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Leonard-Hearns Controversial Draw Worth Second Look

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If you’re a boxing fan, mark this down: Saturday, 10 p.m.

That’s when HBO will show a tape of last Monday’s Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns fight at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Besides the fight itself, HBO’s 1 1/2-hour show will have interviews with both fighters and all three judges, and will invite viewers to phone in their opinion on the outcome.

Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant, an outstanding team, call the fight, with guest commentator Michael Nunn also at ringside.

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Originally, HBO planned on four replays of the fight show, most during late-night hours.

But because the fight was so close and the decision, a draw, so controversial, a fifth replay was added and some of the times were changed for more convenient viewing.

The replay dates are Sunday at 11 p.m., Tuesday at 12:40 a.m., Thursday at 10:30 p.m., the following Saturday at 11 a.m., and June 27 at 10 p.m.

Merchant makes a good point about why the fight, criticized by some beforehand, turned out to be a crowd pleaser.

“Throughout the history of boxing, great champions have had their most memorable and most dramatic fights when they got older, when they became less dominant and more vulnerable,” he said from the HBO studios in New York.

“Their vulnerability creates drama. And that’s what you had with this fight. Never before has a fight gone back and forth as much this one did.”

And how did Merchant score it?

“I scored it 113-112, Hearns, but when I added up my score card I was surprised I had it that close.”

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Leonard’s corner might have been as surprised by the decision as others were. An HBO microphone picked up one of Leonard’s handlers, Dave Jacobs, telling his fighter that, going into the 12th round, he needed a knockout to win.

One good thing about Channel 2’s Keith Olbermann: He’s not a gambler. That became obvious from a comment he made on the late news after the fight Monday night.

He said because the fight was a draw, everyone who bet on either Leonard or Hearns had lost his bet, that only those who bet on a draw won.

Not true. Everyone who bet on Leonard or Hearns gets his or her money back in full.

Olbermann apologized for the mistake on the 6 o’clock news Wednesday night, saying he was a victim of some bad information from Las Vegas.

Early indications are that the fight will gross about $70 million, which is $10 million less than promoters hoped that pay-per-view television, closed-circuit showings, the live gate and sponsorships would bring.

Rick Kulis, Southern California distributor of the pay-per-view telecast, said that although all the numbers aren’t in, the buy rate in this area appears to have been just over 10%. The high buy rate was in Inglewood, 32%, the low in Big Bear, 7%.

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A 10% buy rate means about 120,000 cable subscribers out of a possible 1.2 million bought the fight. The gross for the Southern California area, excluding San Diego, will end up being about $5 million.

In San Diego, the buy rate was 8.4% and the gross $800,000.

Kulis said that last Monday’s earthquake, which caused phone lines to go down in some areas, “put a real damper on sales.”

If there is a rematch, Kulis said it could generate a $100-million gross.

“The problem before this last fight was selling Hearns to the public,” he said. “For the next one, it might be harder to sell Leonard.”

Boxing has proven successful on pay-per-view, but other sports have not.

Nevertheless, auto racing makes another attempt Sunday with the Miller 500 stock car race at Pocono, Pa.

Although 74 Southern California cable systems, counting six in San Diego, offered last Monday’s fight, only 30, including Cox and Southwestern in San Diego, will offer the race, which begins at 9 a.m. Most systems are asking $12.95.

The announcing team for the commercially uninterrupted coverage includes Lyn St. James, the most successful female road racer in North America.

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With the National Basketball Assn. Finals ending in four games, the big event this weekend is U.S. Open golf.

This Open, at the Oak Hill Country Club in Rochester, N.Y., brings back fond memories for ABC golf producer Terry Jastrow, who is in charge of this weekend’s coverage.

Jastrow, as a 19-year-old junior at the University of Houston, worked his first Open in 1968, the last time it was held at Oak Hill. He was a spotter for commentator Bud Palmer, who was stationed in a tower on the par-five 13th hole.

When the last group, the one with winner Lee Trevino, came through, Palmer did something no other golf commentator had ever done. He left the tower and followed the group.

Palmer thus became the first on-course golf commentator, something now commonplace.

Jastrow, by the way, is married to actress Anne Archer, who played the wife in “Fatal Attraction.” Jastrow and Archer live in Brentwood with sons Tommy, 16, and Jeffrey, 4.

Jastrow was on the golf team at Houston and is a member of the Bel-Air Country Club, carrying a four handicap. He won a recent club tournament, shooting 71-80.

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In 1966, he won the Texas state junior championship by beating John Mahaffey and advanced to the national quarterfinals that year at the California Country Club in Whittier, where he lost to Lanny Wadkins.

TV-Radio Notes

Laker producer-director Susan Stratton, among four women honored last Friday at a Women in Film luncheon at the Century Plaza, was surprised that afterward a number of people asked her to autograph a picture in the program that showed her flanked by James Worthy and Magic Johnson. But what amazed her most was a man who asked, “Who are those two talls guys with you in the picture.”

Chick Hearn, who introduced Stratton to the large luncheon gathering, got up at 4 a.m., Detroit time, to make it back to Los Angeles in time for the luncheon. That should tell you something about how Hearns feels about Stratton. . . . Among the many highlights of the day for Stratton was being surprised by her two sisters, who came from the East Coast to attend the luncheon. When Stratton got in the limousine sent to take her from her home in Pasadena to the luncheon, there were her sisters.

As a prognosticator, NBC tennis commentator Bud Collins did pretty well with the French Open. Before the tournament, he made Michael Chang a dark-horse candidate for the men’s title, and also gave Arantxa Sanchez a chance of upsetting Steffi Graf. Here’s what he told the NBC public relations people: “Arantxa Sanchez has played very well against Steffi this year. She has learned that to have a chance against Graf you have to mix it up and attack. I don’t know if she will, but she knows it can be done.”

Overall, the French Open coverage by both ESPN and NBC was good and the matches, particularly Chang-Ivan Lendl and Sanchez-Graf, were outstanding. The bad part was NBC showing the Sanchez-Graf match tape-delayed. The men’s final was delayed, too, but only on the West Coast and only two hours. There were news reports of the Sanchez-Graf match Saturday morning, and the match wasn’t shown until 3 p.m., a delay of nine hours. . . . The national Nielsen rating for the Sanchez-Graf match was a 3.2, up from a 2.3 for last year’s women’s final. The Chang-Stefan Edberg final on Sunday drew a 4.1, up a whopping 116% from a 1.9 for last year’s men’s final.

The 23rd “Victor Awards,” the longest running sports award show on television, was held last Saturday night at the Las Vegas Hilton and taped for showing during July or August. Select Media Communications of New York will syndicate the show produced by David Marmel. The “Victor Awards,” called the Academy Awards of sports, honor the top athletes in all the major sports and benefit the City of Hope in Duarte.

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