King: Dokes, Not Holyfield, to Be Next for Tyson : Promoter Says Heavyweight Champion Might Fight Foreman in the Far East

It appears that Michael Dokes will receive a big dividend for his loss to Evander Holyfield in Las Vegas last March 11.

Don King, heavyweight champion Mike Tyson’s promoter, said Thursday night that Dokes is the preferred opponent for the champion’s next fight, probably at the Las Vegas Hilton in September or October.

King brought Tyson to the Beverly Hills Hotel Thursday to announce that the champion will begin a commercial association with a Japanese auto company today. Tyson will star in a commercial to be shot at Mirage Dry Lake in the Antelope Valley.

King made it sound as though the much-anticipated Tyson-Holyfield showdown might not occur until 1991.

“Dokes is our first choice (for Tyson’s next opponent), and we want to do it in September or October,” King said. “If for some reason we can’t get Dokes, then it’ll be Buster Douglas or Razor Ruddock.”

Then, he said, Tyson probably would fight George Foreman before Holyfield. King lashed out at the Holyfield camp, specifically promoter Dan Duva and Holyfield’s manager, Ken Sanders.

Left unsaid, of course, was the fact that King would not be sole promoter of a rich Tyson-Holyfield fight, that he’d have to share the promotion with Duva.

“Tyson-Holyfield is going to be a rich fight, but it’s not ready yet. Just to say they got an undefeated fighter, that’s not enough. You’ve got to develop it, promote it, and that’s what we’ll be doing over these next few fights. The Holyfield people, they don’t know how to do that.”

The Las Vegas Hilton has a first refusal option on Tyson’s next fight, unless it is Tyson-Holyfield, for which Donald Trump owns first refusal rights for his Trump Plaza in Atlantic City.

Three fights remain on HBO’s seven-fight, $26.5-million Tyson contract, but Holyfield-Tyson is seen as a pay-per-view event, and could occur at any time during the life of the contract. Meanwhile, King and Tyson’s estranged manager, Bill Cayton, are presently seeking to put together a lifetime HBO Tyson deal.

King said Thursday that a Tyson-Foreman bout might occur overseas, and indicated Tokyo was a probable site. He also said China and Indonesia are possible sites.

“Tokyo is definitely a possibility,” he said. “If we get Dokes next at the (Las Vegas) Hilton, then Douglas and Ruddock could be anywhere in the world.”

Dokes, a recovered cocaine addict, was a decided underdog when he met Holyfield at Caesars Palace last March 11. But Dokes, 30, unexpectedly showed up prepared for the fight of his life.

In one of the best heavyweight fights of the 1980s, Holyfield finally stopped Dokes in the 10th round.

Seth Abraham, HBO senior vice president in charge of programming, was known to favor the hard-hitting Dokes as Tyson’s next HBO opponent.

“A Tyson-Dokes would be a short fight, but what a fight!” he said recently.

Dokes was briefly the World Boxing Association champion in 1982 when he stopped Mike Weaver in the first round, defended it once by decisioning Weaver in the rematch, then lost it when Gerrie Coetzee knocked him out in Cleveland in 1983.

Then he lost 33 months out of his career to cocaine.

“I’m an addict, a recovered addict,” he said before the Holyfield fight.

After a rehabilitation program, he had won eight in a row before Holyfield knocked him out. Tyson was also asked if he thought referee Randy Neumann was too hasty in stopping his fight with Carl Williams.

“I hit him and knocked him on his butt,” Tyson said. “If he didn’t want it stopped, he shouldn’t have gotten hit.”

Tyson, who is 37-0, was asked if he’s conscious of chasing Rocky Marciano’s all-time heavyweight unbeaten record of 49-0.

“I don’t even think about it,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of fights to go before I can think of it. The one I want is the fastest knockout in history.”