Carson amateur boxers ready to fight

The second annual Ray Tavares Memorial Invitational amateur boxing show takes place Saturday and Sunday in Reno and boxers from both the Carson City boxing Club and Bruno's Boxing Club will be in action during the two-day card.

"I entered seven fighters for the card," said CCBC Director Chuck Williams. "I'd like to see everyone get a fight and, hopefully, all seven will win ... That would be nice."

CCBC Head Coach Frank Peralta and assistant coach Louis Loe as well as Williams will handle the CCBC fighters for the card.

Vic Bruno, director of Bruno's Boxing Club, has entered two fighters and hopes to get a two more on the card if matches can be made for them.

"We have two matches set and two pending," said Bruno, who will be assisted by BBC Head Coach Jose Elizondo. "We'd like to get all of our fighters fights but we'll have to wait and see if that happens."

Thelma Tavares of Reno, Ray's widow, is an official of USA Boxing of Nevada and is putting together the card. The first Ray Tavares Memorial card took place last October. The non-profit card benefits the Ray Tavares Memorial Fund and goes to buy equipment for the fighters. The Reno Jets Boxing Club is the host team.

"There will be a ceremony honoring Ray's memory before the fights start," said Thelma said of Ray, who passed away Sept. 6, 1999. "He was 78 when he died and he left a lot of memories. They have named the Boys & Girls Club gym after him. It's now called the Ray Tavares Memorial Gym."

The amateur card takes place at the Boys & Girls Club (2680 E. 9th Street) and Saturday's card begins at 6 p.m. The Sunday card starts at 1 p.m. General admission tickets are $6 and available at the door.

Carson City's Norm Budden is chief of officials for the card and Tavares is putting the matches together.

"We still have entries coming in but we have 60 fighters entered so far," Thelma said. "We'll have 15 to 20 bouts each day. Entries closed Sunday but any that come in the mail in the next couple of days are OK. Most of the matches will be made Wednesday and Thursday."

Tavares did report that teams from Fernley/Wadsworth, Elko, Fallon as well as Reno and Carson have entered fighters. California teams sending boxers are Atwater, Stockton, Redding and the team from Medford, Oregon is sending "a contingent" of fighters for the card.

"It will be one of the better cards we've had in a long time," added Tavares. "And it benefits a good cause."

-- Those of you that don't know the results of the Roy Jones fight Saturday night on pay-per-view TV won't get it here because HBO will show the fight this Thursday at 9 p.m. Don't want to spoil it for those want to watch it and I'll assume those who really want to know what happened already do. The HBO telecast will also feature the Freddie Norwood title fight plus they'll show highlights from the Marco Antonio Barrera title fight.

One small comment .... Last week I mentioned this PPV fight wasn't worth the price and when you can see it just five days later why in the world would anyone pay to see what figured to be a boring and not-very-interesting fight to begin with?

-- HBO did show a couple of good fights Saturday on its "K.O. Nation" telecast from the Mountain resort in Chester, W.V.

The main event had heavyweights Clifford Entienne (20-0, 18 KOs) fighting Cliff Couser (20-6-2, 9 KOs) who is a Mike Tyson lookalike both in fighting style and in looks.

Unfortunately, that didn't do Couser any good as he threw nothing but wild punches that missed - like the Tyson of today does - until he was stopped in round 3 by Etienne.

Couser, from Las Vegas, was badly hurt and taking a beating when the referee stepped in and halted it. Etienne is from Baton Rouge, La.

Also on the telecast was the Bronco KcKart (42-3, 29 KOs) fight against Winky Wright (40-3, 24 KOs) that saw Wright win a surprisingly easy unanimous decision over Bronco in their super middleweight (168-pound limit) 12-rounder.

-- Last Friday's ESPN2 card main event had Arturo Gatti (32-4, 27 KOs) fighting undefeated Joe Hutchinson (19-0-2, 8 KOs) in a 10-round junior middleweight (154-pound limit) fight. Gatti, from Jersey City, N.J., lost a bloody and somewhat dirty, brawling type fight by decision to Hutchinson, who fights out of Indianapolis. It was a good fight to watch as both fighters threw plenty of leather from the opening bell on.

The semi-main saw comeback kid Davey Hilton lose a unanimous decision to Stephan Quellet in a welterweight (147-limit) fight.

This week, ESPN2 returns to its normal starting time of 6 p.m. The telecast comes live from Denver and features former champ Stevie Johnson attempting to regain his WBC lightweight (135-limit) title from champion Jose Luis Castillo in what should be a barn-burner of a fight.

-- Showtime has a Saturday same-day tape card featuring William Joppy defending his middleweight (160-limit) title against Hassine Cherifi that starts at 10 p.m.

Alan Rogers is the Nevada Appeal boxing writer.