Boxing / Richard Hoffer : Tyson Is Making Everyone Duck

Mike Tyson knocked more than just Trevor Berbick for a loop when he tapped him on the left temple a couple of weeks ago. The 20-year-old Kid Kong appears to have scattered the entire division with the blow.

Consider:

--Tyson had barely hitched up his new World Boxing Council championship belt when Butch Lewis, co-promoter, was starting to negotiate a way out of the heavyweight tournament for his bread and butter, Michael Spinks, International Boxing Federation champion.

--And contenders for the WBA crown are likewise losing their interest in the tournament. Tony Tubbs, scheduled to fight champion Tim Witherspoon in the next leg of the HBO title unification series, just ducked out.

“We get a champion by the name of Mike Tyson and all of a sudden I’ve got guys fleeing in all directions,” co-promoter Don King lamented Friday.

King’s Dec. 12 card, which was to have featured the Witherspoon-Tubbs rematch, fell apart when Tubbs pulled out Friday with what he said was a shoulder injury. King remains skeptical.

“The title fight is in question because we found a man who by calculation and design would like to cause confusion in the heavyweight division,” King said at a press conference. “We were warned that Tubbs would try to extort more money from us and from HBO, and he lived up to his code of ethics.”

That card, to be held in Madison Square Garden, was alive briefly when Olympic champion Tyrell Biggs was considered as a substitute. But Biggs’ handlers judged the money too little and too late.

“In order to make it worthwhile, they had to make it worthwhile,” Biggs’ promoter, Dan Duva, said. “And they didn’t.”

Talk quickly turned to former contender James (Bonecrusher) Smith as an opponent for Witherspoon. Although there is some question whether anybody cares anymore. At this point, the contenders appear only as accomplices to Tyson’s eventual anointment. Even King admitted the show was a loser from the get-go.

Of course, can you blame anybody for ducking for cover, what with Tyson’s forbidding presence looming? Certainly not Spinks, a blown-up light-heavyweight who rules the division by dint of two victories over the washed-up Larry Holmes.

Tyson’s Nov. 22 victory party wasn’t even in full swing when Lewis was negotiating for a fight outside the tournament with the eternal Gerry Cooney. A nice pay day, before an apparent destruction in the final bout, would be just the ticket.

But if you know boxing, you know that fight could never happen. Who would put up enough money for the fighters’ purses? Not HBO. Not, to be sure, closed circuit exhibitors.

With King, HBO and the Las Vegas Hilton threatening enough legal action to back up the courts into the 21st Century, nobody would touch the fight. Anyway, the way Cooney pulls out of fights, who would ever book an arena for the date, the money up front?

It all makes you wonder whether Butch Lewis isn’t just using Cooney’s name and trying to squeeze the Hilton and HBO for more money to stay in the tournament and face Tyson down the line.

Nah.

Boxing Notes

Young Dick Tiger, getting older every day, comes back in a bout with Dionisio Castillo Tuesday night at the Universal Sheraton. Tiger lost recently in his bid for the California welterweight title. That show was also distinguished by the fiscal ingenuity of co-promoter Harry Kabakoff. Kabakoff, steamed over the newspaper play of a rival promoter in the San Fernando Valley edition of the Times, told The Times’ Steve Springer that he’d have to pay for his press credentials. At the door, Springer asked Kabakoff what he owed him. Said Kabakoff, ever the businessman: “Depends where you want to sit.” . . . Former super bantamweight champion Jaime Garza, who was set to open the boxing series at the Spruce Goose recently, is apparently recovered from the flu and will headline there Wednesday night. However, it won’t be against scheduled opponent Darryl Thigpen, who was injured in an auto accident. The opponent will be Carlos Linares. . . . Veteran ring announcer Jimmy Lennon looked at the judges’ scorecards from Wednesday’s main event at the Forum and leaned over to speak to his son, Jimmy Jr., at ringside. “Better put your helmet on,” he said. The decision, Walter Sims over Joey Olivera, in the semifinal bout of the lightweight tournament, was not a popular one. Sims will fight Yogi Buchanan, Jan. 22, for the $50,000 first prize.

Mickey Duff, who manages and--in England--promotes such champions as John Mugabi and Lloyd Honeyghan, is one of the few who negotiate with both Don King and Bob Arum. “It’s like musical chairs,” he explains. “I just have to make sure there’s a chair when I sit down.” Duff will take this year’s upset sensation back to London, where Honeyghan will defend the IBF and WBC portions of his undisputed welterweight crown against Johnny Bumphus in February. The WBA will almost certainly strip Honeyghan of the crown that Donald Curry once united. Say this about Duff: He stands behind his fighters. “I took 5-1 (odds) on his fight with Curry,” he said. “Won over $60,000.” As far as that goes, Honeyghan got $5,000 down on himself at the same odds.

Local bantamweight Frankie Duarte, in a strong comeback from alcoholism and inactivity, could get a title shot as soon as next month. He may fight WBA bantamweight champion Bernardo Pinango, perhaps at the Forum.

It’s always assumed that a boxer needs Olympic gold, a la Sugar Ray Leonard, to land in the big money. But a guy who couldn’t even make the team could set new standards for income. Mike Tyson, who just won the WBC heavyweight championship, has made about $5 million in 20 months of professional boxing. He should get another $3.5 million when he meets the World Boxing Assn. champion in March. And to fully unify the title? Well, put it this way: It will be a long time before Henry Tillman, the man who beat Tyson in the Olympic trials and who is contending as a cruiserweight, will ever see that much money. Tillman, a local fighter who made good nevertheless, is scheduled to fight another Olympian, Evander Holyfield, Feb. 14. . . . Tyson, incidentally, is benefiting, a la Leonard, from that rarest of things, responsible management. The team of Jimmy Jacobs and Bill Cayton remind some of Mike Trainer, the man who directed Leonard’s career.