Hawai'i commission wants to tape fights

Advertiser Staff

The Hawai'i State Boxing Commission yesterday said it will look into the feasibility of taping future shows for its review and for the instruction of its referees.

Willes Lee, the commissioner who proposed the idea at yesterday's meeting, said it wasn't a reaction to the controversy surrounding two bouts, the Brian Viloria-Valentin Leon flyweight main event and the Rodney Joseph-Mark Mareko heavyweight preliminary, from the April 15 card.

"No, not at all," said Lee, a retired Army colonel who joined the commission last month. "As I sat there, watching the fights, I questioned why we didn't have our own tapes, just like the NFL."

Viloria's manager, Gary Gittelsohn, has criticized referee Abe Pacheco and the commission's handling of the main event. Yesterday, Mareko's manager Don Tsark questioned referee Milton Higa's failure to award a first-round knockdown to Mareko in a split-decision four-round loss.

The commission has sent Pacheco a letter regarding his handling of the fight and yesterday, after viewing a tape of the Joseph-Mareko bout provided by Tsark, it voted to call Higa in to discuss the bout.

According to Tim Lueckenhoff, president of the Association of Boxing Commissions, only a few commissions regularly tape their fights. He said he knows of only Pennsylvania as a state that hires its own film crew.

Lee said taping the bouts, "may be (cost) prohibitive but, if not, I don't see any reason not to do it. I think it is important. We should sit down a couple of days after a fight with all the officials to review what happened and see how we can improve boxing without being adversarial. That's the key; there has to be a way of giving and taking feedback."

As of yesterday morning, the commission said it had not received a tape of the Viloria-Leon bout from either Gittelsohn or promoter Tom Moffatt.

In other action, the commission said it will reinstitute seminars for trainers, managers and referees. It plans to hold the first by October.