Boxing / Earl Gustkey : From Russia With Glove: Soviets to Fight in U.S.

Lou Falcigno, a New York promoter, seems to have a handle on this new era of U.S.-Soviet relations. In fact, he was selected by the Soviets to manage and promote their boxers in the United States.

Falcigno already has seen a couple he thinks could be big draws, and in September is going to amateur boxing’s World Championships in Moscow to see some more.

“I have a 10-year contract with Sovintersport, which is an agency created to coordinate the transfer of Soviet athletes into pro sports,” he said.

Soon, it seems, boxers, basketball and hockey players from the Soviet Union and other East Bloc countries will be moving west.

“Sovintersport is a 50% partner in our enterprise, and they’ll pay the salaries of the boxers,” Falcigno said.

“I pay for everything else--training, housing, food, transportation and education.”

Falcigno hasn’t tied everything together, but says he expects it go something like this:

“After the World Championships (Sept. 17-30), I’ll give Sovintersport a list of probably six boxers I want,” he said.

“They tell me I can pick any that I see. The boxers will be given a month to take care of their affairs, then arrive in New York in October or November. By that time, we’ll have found an apartment building in the area, maybe Yonkers or Westchester, to house them.

“They’ll train at Gleason’s Gym (in Brooklyn) for a couple of months, learn what pro boxing’s all about, and get culturally adjusted.”

San Jose fits into the picture, Falcigno said, because San Jose boxing and baseball promoter Joe Gagliardi might house and sponsor the training of some of the Soviets.

Falcigno says he’s signed a six-bout cable-TV contract but can’t identify the network yet.

“I’d like to kick the whole thing off, their pro debuts, in March, with an outdoors casino pay-per-view show from Las Vegas,” he said.

Falcigno said he visited the Soviet Union last March to sign the contracts with Sovintersport, and to scout some boxers with British boxing expert Mickey Duff, who is assisting him in the project.

“We were invited to go to Sukhumi, a city of 110,000 on the Black Sea, where Stalin had a dacha (summer home),” he said. “It’s also the training base for Soviet boxers, gymnasts and swimmers.

“One day, they staged 18 sparring sessions for us in the boxing center. They were mostly the heavier weight classes, because that’s what we’re primarily interested in.”

One prospect, above all others, he said, stood out--Alexander Miroshnichenko.

A bronze medalist from the Seoul Olympics, Miroshnichenko (6-foot-4, 220 pounds) resembles the Soviet fighter in the Rocky IV film, Ivan Drago. He’s a tad slow, but also fundamentally sound, athletic, very fit and, at 23, has competed in hundreds of amateur bouts.

Said Falcigno: “I couldn’t believe it, he was far and away the best looking kid we looked at, in terms of being a pro, and he walked up to me and spoke in perfect English. The last thing he said to me was, ‘See you later, man.’ ”

When he saw him, Falcigno said Miroshnichenko (Mer-osh-na-chenko) reminded him of a character from Falcigno’s college days.

“The minute I saw him, he reminded me of a guy who used to sit at the bar of a pub near the NYU campus,” he said. “He’d sit there and pick from a jar of foot-long, 3/8-inch nails and bend them into horseshoe shapes. Then he’d have a beer, and do it again.

“Boxing-wise, both Mickey and I like him. He’s got tools.”

Then there is Mongolian heavyweight Serik Umerberkov.

“Umerberkov is a wide-body kind of guy, 5-10 or 5-11, and boxes at 201 as an amateur,” Falcigno said. “But we think he’d be about 210 as a pro.”

“Mickey and I like him because he’s very aggressive, an exciting kind of fighter. He doesn’t do real well as an amateur because his style is more suited to pro rules.

“But he’ll never win any beauty contests. His teammates call him ‘Sebastian,’ which is the name of the gorilla at the local zoo.”

Boxing Notes

Virgil Hill’s scheduled Aug. 6 defense of his World Boxing Assn. light-heavyweight title defense against James Kinchen has been postponed. Hill was hospitalized Wednesday after complaining of dizziness. . . . U.S. amateur bantamweight champion Tony Gonzales of National City takes a step towar the September World Championships in Moscow when he competes at the July 22-25 Olympic Festival tournament at Oklahoma City. Festival winners meet “most noteworthy” opponents at Concord, Calif., Aug. 3-4, to select the U.S. World Championships team.