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Sugar Ray Leonard won six world titles during one of the most spectacular, and lucrative, careers in boxing history.
Joe Mesi would be happy with one. And after a winter of negotiating with the sport's promotional heavyweights, he decided last week that Leonard's in-ring experience (along with wariness about the other suitors) made him the ideal promoter to help guide him to an eventual shot at the heavyweight crown.
"He's been through what I'm going through," Mesi said after signing a contract that guarantees him at least four nationally televised bouts over the next year. "Sugar Ray Leonard made the best offer, and a lot of this sport is know-how and know-who."
Mesi said picking Leonard over Allan Tremblay's Orion Sports Management, which staged a pair of his bouts at the Niagara Falls Convention and Civic Center last year, was difficult.
"That did make it tough," Mesi said. "But we still talk to them and we're still on a friendly basis with them."
Mesi, who fought his first 21 bouts without an exclusive agreement with any promoter, is scheduled to kick off the deal with an April 5 fight at the University at Buffalo's Alumni Arena.
While Mesi (21-0, 19 knockouts) fought twice at Niagara Falls Convention and Civic Center last year, that wasn't an option this time around. Convention Center manager Vern Giscombe said a cheerleading competition has been booked for the weekend of April 5 since last summer.
Leonard promised to improve Mesi's quality of opposition. Mesi knocked out aging has-beens Jorge Luis Gonzalez and Bert Cooper during his two fights at the Convention Center last year, and capped 2001 by blasting out never-was Derrick Banks on a Leonard-promoted card at Foxwoods Resort Casino in November.
The win over Banks, who wound up facing Mesi after at least three other potential opponents fell through, was promoted by Leonard and broadcast on ESPN2's "Friday Night Fights." The cable network will also televise the April 5 show, which is scheduled to include at least five other bouts.
Leonard said he's been following Mesi's career since the unbeaten Tonawanda heavyweight earned an alternate's spot on the 1996 U.S. Olympic team.
"He's articulate, he's good looking -- he's the whole package," Leonard said after last week's press conference announcing the deal in the lobby of Shea's Performing Arts Center. "And he can fight. He can knock you out with both hands. That's one thing that makes him hard to match -- a lot of guys don't want to fight him."
Leonard, a 1976 Olympic gold medalist, won the welterweight championship twice, as well as titles in four other weight classes, ranging all the way up to light-heavyweight. His bouts with Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Marvin Hagler rank with the most memorable ever, and he succeeded Muhammad Ali as the sport's most recognizable figure throughout the 1980s. Leonard said he sees the same sort of potential in Mesi.
"I want Baby Joe to be the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, but I also want him to transcend the sport," Leonard said. "There has not been a heavyweight other than Ali, or Rocky Marciano, who has been able to do that."
Joe Louis, Jack Dempsey and Jack Johnson aside, there's a long climb ahead for Mesi and his new promoter. Leonard initially went into the business side of boxing as a manager, with results that could be generously described as mixed. Since turning to the promotional end, though, he has secured a series of national television dates on ESPN2's "Friday Night Fights," the top-rated weekly boxing show on basic cable.
Leonard said negotiations are underway with four potential foes. At the top of the list are Ross Purrity and David Bostice. While neither has fought for a major heavyweight title, both campaigned in the division's upper echelon for the latter half of the 1990s.
While the 35-year-old Purrity's record is a relatively pedestrian 28 wins (25 by knockout), 15 losses and three draws, he would figure to provide a far better test than Gonzalez, Cooper or Banks. In December, 1998, he stopped Wladimir Klitschko in the 11th round of a bout held in Klitschko's home country, the Ukraine.
Vitali Klitschko avenged his brother's only defeat in Purrity's last bout, also via 11th-round stoppage.
That was the first time Purrity failed to go the distance in more than a decade, when he suffered a pair of TKO losses in his first five bouts.
Since then, he's beaten Gonzalez (before the big Cuban turned into a punching bag), earned a draw with former titlist Tommy Morrison (before the star of "Rocky V" was found to be HIV positive) and went the distance in losing efforts against former World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation titlist Hasim Rahman and the then-acclaimed Michael Grant.
Purrity's next three decision defeats were to contenders Corrie Sanders, Larry Donald and Chris Byrd, who is now the IBF's No. 1 contender.
While Bostice carries a more impressive overall record at 28-5-1, he carries little power (only 13 wins via KO) and a questionable chin. In February, 2001, he was knocked down three times before being stopped in the first round by ancient Tim Witherspoon.
In the ensuing year, Bostice dropped a 10-round decision to Francois Botha and a 12-round nod to Lou Savarese in the main event on the night Mesi destroyed Banks.
Bostice could test Mesi with his boxing skills and hand speed -- in a 2000 victory over Ed Mahone, he set a record for most punches thrown in a heavyweight bout, according to CompuBox.
Mesi said he's eager for the opportunity to move up the rankings of the sport's myriad governing bodies.
"I'd like to fight (WBC and IBF champion) Lennox Lewis tomorrow, but I know that's not possible," Mesi said. "People want to see me do well, and they want me to do it today and tomorrow. But it's going to take time."
Bjorn Rebney, chief executive officer of Sugar Ray Leonard Boxing, set a more leisurely timetable.
"We're looking 2 1/2 to three years down the road, when the time is right, and the opponent is right," Rebney said.
Mesi said Leonard's willingness to stage fights in Western New York was another key to the deal.
"I'm not just trying to revive boxing here for me, I want to revive the sport in general," Mesi said. "Even if I'm not fighting on the card."
Leonard said he'd like to put as many of Mesi's fights in the area as possible, and said he would consider siting future cards at the Convention and Civic Center.
"Each and every time, if possible," Leonard said of future Western New York promotions.
Returning to Buffalo had a bittersweet edge for Leonard. At the peak of his career, he was slated to face Roger Stafford at the old Memorial Auditorium in 1982. But a week before fight night, doctors discovered a detached retina. Leonard fought only once over the next five years, but came back in style, upsetting Hagler for the undisputed middleweight crown in 1987.
"I did say then that I would return, and now I have," Leonard said.
Tickets for the April 5 card range from $20 to $100 and are available by calling 645-6666 or 1-888-223-6000, visiting any Tops Friendly Markets location, or online at tickets.com.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | February 26 2002 |