New York knockout bid for Lewis-Tyson

January 23, 2002

A formal announcement of the long-awaited world heavyweight title fight between Lennox Lewis and Mike Tyson is due to be made in New York tomorrow but talks continued over the weekend to resolve exactly when and where it will take place.

A multimillion-dollar last-minute bid by executives representing New York's famous fight venue, Madison Square Garden, has upset plans to stage the fight in Las Vegas on April 6. The Garden is understood to have offered more than $10m and suggested April 13.

The problem confronting the American television companies HBO and Showtime, whose money generates most of the fighters' huge pay cheques, is that their programme schedules do not have space at present for an April 13 broadcast. But the Garden's offer is proving hard to resist.

Jerome Anderson, who negotiates for Lewis, revealed that a rematch clause, pitting Lewis and Tyson together for a second time later in the year, had been agreed. "Obviously it makes sense for a rematch from a business and sporting sense. It is fair to say this will be the biggest fight income of all time. It is a very exciting time and we are delighted it looks as though it's coming around," he said yesterday.

Photographs of an overweight Tyson on holiday in Cuba recently have fuelled speculation that the former champion will struggle to achieve any semblance of fighting fitness by April but his trainer Tommy Brookes was not worried, saying: "Mike has been waiting for this for a long time. He is like a hungry bulldog chasing a meat truck. Mike has been big all his life; it doesn't bother me at all."

A capacity crowd at the York Hall, Bethnal Green, gave the four-time world champion Johnny Tapia a phenomenal welcome on Saturday before the 34-year-old American, who has stepped up to featherweight, destroyed his Argen tine opponent, Eduardo Alvarez, inside the first round.

The extrovert Tapia, whose parents were both murdered and whose own life includes jail terms, drug addiction and two suicide attempts, has revelled in the warmth of the British fight public and said he would love to return. "I have always wanted to fight [Naseem] Hamed or I would take on [Marco] Barrera. It doesn't matter - anybody, but I want another world title. I have been treated like a king in England and I would like to fight here again," he said.

One option might be to challenge the WBO featherweight champion, Julio Pablo Chacon of Argentina, who retained his title on a split decision against the Colombian Viktor Polo. A tattoo on Tapia's chest reads Mi Vida Loca (My Crazy Life). A world title fight in Britain sounds odd but Tapia's appeal marks it as far from crazy.

The big-punching Londoner Wayne Alexander became European light-middleweight champion when he stopped Paolo Pizzamiglio, of Italy in three rounds, also on the York Hall bill.

John Rawling