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Saturday, October 28, 2000

Taylor removed
from boxing card

The ex-welterweight champ
was to meet Heath in the
featured fight on Tuesday

---

By Pat Bigold
Star-Bulletin

Former world welterweight champion Meldrick Taylor, once a match for the best in the world, angrily spoke out yesterday after being removed from a pro boxing card here scheduled for Halloween night.

"Somebody's trying to sabotage my career," Taylor said in a phone interview with Philadelphia Daily News boxing writer Bernard Fernandez.

"They're trying to maliciously stop me from fighting. ... There are hundreds of fighters who should not be fighting but they got to pick on me."

Taylor was to headline the card organized by Hawaii Pro Boxing Inc. at the Sheraton Waikiki's Hawaii Ballroom.

Ringside seats were selling for $200 apiece.

But yesterday, a day after Hawaii State Boxing Commission executive director Mike Machado indicated he was going to require a neurological exam and a CAT scan for Taylor, the fight was cancelled. The exam and test could cost the boxer or promoter up to $1,400.

Contacted for an update on the status of Taylor's (37-7-1, 20 KOs) scheduled 10-round bout with fellow Pennsylvanian Bobby Heath (22-8-4, 11 KOs), Machado said he had been informed by promoter Ed Presley midday that the fight was being taken off the card.

Marshall Kauffman, who manages Heath, said yesterday morning from Pennsylvania that he also had been told by Presley the fight was off.

Presley was contacted by the Star-Bulletin yesterday while he was in a meeting. He said he would get back to the paper but still had not returned a call last night.

Machado said that other state commissions wanted to know the results of any neurological test conducted on Taylor. The fighter has never failed a physical but has only been administered a neurological test in Denmark in 1998. Machado said it would be difficult to verify the results of that test in time for the bout and preferred to have testing done here in Hawaii.

"I will be vindicated very soon," Taylor told Fernandez. "If I go in the ring and get knocked out, I shouldn't be fighting. But that never happened."

According to Fernandez, Taylor spoke in labored and barely understandable phrases.

Taylor's backers say a mere speech impediment causes people to misjudge his condition. But others say the slurred speech is really the effect of more than 300 rounds in the ring. Concerns for Taylor's safety have been expressed.

Heath won the WBF Intercontinental welterweight title on Sept. 29 but Taylor has not fought in the past 13 months. He was denied the right to fight in New Jersey in 1998 but has won three of five fights since in other locations.

The rest of the card will go on, according to Machado.

But Kauffman, who said he is upset with Presley, also manages two of the other fighters on the card, junior middleweight Mike Rios and light heavyweight Mike Alvarez.

It was not clear last night whether or not Rios, who was due for neurological clearance today, and Alvarez would fly here to be on the card.

The card, if approved Monday by the state commission, would be as follows:

Heavyweight: Obed Sullivan (36-7-1, 26 KOs) vs. Waxxon Fikes (9-3-1, 8 KOs).
Junior middleweight: Mike Rios (12-15, 4 KOs) vs. Calvin Green (13-0-0, 10 KOs ).
Light heavyweight: Andre Sherrod (8-22, 6 KOs) vs. Mike Alvarez (6-1, 2 KOs).
Junior lightweight: Mark Burse (5-0, 3 KOs) vs. Leroy Price (W. Va), age 22 (3-11, 2 KOs).
Junior middleweight: Clay Lewis (Hawaii), age 30 (1-0) vs. Rocky McCray (Phila), age 32 (7-20).
Junior welterweight: Jerry Sariabay vs. Kili Scott Madrid (first-time pros).
127 pounds: (tentative) Chavelle Hallback (5-2, 4 KOs) vs. Layla McCarter (7-4).