When Greg Haugen prepared to fight Julio Cesar Chavez in 1993 he put most of Mexico in a dither by declaring the legend's impressive 84-0 record had "come against Tijuana taxi drivers my mom could whip."

Haugen, the greatest fighter to come out of Alaska, lost by technical knockout in Mexico City in front of what was then the largest paid attendance for a boxing event (130,000). Afterward he was asked about his comments and retorted, "they must have been very tough taxi drivers."

The former IBF lightweight and WBO light welterweight world champion learned the boxing trade in the bars of Anchorage while Jim Patton's Thursday Night at the Fights were the biggest draw in town. He probably saw his share of tough taxi drivers or was, according to Sports Illustrated, "smacking around lumberjacks and stevedores" during his formative years as a fighter.

Taxi drivers, lumberjacks, dock workers and other amateur boxers with dreams of being the next Greg Haugen are still anxious to enter to the ring at Thursday Night at the Fights.

The 21st season of fights is slated to begin tonight at the Egan Center. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. and the first fight is scheduled to begin an hour later. The card features seven fights, the first four matching amateurs and the last three touting experienced and/or professional boxers.

"The people without a lot of experience, those are really the crowd favorites," Patton said. "Most of the crowd are not true boxing fans, they are there for the social experience."

The cards are set the day before the fights at a pre-fight party at Rum Runners.

"People show up for the matchmaking and weigh-in. They tell us their experience and we line them up by weight and experience ,and introduce them to each other," Patton said. "They then say yes or no. Sometimes we have 40, 50 people trying to fight that week.

"All the fighters want an easy fight, but we try to make the matches to be the best entertainment for the crowd. You never know what you are going to see in the ring."

The fights are not the only entertainment for the spectators. The ring girls are at least as popular as the boxing.

"We have a lot of beautiful ring girls, as usual," Patton said.

The ring girls make more money than the fighters. In the first six fights, the winner gets $150 and "second place" earns $50. The main event winner takes home $250, compared to $100 for the loser. The ring girls split up to $1,600, with the crowd at the Chilkoot Charlies post-fight party deciding which ring girl is the 'winner'. The winning ring girl can take home as much as $900.

The fights began 20 years ago at the Midnight Express and stayed at the bars for four years, before their popularity caused the event to move to the Egan Center.

"In the beginning there really wasn't a lot of entertainment options in town. The fights were one of the main things in town and we sold out every night the first five or six years," Patton said. "There were times the line was around the Egan Center and overlapping, and we had to send them home because it was sold out."

There are other entertainment options in town, but the fights remain popular and there has been little change in the format.

"It is pretty much the same," Patton said. "If it is not broke, why fix it?"

Find Richard Larson online at adn.com/contact/rlarson or call 257-4335.

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