Terry Norris

Saturday night's first-round knockout of Brett Lally at the Sports Arena made it four title defenses, four impressive performances for Terry Norris. But 17 months after he took the World Boxing Council's junior middleweight title from John Mugabi, Norris is still searching for respect and a pay day that will put him in a class with the elite of the boxing world. Norris victory earned him about $300,000 or about 3% of what George Foreman made for his bout with Evander Holyfield.

He is doubted. He is denigrated. He is seen as a former champion who will never again strap a world title belt around his waist. He is Mike Tyson. But he is also Orlin Norris. Many of the same things have been said about the men who will fight in tonight's 10-round main event at the MGM Grand Garden Arena.

Terry Norris is obscure only to those who haven't spent much time in his home town of Lubbock, Texas. He spends six days a week in the middle of California nowhere, 60 miles east of San Diego and five miles from the Mexican border, boxing in a barn. Imagine his surprise when Sugar Ray Leonard not only discovered he was alive but wanted to fight him. One phone call and Terry Norris finds himself in New York, where he definitely isn't known.

Terry Norris stopped Nicaragua's Jorge Luis Vado at 42 seconds of the second round to retain his World Boxing Council and International Boxing Federation junior middleweight titles Saturday night in Phoenix. Earlier, Venezuela's Eloy Rojas remained World Boxing Assn. featherweight champion with a unanimous but unpopular 12-round decision over Miguel Arrozal of the Philippines, and Bernard Hopkins stopped Steve Frank in the first round to retain his IBF middleweight title.

Terry Norris, the junior-middleweight champion who fights Carl Daniels here today, leveled a surprising blast at his manager, Joe Sayatovich. "Right now," Norris told Times reporter Dave McKibben recently, "there's some slow people behind me that are not exactly pushing in my direction. It's taken a little longer than I expected to get big-money fights." Of his manager earning 33 1/3% of his purses, Norris said: "By the time I'm 30, I want to be retired with millions and millions in the bank.

Cruiserweight boxer Orlin Norris read recent newspaper accounts of Terry Norris' breakup with trainer Abel Sanchez and couldn't believe what he was reading. Norris said Tuesday that he knows the real story and it wasn't close to what he read in the Union-Tribune . "It was very inaccurate," Norris said. "Fair had nothing to do with it. It's unfortunate for both parties." Norris, the No. 1-ranked cruiserweight in the three major boxing organizations, is close to both parties.

The Dec. 5 pay-per-view boxing tripleheader at Las Vegas featuring Julio Cesar Chavez and Terry Norris has been postponed indefinitely, promoters announced Wednesday. Showtime Event Television (SET), the pay-per-view arm of Showtime, and promoter Don King, were locked in a stare-down with HBO, which had previously scheduled a Dec. 5 show of its own, featuring James Toney, Iran Barkley and Roy Jones. On Wednesday, SET blinked.

Last spring, shortly before junior-middleweight champion Terry Norris became a million-dollar fighter, Joe Sayatovich pondered an investment deal for his boxer. Sayatovich is a San Diego dry-wall contractor when he isn't managing Norris, who fights Simon Brown on Saturday night at Caesars Palace. He decided to include Norris in a deal with him and two other partners--a project to build 340 medium-priced homes on 200 acres at Branson, Mo., a town in the Ozarks that has boomed in country music.

Sugar Ray Leonard went home to Potomac, Md., and thought and thought. He thought of the good times and the bad ending. Did he have second thoughts about retiring? "No, absolutely not," Leonard said during an interview last week. "I know this is the time. I always said, when the other guy hits me more than I hit him then it's time to move on. That's what happened." But Thomas Hearns said Leonard was "cheating" him out of a third fight? Has that remark affected Leonard's decision?

Simon Brown went to a hospital complaining of dizziness about four hours before he was to challenge World Boxing Council middleweight champion Terry Norris Saturday night and the fight at Caesars Palace was called off. "The fight is off," promoter Dan Duva said. "The whole show is off." Dr. Flip Homansky, a physician for the Nevada State Athletic Commission, said Brown, 29, a former welterweight champion, was taken to Valley Hospital about 3:15 p.m.

Less than two rounds of precision blasts ended nine of the worst months of Terry Norris' career. Norris, whose previous two fights against Luis Santana ended with Norris disqualified on fouls and Santana as the World Boxing Council super-welterweight champion, regained his title Saturday afternoon with a second-round knockout over Santana in an undercard fight before about 7,500 at the MGM Grand. "I did it--I can't say anything else," Norris said. "Now it's my time to unify the division."

This has been a foul time for Terry Norris, stuck in limbo since last November and disqualified in his last two fights against an amiable, hittable fellow named Luis Santana. You watch your title get carried off on a stretcher in consecutive bouts, and your mood is not going to be brightened by the quality of Santana's ability to lure you into disqualifications. Twice, the outmatched Santana has been fouled by Norris--the first time on Nov.

Unlike another 45-year-old boxer, Larry Holmes could not suspend time, land two punches and win over middle-aged America. Most of the time, things go as expected. Oliver McCall, 29, wore down his older opponent in the later rounds and retained his World Boxing Council heavyweight title Saturday night with a unanimous decision over Holmes before 8,167 at Caesars Palace. It was a cagey, veteran effort by Holmes, who used all his tricks to keep the fight closer than some expected.

Terry Norris lost his World Boxing Council super-welterweight title Saturday night when he was disqualified for hitting Luis Santana in the back of the head in the fifth round at Mexico City. In the final event of the card, Mexico's Humberto (Chiquita) Gonzalez retained his WBC and International Boxing Federation light-flyweight titles with a split decision over Michael Carbajal in their third bout.

The coach is their fifth in the last six seasons. . . . They have had two losing seasons in a row. . . . Their starting lineup is the youngest in the NBA. . . . Which L.A. team is this? . . . The Lakers. . . . The Clippers fit only the first description. . . . Pat Riley must have had trouble recognizing the Lakers on Tuesday in New York when Del Harris sent out Cedric Ceballos and George Lynch at forwards, Vlade Divac at center, and Eddie Jones and Nick Van Exel at guards. . . .

A grinning, assured, immeasurably wiser and nimbler Terry Norris found redemption, regained his World Boxing Council super-welterweight title and showcased a blazing new fighting style in a unanimous decision over Simon Brown Saturday night at the MGM Grand. Norris, whose knockout loss to Brown last December raised serious questions about both his chin and aggressive style, dominated Brown Saturday night by moving in for bursts of action, then immediately swooping away from any danger.

Brett Lally did not come up here to dream. He came to this sleepy ski resort to train for the biggest fight of his eight-year professional career--a 12-round bout Saturday night at the Sports Arena for Terry Norris' World Boxing Council super welterweight title. But with the stars shining so bright and the air smelling so fresh at 6,754 feet, it is easy to see how Lally got caught up in the moment.

Terry Norris will make the fifth defense of his World Boxing Council super-welterweight title against Jorge Castro of Argentina on Dec. 13 at Bercy Stadium in Paris.

The tape tells the story, and, although he is an embarrassed viewer, Terry Norris does not flinch as it plays. Norris' body leans away from the television, but his eyes barely blink, frozen on the fighters, and the pounding. Whomp-whomp-whomp! As if delivered to him as one more test of faith, one more swallow of humility, while Norris awaits the start of a news conference, 20 feet away the tape of his devastating fourth-round knockout by Simon Brown is loud and luminous.