ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, July 13, 1996 TAG: 9607150061
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: Associated Press
THE MAYHEM FOLLOWING the Riddick Bowe-Andrew Golota fight Thursday night may bring a lifetime ban from Madison Square Garden for the boxer and his handlers.
Boxing's latest black eye came courtesy of a wild post-fight brawl ignited by heavyweight Riddick Bowe's entourage, a nationally televised fistfight that could keep the Brooklyn native from returning to Madison Square Garden.
The Thursday night melee, which started in the ring and spread into the stands, resulted in 16 arrests, 22 injuries and yet another blow for the beleaguered fight game. The brawl raged for more than 30 minutes before more than 250 police officers and arena security personnel managed to restore order.
``It was a very ugly night,'' said Bowe's manager, Rock Newman. ``I apologize ... for the pain, grief, anguish and embarrassment it has caused all of us.''
Two of the suspects in custody and a third at large were members of Bowe's entourage - and all three had criminal records, said police commissioner Howard Safir. The trio, including a man who sprinted across the ring to club Bowe's opponent, Andrew Golota, with a walkie-talkie, were identified from videotape of the fight, he said.
The man with the walkie-talkie, identified by police as Jason Harris, surrendered to police Friday.
Newman himself could also face criminal charges, Safir said. Newman entered the ring shouting and pointing at Golota - a gesture that some took as a call for others to follow. Newman said Friday that was not true.
``I did not participate in it or encourage in any way people to conduct themselves the way they did last night,'' said Newman, whose past post-fight conduct belied his claim.
Dave Checketts, president of the Garden, vowed anyone convicted in connection with the brawl would be banned from the arena for life. If that included Newman and his fighters, Checketts said, ``So be it.''
The Garden, which re-entered the fight business last year after staging fights only sporadically since 1982, will continue to stage boxing, Checketts said. The next card at the arena, famous as the site of the 1971 Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier bout, is scheduled for Aug.13.
In Thursday's fight, Bowe was being battered by Golota, an unheralded Polish fighter who appeared to be on the way to a major upset. The brawl started after Golota was disqualified in the seventh round for repeatedly landing low blows.
A group of 20 people affiliated with the Bowe camp - some in his corner, others seated behind it - then flooded the ring, witnesses said.
Fighting then spread into the crowd, with scores of Golota supporters waving Polish flags and squaring off with Bowe backers.
Garden officials did not call for police until at least five minutes after the fighting broke out as a cable television audience watched on HBO, the combat raged on while announcer Jim Lampley scrambled from ringside to safety.
Lampley went from play-by-play man to concerned parent, wondering on the air if his 16-year-old daughter, Brooke, was safe amid the melee. The teen, as well as the rest of HBO's crew, escaped injury, said HBO spokesman Ray Stallone.
There were some terrifying scenes amid the waves of violence: A man in his wheelchair being knocked to the ground. Angry men lifting and tossing chairs across the arena floor. Lou Duva, Golota's 74-year-old trainer, flat on his back with chest pains, being kicked by an unidentified attacker.
``I was half-screaming and half-saying, `Get him out of there!''' Duva's daughter, Denise, said Friday.
Denise Duva, Lou Duva's daughter, said the Bowe camp clearly started the fracas.
``We saw Rock [Newman] run over and shout something at Andrew,'' she said Friday. ``Then we saw somebody else with Newman throw a punch, and someone else with a Riddick Bowe shirt start bashing Andrew over the head.''
When Lou Duva tried to intervene, he received a jolt from an implanted defibrillator that regulates his heartbeat, his daughter said. Duva was released Friday from NYU Medical Center.
It was not Newman's first post-fight brawl. When Bowe fought Elijah Tillery in 1991, Newman grabbed Tillery around the neck and yanked him over the ropes. Tillery landed on the head of a boxing commissioner seated ringside.
Newman and another man attacked Associated Press photographer Doug Pizac after the Bowe-Evander Holyfield fight in 1992.
LENGTH: Medium: 88 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Rock Newman, manager of Riddick Bowe, answersby CNBquestions Friday morning about the melee following the Bowe-Andrew
Golota bout.