Columnist Dean Juipe: Forbes returns to his most dangerous level

Dean Juipe's boxing notebook appears Thursday. His sports column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4084.

Look for a leaner Stevie Forbes when he steps into the ring Friday night at the Orleans for his main event fight with Ernesto Zepeda.

Forbes, a Las Vegas resident and a professional for four years, has his weight down to the contracted 132 pounds and will move soon to 130 after it was decided he was out of his element as a 140-pound junior welterweight.

"He's eating right, he's taking vitamins, he's on a strength program and he's a lot strong- er," said Forbes' booking agent, Cameron Duncan. "Mark my words, Stevie is going to be a big-time guy in the very near future."

Now trained by Floyd Mayweather Sr., Forbes is 16-1 but with only four knockouts. He's scheduled for 12 rounds with Zepeda, who is 25-3-2 with 20 KOs and known as a longtime sparring partner for Julio Cesar Chavez.

In his only loss, Forbes was barely outpointed by Alejandro Gonzalez last year in Indio, Calif.

"If he wins this fight he'll move into the WBA's top 10," Duncan predicted. "He'll be a legitimate contender.

"I'm personally happy to see it because he's such a nice guy. Stevie's had something of a rough road and never had a promoter, plus he was fighting not one but two divisions too high.

"He'll be a factor at 130."

Five other fights are tentatively scheduled, including Freddie Neal, 15-0-1, vs. Julio Sanchez-Leon, 18-12, at 132 pounds. First bell is 7 p.m.

Camacho, 27-0 with 16 knockouts, is scheduled for 12 rounds with Reed, 20-1, at 140 pounds.

Also scheduled: Jose Rodriguez, 12-5-2, vs. John Nolasco, 6-0-1, eight rounds, featherweights; Armando Velardez, 7-0, vs. Kenito Drake, 12-1-1, eight rounds, junior welterweights; Fernando Velardez, 9-3-1, vs. Edwin Zarate, 7-12-1, six rounds, super bantamweights; Santos Mercedes, 0-0-2, vs. an opponent yet to be determined, four rounds, bantamweights; and two women's four-round super middleweight bouts, Freeda Foreman vs. LaQuandra Sanders, and Maria Johansson vs. Karrie Frye. First bell is 4:15 p.m.

"He's backed to the wall and knows this is pretty much one of his last big opportunities, so I think he'll give it everything he's got," Corrales said Wednesday by phone from L.A.

Corrales is 31-0 while Juuko is 31-3-1.

"He seems pretty strong but I think overpowering him is a good possibility," Corrales remarked. "I'm one of the bigger junior lightweights, so that's an advantage."

Juuko, who gave a good account of himself in a loss last year to Floyd Mayweather, tends to stay low and bent at the waist. But Corrales has a plan to bring him out of his crouch.

"I want to take away his legs with some body shots and make him straighten up," he said. "I'm working on some subtle things: quicker jabs and mixing up my jabs. He doesn't stand straight very much, but that's what I want him to have to do."

Corrales added that he was enjoying his spot on the big card and is comfortable with the attention he has received.

"I'm getting away fairly unscathed," he said. "It's cool. When you fight on a card like this you want to give a good performance, and that's what I intend to do."

"I'm surprised I got off all the shots I did," Couser said. "I've got a big, quick overhand right and I stuck my jab on him big time."

Couser, 30, improved to 19-5-2 while handing Crowe his fourth loss in 23 fights. The judges had Couser up 96-95, 97-93 and 97-93.

"Fox (TV) wants to use me again and my promoter just called and said ESPN had called him about using me," Couser said after his return to Las Vegas. "I had a good fight but I didn't have a trainer and I didn't do everything right. I give myself a C minus for not putting him down like I should have when I had the chance in the third or fourth round."

Crowe was cut near his left eye in the second round, although it never was a significant factor. But Couser, despite the low grade he gave himself, stayed busy and was fairly aggressive in winning his second fight in as many months.

"They didn't pronounce my name right, though," he complained of the TV coverage, as the announcers referred to him as cow-zer instead of the correct coo-zer. "And I told them to introduce me as from Las Vegas, but they said St. Louis anyhow."

Given his impressive showing, the complaints were tolerable.

In Las Vegas, De La Hoya is a minus 250 betting favorite (at Mandalay Bay) and Mosley is a plus 200. It's a minus 180 that the fight goes its full 12 rounds and a plus 140 that it does not.

Fourteen Las Vegas sites will have the fight on pay-per-view, with a $40 admission charge at each.

The 6 p.m. telecast will be available at the Las Vegas Hilton, Mandalay Bay, Caesars Palace, the Flamingo Hilton, the MGM, Paris, Bally's, the Excalibur, Circus Circus, the Orleans, the Stardust, the San Remo, the Beach and the Plaza.

"I just think Shane is the best fighter in the world," said his father and trainer, Jack. "Everything he does is hard and fast."

In a statement attributed to Mike Tyson and released Wednesday, the former heavyweight champion said he is in New York for the funeral of a friend this week and will leave shortly for his June 24 bout in Scotland with Lou Savarese. "It's a very difficult time," Tyson said of the funeral and death of friend Darryl Baum, who was shot in the head and killed by an unidentified assailant while standing on a street corner in New York. ... In a rematch of a dreadful 1991 fight in Las Vegas, Roberto Duran will take on Pat Lawlor Friday in Panama City, Panama. Lawlor needed only six rounds to win the earlier bout. "He owes me," Duran said this week. "It's not going to be easy but I've trained hard for the fight." ... It appears as if veteran Goyo Vargas will be Joel Casamayor's opponent when the Cuban makes the first defense of his WBA junior lightweight title late r this summer.

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