Produce Section Ain’t The Only Place To Find Tomatoes

Do not underestimate the importance of attending the weigh-in.

The weigh-in is where Riddick Bowe slapped Larry Donald. It’s where Mike Tyson practices his glare. It’s where Ali extemporized poetry, and where Don King assassinates reason.

It’s where we learned Ed Dalton, one of the main-eventers in Saturday night’s Brickyard Boxing production at the Masonic Temple, works in the produce department at the Albertson’s in Emmett, Idaho.

You were expecting Roy Jones maybe?

It’s a wonder you were expecting anybody at all.

Professional boxing has not been in our midst in 15 years, too long to be called a hiatus and technically past due for the autopsy. You may remember Leo Randolph losing his WBA junior featherweight title here in 1980, then the last of Lenny Hahn’s fights here a few months later and then a test pattern.

So when Clint Van Orman got the wild hair to book 32 rounds into the Masonic Temple, you had to figure fight fans would be hungry enough to respond.

Or thirsty. Certainly they were thirsty.

See, the doors opened a little earlier than expected and so did the bar, and by the time introductions were being made, well, let’s check our notes:

“Somebody hit somebody!” yelled one sophisticate.

“These fights are brought to you by the Washington State Department of Licensing - Mr. Chuck Fisher,” advised ring announcer Nick Theisen. “Give Chuck a big hand!”

“Booooo!” came the response.

Ouch. Big government takes another standing eight count.

Obviously, these people - more than 1,000 of them in a suitably seedy environment - ached for action. Van Orman, too.

Once an amateur boxer here of with more than 200 fights to his name (“I can still spell and I don’t slur,” he noted), he sensed a void. Along the way, more than one person suggested that void was in his head.

“Sure, I got told I was crazy,” said Van Orman, whose day job is selling cars. “But that’s fine.

“The problem we have is reopening the casket. When I was fighting, there was an awareness of pro boxing. It was safe. Now all the filth has come out - people have drug it down. I’m just trying to bring it back here. And it’s a way to get back in the ring without getting hit.”

That sounded like a good idea to Buddy Payne, too. Unfortunately, he was making his pro debut Saturday night - matched in a four-rounder against Steve Leveque that lasted not quite 3 minutes before referee Kevin McCarl helped Payne into a getaway car.

More boos rained down from the arena balcony, which seemed a little harsh - until we realized that because the fight ended after one round, the paying customers weren’t allowed to see the Miller Genuine Draft “Cold Patrol” round-card girls sashay around the ring.

Things got better. Kris Sorensen outpointed Rosson Camas in a battle of stationary heavyweights. In the semi-main, light-heavy Gregg Harrison showed why Doug Holiman is 9-21-0 as a pro.

The evening’s warmest debate came in the fifth round of a welterweight windup, when Dexter “Peanut Butter” Williams knocked Frank Houghtaling through the ropes and to the floor. Williams, not acquainted with the Marquis of Queensbury, then dropped to his knees and continued to pummel his dance partner.

One of Houghtaling’s cornermen then jumped through the ropes and applied a choke hold on Williams, whose own seconds then joined in along with various ring officials and Van Orman himself - told you he was aching for action - before the hockey game was called off and order restored.

Williams got a point deducted from his score but still won a split decision for his first professional victory, which he celebrated with a gyrating limbo-porno dance move of his own concoction and much leaping about the ring.

“I snapped,” Williams admitted later. “I just remember my trainer telling me, ‘When he’s hurt, throw punches.’ I fell forward and kept throwing, not realizing I was on the ground. It wasn’t until his corner was choking me around the neck that I realized what happened.

“Things happen like that in the ring. It’s nothing personal.”

That left only the main event, Dalton and 30-year-old Ernie Valentine - the high-rent fighter on the card (he was getting $1,500) with the not very high-rent record of 18-19-2.

Still, he didn’t lack for confidence. He and Dalton had fought in separate bouts on a July card in Boise.

“If that’s the best he’s ever looked,” Valentine said, “he’s in trouble.”

Hey, Ernie, it’s Joe Albertson’s supermarket, but don’t mess with the produce guy. Dalton won a unanimous decision in a 10-rounder that had the crowd on its feet from the seventh round on.

We didn’t get to speak to the combatants afterward, but we enjoyed Valentine’s philosophy before the fight.

“In boxing you’re on your own,” he said. “Not like football or a team thing. If you lose, it’s all your fault - although a lot of times, it could be the judges’.”

Though he hadn’t yet consulted his accountants, Van Orman had to feel like the night’s big winner. He may have found a market, though he knows it would help if a local pro could be developed.

“We thought we had one when another guy dropped out on Wednesday,” he said at the weigh-in, “but damned if the SOB didn’t get put in rehab the night before.”

That’s boxing. From the depths of rehab and the produce department, it’s back.

You can contact John Blanchette by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5509.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = John Blanchette The Spokesman-Review