Kid Gavilan, the welterweight king from Cuba who wants a crack at the middleweight title, looked back with regret today on last night's easy victory over Italo Scortichini.
The 27 year old champion spent most of the 10 rounds trying to catch Scortichini, a stocky youngster from Milan, Italy, who has been campaigning in the United States for six months and can't as yet speak english.
Gavilan felt that the crowd of 5,000 at the Olympia didn't get its money's worth.
"It too bad," Gavilan said "He disappoint crowd. He Disappoint me. Maybe he scared? Maybe he hear bad things about me? I don't know. But it too bad."
Scortichini, who claims to be the Italian welterweight champ, fought it out with Gavilan only briefly during the early minutes of the non-title bout. After that, the 24 year old boxer kept back-peddling until the final bell.
The fight was so one-sided that judge Al Goodman scored it 60-40 in favourr of Gavilan. That means Scortichini didn't win a single round in Goodman's opinion. Referee Clarence Rosen wasn't quite as drastic, he favoured Gavilan 58-42 and judge Jack Aspery saw it 57-43.
Scortichini, in suffering his sixth ring reversal, held an advantage of more than three pounds over Gavilan. He weighed 155 while the 'Keed' scaled under 152.
(Reading Eagle)
