Hammer time

Ultimate fighting is featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week, and upon hearing that news Chauncy Welliver sighed, or almost – there being little in the way of disheartenment or resignation in the immediate scope of Spokane’s happy heavyweight, the Hillyard Hammer.

“Boxing is a dying sport and UFC is slowly taking over,” he said. “It’s sad watching boxing wither away.”

Naturally, he has a theory on this.

“They have a real good fan base, but the biggest thing is it looks like any Joe can do it,” Welliver said of the UFC phenomenon. “It’s a street fight and how many guys think they’re bad-ass street fighters? You hear it all the time – ‘I’ve been in 50 bar fights, I can compete with these guys.’ Now, you get in there and it’s a different story, but anybody can sit on a couch and say they can do it.

“That’s why guys watch it. It’s the one time they can sit next to their girlfriend and say, ‘I can beat that guy.’ No one can sit on his couch and watch Floyd Mayweather and say, ‘I can outbox that guy.’ “

But if that theory is correct, then Chauncy Welliver should be the savior of boxing.

And there are people who think he is – locally, anyway.

Of course, they may all be related to him or part of his ever-widening circle – with Chauncy, there is no other kind – of bouncers and buddies who crowd into the casinos for the fight cards on which he is not necessarily the headliner, but almost always the most eagerly awaited feature. There’s another tonight at Northern Quest, where he’ll face Corey Williams in the 40th bout of Welliver’s still-young career.

But the Hammer has made converts, too, and he isn’t afraid to acknowledge why.

“You watch me fight and I’m the guy who shouldn’t have won,” he said. “I’m that fat guy who beats some muscular guy I was never supposed to beat. I’m just the guy who sticks out. Look, I’m fat – I admit it.”

At the moment, he’s struggling to stay under 275 pounds, which isn’t all bad. He’s fought at anywhere between 240 and 286 and insisted he feels better at the upper reaches.

“Besides, I’m not a hitter when I do eat,” he laughed. “When I lose the weight behind it, I’m really screwed.”

So maybe boxing should award a belt for the Ultimate Fattening Championship?

“No, to watch one fat guy is funny,” Welliver explained. “Watching two fat guys, there’s nothing humorous about that. That’s just sick.”

Are you getting the idea yet?

If you ever get a chance, pull up a stool – ring stool, bar stool, lunch counter stool – and spend a few minutes with the Hammer. You’ll almost certainly come away feeling better – about yourself, about life in general and even about boxing, which may never have been in such a sad state, but must have some redeeming value to give us Chauncy Welliver.

He is more than just the fight game’s – at least the Northwest’s – clown prince. His record of 31-3-4 – there was a no-contest fiasco in New Zealand – is pretty good even if he’d been fed a steady diet of tomato cans and, yes, he’s “fought my share of bums,” he said, “but I’ve beaten some guys I shouldn’t, too.”

For what it’s worth, he’s 40th in the latest World Boxing Council heavyweight ratings. Of course, Welliver himself noted that historically, the WBC is the most corrupt sanctioning body this side of Tony Soprano.

Even the fight tonight is for a belt, but boxing has more belts available than the Men’s Wearhouse.

And that’s part of the problem. In trying to goose the gate years ago, promoters and sleazy officials became far more enamored of titles than of personalities. With every new storefront boxing commission, every new sub-weight class and every new belt, the champions became ever more faceless and boring all over the globe.

But not in Spokane. We have Chauncy.

We are both the thing that keeps him going – the man loves to make his rounds about town – and the thing, perhaps, that’s holding him back.

“A guy told me he’d pay me $500 a week for five years to move down to Los Angeles and train,” Welliver said. “But I’ve got a mother, a bunch of brothers and sisters and nieces and nephews and it’s hard for me to go. Should I go to better my career? Yes. But I don’t feel it would better my life. I’d rather take the slow road.”

More potholes in that road, though.

For every good payday – Welliver said he’s making $5,000 for this fight – there’s an $800 night or no money at all, like the time in Pendleton, Ore., when the lady promoter was upset either that he’d fought badly (“I had a hernia and the guy’s hitting me low all night”) or that he was paying more attention to the ring girl at the postgame party than to her.

He’s been cheered by Northern Quest’s entry into the casino boxing circuit in the Northwest because it’s provided him an alternative to his fractious relationship with Coeur d’Alene Casino matchmaker Moe Smith, which has hardly been a secret hereabouts.

“I’ve dealt with Don King and Bob Arum, and nobody is as bad to deal with as Moe Smith,” Welliver charged.

Has he shared this opinion with Smith?

“Oh, sure. The Coeur d’Alene Casino is like home to me and I love to fight out there, but I can’t.”

So he’ll never fight on another card for Smith?

“Oh, no, I’d fight for him. Business is business.”

More like “boxing is boxing.” Like most club fighters, Welliver has supplemented his income as a sparring partner – he’s sparred with all four of the current heavyweight champions, for instance, and memorably with Mike Tyson, who Welliver is desperate to get into the ring at Northern Quest either as part of the beleaguered former champ’s exhibition tour or a straight fight.

“If I could get a fight with Shannon Briggs,” Welliver said of the current WBO titlist, “Spokane would have its first heavyweight champion.”

Alas, when he was sparring with Briggs back in February, he gave the champ a cut. Briggs’ upcoming title fight was postponed to June and Welliver was sent home.

“I was kind of putting it on him,” Welliver said.

It is Welliver’s particular endearment that he can, well, talk up his game one minute and be the definition of self-deprecation the next. He’s neither full of himself nor full of it, but he is full – the scale says so.

“Five years ago, I would have told you as a fan that John Ruiz was the worst heavyweight champion ever,” he said. “Two years later, I would have said he’s the best we have. Lamon Brewster – worst heavyweight champ in boxing history. A year ago, I would have said he’s the best of the ones today. Now I’m not even going to try to pick.

“People ask me who the best heavyweight is. I say, ‘Chauncy Welliver.’ Why not?”

Why not, indeed. In Spokane, he’s the ultimate fighter. And his own sanctioning body.