 by the International Boxing Federation, has knocked out all 14 of his opponents.