Having published the first stories about Andy Minsker, the editor of Willamette Week newspaper felt a certain pride of ownership. In discovering Minsker, his small weekly had scooped the dailies in their own back yard. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for him sending a freelancer like me on a jaunt to Las Vegas. This appeared first on December 10, 1984.
Las Vegas—From the 12th floor window of the Showboat Hotel you can see snow on the mountains. You can also look straight down the smokestack of the mock stern-wheeler on the roof of the casino below. If you had time you could count several thousand rose, lemon, tangerine and bellyache blue light bulbs that spell out the name of the flashiest, trashiest city on the planet.
Twenty-two year-old Andrew Minsker is not looking out the window. The Portlander lies propped up on pillows and pretending to watch a television game-show host do Woody Woodpecker voices. Minsker’s lean frame is moving seldom, and slow as glass. Usually he is a laughing, hard-working, fast-talking guy who is never still for fifteen seconds at a time. He is not sick. He is con serving energy. He is forcing calm onto his body, deliberately freezing the churning in his head.
It is the afternoon of Thursday, November 28, 1984 and tonight, Andrew Minsker, the 1983 national amateur featherweight champion and 1984 U.S. Olympic alternate, will enter the boxing ring in the arena downstairs. It will be his 253rd bout, but the first boxing match he has ever been paid to fight.
Any professional debut is a leap into the dark. There is a dreamy terror at the young dancer’s opening curtain, or the violin prodigy’s first long walk toward the podium, or the brilliant collegiate athlete’s first minutes of play in the strange sport played by the pros. It is not, despite the claims of some hidebound amateur sports officials, a loss of virginity or a tainting of purity. It is not circumcision by seashell. It’s not even prom night. It is, however, an anxious rite of passage, a dramatic change in the game. Few make the switch easily. Many fail completely. In boxing, one of the hardest and strangest of games, nearly fifty percent of all those fighters who endure a professional debut will never enter the ring again. Many quit after two or three bouts.
From the 1976 Olympiad to 1982, boxing enjoyed one of its periodic heydays of splendid competition. With the great skills and magnetism of Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns, Gerry Cooney, and a dozen other major forces, the art flourished and fortunes were made in and around the ring. Leonard’s retirement in 1982 marked the onset of a lull in the game’s excitement. The cancellation of U.S. participation in Moscow in 1980 kept many topflight amateurs from turning pro. They hung onto their simon-pure status, hoping for another crack at the gold in ‘84. The result was an American boxing team of such depth that more than one American fighter in every weight division was capable of walking away from the ‘84 Olympics with medals.
Portland’s 125-pound Andy Minsker and featherweight gold medalist Meldrick Taylor were classic examples. Minsker defeated Taylor in the U.S. trials in Fort Worth in June, but in turn was decisioned by Taylor weeks later during the U.S. Trials finals in Las Vegas. And so, Minsker—Portland’s Olympic boxing hopeful—lost his chance to shine in Los Angeles.
Fight scholars speculate that if Minsker and Taylor fought fifty times they would split the wins right down the middle. Now these two, and hundreds of other amateurs are entering the paying ranks of the sport. The word is out that 1985 will be an explosion of talent and enthusiasm. For every aspiring professional there will come this one nervy, watery-gut day of waiting for the crucial night and the first pro fight.
The weighing-in ceremony takes place in a dim corner of the Las Vegas arena, called the Showboat Sports Pavillion. The big room focuses on the square white canvas of the raised ring in the center. Rows of red chairs climb away toward the dark of the steelstrutted ceiling. Workers test the ring ropes, running a vacuum cleaner over the canvas deck, straightening the 2,600 individual chairs. The fight folk are swarming in one aisle. The fat guys in the noisy sport coats wave fists sprouting bundles of greenbacks. These are the bettors. The quiet, healthy-looking youngsters in dressy sweat suits are the fighters. The serious older types, some lean as boxers, others heavy and tired but sharp-eyed and intent, are the managers and trainers, looking out for their boys. Cameras grind and flash. Reporters sidle through with notebooks.
This is the great social event of the fight game. The joking palaver is tangled up in wheedling power plays. The crowd surrounds the gleaming official scale, which stands cool and white as a honky-tonk crucifix. A Nevada state boxing commissioner calls out the names in pairs “… Andrew Minsker and Candido Partida!” The fighters and their handlers slip through the mill, meet in front of the scale and strip to shorts or less with their eyes fixed on the scale. When their turn comes, all of the men do the same thing. They step forward, pause in front of the scale for one deep breath, straighten their spines, then carefully step up to stand watching as the balance bar finds its level. They act as though that last focusing breath is all that keeps them from weighing 10 pounds too much. “Minsker, 126 and a quarter!” bellows the commissioner, “Partida, 126 and a half!”
The reporters and the commissioners at the long table jot furiously on their papers. As the next pair is called these two bundle their clothes with them into the small room where the commission doctor will examine them.
Candido “Candy” Partida is Mexican, handled by manager Jimmy Montoya of Los Angeles. Partida has a 9-5 pro record in the United States and has never been off his feet in a fight. He is a rugged, powerful 26-year-old who speaks no English. His trainer translates for him. Partida is 5 feet 5 inches tall. Minsker has five inches advantage in both height and arm-length. Nobody expects Candido Partida to become a world champion. Nobody imagines that he will beat Andrew Minsker tonight. Partida, however, has a steady, adult look to him. He’s in rock-hard condition. “He gives nothing away,” says the translator. “He is never easy.”
Minsker’s manager, Billy Baxter, the millionaire professional gambler, turned fight manager four years ago and has engineered two world champions so far. Speaking to reporters at the weigh-in, he has strong words about his hopes for Minsker. “I think Andy is the best prospect in the country right now outside of the Olympic medalists themselves.”
A Baxter-arranged contract guarantees that all of Andy Minsker’s bouts for his first two years as a pro will be telecast on Top Rank cards on ESPN. The agreement says Minsker will fight eight times before December 1985 and be paid a total of $50,000. This averages a little over $6,000 per fight, including what will certainly be several six and eight round bouts. The usual pay scale for a Top Rank main event is closer to $2,000. Minsker’s second year is set for six bouts at an even higher rate.
Baxter is convinced that this is just the beginning for Minsker. The manager views the education of a professional boxer as a delicate Montessori progression. The fighter must be tested and taught against opponents of gradually increasing ability and widely varying styles. It can be argued that it is absurd for even the best fighters to debut in front of a television audience. Scholars, however, welcome the chance to watch an artist grow, to analyze and predict each youngster’s future. It will be several fights down the road before the Olympians will be truly tested. They will be protected like million-dollar colts until they are ready. “Bluffing Billy” Baxter plans to take the same great care in the education of Andy Minsker.
The two big dressing rooms begin to fill soon after 4p.m.. The fighters for all six bouts on the card assemble, with opponents placed in opposite dressing rooms. The trainers and managers huddle over equipment bags and mother the fighters, arranging them each on a vinyl-covered massage table to rest under a sheet until it is time to prepare.
Minsker is in the first bout. His trainer, Ed Milberger, has been his coach since Andy was 8 years old. Their preparations have the smooth efficiency of long custom. Minsker sits with his long hands dangling over a chair back while Milberger carefully wraps the yards of protective gauze and tape that help prevent the bones of the hand from splintering with the power of the blows.
“I’ve done some sparring without headgear,” Minsker muses. “The smaller gloves will be different but that’s OK. I like it better not wearing headgear. You can see better.
“It will be good to have six rounds to work in,” he adds. “I’ve always been kind of a slow starter. I like to feel the guy out, see what he can do.”
The room is lined with white-covered bodies stretched out on tables. Minsker, hands now changed into weapons, gets up and begins to move, to dance and shadow box. The other fighters prop their heads on their hands to watch. Billy Baxter, with his small son Nathan beside him, also watches. Nathan’s blue eyes never leave Andy’s face. Baxter is smiling.
“What you smiling at?” asks Andy.
“I feel like I’ve got the winner of the race,” says Baxter. “But it’s kind of frustrating because there’s no money to be made. Nobody is betting against this horse.”
Minsker, who has always leaned toward a professional boxing style, still anticipates the hurdles in his first professional bout. There is no protective helmet. The red gloves weigh two ounces less, which means less padding. You feel the punches more, whether you’re giving or receiving. The scoring is different. It isn’t just speed that counts here. Power counts. The labor is not simply to connect but to effect. The rules are slightly different; the styles are very different. Three amateur rounds require much less of the body than six or eight or ten rounds. The pacing and strategies are in an entirely new zone.
On November 15 in Madison Square Garden, six members of the U.S. Olympic team made their pro debuts in front of 18,000 fans—the tickets were given away free—and a major broadcast network television audience of millions. Pitted against awkward but less than brilliant opponents, the six Olympians were all predictably victorious. Welterweight star Mark Breland, in with a much shorter brawler named Dwight Williams, drew boos from his hometown crowd at his inability to put Williams down. Heavyweight Tyrell Biggs also heard boos for his performance in winning a six round decision. Andy Minsker’s nemesis, Meldrick Taylor, now fighting as a lightweight, was luckier. He stopped Luke Lecce in the first round.
It is the evening of November 28 at the Showboat Sports Pavilion in Las Vegas. Andy Minsker hears no boos, but Partida is not making it easy. The tough Mexican comes forward in a crouch, both hands hooking wide at Minsker’s body. Minsker handles him. The Portlander slips punches and moves well. His jab has steam and his hook is deadly. Partida butts with his head and throws a few low blows, which are probably the natural effect of a short man aiming for a tall man’s belly. In the second round, Minsker hammers him into trouble on the ropes but the bell saves Partida. Partida goes down for the first time in his career during the fourth round. He doesn’t like it on the deck. He gets up and survives.
In Minsker’s corner, Milberger and Baxter are coolly urging more combinations. The television commentators, Bernstein and Smith, are saying Minsker carries his hands too low. The crowd of 2,000-plus loves it. They cheer Partida at his final bow. In the United States the fight folk say, “Winning is the bottom line.” In Mexico a fighter is honored for great effort even if he loses. Partida has given away nothing.
Minsker wins a unanimous decision, taking every round of the six-round fight. He leaves the ring in his long white robe and the crowd cheers him all the way back to the dressing room. His next appearance at the Showboat will be January 24.
Hunched on the table, Minsker listens as Billy Baxter tells him three, or maybe six things he needs to work on.
“Sure,” he says, nodding seriously, “we’ll get the tape of the fight and start work on it right away.” Young Nathan Baxter, nine years old and silent, stands close, watching Andy, taking everything in. Minsker wanted to look wonderful and feels he did not. “Damn,” he mutters, looking into Nathan’s child eyes. “You know? Damn!”
Later, in the 12th floor room, Minsker phones home to ask what his father thought of the fight. Hugh Minsker, a 1952 alternate to the U.S. Olympic team, passes on a message. An ad agency wants Andy to spend a week in Mexico being photographed wearing Calvin Klein jeans. The money is very good.
“Should I do it, Ed?” Andy asks on his way into the shower. Minutes later, emerging dressed and gleaming, he asks again, “What do you think, Ed? Should I do it?”
Downstairs again, admirers stop Minsker with congratulations and requests for autographs. The feeling of celebration begins to grow in him. He is on his way to a soft drink and a chance to watch the videotape of the fight. In the lobby he sees Candido Partida, also showered and dressed. Partida is bruised and swollen. One eye is almost completely shut. Minsker doesn’t have a mark on him.
Awkwardly, warmly, they shake hands. Minsker says, “You are a good man, a good fighter. You have a great heart.”
Through puffy lips, Partida tells Minsker in Spanish that Andy also is very good. They wave to each other, heading in opposite directions.
Ed Milberger is quietly happy. It’s a beginning,” he says.