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This weekend, the newly
refurbished and renovated Fabulous Forum in Inglewood (once the home of the
Lakers and Kings) re-opens its doors as a boxing venue, welcoming back its prodigal
pugilist son, Juan Manuel Marquez, who faces Mike Alvarado in a crossroads
welterweight battle. When you think of Forum Boxing (which closed up shop in
1999) and its heyday, one of the first names you think of is Rich Marotta, who,
for years, called the action for Prime Ticket and then Fox Sports.
There isn't anyone as
excited for this event as Marotta, who will be flying in from Reno to be in
attendance.
“Forum Boxing provided me with my first regular job in calling boxing, blow-by-blow
or color, on television,” said Marotta, who worked alongside the likes of Chick
Hearn, Tom Kelly and Ruben Castillo at various times. “I was doing fights here
and there even before Forum Boxing prior to getting that regular gig. After
that, I got a number of regular gigs but it was Forum Boxing that was my
breakthrough as far as becoming a regular broadcaster of boxing on television.
So it's special to me that way.
“And the thing is that at
the Forum with the staff there, with the fighters, with the fans, it became
like a family and so every couple of weeks on Monday night, you were getting
together with your family and it was really a different thing,” recalled Marotta.
During its prime, the Forum hosted cards twice a month. “You rarely see a
situation where you're selling season tickets to boxing matches and that was
different and to see those same faces, to see your friends, people who became
your friends, the same media, to see the characters, Jerry Buss, to see the
ring card girls, I mean, all of that became part of it.
“It was real important for
me in my broadcast career, personally.”
When Marotta was asked to
list his five most memorable fights (that took place under the auspices of
Forum Boxing Inc.), he gladly offered the following:
5
- Frankie Duarte TKO 10 Alberto Davila (June 27th, 1987): “This
was a CBS afternoon fight when the networks were still doing it. Tim Ryan and
Gil Clancy, I think were calling the fight. [Duarte and Davila] were both
pretty much at the end of their careers but they had a fight 10 years earlier
and Davila had won when they were both coming up the ladder. So now they were
going to be where they were in the twilights of their career and it just became
a bloodbath. Davila dominated the early rounds; he dropped Duarte in the fourth
with a right hand.
“But Duarte came back; he
cut up Davila really bad and he was just bleeding bad and Lou Filippo was the
referee and they kept calling the doctor up between rounds and I think between
sixth, seventh and eighth and they said that the blood was actually turning
dark. And they were a little nervous about it and they stopped the fight with
Davila out in front on points and Davila was really angry and there was a big
controversy afterwards that they stopped it. Duarte was awarded the victory. It
wasn't a points thing; it was a TKO.”
4
- Rafael Ruelas UD 12 Freddie Pendleton (February 19th, 1994): “That
was ‘Rafa’ on the way up. Pendleton was the [IBF] lightweight champion of the
world and the thing that I remember most about Ruelas was that he had a great
reputation as a real puncher. He was undefeated and he was just having a
tremendous career under [trainer] Joe Goossen and Dan Goossen promoting him and
Pendleton came in and everybody just expected Ruelas to go right through him. And
Pendleton dropped him twice in the first round and it looked like Ruelas was
going to get stopped in the very first round.
“But he made it through and then the rest of the fight was a very close fight
and Ruelas squeezed out a very close and controversial decision that elevated
him to a world championship.”
3
- Bernardo Pinango UD 15 Frankie Duarte (February 3rd, 1987): “Duarte
and Pinango was a [WBA bantamweight] world championship and this was going to
be the culmination of Frankie Duarte's comeback. He had been off for a few
years. He had substance abuse problems. He had a very promising beginning to
his career but then he faded away and got himself in trouble. He came back and
he had great popularity. It was a great reclamation job by Ten Goose Boxing and
they got Frankie and built him back up and a lot of his fans were at the Forum.
“It was a 15-rounder and I
got a chance to work on that fight as a broadcaster. It was Chick and Ruben who
called the fight but I was doing pre-fight and I did the post-fight interview
with Duarte. What I remember about it was that Duarte had the house completely.
They were just rocking the Forum for Frankie, the chants of ‘Frankie! Frankie!
Frankie!’ throughout the fight and he was, I thought, dominating the fight. He
hurt Pinango really bad, knocked him down and then the decision came and they
announced Pinango as a close winner and I still remember Chick saying these
three words: ‘A stunning decision.’ It got quiet in there and I interviewed
Frankie after that fight. It was a tough one for him to accept and he never won
a world championship and that was his big opportunity.”
2
- Saman Sorjaturong TKO 7 Humberto Gonzalez (July 15th, 1995): “That
‘Chiquita’-Sorjaturong fight was probably the best fight I ever broadcast at
the Forum from a sheer action standpoint and then a stunning finish. The thing
I remember is ‘Chiquita’ was a pretty dominant champ; he had fought Michael
Carbajal three times and he was really standing tall in his weight division (light
flyweight), which I believe was 108-pounds. Sorjaturong was kind of unknown and
Gonzalez was pummeling him pretty bad at the end of six rounds. Gonzalez had
floored him in the sixth round and I think they were about ready to stop the
fight and then Sorjaturong just came on and brutally cut Gonzalez, knocked him
down a time or two and they stopped the fight.
“It was such a shocking
ending seeing ‘Chiquita,’ who is this Mexican icon at the time, seeing him go
through that. That quick transition from being in complete control of the bout
to suddenly being dominated and stopped. It was a shock.”
1
- Marco Antonio Barrera TKO 12 Kennedy McKinney (February 3rd,
1996): “That was the fight where Barrera had to prove himself,
that he was really world quality. Kennedy McKinney had been an Olympic gold
medalist; they had a rather cantankerous pre-fight build-up to that. I think
there might have even been some pushing and shoving at the press conference
between the two. Barrera had had a number of decent wins over decent contenders
but not anyone like McKinney, so he had to do something to show the world. And
with that being the beginning of HBO's ‘Boxing After Dark,’ that was the first
time I ever got to work an international telecast. It was just me doing the
fight internationally on the foreign broadcast by myself.
“So I got a chance to broadcast
that whole card and see Barrera basically elevate himself against a really good
fighter in Kennedy McKinney. Barrera was undefeated at the time but he had
still not made his bones. This is the one he really crashed through.”
MORE MAROTTA
Here are some other
remembrances of that building's boxing history from Marotta (via email):
“In the
era before Forum Boxing Inc. but fights that took place at the Forum, my fave 5
are:
Bobby
Chacon vs. Danny “Little Red” Lopez (the all-time classic local war)
Carlos
Zarate vs. Alfonzo Zamora (epic battle between 2 undefeated champions)
Julio
Cesar Chavez-Roger Mayweather (tremendous battle of attrition)
Muhammad
Ali-Ken Norton II, (I thought Norton won again)
Jose
Napoles-Billy Backus (I sat, as a young fan, 3 rows from the top, guy in front
of me had biggest sombrero ever).
“Among other memories: the quality of
fighters who made Forum their regular home, MAB, JMM, Mark ‘Too Sharp’ [Johnson],
Genaro [Hernandez], among them ring announcer Jeff Temkin (who died of cancer),
Budweiser ring card girls.”
Oh, yes, the Budweiser girls...
BUSS
Here's what I wrote last year in the immediate
aftermath of the passing of Dr. Jerry Buss and his impact on the sport and
business of boxing:
RIP Jerry Buss and Forum Boxing
HEAT WAVE FLURRIES
The Marquez-Alvarado
weigh-in on Friday afternoon begins at 2 p.m. and takes place at the Forum Concourse
(3900 W. Manchester Boulevard). Doors open on Saturday at 3 p.m. and the likes
of Diego Magdaleno and Oscar Valdez will be featured on the untelevised portion
of the undercard...ESPN did a solid rating for the Bermane Stiverne-Chris
Arreola telecast, garnering an overnight rating of .8, which means they are in
the neighborhood of a million viewers. It keeps them in the discussion to do
more boxing at this level in the future; I'm told...OK, maybe Donald Sterling
was talking about “The Magic Hour”?...Pacers, you just can't trust them...I'm
loving this warm, shorts-and-sandals weather out here in Los Angeles...
I can be reached
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