Press Box
Dave Reardon
Gittelsohn, Pacheco
make fight funTHE thing to remember about boxing is it is inherently bizarre, but you need something really weird for a great card.
Good fights are fine. But if the strange and truly unique turns up missing, the experience just isn't complete. At the end of the night all you're left with is a lot of sweat and clichés and unspent adrenaline.
Ballroom brawling as $6 Heinekens are consumed is not nearly enough by itself. While out of the ordinary for more genteel folks, most in boxing circles have participated in such behavior at a wedding or prom.
No, that's standard.
What we got Tuesday night at the Sheraton Waikiki was pure magic.
The main event ended with the bloody loser sprinting around the ring, arms upraised, grinning right along with the local-boy hero who had just delivered the winning blow. Meanwhile, the nattily attired manager of the winner was ready to go 10 with the 62-year-old ref.
All you can say is boxing is finally back in Honolulu -- and you can thank Abe Pacheco, the referee Brian Viloria and his manager, Gary Gittelsohn, want no part of in the future.
Sure, Uncle Tom Moffatt certainly gets some credit for heeding our plea of more heavyweight bouts and more local fighters on the undercard. A good, clean Kalihi vs. Waianae moke mix serves as a tasty appetizer.
But the real main event, Pacheco vs. Gittelsohn -- which figures to go on for weeks, if not months or years -- couldn't have been scripted. This is a huge grudge in the making.
Both are pleasant, friendly men. The nicest guys you'd ever want to meet. And now they are questioning each other's competence and integrity.
At issue is Pacheco's willingness to let Viloria's pounding of Valentin Leon go on long enough for the crafty Mexican to get "knocked down" seven times. Pacheco knew Leon was going down on his own sometimes to conserve energy. He also learned what the crowd did: that this was one tough, savvy hombre, who deserved to keep fighting as long as Viloria didn't seriously hurt him.
"He took a lot of punches and he dished it out with Brian. He wasn't hurt. I'm not going to stop a fight when the guy looks at me and laughs," Pacheco said last night. "He was all there. He really wanted to fight. If he could've punched harder, he would've hurt Brian."
The third man in the ring can never win. Jesus Salud is still bitter over Pacheco's stop of his loss at the Hawaii Convention Center two years ago, when the former world champ headlined Viloria's pro debut.
Gittelsohn says Viloria will never fight with Pacheco in the ring again.
Pacheco says he ain't stepping down anytime soon, and respected boxing figures like Eiichi Jumawan and Mike Machado are voicing support for their fellow local icon.
Of course this is blossoming into a fine migraine for interim boxing commission chief June Kamioka, who has about as much practical experience in the sweet science as I do in childbirth.
Good thing there are people like Bobby Lee around to help her. But this was a new one for even the 82-year-old former WBA president. And he loved it all. His grin was almost as big as Leon's after the fights.
Boxing, in all it's glorious, insane beauty was back, if just for one night.
Everybody beamed. Everybody except Gary Gittelsohn and Abe Pacheco.
Dave Reardon, who covered sports in Hawaii from 1977 to 1998,
moved to the the Gainesville Sun, then returned to
the Star-Bulletin in Jan. 2000.
E-mail Dave: dreardon@starbulletin.com