Casino Connection Atlantic City

Full-Contact Action

Martial arts, boxing and wrestling featured at Boardwalk Hall

by Dave Bontempo

Forget March Madness in Atlantic City. Call the upcoming sports schedule Boardwalk Blitz. Atlantic City offers a high-powered alternative entertainment package during college basketball's national frenzied period. Boardwalk Hall ushers in a unique triple hitter starting March 4—three successive weekends of high-level contact sports. The March mayhem will produce a boxing champion, numerous state wrestling titleholders and mixed martial arts kingpins in a short time period. Cinderella stories and championship crownings will occur, but have nothing to do with the NCAA. They will pertain to the WBC (boxing), the NJSIAA (wrestling) and MFC (martial arts). What a menu. The Mixed Fighting Championship invades March 4, and the state high school wrestling tournament runs March 10-12. A heavyweight title bout between James Toney and Hasim Rahman caps off the special-events trifecta. Boardwalk Hall officials hesitate to label this barrage a trend, but hindsight may legitimize that theory. This is the most active sporting month in the Hall's post-renovation era, which began in 2001 after a $90 million makeover. On the heels of a blockbuster January card involving Arturo Gatti and the WWE Smackdown in late February, Atlantic City produces a rich sports quarter. Whether it's a trend or aberration, March events should bring about 25,000 fans to Atlantic City. Casino accountants can already be heard rejoicing. Before anyone gambles, March may provide a year's supply of jabs, hooks, uppercuts, arm bars, ankle locks, submissions, pins and standing ovations. Emotions run high in these one-on-one encounters, in which a single move can suddenly end the event. Mixed Fighting begins at 7 p.m. March 4 under the sponsorship of Trump Plaza. Din Thomas, returning to mixed martial arts after a boxing stint, debuts in the MFC against Ryan Healy. The co-feature pits Tara Larosa and Roxanne Modafferi, two of the country's more visible female performers, in a groundbreaking headlining role for women warriors. [Grappling Greatness] A throng composed of friends, families and entourages hikes attendance at the State Wrestling Championships to about 10,000. The state's top wrestlers compete in 14 weight classes ranging from 103 pounds to Heavyweight and Super Heavyweight. Action becomes frantic and fans become delirious as the potential for pins prompts them to scream and stomp their feet. Stakes run extremely high among wrestlers who defeated top opponents in district and regional qualifiers before heading here. Action begins March 10 at 6 p.m. with preliminaries and quarterfinals. More quarterfinals and wrestle-backs continue with the Saturday program, starting at 10 a.m. Following the morning session, Boardwalk Hall will clear the facility and reopen at 4 p.m. for the evening session, starting at 5 p.m. The semifinals and wrestle-backs comprise the evening program. Consolation, finals matches and the awards ceremony mark the Sunday slate beginning at 10 a.m. [Heavyweight Drama] Toney and Rahman vie for the World Boxing Council title March 18 at the Hall. Bally's provides the lead sponsorship. For Rahman, the promotional theme for this fight should be "Finally." He was scheduled to fight WBC champion Vitali Klitschko four separate times for the title in 2005. Klitschko forced postponements each time because of injuries and ultimately retired because of them. Rahman gained the WBC title by default, but sustained a lost year in the ring. The 32-year-old Baltimore native obtained huge momentum in 2004. He fashioned a string of home victories followed by a show-stopping performance at Madison Square Garden. Rahman's concern is maintaining the momentum generated by the activity. "I'm ready, anxious to fight for the title again after all that's happened," Rahman says. "It is my time now." It was back in 2001 when Rahman shocked the ring world with a one-punch knockout victory over defending champion Lennox Lewis. Though Lewis gained a rematch victory, he maintains respect for Rahman. "I give Rahman the edge in this fight," says Lewis, who was in town to witness Gatti's late January appearance against Thomas Damgaard in Boardwalk Hall. "He's been there before, he's taller and he's more of a natural heavyweight. Toney is coming up in weight and it's a lot harder for him. Toney's natural edge is that he has that swarming style and he can fire a lot of punches at once if he wants to. I think this will be an entertaining fight." Toney, whose prominence occurred by way of a middleweight and super-middleweight title reign, became an unusually effective heavyweight. He knocked out former heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield and cruiserweight champion Adolpho Washington. He also secured a good decision victory over highly regarded cruiserweight titleholder Vassily Jirov. Toney, based in Detroit, holds a connection with area boxing fans. He scored several victories here during the middleweight and super-middlweight reigns. Toney's former manager, Jackie Kallen, was the featured character in the movie Against The Ropes. Toney has not lost a fight in almost nine years.

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