THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9410020210
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C8 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY RICH RADFORD, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
Frankie Randall, the World Boxing Association junior welterweight champion, showed up to watch the Pernell ``Sweetpea'' Whitaker-Buddy McGirt fight Saturday night wearing a sharp looking purple suit.
But he talked like a man whose emotions were somewhat blue.
Randall is in search of another shot at Julio Cesar Chavez. Randall beat Chavez in a split decision in January. It was the first loss of Chavez's career and with it went the WBC super lightweight title. Cries for a rematch were immediate.
In May, Chavez regained the title when the fight was stopped after eight rounds due to an unintentional head butt by Randall that cut Chavez. Under WBC rules, the fight was stopped, the cards were tallied and Chavez won on a split decision when a point was deducted from Randall on each card.
The head-butt rule has subsequently been dubbed the Frankie Randall rule.
Randall says the Chavez camp promised a rematch should he beat Juan Coggi for the WBA title. Two weeks ago, Randall did just that. But now Randall says there's talk that the return path to Chavez must run through Whitaker. Whitaker's camp disputes that will happen, for now anyway.
Typical boxing: more glamour fights, more purses. Both Randall and Chavez are under contract with Don King, who is notorious for upping the purses rather than giving the fight crowd what it wants.
``I just want to fight and I want to fight Chavez,'' Randall said. ``I don't want to fight Whitaker and I shouldn't have to fight Whitaker.
``I'm the man who beat the man nobody could beat. Now I have to wait to go through all these obstacles?''
Randall turned 33 on Sept. 25, but says age has not caught up with him. He's 53-3-1 with 40 knockouts and says it's the other top-flight fighters in or near his 140-pound weight class - Chavez, Whitaker, McGirt and Meldrick Taylor - who must worry about age.
``Time's not running out on me,'' Randall said. ``It's running out on them. I've won two championships in the last year and I'm working on a third one.
``It ain't how old you are but how good you are,'' Randall said.
BOMB SCARE: An early-morning caller to 911 said a bomb would go off at 10:30 p.m., according to Mike Boorman, a publicist for promoter Dan Duva. The fight was scheduled to start at that time. It got under way at 10:45 p.m.
The arena was searched during the day and nothing was found.
A written bomb threat was made Friday night at the Omni, the hotel where the two fighters were staying. The weigh-in was hurriedly held and the hotel evacuated, but a search was made and nothing was found.
THE UNDERCARDS: The eight-fight undercard started off with some severe mismatches as Jade Scott beat Stacey McSwain (TKO, 1:42 of 2nd round), Ruben Bell beat Lonnell Strohman (TKO, 2:00 of 1st round) and Portsmouth's Elvis Alexander beat Charles Carter (KO, 2:29 of 1st round).
But matters heated up when Portsmouth's Dorin Spivey met Doug Edwards of Fredricksburg in a scheduled four-round junior welterweight bout.
The shorter, more powerful Spivey wildly took the fight to the taller, leaner Edwards and Edwards' smooth style and composure gave Spivey fits.
But the 21-year-old Manor High graduate finally sent Edwards to the canvas twice in the fourth, scoring a technical knockout. Spivey connected early in the round with an uppercut that put Edwards on his heels, then finished the job later in the round with a straight right cross.
``I basically fought out of frustration the first three rounds,'' Spivey said. ``I landed a couple good shots, but he had a good chin.
``Plus, my nerves were a little shot by the size of the crowd.''
Spivey improved to 8-0 with his eighth knockout.
``I really wanted to keep my knockout count intact,'' Spivey said. ``I did. Eight fights, eight knockouts.''
In the remainder of the undercard, Main Events fighters David Tua, Raul Marquez and Courage Tshabalala scored victories and Virginia Beach's Tony Pope scored the quickest knockout of the night.
Pope KO'd Lawrence Jackson 40 seconds into his super middleweight bout.
Tua, a 217-pound heavyweight from New Zealand, knocked out Canada's Ken Lakusta at 1:20 of the fourth round to improve to 16-0 (13 KOs).
Marquez, a junior middleweight and former Olympian, beat Portsmouth's Darryl Cherry on a technical knockout at 2:32 of the sixth round to improve to 17-0 with 14 knockouts.
Tshabalala, a 226-pound heavyweight from South Africa, scored a first-round technical knockout when he broke Ken Williams' nose and doctors would not allow Williams to answer the bell for the second round. Tshabalala improved to 7-0 with seven first-round knockouts as a pro. In 20 amateur bouts, Tshabalala was unbeaten scoring 20 first-round knockouts.
HOOKS AND JABS: A 10-bell salute was sounded between undercard bouts in honor of Ace Marotta, Whitaker's cut man for his entire career. Marotta died two weeks ago after a year-long battle with cancer. Whitaker wore ``Ace'' on his trunks in honor and cornermen for Whitaker and McGirt wore his name on clothing as a tribute. ... Among the headliners ringside at Scope were former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield and standup comic Sinbad, who was in town to give a concert at Old Dominion University. ... CBS Sports on Tuesday will announce a six-fight world championship boxing series at a press conference in New York. Fighters expected to participate include IBF bantamweight champ Orlando Canizales, IBF featherweight champ Tom Johnson and WBO lightweight champ Oscar de la Hoya. by CNB