THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, October 10, 1996 TAG: 9610100513
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Tom Robinson
LENGTH: 70 lines
Julian Wheeler has been boxing for 14 years. He made the 1992 U.S. Olympic team and turned pro a year later. He knows what he's doing and what the whole nasty business is about.
And he knows that many fighters who insist they can and will be world champions one day have no chance, none at all.
Consider that when Wheeler says: ``I'm aiming for a world championship.''
So, yes, Wheeler, a 25-year-old former Navy boxer who lives in Chesapeake, believes his aim is true. Ask him four different ways and he never wavers; a WBA, WBC or IBF world title is within him.
``I want to be the best,'' Wheeler says in the office of Navy coach John Hunter at the Norfolk Naval Amphibious Base, where he still trains. ``If I didn't think I could do it, I wouldn't do it. I'm not going to be out there half-stepping. Taking punches is no fun thing. That's why I try not to get hit.''
It took Wheeler a year to decide to fight professionally after he lost his only bout at the Barcelona Olympics. He's fought for pay just 16 times, compiling a 12-3-1 record, but he's sure he was robbed twice and has never lost to a lesser fighter.
At 130 pounds, Wheeler is a solid junior lightweight, a little power-shy but a defensive artist who rarely gets hurt. He has found, though, that the Olympics on his resume have not meant much.
They didn't land him in the stable of an influential promoter like Don King or Bob Arum. They don't protect him from suspect scoring. Heck, Wheeler's not even sure they introduce him as a former Olympian before every fight.
This next fight, they probably will. Wheeler signed last week to fight 30-year-old former IBF champion Jorge Paez, the flamboyant Mexican god of weird haircuts whom Sweetpea Whitaker beat in a 12-round decision in '91.
Wheeler-Paez will take place Oct. 19 at a Lake Tahoe casino, with Wheeler as the emergency fill-in for whomever Paez was scheduled to fight. Wheeler was already in training for a fight that also recently fell through, so he was glad to accept a run at Paez's title, something called the WBC Continental Americas championship.
Paez (57-10-4) is slipping - four of his losses have come in his last eight fights - but still, a title is a title and ``one leads to another,'' Wheeler says. He also says beating Paez would open doors on name value alone, get him into larger money and faster advancement.
Wheeler's opportunities, though, will never be as plentiful as they are for a couple of his '92 Olympic teammates, Oscar De la Hoya and Chris Byrd, who won gold and silver, respectively, in Barcelona.
That's just life, Wheeler says. Medals mean business, he fell short, so he doesn't get to handpick his opponents for safety, which is epidemic in pro boxing.
Despite his Olympic pedigree, Wheeler, who works for the Norfolk parks and rec department as a boxing coach, has to scour for foes like everybody else and accept some loaded situations.
Twice this year, for instance, Wheeler went to Australia to fight Australian November Ntshingila. In March, the fight was ruled a technical draw when Ntshingila head-butted Wheeler in the first round. In August, Wheeler lost the rematch in a close 10-round decision, one of the fights Wheeler feels he won.
``I knew what I was up against,'' says Wheeler, a Louisianian. ``But I'm at the point where I have to start taking some chances and get a few breaks.''
While hoping, of course, that pro boxing's bitter brew of politics and payoffs don't ruin him first.
``It hurts when you get robbed,'' Wheeler says, smiling. ``You can't let it get to you, though. You just wonder how these things go on. But they happen every day.'' ILLUSTRATION: Chesapeake's Julian Wheeler will fight Jorge Paez on
Oct. 19 for the WBC Continental Americas title. by CNB