By Norm Frauenheim –

PHOENIX – The streets have always been part of Michael Carbajal’s identity.

He’s endured them. Survived them. Fought because of them. They’ve left their mark, scars still there like deep cracks in an old sidewalk outside of his Ninth Street Gym, which was a church about a century ago.

It’s still a bully pulpit, but punches do all the preaching these days. You can hear the choir in the rhythm of a speed bag.

Step out of the gym and down the street, Fillmore, and you’re at Carbajal’s childhood home.

I’ve walked that street with him often and asked what keeps him there. He looks at me, eyes flashing like sparks off flint, as if to say I don’t understand.

For years, I didn’t.

Today, I do.

That was delivered definitively this week at a Phoenix City Council meeting just a few miles of roadwork from Ninth Street and Fillmore. Carbajal was on the agenda, Item No. 65. From liquor licenses to zoning issues, the session began with the usual process. Think about your last visit to the Motor Vehicle Division. Take a number, please.

But, suddenly, it went from protocol to poignant with Item No. 65, a resolution to rename one of those streets after Carbajal.

Ordinarily, council meetings in any city don’t attract a crowd. But this one did. From Carbajal friends and neighbors to those who had a role in his ring career, dozens were there.

I was there, too, and I was lucky enough to speak in his behalf. I was asked to.

Ordinarily, that’s not the job of a journalist, sports or otherwise. I had covered Carbajal’s career during my years at The Arizona Republic.

I was there in Seoul when he got robbed of a gold medal at the 1988 Olympics.

I was there in Las Vegas when he got up twice and knocked out Chiquita Gonzalez in a dramatic 1993 Fight of the Year, a fight as memorable as any in the history of boxing’s smallest weight classes.

I was there in Mexico City in 1994 in front of at least 30,000 Gonzalez fans, then unhappy at California’s Proposition 187, controversial immigration legislation.

Carbajal was Mexican only in name and heritage on that night, which ended in Gonzalez wining a debatable decision in a second rematch.

For those Mexican fans, he was a convenient American target for their anger at the California proposal. They drank, threw debris and waited for Carbajal to enter the hostile arena as if he were the bull that the place had been built for.

About an hour before opening bell, I saw Carbajal, seated with his hands taped and ready to take that long walk through a gathering storm.

He was a lonely figure at the end of a long dark tunnel that was his dressing room.

All the while, restless partisans stomped their feet in unison.

The noise had an angry beat, one that echoed a fundamental cliche: You can’t play boxing. I looked at Carbajal and wondered what I would feel at that moment.

One word: Terror.

I think I would have headed for the parking lot, jumped into a taxi, gone to the airport and boarded a flight in a panicked escape to Cabo San Lucas.

But I also knew then that I admired Carbajal. It’s hard to be objective about courage, and I saw plenty of it on that night in a 108-pound kid off the streets of Phoenix.

Over the years, I was often accused of crossing the line. I was told I had gotten too close. I can’t deny that. But I won’t apologize for it, either.

Boxing, itself, is different than any other sport in traditional journalism, now a dying craft. Trust is hard to come by from fighters who grew up mistrusting cops, teachers and a gringo reporter from a big daily that had not paid much attention to their neighborhoods.

In more than a decade as the Suns beat reporter, I had worked hard to keep my distance. But those traditional lines weren’t there in trying to cover Carbajal, a tough Mexican-American from a dangerous neighborhood just a few blocks from The Republic’s newsroom.

Through it all, there was controversy, an inherent part of almost any ring career. After all, prizefighting is controversial, almost by definition.

There were arrests, police investigations, shootings, gang allegations and ominous rumors. It was part of the Carbajal story and part of the reason I would ask him: Why, Michael, why do you stay here?

He has for the same reason he took that long ring walk on that night in Mexico City three decades ago. His adherence to a dangerous craft is as unshakable as his ties to those streets in a dangerous neighborhood.

Turns out, his friends, neighbors and a few retired cops understood that better than a gringo reporter.

They spoke to the city council before and after I did at Wednesday’s meeting Retired cops, who had worked Carbajal’s neighborhood, confirmed there was trouble, but they said, it didn’t come from Michael.

By the time it was my turn to take the podium, I realized that legacy — a word so overused to be almost meaningless – is still relevant in Carbajal, now 56 and 25 years removed from his last fight in 1999.

Younger neighbors, who weren’t even born when he was fighting, know him and identify with him because he’s still there. Their challenges were his challenges.

For Phoenix, he continues to be a living piece of tangible history. In my two minutes before the City Council, I talked about how the Phoenix area has become an emerging market for promoters from all over the world.

Eddie Hearn, of London’s Matchroom Promotions, has been staging cards in Phoenix and Glendale for the last couple of years. Hearn is putting together a Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez-Juan Francisco Estrada SuperFly showdown, projected for June 29 at Glendale’s Desert Diamond Arena.

“There are a lot of educated fans here,’’ Hearn said repeatedly when he was in Phoenix, representing John Ryder in January for Ryder’s stoppage loss to Jamie Munguia.

There are, because of Carbajal. At recent cards, I’ve often been approached by young fans who tell me that their dads used to read me all the time when I was writing about Carbajal for The Republic.

Those sons are Hearn’s educated fans, the demographic that has turned the Phoenix market into a go-to place for promoters and networks.

They also represent Carbajal’s ongoing legacy, an avenue to what the emerging market has become.

There are no avenues in Carbajal’s neighborhood. But there will be a street, from Ninth to Tenth, named after him. The Council voted to attach Michael Carbajal Way onto the street signs. It was a unanimous decision, 9-0.

It’s appropriate. The streets that created him will soon be named after him.

By Norm Frauenheim

Amateur boxing is talking reform. Again. With another Olympics just a few weeks away, the sport’s international ruling body says it plans far-reaching change for what it promises will be “a fair fight.’’

Fair enough. Easy to do, too. The body, AIBA, took an opportunity to grab the bully pulpit this week with an international news conference less than a month before opening ceremonies. Trouble is, AIBA isn’t supposed to have anything to do with boxing at the delayed Tokyo Games.

The Olympic czars in Switzerland have ordered AIBA to get its house in order. That means cleaning up a reported $16-million debt, a mob-like history of bureaucrats and bosses and decades full of corrupt judging.

Olympic boxing makes the scarred pro game look like Mister Clean. Hard to do. Yet, it hangs on, pushed to the edge of the Olympic fringe because of its long history and its universality. Everybody fights, and everybody has been fighting since at least the ancient Greeks. It’s there, in spite of itself.

But it’s not clear how many people watch anymore. Exasperation at boxing’s failure to root out the corruption forced NBC to drop it as a featured part of its telecast schedule. It’s embarrassing and has been since Roy Jones Jr. got robbed 33 years ago in Seoul. The world saw it. Then, boxing still generated an audience, one that remembered 1976 and a Montreal Olympics that starred Sugar Ray Leonard.

The Jones theft, a decision that cost him the gold medal, might as well be forever framed in yellow-crime tape. It was defining, for him and the Olympics. It was no coincidence, perhaps, that Jones was part of the news conference from Lausanne. He appeared alongside AIBA’s new president, Umar Kremlev, a Russian. Remember, Jones is Russian, too. At least, he has a Russian passport. The American was granted citizenship by Vladimir Putin in 2015.

Whatever the connection, Jones belonged there. Despite all of his great moments in the pro ring and his long run atop the pound-for-pound ratings, he will be remembered for what happened at the 1988 Olympics. His voice is the key to any discussion about Olympic boxing and its troubled path to irrelevance. Say it in Russian. Say it In English. Roy Jones Jr. said it all this week.

“Whenever I see that, it feels like yesterday,’’ Jones said of the photo that shows the ref raising South Korean Park Si-hun’s hand in victory for the light-middleweight gold. “And not in a great way.

“All the judges that were part of that decision were crooked. They’ve all been banned. And I know they were not the only ones.

“So, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The judges were crooked. The whole world knows it. Even my opponent agrees I won the fight. But how come I don’t have my gold medal? How can you beat someone so bad and not get the gold medal, and they don’t go back and fix it? Because I’m still here. And I still earned it. And we have to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.’’

The key is in Jones question: Why-oh-why doesn’t he have the gold? More than three decades have come and gone. Jones was awarded the Val Barker Trophy, the award for being the most outstanding boxer at the Seoul Games. In 2002, the IOC honored him with something called The Olympic Order.

But never the gold.

Kremlev said this week that he wants Jones to finally get that gold. For Olympic boxing, it’s a beginning, really the only beginning.

All of the talk about reform is hollow – Fool’s gold – until Olympic boxing gives Jones his moment on the podium’s top pedestal. In the years since 1988, enough has been revealed to give not only Jones the gold. Give one to Michael Carbajal, too. Carbajal’s loss to Bulgarian Ivailo Hristov was just the beginning of rigged judging in a scheme that included an officer in the former East German police force (Stasi). Years after the Seoul Games and subsequent collapse of East Germany, Stasi files were found to include allegations that the fights were fixed and bribes were paid.

Carbajal, of Phoenix, fought and lost on Oct. 1. Jones lost the next day. The night before the Carbajal fight, talk circulated that the fix was in. A shouting match erupted between the American coaching staff and members of the committee responsible for assigning the judges.

Stan Hamilton, a judge-referee from Knoxville, Tenn., told the Los Angeles Times about a contentious 2 a.m. meeting. Hamilton told sportswriter Earl Gustkey that two judges, Hiouad Larbi of Morocco and Alberto Duran of Uruguay, were supposed to have been suspended for questionable work early in the Olympics. He said neither was eligible to work any gold-medal bout. But they worked both the Carbajal and Jones losses – five judges-to-zero against Carbajal and 3-2 against Jones.

Before the meeting ended, Hamilton said, committee member Vladimir Gordienko, of the former Soviet Union, left and ran into Jim Fox, then executive director of the U.S. amateur federation.

“Gordienko was angry,” Hamilton said. “He found Fox and told him: ‘You will lose, 5-0, to the Bulgarian.’ ‘’

That’s what happened. First, Carbajal, then Jones, both losing with judges working while suspended. Carbajal and Jones moved on, both to Hall-of-Fame careers. Neither Hristov nor Park fought again, amateur or pro.

It was the fix that never got fixed. Until it does, there will never be a new beginning for Olympic boxing.

A fair fight is possible, but first give Jones and Carbajal the gold they fairly won.Attachments area

By Norm Frauenheim-

They called him Little Hands of Stone. The impact on Arizona was huge and now forever indelible.

Michael Carbajal, the best fighter in the state’s history and one of the best in the history of lightest divisions in long and colorful sport, will be inducted to the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame Friday at the Scottsdale Plaza Resort.

Carbajal, a former junior-flyweight champion, grew up in downtown Phoenix. He earned to box in a makeshift ring in his backyard. Old hoses were used as ropes. There was dirt instead of canvas. Mostly, there’s was Carbajal’s passion and skill for craft sometimes call The Sweet Science. He still lives in the house that is front of that modest training ground.

It produced an Olympic silver medalist at the 1988 Seoul Games.

It produced the first little guy, a 108-pound fighter, to win a $1 million purse for fight in 1994. From the World Boxing Council to the International Boxing Federation, he won multiple titles in pro career that spanned a decade, 1989-1999, and included 53 fights – 49 victories, 33 by knockouts and four losses.

Along the way, there were chances to move on. At times, there were reasons to move on. There was adversity. But Carbajal always said no. He said he would never leave his community, his home town or home state.  As a fighter, he would always say: “Never quit.” Lots of fighters say that. But they never lived up to the promise. Carbajal lived up to it on both sides of the ropes.

He never quit in the ring or on his vow to stay at home.

Now 52 and already a longtime member of several Hals of Fame, including the international Hall in Canastota, N.Y., Carbajal finally joins the Hall that defines who he is:

An Arizonan.

Carbajal is joined in the 2019 class by late University of Arizona football coach Dick Tomey, former Suns forward Tom Chambers, Olympic swimming medalist Amy Van Dyken-Rouen, Diamondbacks President Derrick Hall and former Northern Arizona University trainer Michael Nesbitt.

LOS ANGELES (July 5, 2019): Hall of Famer Michael “Manitas De Piedra” Carbajal will be the special VIP guest for the event headlined by the 10-round battle between contender Jason Quigley (16-0, 12 KOs) and Tureano Johnson (20-2-1, 14 KOs) for the NABF Middleweight Title on the July 18 edition of the Golden Boy DAZN Thursday Night Fights at Fantasy Springs Casino in Indio, Calif. The fights will be streamed live
on RingTV.com and on Facebook Watch via the Golden Boy Fight Night Page beginning at 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT. The series will also be available on regional sports networks around the nation.

Carbajal is a legendary boxer who, among other accolades in his amateur career, earned a Silver Medal at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Carbajal then began a legendary professional career where he became the first of the 1988 Olympic Team to capture a world title and then earned a total of six world titles against fighters such as Muangchai Kittikasem, Josue Camacho and Scotty Olson and Jorge “Travieso” Arce. Carbajal also participated in a historic trilogy against Humberto “Chiquita” Gonzalez.

Carbajal will be in attendance for this event to meet fans, sign autographs and take pictures inside the Fantasy Springs Special Events Center. The meet-and-greet is open to the public with the purchase of a ticket to the event.

In the co-main event, Alberto “Impacto” Melian (5-0, 3 KOs) of Buenos Aires, Argentina will defend his NABA Super Bantamweight Title in a 10-round fight against Leonardo Baez (14-2, 8 KOs) of Mexicali, Mexico.

Marlen Esparza (6-0, 1 KO) of Houston, Texas will defend her NABO Flyweight Title in an eight-round bout against Sonia Osorio (13-6-1, 3 KOs) of Mexico City, Mexico.

Ricardo Sandoval (14-1, 9 KOs) of Rialto, Calif. will participate in a 10-round flyweight battle against Marco Sustaita (12-1-1, 10 KOs) of Oceanside, Calif.

Carlos “The Solution” Morales (18-4-3, 7 KOs) of Los Angeles will return in a 10-round lightweight fight against Rosekie Cristobal (15-4, 11 KOs) of Cotabato, Philippines.

Charles Huerta (20-6, 12 KOs) of Paramount, Calif. will fight in an eight-round super featherweight clash against Filipino boxer Recky Dulay (11-5, 8 KOs).

Irish prospect Aaron “Silencer” McKenna (8-0, 5 KOs) will participate in a six-round fight against a soon-to-be-announced opponent.

Quigley vs Johnson is a 10-round fight for the NABF Middleweight Title presented by Golden Boy. The event is sponsored by Tecate “THE OFFICIAL BEER OF BOXING.” The fights will take place Thursday, July 18, 2019 at Fantasy Springs Resort Casino in Indio, Calif. The event will be streamed live on RingTV.com and on Facebook Watch via the Golden Boy Fight Night Page beginning at 10:00 p.m. ET/7:00 p.m. PT. The series will also be available on regional sports networks around the nation. To see when and where the series is available in your area, click here.

Tickets for the event are on sale and start at $25. Tickets will be available at the FantasySprings Resort Casino box office, by calling 1-800-827-2946, or by purchasing onlineat www.fantasyspringsresort.com.

Media interested covering Quigley vs Johnson must be pre-approved for credentials.
Credential applications are due Monday, July 15 at 5:00 p.m. PT Click here to apply for a media credential. Submitting an application does not guarantee approval for a credential. You cannot transfer your credentials to someone else. Media will not be credentialed on-site, no exceptions.

For more information, visit www.goldenboypromotions.com and DAZN.com. Follow on Twitter @GoldenBoyBoxing and @DAZN_USA. Become a fan on Facebook
at www.facebook.com/GoldenBoyBoxing and https://www.facebook.com/DAZNUSA/. Follow on Instagram @GoldenBoyBoxing and @DAZN_USA. Follow the conversation using #QuigleyJohnson, #ThursdayNightFights and #TNF.

Photos and videos are available to download by click in here or by copying and pasting link: http://bit.ly/QuigleyJohnson into a browser. Credit must be given to Golden Boy for photos andvideos used.

PHOENIX, Ariz. –Michael Carbajal has always been known best for what he did in Nevada. It’s where he staked his first claim on real fame. It’s fitting that he’ll be remembered there too when he is inducted to the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame.

“It’s an honor, a real honor, to be voted into a Hall alongside the great, great fighters who fought in boxing’s mecca,’’ said Carbajal, who will be inducted to the Nevada Hall in a class that includes Thomas Hearns, Salvador Sanchez, Erik Morales, Michael Spinks, Leon Spinks, Ken Norton, Lucia Rijker and Richie Sandoval.

Sandoval, a former bantamweight champ, talked Top Rank’s Bob Arum into signing Carbajal, a junior-flyweight. It was the first time Arum had ever promoted a fighter in one of boxing lightest divisions.

Carbajal’s most memorable moment came on March 13, 1993 at the old Las Vegas Hilton. That’s when he got up from two knockdowns, one in the second round and again in the fifth, to score a dramatic seventh-round KO of rival Humberto Gonzalez.

The victory earned him a rematch and $1-million paycheck, the first ever for s junior-flyweight. Gonzalez beat Carbajal in controversial decisions in subsequent rematches, the first in Los Angeles and the second in Mexico City. But the only one anybody remembers is that first one in Vegas on a memorable Nevada night.

Carbajal, now 49, had 53 pro bouts, winning 49 and losing four. He scored 33 knockouts, including a stoppage of Jorge Arce in his last bout in 1999. He is remembered as one of history’s greatest little guys, alongside Gonzalez and Ricardo Lopez. He was inducted to the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y., in 2006.

He won an Olympic silver medal for the United Staes at the 1988 Seoul Games. He continues to live in the downtown Phoenix home where he grew up. He works with kids at his Ninth Street Gym.

Carbajal and his fellow inductees will be honored at a dinner on Aug 12 at Vegas’ Caesars Palace.

LAS VEGAS (February 15, 2017) — Former world champion Thomas Hearns, who along with Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Roberto Duran dominated boxing in the 1980s and became known collectively as “The Four Kings,” headlines a 14-person class of inductees into the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame, Hall CEO/president Michelle Corrales-Lewis announced Wednesday.

Hearns was chosen in the non-Nevada resident boxer category, along with Michael Spinks, Erik Morales, Michael Carbajal, women’s boxing star Lucia Rijker and Salvador Sanchez. Elected in the Nevada resident boxer category was Ken Norton, Leon Spinks and Richie Sandoval.

Chosen in the non-boxer category were referee Davey Pearl, public relations specialist Debbie Munch, promoter Mel Greb, trainer/cut man Rafael Garcia and Nevada Athletic Commission chair Dr. Elias Ghanem.

Norton, Sanchez, Greb and Ghanem will be inducted posthumously.

The members of the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame’s star-studded fifth-induction class will be honored at a gala dinner at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas on Saturday, August 12. Ticket will be released Tomorrow! Thursday, February 16th at Noon PT via NVBHOF.com .

“We are very proud of this class of inductees, and it contains some of the greatest fighters who ever lived,” Corrales-Lewis said. “I’m looking forward to our gala dinner when we can honor these richly deserving people and allow their fans to say hello.”

Hearns was one of the standouts during the 1980s and participated in a series of great bouts in Las Vegas with Leonard, Hagler and Duran. His 1985 bout with Hagler at Caesars Palace is still regarded by many as the greatest fight in boxing history.

The Spinks brothers, Michael and Leon, become the first set of brothers inducted into the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame. Both won gold medals for the U.S. at the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and then went on to win world titles in the pros.

Norton, known primarily for a series of close bouts with the legendary Muhammad Ali, also competed in one of the great heavyweight title bouts ever. He lost the WBC title by a razor-thin decision to Larry Holmes in 1978, among the finest heavyweight championship fights ever held.

Pearl was among the best referees of all-time and worked more than 70 championship bouts. He was the referee for both Leon Spinks’ shocking 1978 upset of Ali as well as for Leonard’s dramatic 14th-round knockout of Hearns in 1981.

The Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame is an IRS 501 (c) (3) charity and all donations are tax deductible. The Hall’s charitable contributions over the five years since its formation have helped boxers in need and boxing-related charities. Donations are welcome.

The Hall was founded in 2013 by noted boxing broadcaster Rich Marotta.

For more information, phone 702-3NVBHOF, or 702-368-2463.

BIOGRAPHIES OF THE NEW HALL OF FAME INDUCTEES

Michael Carbajal – Best known as the first junior flyweight to earn a $1 million purse, Carbajal won world titles at junior flyweight and flyweight. Known as “Little Hands of Stone” for his punching power, Carbajal was 49-4 with 33 KOs.

His rivalry with Humberto “Chiquita” Gonzalez was one of the best of the early 1990s and their 1993 fight was The Ring Magazine Fight of the Year. In 2004, The Ring named Carbajal as the best junior flyweight in history.

He was 98-10 as an amateur and won a silver medal at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, South Korea.

Thomas Hearns – Hearns, 58, won recognized world titles at welterweight, super welterweight, middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight during a career in which he went 61-5-1 with 48 KOs.

He’s most remembered for his savage three-round battle with Hagler in 1985, but he participated in many of the decade’s biggest and most electric bouts. He fought in Las Vegas 16 times, going 11-4-1 with nine knockouts.

Erik Morales – One of the most exciting fighters of the early part of the 2000s, Morales is best known for his series of outstanding fights with arch rival Marco Antonio Barrera. Morales went 52-9 with 36 knockouts but is best known for his trilogy with Barrera, two of which were named Ring Fight of the year.

Morales won major world titles at super bantamweight, featherweight, super featherweight and super lightweight, becoming the first Mexican born fighter to win titles in four weight classes.

He also engaged in a spectacular trilogy with Manny Pacquiao, beating him in the first and dropping the last two.

Ken Norton – Though he was the heavyweight champion before losing his belt to Larry Holmes in one of the great title bouts ever, Norton was best known for his three fights with the legendary Muhammad Ali. Norton defeated Ali in 1973 in San Diego in their first bout, breaking Ali’s jaw.

Ali won the two subsequent bouts, including a 1976 match at Yankee Stadium for the title. Some observers believe Norton deserved to win all three fights.

The Holmes fight was sensational and the two men stood in the center of the ring at Caesars and slugged it out in the 15th and final round.

Lucia Rijker – Rijker is regarded as one of, if not the best, women boxers in history. She was 17-0 with 14 knockouts in boxing and was 37-0-1 with 25 knockouts as a kick boxer.

In her boxing career, she scored dominant wins over the likes of Jane Couch, Marcela Acuna and Chevelle Hallback.

She later appeared in the Oscar-winning film, “Million Dollar Baby.”

Salvador Sanchez – Sanchez tragically died in an auto accident in Mexico at just 23 years old, robbing the world of one of the elite fighters in history well before his time. Sanchez was 44-1-1 with 32 knockouts and was the lineal featherweight champion from 1980 until his death in 1982.

He won the title by knocking out Danny “Little Red” Lopez, but is best known for a dominating eighth-round stoppage of Wilfredo Gomez. Gomez was 33-0 with 32 knockouts but was no match for Sanchez.

Richie Sandoval – Sandoval held the bantamweight title for two years, but his career, as great as it was, is a question of what might have been. He was a member of the 1980 U.S. Olympic boxing team, but he lost his chance at a medal when President Carter decided to boycott the Games in Moscow.

Sandoval won the first 29 fights of his pro career, racking up 17 knockouts, and beat the great Jeff Chandler for the bantamweight belt.

But tragically, Sandoval suffered serious brain injuries in a 1986 bout with Gaby Canizales and was forced to retire.

Leon Spinks – Spinks is most known for upsetting Muhammad Ali in 1978 in just his eighth pro fight to win the heavyweight championship. He lost the title in a rematch and failed in two other attempts to win a title. He was stopped by Larry Holmes in a heavyweight title fight in 1981 and lost a cruiserweight title challenge in Reno to Dwight Muhammad Qawi in 1986.

A colorful figure known as “Neon” Leon, he was an acclaimed amateur who was 178-7 with 133 KOs and the light heavyweight gold at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal.

He finished his professional career with a 26-17-3 mark and 14 KOs.

Michael Spinks – Spinks was 31-1 in his career and won both the light heavyweight and heavyweight titles. He moved up from light heavyweight to defeat Larry Holmes at the Riviera in 1985, denying Holmes the opportunity to go 49-0 and match Rocky Marciano’s record.

He won the light heavyweight title in his 17th pro fight in 1981 at the Imperial Palace in Las Vegas when he bested the much more experienced Eddie Mustafa Muhammad. Spinks held the light heavyweight title for four years, before giving it up to move to heavyweight to fight Holmes.

A 1976 Olympic gold medalist, Spinks’ only pro loss came in his final fight when he was knocked out by Mike Tyson in a bout for the undisputed heavyweight title.

NON-BOXER INDUCTEE BIOGRAPHIES
Rafael Garcia – Garcia, 87, is best known for his cap he wears festooned with pins and for working as Floyd Mayweather’s hand wrapper. But he had a long career as both a cut man and a trainer and was outstanding at both. He worked with elite fighters such as Mayweather, Roberto Duran, Alexis Arguello and Wilfredo Gomez.

Dr. Elias Ghanem – Ghanem as the long-time chairman of the Nevada Athletic Commission, and was responsible for helping it to earn the moniker, “The greatest commission in the world.”

Ghanem, a physician whose patients once included Elvis Presley, played a key role in the hearings after Mike Tyson bit Evander Holyfield, and also was instrumental in bringing the Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad bout to Las Vegas in 1999.

Mel Greb – Known as “The father of professional boxing in Southern Nevada,” Greb was a promoter and matchmaker who first brought Muhammad Ali to Nevada. Then known as Cassius Clay, Greb promoted Ali’s seventh pro fight in 1961. That week, he introduced Ali to wrestler “Gorgeous” George, and Ali patterned himself after George in many ways.

Greb died in 1996 at 75 years old.

Debbie Munch – Caesars Palace in Las Vegas was a legendary host for many of boxing’s biggest fights in the 1980s and early 1990s, and Munch, a public relations expert, was instrumental in it.

She was widely respected by promoters, boxers and the media and helped many journalists immeasurably with their boxing coverage.

Davey Pearl – Pearl was small of stature, but was a giant as a referee. He worked more than 70 world title bouts, including Muhammad Ali-Leon Spinks and Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns.

Pearl was also a highly regarded judge.

By Norm Frauenheim–

Roman Gonzalez and Michael Carbajal are separated by twenty years and linked by history.

Saturday that link between two fighters from different generations will come to a rare crossroads, a coincidence, yet still a significant snapshot about where boxing has been and where it’s going.

Gonzalez represents the fulfillment of what Carbajal began. In 1993, Carbajal introduced the possibility that flyweights can be a big part of the business. That’s when the Phoenix Hall of Famer was No. 4 in The Ring’s pound-for-pound ratings, then the highest ever for a fighter in the lightest divisions.

More than two decades later, Gonzalez has a chance to connect the dots — complete what Carbajal started — at New York’s Madison Square Garden against Brian Viloria Saturday on an HBO pay-per-view card (6 p.m. PT/9 p.m. ET) that includes middleweight Gennady Golovkin-versus David Lemieux.

The 28-year-old Gonzalez, an unbeaten Nicaraguan (43-0, 37 KOs) goes into the compelling bout ranked No. 1 by The Ring and other media, including ESPN.

“He should be No. 1,’’ Carbajal, now 48, said. “He deserves to be there.’’

Ironically, yet somehow appropriately, Carbajal won’t get a chance to see the bout live. He’s busy.

At about the time Gonzalez climbs through the ropes for his bout Saturday night with Viloria (36-4, 22 KOs), Carbajal will be working a corner for Johnny Tijerina in a featherweight debut at Celebrity Theatre near downtown Phoenix on a UniMas-televised card featuring Las Vegas super-bantamweight Jessie Magadaleno (21-0, 15 KOs) against Filipino Vergel Nebran (14-9-1, 9 KOs).

On both sides of the ropes, business just wouldn’t be the same anymore without the little guys.

Carbajal, the current trainer, has a key question about Gonzalez, one shared by many.

“What happens when his chin gets tested by some real power?’’ he asks.

Nobody really knows, simply because Gonzalez has been so dominant. Against Viloria, there’s a pretty good chance at an answer.

Although he’s been erratic throughout his career, Viloria, a Filipino-American from Hawaii, possesses proven power. If optimistic reports from his training camp are accurate, he intends to target that untested chin early and often. That, of course, raises a couple of other questions.
To wit:
· Will Viloria be able to land a big blow against the skilled Nicaraguan?

· In setting up a big punch, there’s a good chance Viloria leaves himself open to Gonzalez’ own brand of lethal power. Can he withstand a big Gonzalez counter?

In Roman Gonzalez, Hall of Fame manager and advisor Rafael Mendoza of Guadalajara sees some of Carbajal and some of Carbajal’s great rival, Humberto “Chiquita” Gonzalez. Carbajal and Chiquita collected purses still unequalled in the flyweight divisions with a memorable trilogy.

“Roman is not as fast as Carbajal, but he has some of that speed and some of the quickness,’’ Mendoza said. “He is not as powerful as Chiquita, but he has some of that power. He’s kind of a mix of both.’’

Perhaps a historical mix, potent enough to make him the pound-for-pound No. 1 and keep him there.

Bob Arum is relying on a little guy, Zou Shiming, this weekend in Macau where money beckons and China’s untapped market awaits. It’s bold. It’s smart. It’s also not new.

Arum gambled on a little guy for the first time 25 years ago in Michael Carbajal, who in a different time and different hemisphere unlocked a new market.

Then, Mike Tyson and the heavyweights were going away. The sport was in transition, meaning it was searching for a new way to do business. It did, but at an unlikely end of the scale.

There was no money to be made at 108 and 112 pounds. Not then and often not in the years since Carbajal’s Hall of Fame career. Light-flyweights – a redundancy if there ever was one – and flyweights had a better chance at a paycheck if they replaced gloves with saddles and joined the jockey division. But Carbajal proved that one wrong early in his pro career by drawing crowds that suddenly appeared almost like spontaneous combustion.

Arum, who was talked into signing Carbajal after the 1988 Olympics by Richie Sandoval, discovered a market, primarily Mexican and Mexican-American, interested in the little guys. It has been paying dividends for years at weights – bantam, feather and super-feather – once relegated to forgotten spots on undercards. Manny Pacquiao, a former light-flyweight, became a sensation and a world-wide celebrity at feather.

Arum didn’t know what he had then. Nobody did. But the guess here is that the Carbajal experience tells him Zou Shiming can leave a global footprint that outweighs and outlasts traditional expectations from a weight never known to rock the pay scale.

From what he has seen of Zou Shiming, Carbajal is skeptical. He questions whether the Chinese fighter has enough power to make an impact as a pro.

“I don’t think he’s got the power he needs to win a world title,’’ Carbajal said as he sat on the front steps of his 9th Street Gym in an old Phoenix neighborhood where he was born. “He’s got to have that power, that’s all.’’

It’s fair skepticism, repeated often before Zou Shiming’s pro debut Saturday at 112 pounds against Eleazar Valenzuela (2-1-2, 1 KO) of Mexico. The card also includes World Boxing Association/World Boxing Organization flyweight champion Brian Viloria (32-3, 19 KOs) against Juan Francisco Estrada (22-2, 17 KOs) and WBO junior-lightweight champ Ramon Martinez (26-1-2, 16 KOs) against Diego Magdaleno (23-0, 9 KOs). Former heavyweight champ George Foreman, Larry Merchant and Tim Ryan will be at ringside for HBO2 at The Venetian-Macao for a telecast scheduled to air in the U.S. on Saturday, 2 p.m. (ET/PT).

The power question is familiar. It’s asked about most Olympians. Carbajal, a 1998 silver medalist, had to answer it in the initial stage of his pro career. Success in the amateurs, and especially the Olympics, is dictated by almost everything but power.

Shiming’s Olympic achievements are historical. Shiming, who won China’s first boxing medal – bronze – in 2004, won gold in 2008 and 2012 in the same weight class that Carbajal got silver in a controversial decision during the Seoul Games where the ring ropes might as well have been yellow crime tape. That’s where some scorecard alchemy turned Roy Jones Jr.’s gold into silver in a robbery witnessed by a world-wide audience.

Top Rank hired Freddie Roach to teach a pro, power-friendly style to Shiming, who spent more than a decade perfecting an amateur tactic suited best for a computer-based scoring system employed in the wake of the Jones scandal.

“Freddie has taught me a lot – including how to launch power from my legs, how I can give my opponent body shots,’’ Shiming said through a Top Rank publicist during news conferences in Macau and at Roach’s Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, Calif.. “A lot of things. He’s made me more skilled.

“In training camp with Freddie, I have to avoid as many power punches from my sparring partner as I can. I constantly need to remind myself this is not Olympic-style games. This is real. This is professional boxing.’’

A potential complication is Shiming’s age. He’s 31, which is old for fighters in the lightest divisions. Only the fly in the weight class is said to have a shorter shelf life. Carbajal was 32 in his memorable finale, an 11th-round stoppage of Jorge Arce, then 20, in a Tijuana bullring in September, 1999.

In part, Shiming’s age is a reason he appears to be on the fast-track.

“Shiming is going to be a world champion in a short time, possibly inside one year,’’ Roach said. “And I think he can do it in fewer fights than Leon Spinks, another Olympic gold medalist.’’

Spinks upset Muhammad Ali by split decision in February, 1978, his eighth pro fight after the 1976 Montreal Games.

“I think Zou can do it in his sixth professional fight, if not sooner,’’ Roach said.

It’s no coincidence that Viloria, a late-bloomer, is on Saturday’s card. He looms as a potential big name for Shiming in Arum’s plan to create a boxing market in a country where there was none not long ago. Arum was already a longtime promoter when boxing was still illegal in China. Chairman Mao was no fan.

In Shiming, however, there’s a well-known face with medals and credibility. China’s emerging generations know him. Maybe, they’ll follow him in a sport that their parents were ordered to avoid.

“As big a night as it is for me, it’s an even bigger night for the sport of boxing and boxing in China,’’ he said.

If Zou Shiming can pull it off, he might even convince Michael Carbajal with some history that will remind him that sometimes little guys can come up very big.

The argument is that only a great American heavyweight can resurrect boxing in the United States. Good luck on that search. At the opposite end of the scale, however, there’s no debate. There’s reality. Given the Mexican and Mexican-American demographic at the heart of the game’s audience, the little guy is imperative. Abner Mares might be that guy, the latest in a line of little big men from 105 to 126 pounds who have helped sustain the business since Michael Carbajal and Humberto Gonzalez transformed it.

Mares carries a sense of poise, smarts and skill with him when he steps through the ropes. There’s also accountability. There was never any hesitation in his decision to fight a rematch with Joseph Agbeko after a controversial victory marred by low blows. The pragmatist might have moved on. But that would have left a mess. Mares cleaned up the questions with a victory, a unanimous decision, in a December rematch that allowed him to take the next step, from bantamweight to super-bantam, against Eric Morel Saturday night in El Paso, Tex.

Mares is trying on a heavier weight with the hope of generating momentum for a date with Nonito Donaire. In a conference call, Mares talked about five super-bantamweights he’d like to fight.

“Victor Terrazas, Fernando Montiel, Rafael Marquez, Wilfredo Vazquez Jr., Jorge Arce, and the big name that is up there is, no doubt, Nonito Donaire,’’ Mares said.

Much depends on how Mares (23-0-1, 13 KOs) looks against an experienced, yet aging Morel (46-2, 23 KOs), who is 11-0 since two years in prison for sexual assault. The jury is still out on Donaire since he made the jump from 118 to 122 for a split decision over Vazquez in February. Donaire, who in October won a dull and dominant decision over Omar Narvaez in his last fight at 118, hasn’t followed up on his spectacular knockout of Fernando Montiel in 2011. Then, his second-round stoppage put him into the pound-for-pound debate. But his show-stopping power hasn’t been there since his left hook struck down Montiel like a lightning bolt.

“Definitely a great fighter,’’ said Mares, who knows about Donaire’s knockout ratio, 18 in 28 bouts. “But I don’t think he’s knocked out anybody at 122 yet.’’

He’s fought only one, so we’ll wait-and-see.

Mares has been there before. He’s going back to where he began. In his first 10 bouts as a pro, he was between 120 and 122 pounds for nine of them, winning six by stoppage and three by unanimous decision. He should be comfortable at 120, the catch-weight for Morel. If Donaire makes the adjustment, Mares-Donaire emerges as a possibility that could be among the biggest in the lightest divisions since Carbajal and Gonzales met at 108 in a 1993 Fight of the Year that awakened promoters to a market for smaller fighters at a time when heavyweights were vanishing, or at least going Euro.

Top Rank-versus-Golden Boy stands in the way, if the promotional feud continues and, yawn, everything seems to say that it will, ad nauseam. Donaire is a Top Rank fighter; Mares is Golden Boy. Then there’s history. Even at the lightest weights, some fights never happen. Carbajal never fought Ricardo Lopez; Lopez never fought Gonzalez. But Mares is smart to foresee the rich possibility. Smart to talk about it, too. He’s taking care of business. Too many would kick a potential biggie down the road by saying they’d leave that job up to their promoters. But they forget that the promoters work for them, not the other way around.

Mares seems to know what he wants and, thus far, he has shown that he’ll do what he has to. The promotional fracas, a cold war without apparent end, is suffocating possibilities. Maybe, it’s too much to ask Mares for help. Then again, it wouldn’t be the first time a little guy has helped boxing recreate itself. They know how to fight their way out of tight places.

PROSPECT JR.
Jose Benavidez Jr.’s 15-year-old brother, David, will appear in an amateur bout on an Iron Boy Promotions card at Celebrity Theatre in Phoenix Saturday night. A sign of Arizona’s interest in anything Benavidez was evident Tuesday at an open workout at Central Boxing in downtown Phoenix. The place was jammed for a glimpse at a fighter who might be the state’s next prospect.

At 190 pounds, David is bigger than his celebrated brother, an unbeaten junior-welterweight who is back in the gym and working to rehab his right wrist since undergoing surgery.

“He’s more of inside fighter than I am,’’ said Jose Jr., who says his wrist is about 45 percent healthy. “Basically, he has been boxing since he’s been about 3-years old. He’s always followed it. He watches it at home on television more than I do.’’

Yes, the brothers have sparred. But it hasn’t just been a sibling rivalry played out in the backyard or at the dinner table.

“No, we’ve sparred in the gym,’’ said the 19-year-old Jose, whose brother has sparred with Kelly Pavlik. “I wouldn’t go all out because he’s my little brother. But he tried to kill me. He was hitting me hard, hitting me low. I just had to grab him and talk some trash at him.’’

So what did he say?

“You know, just some brotherly love,’’ Jose Jr. said.

First bell is scheduled for 7 p.m. for a 10-fight card featuring Phoenix super-bantamweight Emilio Garcia (4-0-1) against Jesse Ruiz (0-1), also of Phoenix.

AZ NOTES
· Carbajal, of Phoenix, is scheduled to be a ringside Saturday night at Celebrity. Iron Boy Promotions plan to honor him for his Hall of Fame career.

· Former junior-middleweight champ Winky Wright (51-5-1, 20 KOs) began training in Phoenix a couple of weeks ago for his comeback attempt on June 2 against Peter Quillin (26-0. 20 KOs) in Oakland, Calif. Wright, 40, hasn’t fought since losing a decision to Paul Williams in March, 2009. He began his workouts at Athletes Performance, where well-known pros in all sports go for conditioning.

A promotional attempt at resurrecting the Phoenix boxing market will start at the roots of some of the city’s better days with Hall of Famer Michael Carbajal in the corner as the trainer for Canadian junior-middleweight Janks Trotter on a March 18 card featuring super-middleweight Jesus Gonzales in a homecoming against Dhafir Smith at Celebrity Theatre.

“It’s an opportunity,’’ said Carbajal, who wants to rebuild his life as a trainer after an estimated $2 million in assets were taken from him in a fraudulent scheme that led to a conviction and 54-month prison sentence for his brother, Danny. “It’s up to me, but this could lead to something.’’

Darin Schmick of Fanbase Promotions reached out to Carbajal not long after he decided to stage five cards in Phoenix after Gonzales fought and won two months ago in Calgary, Schmick’s hometown.

Schmick had long been acquainted with Phoenix, the city’s busy gym scene and its rich boxing history, which is featured by Carbajal’s unique and turbulent story.

“Mention Phoenix and you think of Michael,’’ said Schmick, who has matched Trotter 4-0, 4 KOs) against Arturo Crespin (6-1, 2 KOs) of New Mexico. “I know things have been tough for him lately. But we also know he can help Trent and we feel like we can help him at the same time.’’

Schmick’s promotional schedule includes a news conference and official weigh-in next week at the Ninth Street Gym, an old church where Carbajal trained for an unprecedented career as 108-pounder and the first in the lightest weight classes to fight for a $1 million purse.

The Carbajal angle is just one part of Phoenix theme. Gonzales, a leading prospect in 2003, returns after controversy and a loss, his only defeat in 26 fights, to Jose Luis Zertuche in 2005. After the loss – an eighth-round stoppage, Top Rank dropped him.

“At 26, he is still a young man with a 25-1 record,’’ Schmick said of Gonzales, who won a second-round stoppage over Jason Naugler in Calgary on Nov. 12. “He’s also a terrific story.’’

In the 28-year-old Smith (24-19-7, 4 KOs), Gonzales faces an experienced fighter whose record includes a unanimous decision over former Jeff Lacy on Dec. 11 and a 2007 loss by sixth-round stoppage to current super-middleweight champ Andre Ward.