Bulldogboogers,
Looks like some good bites you got.
Was wondering if you saw this article about your neighbor:
http://www.presstelegram.com/columnists/ci_9798645
<H1 class=articleTitle><H1 class=articleTitle><H1 class=articleTitle>Krikorian: Goossen has found his man
<!--subtitle--><!--byline-->By Doug Krikorian, Sports Columnist
<!--date-->Article Launched: 07/05/2008 11:19:50 PM PDT
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Dan Goossen, right, with his prized boxing prospect Cristobal Arreola. Goossen believes the undefeated Arreola can have the same box office draw as Oscar De La Hoya.
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Dan Goossen has endured in a cruel sport in which few in his position survive, and he is seated in a booth with a fighter that he thinks one day might dramatically alter the landscape of his life.
"I think this guy here has the potential to be an Oscar De La Hoya at the box office and a Mike Tyson in the ring," he says.
"He's a brawler who never stops throwing punches. He can take you out with either hand. He has a great personality. He is 6-foot-4 and 240. And he's Mexican. I don't think he's going to miss..."
It is a sacred rite of boxing for a promoter to discuss a heavyweight prospect of ethnicity with shameless hyperbole, and Dan Goossen, always hustling, believes that the undefeated Cristobal Arreola (24-0, 22 KOs) is the realization of his most divine fistic vision.
"You look a lifetime for someone like Cristobal, and I think he's the one," says Goossen, the highest-profile face of the Goossen clan out of North Hollywood that began in boxing as Ten Goose Boxing back in 1982 and staged shows at the old Country Club in the Valley and other venues and wound up with champions like Michael Nunn and the Ruelas brothers, Gabriel and Rafael.
It is, of course, the longest of shots for Cristobal Arreola, a brawler with modest defensive skills, to reach the dizzying heights that Dan Goossen foresees.
But, oh, if he does, if he continues dispatching opponents with the kind of fearsome power he displayed in Memphis on June 21 when he impaled an undefeated opponent named Chazz Witherspoon in three rounds, Dan Goossen might find himself on top in his profession.
You must understand that the person who controls the heavyweight champion - at least respected ones like Louis and Marciano and Ali and Foreman and Holmes with a widespread following - is traditionally the one who wields the most power in boxing.
It was the affiliation that Bob Arum and Don King had with such men that initially vaulted them to prominence in the sweet science, and Dan Goossen knows his Goossen Tutor Promotions will rise to another level if Arreola continues his impressive ascent.
"I can just feel it with Arreola," says Goossen. "He wants it so badly. He understands the money he would make if he becomes heavyweight champion. He understands how big he could become. It would be off the charts. A Mexican heavyweight champion who never stops throwing punches like Mike Tyson did when he was in his prime."
Dan Goossen nods softly, and pauses with a wry smile, this Notre Dame High graduate who decided 26-years-ago that peddling pens and pencils for American Data Products in the Valley wasn't what he wanted to do for the remainder of his life even though he was earning a decent income in the endeavor.
He would play a vital role in starting up Ten Goose - he originally got into boxing doing chores for Sonny Shields when Shields was managing his son, the welterweight contender Randy Shields - and there would be a lot of promotions before the company was disbanded after the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.
"Ruined our offices," says Goossen.
It was around this period that he would marry, Debbie Luery, the daughter of the prominent Las Vegas casino executive Darrell Luery in a lavish affair on the 26th floor at Bally's - Luery was the CEO of the hotel at the time - and the couple now have two sons, Max, 13, and Rex, 9, and will be celebrating their 14th wedding anniversary this month.
After Ten Goose closed shop, Dan Goossen would hook on for a couple of years with Bob Arum and Top Rank, and then would start America Presents with the late cable TV mogul Bill Daniels.
Soon, the aggressive Goossen had America Presents battling Don King Productions and Top Rank for the top fistic attractions, and was using people like Mike Tyson and Bernard Hopkins as well as the Ruelases and David Tua on its cards.
"The company just wasn't the same after Bill Daniels died in March of 2000," says Goossen.
Goossen would depart America Presents within a year, and soon would align himself with billionaire construction magnate, Ron Tutor, and the Goossen-Tutor operation has been an active force in boxing since 2002, even holding the WBA share of the heavyweight title for a brief moment in 2005 when James Toney dethroned John Ruiz.
But Toney soon was stripped of the title when he tested positive for steroids, a development which Goossen reacts to with his customary keen sense of humor.
"We were drug tested out of the world heavyweight boxing title," he says.
"But at least we weren't mentioned in the Mitchell Report."
Dan Goossen rises from the booth, and encourages Cristobal Arreola to pose for photos and speak with the reporters who have come out for the press conference that is held on a recent early afternoon at Goossen's long-time Ventura Blvd. hangout, the venerable Casa Vega Mexican Restaurant.
Goossen listens as Arreola recites his rough childhood growing up in a split family between Huntington Park and East Los Angeles - he actually played basketball for a time at Roosevelt High - before joining his mother in Riverside where he now resides and trains.
"Sure, gangs were all around me, and my cousins belonged to one called the Florencia 13," says Arreola. "My dad once heard me when I was a kid saying I belonged to the Florencia 13. He beat the hell out of me, and that ended any ideas of my gang banging."
Dan Goossen listens intently, and smiles.
"Cristobal has so many great stories to tell," he says. "The first time we had a press conference for Cristobal two people showed up. Now look."
The back room at Casa Vega is overflowing with humanity, and a video of Arreola's destruction of Witherspoon is playing on a TV.
"This kid is going to make it," says Dan Goossen, and he knows Arreola's record has been built against modest competition and that his chin still hasn't been seriously tested and that there are always dangerous obstacles lurking in the path of a promising young heavyweight.
But Dan Goossen envisions only a bright future for Cristobal Arreola, as he must.
"This is the one," he says, with a hope and a yearning that are an imperative part of his business.
doug.krikorian@presstelegram.com
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