Boxing in Las Vegas: The Silver Slipper Years

Published

5 years ago

April 23, 2020

Boxing-in-Las-Vegas-The-Silver-Slipper-Years

The Silver Slipper gambling saloon opened in 1950. Unlike its neighbors on the dusty highway that came to be called the Las Vegas Strip, it was never a hotel. The allurements were 24/7 gambling, entertainment, and the Chuck Wagon buffet, the first of its kind in Las Vegas.

The Silver Slipper was a grind joint, a place that catered to small-fry gamblers. It was also a bump-and-grind joint. Some of the era’s best-known strippers performed in the long-running burlesque show. The early show started at 10 pm and the late show at 2:45 am. Las Vegas locals and visitors had a lot more stamina in those days.

The gambling saloon also became identified with boxing. The Silver Slipper became the primary home of the “Strip Fight of the Week.” The fight cards there, more than 700 according to one count, were held in an upstairs ballroom.

Bill Miller, the promoter, began his first Silver Slipper “Fight of the Week” run on Oct. 2, 1961. The main event was a 10-round flyweight contest between Ray Pacheco, a local man, a painter by trade, and Willie Kee, a Navajo Indian from Reno. It must have been a humdinger of a fight because the local paper reported that “ecstatic” patrons showered the ring with coins at the conclusion of the bout.

“All Miller looks for is good action in a fight; names are not important,” wrote local sportswriter Bill Guthrie in 1965. But this wasn’t always true. More often than not, Miller matched the fighters that he had under contract very carefully – and Guthrie’s assertion came with a caveat. Many of Miller’s last-minute subs, he wrote, “weren’t really boxers. They were just warm and reasonably alive.”

While the bouts weren’t always rousing, the price was right — general admission tickets were priced at $5; ringside went for $7.50 – and you couldn’t beat the atmosphere. The room was loud and dark and smoky and the fights attracted some colorful characters. “(Man-to-man) wagers and propositions were as much a part of the atmosphere as the fights themselves,” reminisced Scott Schettler, the former Director of the iconic Stardust race and sports book.

Bill Miller, who grew up in Elmira, New York, owned the Thorobred Lounge which was situated a stone’s throw from the Silver Slipper, but on the opposite side of the street where the Wynn now stands. He out-fitted the basement of his lounge into a boxing gym.

A balding man with an ample midsection, often seen with a cigar clenched between his teeth, Miller was a man with boundless energy. Boxing was his passion; some would say his addiction. A promoter, manager, trainer, and cut man, his first fighter of note was Eddie Andrews, a middleweight from Lowell, Massachusetts, who finished his boxing career in Nevada while working as a blackjack dealer.

Andrews had a few good wins in Las Vegas rings, but quit the sport in 1963. Miller had far deeper runs with Ferd Hernandez, Denny Moyer, and Freddie Little. Like Andrews, they were middleweights for most of their careers.

One of four fighting brothers from Nebraska – three of whom fought at the Silver Slipper – Ferdinand “Ferd” Hernandez had 38 of his 57 pro fights in Las Vegas during an eight-year career that began in 1961. At his peak he was ranked #2 in The Ring ratings.

In retirement, Hernandez became, however briefly, Nevada’s top boxing referee. He then had a steady job as a graveyard shift bartender at a place called the Plush Horse. When he went to referee a show at the Silver Slipper, he often brought a gaggle of his regular customers with him. He was the only referee with an entourage.

Hernandez couldn’t solve Denny Moyer who out-pointed him twice. A comet coming out of the amateur ranks, the stylish Moyer had split two fights with a faded Sugar Ray Robinson at Madison Square Garden prior to winning a world title in the newly created 154-pound weight class. In Las Vegas, where he had 27 fights, 21 at the Silver Slipper, he breathed new life into his flagging career.

Moyer ran into a speed bump early into the second phase of his career in the form of Freddie Little who knocked him out in the fourth round. No one saw this coming. Moyer, who by then had 65 pro fights under his belt, had been stopped only once previously, that coming in Miami Beach against the great Cuban fighter Luis Rodriguez, a stablemate of Muhammad Ali.

Denny Moyer’s conqueror Freddie Little turned pro in New Orleans while attending school at Dillard University. He quit boxing after accepting a job as a schoolteacher in Chicago, but the itch returned. After stopping Moyer, he settled in Las Vegas. Bill Miller became his manager, so in hindsight Miller stood to gain no matter who won the Moyer-Little match.

The under-appreciated Little finished his career with a record of 54-6 that included a 4-2-1 mark in world title fights, all but one of which took place overseas.

In addition to the aforementioned Ferd Hernandez, several good fighters cut their eye teeth on Bill Miller’s shows. Ernie “Indian Red” Lopez had 22 fights in Las Vegas (six at the Silver Slipper) before becoming a big draw in Los Angeles. Featherweight Ruben Castillo, like Indian Red a future two-time world title challenger, fought nine times at the Silver Slipper when he was just starting out.

Marvin Camel, who came off the Flathead Indian Reservation in Montana, had 11 of his first 13 pro fights at the Slipper. Camel, who finished 45-13-4, wasn’t a great fighter but would acquire a unique distinction when he out-pointed Croatia’s Mate Parlov in 1980. It made him the very first cruiserweight champion. The cruiserweight lineage begins with him.

Earnie Shavers was still an unknown boxer when he appeared at the Silver Slipper on Jan. 6, 1971. Working his corner that night was his 29-year-old manager Dean Chance, the 1964 Cy Young Award winner, and Chance’s former roommate with the California Angels, the noted playboy Bo Belinsky.

Shavers, one of the hardest punchers in heavyweight history, made quick work of his opponents in his five Silver Slipper engagements. None of his fights lasted beyond the third round.

During the early 1970s, some good fighters emerged from the local amateur ranks. Junior bantamweight Willie “Birdlegs” Jensen and junior welterweight Leroy Haley made their pro debuts one month apart at the Silver Slipper in the spring of 1973.

Birdlegs Jensen came oh-so-close to winning the WBC 115-pound title in 1980 when he was held to a draw in a 15-round bout with Venezuela’s Rafael Orono in Caracas. Haley was born in Arkansas but was hailed as the first native Las Vegan to win a world title when he wrested the WBC 140-pound belt from Saoul Mamby in 1982.

For every fighter on the way up, however, Bill Miller roped in two on the way down. His standard purse for a main event fighter was $500 or one-half of 50 percent of the gate, whichever was higher. Some fighters commanded more, such as Harold Johnson, a top-shelf light heavyweight in his day, but when a man of Johnson’s caliber turned up at the Silver Slipper he was invariably in the sunset of his career.

Miller used some boxers over and over and over again. The busiest was Benito Juarez, a welterweight (as a rule) from San Antonio. Juarez packed 123 fights into an 11-year pro career, finishing 55-56-12. Forty-seven of those fights were at the Silver Slipper.

Juarez was fungible. It wasn’t unusual for him to fight in a 6-rounder, return the next week in a 10-rounder, win this fight and then turn up in a 5-rounder in his next outing. The running joke was that Miller didn’t pay Juarez per fight, but kept him on a retainer like an attorney. Bouts were constantly falling out at the 11^th hour and it was important to have a man like Benito Juarez in the bullpen.

Benito didn’t have much of a punch, but he was a high-octane fighter who always gave a good effort and the regulars never seemed to tire of him. Besides, for many the bill of fare was of no great import. The fights, which normally ran on Wednesdays, were like a gathering of fraternity brothers.

Eventually the Silver Slipper would be one of only two venues in the entire United States running a weekly fight card, sharing that distinction with LA’s Olympic Auditorium. The indefatigable Bill Miller found a way to keep the doors open in the face of constant challenges.

For a brief time, a rival promoter took to running weekly shows downtown at the Fremont Hotel using many of the same fighters that Miller had groomed. In mid-1964, Miller was forced to pull up stakes when the Nevada Gaming Control Board shuttered the Silver Slipper after undercover agents discovered craps dealers using shaved dice. After sitting dark for more than a year, the property reopened in October of 1965 under new ownership. During the interregnum, Miller shifted his Strip Fight of the Week to the Hacienda, a property at the south end of the Strip where Mandalay Bay now sits. Two other Strip properties, the Castaways and Circus Circus, also harbored his weekly shows during periods when he was at loggerheads with the Silver Slipper management, beefs that would eventually get patched-up.

One would think that being a boxing promoter, especially at the grass roots level, would be one of the world’s most stressful occupations; things constantly go wrong. In October of 1975, Miller suffered an external stress when an explosion of indeterminate origin destroyed his tavern and an adjacent Italian restaurant. It happened in the wee hours when neither place was occupied, but Miller wasn’t insured.

A hot-tempered workaholic, Bill Miller was a walking time bomb and it was no surprise that he died young, passing away in 1976 at age 49 during open-heart surgery. His wife Cheryl and son Tim took over but couldn’t make a go of it, nor could their successor, Elmer Boyce, a man from Missoula, Montana, who controlled the aforementioned Marvin Camel and a light heavyweight of note, Roger Rouse.

The fights ceased in 1982 and the Silver Slipper faded into memory six years later. All places like it along the Strip were fated to meet the wrecking ball as the city’s tourism industry matured and a new breed of corporate casino operators shunted aside the locals. In 1950, when the Slipper opened, Clark County, which encompasses Las Vegas, was home to 49,000. In the ensuing years before the property was demolished, the population increased almost ten-fold. (Today Clark County is home to 2.2 million and Las Vegas is a larger city than Baltimore, St. Louis, Cleveland or Pittsburgh.)

It’s hard to imagine anyone running a weekly fight card at a permanent location in the United States ever again. For one thing, the cost of accommodating the regulators has outpaced inflation. So, here’s a toast to the long-gone but not forgotten Silver Slipper and to the stouthearted Bill Miller, rest his soul.

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Arne K. Lang

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Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce

Published

11 hours ago

January 18, 2025

David A. Avila

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Japan’s Mizuki Hiruta smashed through Mexico’s Maribel Ramirez with ease in winning by technical decision and local hero Omar Trinidad continued his assault on the featherweight division on Friday.

Hiruta (7-0, 2 KOs), who prefers to be called “Mimi,” made her American debut with an impressive performance against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez (15-11-4) and retained the WBO super flyweight world title by unanimous decision at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

The pink-haired Japanese southpaw champion quickly proved to be quicker, stronger and even better than advertised. In the opening round Ramirez landed on the floor twice after throwing errant blows. On one instance, it could have been ruled a knockdown but it was not a convincing blow.

In the second round, Ramirez again attacked and again was met with a Hiruta check right hook and down went the Mexican. This time referee Ray Corona gave the eight-count and the fight resumed.

It was Hiruta’s third title defense but this time it was on American soil. She seemed nervous by the prospect of getting a favorable review from the more than 700 fans inside the casino tent.

For more than a year Hiruta has been training off and on with Manny Robles in the L.A. area. Now that she has a visa, she has spent considerable time this year learning the tricks of the trade. They proved explosively effective.

Though Mexico City’s Ramirez has considerable experience against world champions, she discovered that Hiruta was not easy to hit. Often, the Japanese champion would slip and counter with precision.

It was an impressive American debut, though the fight was stopped in the eighth round after a collision of heads. The scores were tallied and all three saw Hiruta the winner by scores of 80-71 twice and 79-72.

“I’m so happy. I could have done much more,” said Hiruta through interpreter Yuriko Miyata. “I wanted to do more things that Manny Robles taught me.”

Trinidad Wins Too

Omar Trinidad (18-0-1, 13 KOs) discovered that challenger Mike Plania (31-5, 18 KOs) has a very good chin and staying power. But over 10 rounds Trinidad proved to be too fast and too busy for the Filipino challenger.

Immediately it was evident that the East L.A. featherweight was too quick and too busy for Plania who preferred a counter-puncher attack that never worked.

“He was strong,” said Trinidad. “He took everything.”

After 10 redundant rounds all three judges scored for Trinidad 100-90 twice and 99-91. He retains the WBC Continental Americas title.

Other Bouts

Ali Akhmedov (23-1, 17 KOs) blasted out Malcolm Jones (17-5-1) in less than two rounds. A dozen punches by Akhmedov forced referee Thomas Taylor to stop the super middleweight fight.

Iyana “Roxy” Verduzco (3-0) bloodied Lindsey Ellis in the first round and continued the speedy assault in the next two rounds. Referee Ray Corona saw enough and stopped the fight in favor of Verduzco at 1:34 of the third round.

Gloria Munguilla (7-1) and Brook Sibrian (5-2) lit up the boxing ring with a nonstop clash for eight rounds in their light flyweight fight. Munguilla proved effective with a slip-and-counter attack. Sibrian adjusted and made the fight closer in the last four rounds but all three judges favored Munguilla.

More Winners

Joshua Anton, Tayden Beltran, Adan Palma, and Alexander Gueche all won their bouts.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Published

2 days ago

January 16, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Best wishes to the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires that took place last week and are still ongoing in small locales.

Most of the heavy damage took place in the western part of L.A. near the ocean due to Santa Ana winds. Another very hot spot was in Altadena just north of the Rose Bowl. It was a horrific tragedy.

Hopefully the worst is over.

Pro boxing returns with 360 Boxing Promotions spotlighting East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad (17-0-1, 13 KOs) defending a regional featherweight title against Mike Plania (31-4, 18 KOs) on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

“I’m the king of L.A. boxing and I’ll be ready to put on a show headlining again in the main event. This is my year, I’m ready to challenge and defeat any of the featherweight world champions,” said Trinidad.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the Hollywood Night fight card that includes a female world championship fight and other intriguing match-ups.

Tom Loeffler heads 360 Promotions and once again comes full force with a hot prospect in Trinidad. If you’re not familiar with Loeffler’s history of success, he introduced America to Oleksandr Usyk, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the brothers Wladimir and Vitaly Kltischko.

“We’ve got a wealth of international talent and local favorites to kick off our 2025 in grand style,” said Loeffler.

He knows talent.

Trinidad hails from the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. near the Los Angeles riverbed. Several fighters from the past came from that exact area including the first Golden Boy, Art Aragon.

Aragon was a huge gate attraction during the late 1940s until 1960. He was known as a lady’s man and dated several Hollywood starlets in his time. Though he never won a world title he did fight world champions Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Carter and Lauro Salas. He was more or less the king of the Olympic Auditorium and Los Angeles boxing during his career.

Other famous boxers from the Boyle Heights area were notorious gangster Mickey Cohen and former world champion Joey Olivo.

Can Trinidad reach world title status?

Facing Trinidad will be Filipino fighter Plania who’s knocked off a couple of prospects during his career including Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer and Giovanni Gutierrez. The fighter from General Santos in the Philippines can crack and hold his own in the boxing ring.

It’s a very strong fight card and includes WBO world titlist Mizuki Hiruta of Japan who defends the super flyweight title against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez. It’s a tough matchup for Hiruta who makes her American debut. You can’t miss her with that pink hair and she has all the physical tools to make a splash in this country.

Mizukii Hiruta

Two other female bouts are also planned, including light flyweight banger L.A.’s Gloria Munguilla (6-1) against Coachella’s Brook Sibrian (5-1) in a match set for six rounds. Both are talented fighters. Another female fight includes super featherweights Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) versus Lindsey Ellis (2-1) in another six-rounder. Ellis can crack with all her wins coming via knockout. Verduzco is a multi-national titlist as an amateur.

Others scheduled to perform are Ali Akhmedov, Joshua Anton, Adan Palma and more.

Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

Boxing and the Media

The sport of professional boxing is currently in flux. It’s always in flux but no matter what people may say or write, boxing will survive.

Whether you like Jake Paul or not, he proved boxing has worldwide appeal with monstrous success in his last show. He has media companies looking at the numbers and imagining what they can do with the sport.

Sure, UFC is negotiating a massive billion dollar deal with media companies, as is WWE, both are very similar in that they provide combat entertainment. You don’t need to know the champions because they really don’t matter. Its about the attractions.

Boxing is different. The good champions last and build a following that endures even beyond their careers a la Mike Tyson.

MMA can’t provide that longevity, but it does provide entertainment.

Currently, there is talk of establishing a boxing league again. It’s been done over and over but we shall see if it sticks this time.

Pro boxing is the true warrior’s path and that means a solo adventure. It’s a one-on-one sport and that appeals to people everywhere. It’s the oldest sport that can be traced to prehistoric times. You don’t need classes in Brazilian Jiujitsu, judo, kick boxing or wrestling. Just show up in a boxing gym and they can put you to work.

It’s a poor person’s path that can lead to better things and most importantly discipline.

Photos credit: Lina Baker

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Boxing Trainer Bob Santos Paid his Dues and is Reaping the Rewards

Published

3 days ago

January 15, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Boxing-Trainer-Bob-Santos-Paid-his-Dues-and-is-Reaping the Rewards

Bob Santos, the 2022 Sports Illustrated and The Ring magazine Trainer of the Year, is a busy fellow. On Feb. 1, fighters under his tutelage will open and close the show on the four-bout main portion of the Prime Video PPV event at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Jeison Rosario continues his comeback in the lid-lifter, opposing Jesus Ramos. In the finale, former Cuban amateur standout David Morrell will attempt to saddle David Benavidez with his first defeat. Both combatants in the main event have been chasing 168-pound kingpin Canelo Alvarez, but this bout will be contested for a piece of the light heavyweight title.

When the show is over, Santos will barely have time to exhale. Before the month is over, one will likely find him working the corner of Dainier Pero, Brian Mendoza, Elijah Garcia, and perhaps others.

Benavidez (29-0, 24 KOs) turned 28 last month. He is in the prime of his career. However, a lot of folk rate Morrell (11-0, 9 KOs) a very live dog. At last look, Benavidez was a consensus 7/4 (minus-175) favorite, a price that betokens a very competitive fight.

Bob Santos, needless to say, is confident that his guy can upset the odds. “I have worked with both,” he says. “It’s a tough fight for David Morrell, but he has more ways to victory because he’s less one-dimensional. He can go forward or fight going back and his foot speed is superior.”

Benavidez’s big edge, in the eyes of many, is his greater experience. He captured the vacant WBC 168-pound title at age 20, becoming the youngest super middleweight champion in history. As a pro, Benavidez has answered the bell for 148 rounds compared with only 54 for Morrell, but Bob Santos thinks this angle is largely irrelevant.

“Sure, I’d rather have pro experience than amateur experience,” he says, “but if you look at Benavidez’s record, he fought a lot of soft opponents when he was climbing the ladder.”

True. Benavidez, who turned pro at age 16, had his first seven fights in Mexico against a motley assortment of opponents. His first bout on U.S. soil occurred in his native Pheonix against an opponent with a 1-6-2 record.

While it’s certainly true that Morrell, 26, has yet to fight an opponent the caliber of Caleb Plant, he took up boxing at roughly the same tender age as Benavidez and earned his spurs in the vaunted Cuban amateur system, eventually defeating elite amateurs in international tournaments.

“If you look at his [pro] record, you will notice that [Morrell] has hardly lost a round,” says Santos of the fighter who captured an interim title in only his third professional bout with a 12-round decision over Guyanese veteran Lennox Allen.

Bob Santos is something of a late bloomer. He was around boxing for a long time, assisting such notables as Joe Goossen, Emanuel Steward, and Ronnie Shields before becoming recognized as one of the sport’s top trainers.

A native of San Jose, he grew up in a Hispanic neighborhood but not in a household where Spanish was spoken. “I know enough now to get by,” he says modestly. He attended James Lick High School whose most famous alumnus is Heisman winning and Super Bowl winning quarterback Jim Plunkett. “We worked in the same apricot orchard when we were kids,” says Santos. “Not at the same time, but in the same field.”

After graduation, he followed his father’s footsteps into construction work, but boxing was always beckoning. A cousin, the late Luis Molina, represented the U.S. as a lightweight in the 1956 Melbourne Summer Olympics, and was good enough as a pro to appear in a main event at Madison Square Garden where he lost a narrow decision to the notorious Puerto Rican hothead Frankie Narvaez, a future world title challenger.

Santos’ cousin was a big draw in San Jose in an era when the San Jose / Sacramento territory was the bailiwick of Don Chargin. “Don was a beautiful man and his wife Lorraine was even nicer,” says Santos of the husband/wife promotion team who are enshrined in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. Don Chargin was inducted in 2001 and Lorraine posthumously in 2018.

Chargin promoted Fresno-based featherweight Hector Lizarraga who captured the IBF title in 1997. Lizarraga turned his career around after a 5-7-3 start when he hooked up with San Jose gym operator Miguel Jara. It was one of the most successful reclamation projects in boxing history and Bob Santos played a part in it.

Bob hopes to accomplish the same turnaround with Jeison Rosario whose career was on the skids when Santos got involved. In his most recent start, Rosario held heavily favored Jarrett Hurd to a draw in a battle between former IBF 154-pound champions on a ProBox card in Florida.

“I consider that one of my greatest achievements,” says Santos, noting that Rosario was stopped four times and effectively out of action for two years before resuming his career and is now on the cusp of earning another title shot.

The boxer with whom Santos is most closely identified is former four-division world title-holder Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. The slick southpaw, the pride of Gilroy, California, the self-proclaimed “Garlic Capital of the World,” retired following a bad loss to Omar Figueroa Jr, but had second thoughts and is currently riding a six-fight winning streak. “I’ve known him since he was 15 years old,” notes Santos.

Years from now, Santos may be more closely identified with the Pero brothers, Dainier and Lenier, who aspire to be the Cuban-American version of the Klitschko brothers.

Santos describes Dainier, one of the youngest members of Cuba’s Olympic Team in Tokyo, as a bigger version of Oleksandr Usyk. That may be stretching it, but Dainier (10-0, 8 KOs as a pro), certainly hits harder.

Dainier Pero

This reporter was a fly on the wall as Santos put Dainier Pero through his paces on Tuesday (Jan. 14) at Bones Adams gym in Las Vegas. Santos held tight to a punch shield, in the boxing vernacular a donut, as the Cuban practiced his punches. On several occasions the trainer was knocked off-balance and the expression on his face as his body absorbed some of the after-shocks, plainly said, “My goodness, what the hell am I doing here? There has to be an easier way to make a living.” It was an assignment that Santos would have undoubtedly preferred handing off to his young assistant, his son Joe Santos, but Joe was preoccupied coordinating David Morrell’s camp.

Dainer’s brother Lenier is also an ex-Olympian, and like Dainier was a super heavyweight by trade as an amateur. With an 11-0 (8 KOs) record, Lenier Pero’s pro career was on a parallel path until stalled by a managerial dispute. Lenier last fought in March of last year and Santos says he will soon join his brother in Las Vegas.

There’s little to choose between the Pero brothers, but Dainier is considered to have the bigger upside because at age 25 he is the younger sibling by seven years.

Bob Santos was in the running again this year for The Ring magazine’s Trainer of the Year, one of six nominees for the honor that was bestowed upon his good friend Robert Garcia. Considering the way that Santos’ career is going, it’s a safe bet that he will be showered with many more accolades in the years to come.

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