'look Up And He's Got Your Money'

"Aw, shucks," says Baxter. "Taint nothing. If you can manage yourself, you can manage anything, and that's what good gamblers do best—manage themselves." He smiiiiles. "And what good poker players do best is size up the competition."

He says they shouldn't take it "personal," but he has found that most people in boxing are "guys with tunnel vision who only see the blows their own fighter lands." He says he has been sizing up "both sides" since he put $20 on Carmen Basilio against Sugar Ray Robinson 27 years ago ( Basilio won the fight and the middleweight title) and realized that handicapping—as well as the business of life generally—isn't done well with the heart. "When it's your eating money," he says, "you learn the difference." That being the case, he says, when he officially got into boxing in 1977 by buying the contract of a junior middleweight named Rocky Mosley Jr. (he retired in 1981), it turned out to be "not only a fun challenge, but profitable. Now I was getting the real inside information. I wished I'd found boxing a long time ago."

For his appreciative restaurant audience, Billy launched into a description of the ringside fun he has in Vegas, betting the bouts of his and other fighters. Mayweather, having heard the stories before, was casting about for more to eat and looking sullen over the pickings. Baxter watches Mayweather like a hawk, fussing over his diet and training regimen. He says he even "runs with Mayweather"—which, in the managerial plural, means he dons his sweats and sneakers and drives alongside him.

Mayweather, a onetime street punk, says he listens to every word Baxter says because he "sees what Billy made of himself," and because after getting nowhere in Grand Rapids , Mich. , he is now the proud possessor of a $160,000 house in Las Vegas , two cars and a $100,000 tax-free bond.

Baxter, of course, never looks sullen. Eyes glistening, Baxter mentioned that he and Tommy Fischer, another Las Vegas gambling man "and a good all-round hustler in his own right," routinely bet the prelims on a fight card at the Silver Slipper, whether they know the boxers or not. "It's a standard $300 bet, and the way it works, one of us has to make the price [set the odds] after the first round. This one night, it's Tommy's turn, and in the first round of a fight that was scheduled for four rounds, one fighter gives the other a terrific beating, knocking him down twice."

Between rounds, Baxter said, "I pester Tommy for the odds. Finally he blurts out, 'Oh, I dunno—200 to 1, I guess.' At that price, you don't hesitate. 'I'll take it!' I yell. Now Tommy starts thinking about it and scratching his head. He says, 'Gee, Billy, that's $6,000.' 'Uh, no, Tommy. That's $60,000. If your guy wins, you get $300. If my guy wins, you owe me $60,000.'

"Tommy is beginning to look sick. And in Round 2, my fighter makes a great comeback." Baxter got up from the table, danced around, making a facsimile comeback. "At the end of the round, I still see little hope, but Fischer is paranoid. He sees the fight as even. Between rounds he runs over to his guy's corner and yells, 'I'll give you a thousand bucks if you win this fight!' I see him, so I go over to my guy and I say, 'I'll give you a thousand bucks if you win.'

"So now we got two preliminary fighters who at best are in there for a couple hundred bucks apiece, fighting for over a thousand. Round 3 is a war. His guy's still getting the best of it, but Fischer can't see that. He's really paranoid now. He's walking back and forth, holding his head." Billy walked back and forth and held his head. " 'Sixty thousand bucks. Gee-zuz!' So he tries to settle the bet. 'What'll it take?' he says. I tell him, 'How about $20,000?' He says, 'Make it $15,000.' I say, 'It's a deal.' "

Billy sat back down, pleased with his performance and smiled broadly. "And, of course, his guy wins the last round and the fight. Which means Tommy not only has to pay me $15,000, he has to pay his fighter an extra grand as well."

Everybody laughed. But Baxter, holding up his hand, cautioned that a man shouldn't be too quick to count his chickens. He said he had $75,000 "won" on the November 1979 Wilfred Benitez- Sugar Ray Leonard fight on an odds bet that it would go the distance. "It was late in the 15th round," he said, "and Benitez was hanging in there. I was watching for the corner lights to go on. When they do, it means only 10 seconds are left in the round. In Vegas, you get knocked down inside 10 seconds of the 15th round and the bell can save you.