Zorro unmasked in Castle charade

OUT OF AMERICA: The venue itself might even have sold a few tickets. Officially known as the "First Corps of Cadets Armory", the Park Plaza Castle was erected in 1891 as a refuge for the Brahmin gentry in the event of a feared insurrection by the immigrant Irish. Following protests in the great depression of the 1870s, the 1877 railroad strike, and general upheaval on the streets of Boston in 1886, the upper-crust Yankees had reason to fear for their safety, and the then-impregnable fortress was erected a stone's throw

We've all heard boxers talk about "winning ugly", but sometimes a loss can be even uglier.

The art of match-making is often under-appreciated and rarely understood. When a promoter has the rights to a boxer with a demonstrated ability to sell tickets, the last thing he wants to do is get him defeated, but at the same time the opponent's credentials should present at least the illusion that the fight will be competitive.

On paper it appeared Teddy Panagiotis had done his job well when he dug up Art (Zorro) Jimmerson for Richie LaMontagne last Friday night in Boston. Jimmerson sported a record of 34-15. Over the course of his 17-year career he had fought five world champions and participated in three North American title bouts. The fact he had lost them all was but a minor concern which went unmentioned in pre-fight press releases.

The jury may still be out on LaMontagne's aspirations for contending on the world stage, but his credentials as a crowd-pleaser are unquestioned. Possessing film-star looks, he has in fact acted in a few movies and between fights pals around with Robert De Niro; an ancillary career as a male model met with such success that for a time he considered abandoning the ring altogether.

LaMontagne was 25-4-1 as a pro, with the majority of those losses coming in a three-fight slide back in 1998, when he dropped successive decisions to Kenny Keene, Vassily Jirov, and Terry Pitts. More recently he has been training under the legendary Goody Petronelli, who guided the career of Marvellous Marvin Hagler and oversaw the early development of Steve Collins. LaMontagne was riding a three-fight win streak going into the match against Jimmerson, a bout that was advertised for the Eastern Boxing Association cruiserweight championship.

LaMontagne-Jimmerson was ostensibly the co-featured bout on a card that represented Jimmy Burchfield's first incursion into Boston. After years of running successful club shows in Rhode Island, the Providence promoter had signed LaMontagne and super-middleweight Dana Rosenblatt, a pair of Boston-area stars with demonstrated drawing power, and placed them atop a six-bout card at the Castle.

In the build-up to the cruiserweight "title" bout, it had been conveniently overlooked that Jimmerson, who lives in St Louis, was not an Easterner, and once he stepped on the scale at the weigh-in, it became apparent that he was not a cruiserweight either.

Although LaMontagne scaled 192 pounds, easily making the weight, Jimmerson weighed 220 pounds, or 25 pounds over the divisional limit. By any reasonable standard this should have triggered bells of alarm, but instead Burchfield's minions huddled with the Massachusetts Boxing Commission and emerged with a Solomonic decision: if LaMontagne won, he would receive the EBA belt. If Zorro prevailed (not that there seemed much chance of that happening), the title would remain vacant.

Alas, from almost the moment the opening bell sounded it was apparent Jimmerson was boxing almost as earnestly as he had dieted. Half a minute into the fight, LaMontagne waved an exploratory left hook that barely grazed his opponent, and Jimmerson fell enthusiastically to the floor.

When action resumed, LaMontagne threw a left-right combination. Neither punch landed with much lethal force, but Jimmerson went down again.

There was no three-knockdown rule in effect, but when Jimmerson enacted a third pratfall, this vaguely timed with a right-hand lead LaMontagne had tossed in his direction, referee Bob Benoit had seen enough and invoked executive clemency. One minute and 51 seconds had elapsed from start to finish.

LaMontagne seemed embarrassed by the disturbingly easy fight. "But you can't hold (Jimmerson's timid performance) against me," he said, noting that he'd held up his end of the bargain. "I came in and did what I had to do. I dropped him three times and I won the fight."

Panagiotis looked like he wanted to hide under the ring, but unfortunately he was working the telecast and had to remain at ringside.

Plainly disgusted, Benoit conferred with Nick Manzello, the chairman of the Massachusetts Commission. When the ringside physician, Dr Bill Flanagan, returned from his examination of Jimmerson he reported that Zorro was claiming a hand injury incurred while training had hindered his performance, although his post-fight examination failed to confirm the malady.

Exactly how an injured hand was supposed to have made him fall down three times remained unexplained. It was also rather unclear how this injury could have occurred, since there was no evidence that Jimmerson had trained at all. And it seemed abundantly clear that if he had indeed suffered a debilitating injury to one of his hands, it clearly wasn't to the one he eats with.

With that, the commission decided to withhold Jimmerson's $2,000 purse and impose a suspension that will likely be honoured by other jurisdictions. We may have seen the last of Zorro.

"I think you have to give a guy some credit for being willing to climb through the ropes in the first place," LaMontagne did his best to seem diplomatic. "But he didn't do much else, did he?"