Two St. Joseph boxers appeared in Buchanan County Circuit Court Wednesday to work toward settling a debt with the city.

Galen Brown, Byron Polley and Earl Walker rented out Civic Arena on Sept. 27, 2008, for a boxing card on which all three fought, along with local bantamweight Andre Wilson. The city filed a petition for past due payment last month, claiming Mr. Brown, Mr. Polley and Mr. Walker still owed $3,211 for using the Downtown arena.

Mr. Polley and Mr. Walker, along with city attorney Graham Jura, appeared before Judge Ron Taylor on Wednesday. The judge set over the case until Nov. 4, giving the parties a month to settle that final sum. Mr. Jura declined to comment afterward because the matter was pending, but Mr. Polley told the News-Press the bill would be paid.

The boxer said he and Mr. Brown, who did not appear Wednesday, each owed about $1,400 of that sum, while Mr. Walker said he owed $220 of his portion as of Wednesday. Mr. Polley attributed the situation to a certain naiveté on the part of the three boxers.

He said staging the card, meaning the arena rental and hiring security, ticket takers, ushers and other event staff, cost about $7,000 for the night. That didn’t include costs for the boxers. It costs $2,000 a day or 10 percent of the gross paid receipts, whichever is greater, to rent Civic Arena.

The fighters, who also promoted the event, expected to get more money back from tickets but couldn’t even pay all of the boxers on the card at the end of the night. Mr. Polley added that it took until January to pay all the participants and that he, Mr. Walker and Mr. Brown ended up fighting for free.

“We were trying to give back to the community (by selling tickets for $15, $20 and $25),” said Mr. Polley, who held the fight as a thank-you to the St. Joseph boxing fans who supported this group the past decade. “Anymore with the way times are, it’s very, very hard to be affordable in boxing tickets. ... Now I get the grasp of the concept why tickets are what they are.”

They also chose the same weekend NASCAR came to Kansas Speedway for their boxing card, which cut into the gate. Mr. Walker told the News-Press he paid for the other fighters’ plane tickets with his credit card, a debt which he still has to pay off.

“It was just a big, shocking wake-up call,” Mr. Polley said. “We had no clue what we were getting into, putting a Civic Arena show on alone. ... We were not prepared.”

Mr. Polley estimated he would need anywhere from $10,000 to $12,000 in the bank to successfully bankroll another event. The longtime boxer said if he and his friends organized another card, they likely would choose a smaller venue where they also would get a cut of beer sales. The city keeps all of the beer profits at Civic Arena.

“I’ve learned my lesson,” he said. “I just don’t have the money to promote shows.”

R.J. Cooper can be reached at rjcooper@npgco.com