The Rumble at the Roxy

Sherri Thompson does bruising damage to those who, awash with political correctness, sniff that boxing is a boorish and brainless exercise in testosterone-driven machismo.

Thompson, you see, is a doll. Plastered on promotional posters around Atlanta is a photo of the dollish Thompson. Big hair, blonde and straight. A quizzical, slightly seductive, slightly mysterious smile. Trim, bare midriff.

Oh, and her hands are wrapped for business and poised in the finest traditions of the Marquis of Queensbury. Thompson may be a doll, but she's a cutie who could punch most guys into the middle of next week.

The posters on gym walls proclaim Thompson a "women's sensation" in the boxing ring. She'll match up with another woman, as yet unnamed, Fri., June 28, at the Roxy in Buckhead. The rest of the card will be fights between guys -- headlined by cruiserweight champ O'Neil "Give 'Em Hell" Bell.

When I met Thompson, she was slap-slap-thud-ouch sparring with a much larger man at LA Boxing on Roswell Road. Before I could ask her something inane such as: "What's a nice girl like you doing ..." -- hell, give me a break, what do you ask a perky-cute person in a sport whose range of characters is bookended by Muhammad Ali and Mike Tyson? -- Thompson was off to bounce frog-style in a circle of 20 or so other pugilism aficionados. Part of training for kick-boxing, Thompson told me after I started doing my own bouncing to get her attention. Anything for a celebrity interview, I say.

Thompson, in this case, is only a demi-celebrity. The diminutive athlete works 60 hours a week at a Steak & Ale to afford her passion: boxing. She's professional -- in this case meaning she might pocket a heady $500 for a bout. This isn't about money, however.

"When I was a sophomore in college," she says, "I thought I was getting fat. So, I did some training and started boxing. I knocked out a girl in my first fight. Wow, I thought. This is a helluva workout, and the adrenaline rush is insane."

Unfortunately for Atlanta, not many other people feel the rush. It's tough to sell out a house for a fight, says Tom Mishou, the administrator of the Georgia Boxing Commission. "Things are getting significantly better than in the past, but ..." He lets the thought trail off.

Last week, for example, an outfit called the Ares Co. had booked the Atlanta Civic Center. Ares couldn't come up with the cash the boxing commission requires to pay the fighters and fees, so the event tanked.

"It's really hard to make a profit in boxing here," Mishou says.

Moreover, after Evander Holyfield, it gets a little difficult to come up with names of Atlantans who have scored big in the ring, or are on the way.

Nor do we have a frizzy-headed, bombastic Don King promoting fights. We do, however, have David Oblas.

True, his name isn't likely to clang a bell. The 26-year-old nascent promoter is a former sportswriter for the Northside Neighbors who gave up journalism due to an attack of entrepreneurialitis. For the last year, he's been busy with an online news service for high school sports, DiVarsity.com.

"Actually, most of my money comes from waiting tables," he confesses shyly. "My parents keep asking each week when I'll make enough money to stop working" at Chequer's Seafood Grill on Ashford-Dunwoody Road.

Maybe that day will come this week with the fights at the Roxy. Oblas needs to come up with $15,000 to pay the bills for the fights. He's raised $4,000 in sponsorships, has commitments for more -- "and, if I have to, I'll get a loan from the parental units. I'll have the money, though."

Mishou comments: "David is going to succeed. He's done this the right way."

To break even, Oblas has to sell about 700 of the Roxy's 932 seats. Ten days before the fight, 250 tickets had been sold. "Yeah, I know," he says before the question is asked. "There's 500 to go."

Oblas got the idea for the fight after meeting O'Neil Bell at a bout in Columbus in October 2000. At stake was the title belt for National Boxing Association's cruiserweight division. The NBA is one of the minor boxing groups, and cruiserweight is one step below heavyweight. But a gold belt is a gold belt (and Bell also has one from the North American Boxing Federation).

Oblas recalls: "O'Neil joked with me, saying, 'If I win this fight, you can wear the belt in Buckhead.' I never thought I see him again. But he called me up and said if I'd put on a fight in Atlanta, he'd do it for as little money as possible."

To learn the ropes, Oblas has worked for $50 a match as a boxing "inspector," checking that fighters obey pre-match rules. He says he watched others fail and learned the lessons. His talk sounds more like describing a fighter's strategy than a business deal -- he didn't want to expose himself too much, he had to get his timing right.

And then Oblas threw his punch, locking in the night at the Roxy. He put together a series of fights with names the cadre of boxing fans and amateur fighters will recognize -- Thompson, Homer Gibbins, Paul Delgado and, especially, Bell.

O'Neil Bell looks the part. Toughness cubed. His professional record says it all: 18-1-1, 17 knock outs. But the Jamaican native is no Tyson. For a start, he's a thoroughly nice guy. "O'Neil only agreed to the fight because he could carry his friends with him, make sure they got a payday," Oblas says, adding that paydays for most Atlanta boxers are few and small.

Bell, at a compact 194 pounds last week (he has to shed 4 pounds before the fight), has a perpetually concerned look on his face. When asked about being too serious, he smiles and says, "This is important to me. It's perfecting my art."

It's not about smashing your opponent's face to the consistency of grits?

"Oh, no. People think of this as a blood sport. It isn't. Sure you can get hurt, but you can get hurt doing lots of things. This, to me, is focusing all my skills to be the best I can be."

Sounds like the Army, champ, only with better pay, right? "Someday," he responds.

Bell, at 27, is poised for the big time. In the five major boxing associations, he's rated between third and seventh in the lists of cruiserweight challengers. He's thinking about taking the jump to heavyweight. For now, Bell is making about $50,000 a year now, but in a few more fights he could be making millions. Maybe.

"Am I in it for the money?" he muses. "Definitely not. Not saying money isn't a motivator. But I just want to be champ for the glory of being the best."

AJC takes drubbing, gets ethical (maybe)
Last week, I took the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to the woodshed for purloining other newspapers' stories without giving credit. The issue is more than a matter of pride-- few institutions have as much impact on public life and private lives as do daily newspapers. If an institution is going to be a self-appointed arbiter of public morals, its own should be on the table for examination.

Most of my column focused on the admirable reporting by Walter Woods and Sarah Rubenstein at the Atlanta Business Chronicle on conflicts of interest among those who will decide the fate of the Northern Arc. The AJC has committed serial theft of the Chronicle's stories.

On June 14, the Chronicle made another investigative disclosure -- about Atlanta Regional Commission member Richard Chandler Jr. A day later, the AJC cribbed the story without credit.

My column came out three days after the AJC's latest rip-off.

Then, last Friday, the AJC ran the Chandler story again, slightly longer this time and with an absolutely stunning admission: "Chandler's ... conflicts of interest were first reported by the Atlanta Business Chronicle."

"You've shamed the AJC," Chronicle Editor David Allison tells me. "They are so bad. But your column made them wake up to their ethical lapses."

Since my disclosure of the AJC's ethical black hole, I've received a score of emails from former and current staffers at the daily. All but two supported my column. For example, the AJC's former political editor, Rick Allen, wrote from Montana, saying, "I wanted to commend you for calling the aces at the daily for theft of intellectual property."

Several AJCers commented on the philosophy of Editor Ron Martin and recently deposed Executive Editor John Walter -- that they mainly wanted their staff to "write what people are talking about."

A reporter told me: "God knows how many times reporters and editors have heard that in meetings: 'What are people talking about?' The idea of writing stories that would get them talking was alien, and antithetical to Martin's and Walter's belief that the best audience was a known audience. If people were already interested in the story, then they would read it."

Put another way, such a philosophy reduces news judgment to a marketing strategy.

Meanwhile, the AJC's new maximum editor, Julia Wallace, has not returned our phone calls and e-mails. In case you're a public official or corporate exec tired of getting calls from the daily's reporters, just tell the scribes to buzz off and say, "Hey, I learned stonewalling from your boss."

Senior Editor John Sugg, who says he scores knockouts every week "because my heart is pure and my cause is just," can be reached at 404-614-1241 or at john.sugg@creativeloafing.com.