BOXING / MIKE HISERMAN : Valley Fans Could Go From Famine to Feast

A year ago, there wasn’t a venue anywhere around the San Fernando Valley that regularly staged professional boxing cards.

Three months from now, there might well be two within a mile of each other in Woodland Hills.

Since last fall, Peter Broudy has been promoting club shows at the Warner Center Marriott.

Mike Goossen attended one of them to watch his nephew, P.J. Goossen, win the State junior middleweight championship.

Driving home, he said, a thought occurred to him: “Why can’t I do this?”

So he is. Goossen, a lesser-known member of the Valley’s first family of fighting, has reached a tentative agreement with operators of the Trillium at Warner Center to hold a boxing show there on a Saturday in August.

Goossen envisions the Trillium, an open-air venue usually reserved for tennis and volleyball competitions, as a scaled-down version of the outdoor facility used for world title fights at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

“What we’re going to have is a cross between a mini-Vegas event and Hollywood gala,” Goossen said. “It’s going to be like the Academy Awards. People will want to go just so they can say they were there.”

Bob Benton, vice president of the corporation that manages the Trillium, confirmed his group’s negotiations with Goossen. “We have a lot more things we have to talk about, but it looks like it hopefully will happen,” Benton said.

The Trillium has a seating capacity of about 1,500, which Goossen said will be increased to as much as 3,000 for boxing.

And how will he fill those seats?

“By putting on a first-class show,” Goossen said. “I mean, who better to draw good fights in this area than a Goossen?”

He has a point.

Ten Goose Boxing, a family enterprise, built a strong following during boxing’s heyday from the mid-to-late 1980s at the Reseda Country Club. The business folded when Dan Goossen joined Top Rank Boxing as vice president, but Joe Goossen has built acclaim as trainer of Rafael and Gabriel Ruelas and, before them, Michael Nunn.

Goossen said he would love for Nunn to be the headliner on his first show, in a tune-up bout for a world championship matchup against Roy Jones.

P.J. Goossen and heavyweight Rocky Pepeli are other local favorites mentioned as possibilities for the card.

“There’s no reason why, with the Goossen name, this can’t be a success,” Mike Goossen said. “I have contacts, Danny has contacts, Joe has contacts and our other brothers have contacts.”

What Mike Goossen does not have is a promoter’s license. But that, he said, is a technicality.

Benton said professional bouts might become regular events at the Trillium if all goes well.

That potentially could place the Trillium in competition with monthly shows inside the Grand Ballroom at the nearby Marriott, but Benton said doubling the fight schedule might be of benefit to both.

“We would stay away from the same night; to go head-to-head wouldn’t make any sense,” Benton said. “But remember, there are a lot of people out here, and a lot of them probably would like to stay here for entertainment.”

Gerrie Coetzee, who is taking the reins from Broudy as lead promoter for the Marriott bouts next month, welcomes the potential of a second show in the area.

“Competition is good,” said Coetzee, a former world heavyweight champion. “If you don’t have it, you get lazy.”

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Joe Goossen confirmed Tuesday he has been reunited with Nunn, a former middleweight and super middleweight world champion.

Nunn is tentatively set to begin training with Goossen next week at the Ten Goose Gym in Van Nuys.

Goossen and Nunn came up through the ranks together, starting in 1984 when now-defunct Ten Goose Boxing signed the former U.S. Olympic alternate to a promotional agreement.

Nunn split with the Goossens in 1989, after a contract dispute.

“This is kind of like a date with your ex-wife,” Goossen said. “It’s a little nerve-wracking.”

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Coetzee, who said he is reviewing the Marriott bouts with “new eyes,” plans to change the format of the monthly shows.

Instead of having three or four undercard fights and one or two 10-round main events, Coetzee prefers a card with as many as 10 bouts.

“I want more four-round fights,” he said. “That’s where you step up and develop your new talent. Plus, those are action fights. . . . Some of those 10-round bouts can get boring.”

Last Wednesday’s main event between Young Dick Tiger and Armando Campas was a real yawner, prompting several boisterous fans to call for a quick rematch between Steve Hurley and Viatcheslan Marty Niouk--a fight that ended in a draw.

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Broudy, who will stay on to assist Coetzee with the Marriott bouts, said he has a handshake agreement with former world heavyweight champion Mike Weaver to a appear in the main event of next month’s show.

Weaver would be defending his National Boxing Assn. title against an opponent to be determined.