THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, May 18, 1996 TAG: 9605180438
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 105 lines
Thursday night at the fights.
A ring is up. A couple hundred men and a few women crowd a loud, smoky, beer hall of a room at the Norfolk Elks Lodge on Typo Avenue. Sadly, the card's headline bout is also a typo.
``This fight's off,'' says promoter Jack Crider, pointing to the Sean Fletcher-Anthony Garris match listed on the program. Garris had a stroke, Crider says. Last Friday. Crider shrugs. ``That happens.''
Kickboxing exhibitions start the night of what the program calls World Class Boxing. Somebody named Stickman pounds lumps all over the face of somebody named Possum. Local kickboxer Joanne Hamilton runs through a demonstration. ``That's just what my wife needs to see,'' says a guy behind the press table.
Suddenly, there is a large, dapper, 65-year-old man in the ring. His voice rattles through the scratchy PA system.
``There's not one heavyweight in the state who can beat me,'' he informs the crowd. This is Newt ``Geto'' Tattrie of Virginia Beach. He will fight in Crider's next show in July. The card might interest the USA Network, Crider says later.
Then comes a real fight. It's over quickly. But Geto didn't catch who knocked out whom, since the bout's not listed. ``This needs a little more coordination,'' Geto says.
Well, things pick up. Here comes 37-year-old Greg Page, the World Boxing Association's heavyweight champion from December 1984 to April 1985, a hulking vision in white. White robe, white shorts, white socks, white shoes and laces. He is huge, probably 250 pounds. His belly is tucked into the top of his trunks.
Page says he hasn't fought in more than five years. The record book says his last fight was August 1993. Whatever. He never got messed up with drugs or booze or anything. Just wasn't much good anymore.
He started training fighters, including heavyweight Oliver McCall in Martinsville, Va. Page says the bug bit again when he realized he could beat the guys McCall was beating. So the married father of four is starting over. At the Elks Lodge.
``If I have to fight seven fights here, I'll do it,'' says the man who once floored Mike Tyson in a sparring session. ``Greg Page has never been a prima donna. I never needed no limousines, never needed no suite.''
Page is chatting after he has stopped Robert Jackson Jr. in the first round with a slew of flailing, sledgehammer rights. He is sitting on a wooden chair in a little office off the lobby, still shirtless, sweat pouring off him, as other fighters loosen up around him.
``I want to get back to the Greg Page of 1983, when he was at the top of his game,'' Page says. ``I want to win a title. They can have it back the next day and I'll walk away. That's my plan.''
Back at ringside, an older, laconic gentleman, the timekeeper, leans across to someone he believes is a reporter. ``You ever done this before? Didn't think so,'' he says, deadpan. ``At intermission, we'll have a poetry reading and a book review.''
Yo. He lied. It's intermission, all right. But inside the ring four nearly naked ``ring girls'' - club dancers on loan - walk around in 4-inch spiked heels tossing out free caps for 15 minutes as music blares.
Visually overloaded now, the crowd percolates as paunchy local favorite Wayne ``Insane'' McClannan plays a three-round tune on paunchy John McEnroe-look-alike Donny Pulley. Not that McClannan gets much help from his cornermen. As McClannan and Pulley slog around the ring, the two corner guys turn away for a minute to nuzzle a ring girl who happens by.
``Man, this is like me and you fighting,'' a bespectacled fellow from the sponsoring car dealership says to a buddy. Another dealership guy lays it all out. ``The quality of the fighters isn't always that high. But if you have two guys that are evenly matched, it's really good entertainment.''
Exit ``Insane.'' Enter William Compundi, ``Rocky Balboa all over again,'' Crider confides from beneath his shaggy, Prince Valiant haircut. Oops. A couple minutes after Compundi climbs through the ropes, he almost has to be carried out. Sterling Bailey has knocked him silly.
Before the final fight - a draw, after which a woman with one of the boxers scraps with Crider - presentations are made to the local sheriffs, since the show was billed as a tribute to them. Crider is particularly high on Norfolk sheriff Robert McCabe and twice calls for a standing ovation for him.
Nothing.
Hey, it's been a long night. Ice House and Red Dog empties litter the tables and floor. But everybody does stand, 2 1/2 hours after the show began, when a man and a woman take the mike and sing the national anthem.
Boxer Gary Tompkins, who won his bout earlier, sidles over, along with Geto. Tompkins says his career record's 2-0. Says one of Don King's people told him they'd consider signing him when he wins 10 fights. Says he's 33 years old.
``That's nothing,'' Geto says.
Nah. It's something. Something else.
Thursday night at the fights. ILLUSTRATION: COLOR PHOTOS BY L. TODD SPENCER
ABOVE, the ref stops the fight after Sterling Bailey knocked out
William Compundi.
AT RIGHT, former WBA heavyweight champ Greg Page takes on Robert
Jackson Jr. on his comeback trail.
BELOW, Page relaxes after scoring a first-round victory.
by CNB