Boxing Notes : Cayton Is Taking the Wrong Tact

Until somebody convinces me that Nevada and New Jersey will follow suit if New York finds cause to yank Don King’s license, then the King-Bill Cayton-Mike Tyson hearing being conducted by the state athletic commission shapes up as nothing more than two rich guys fighting for control of a third rich guy.

The issue, ostensibly, is Cayton asking New York to suspend or revoke King’s promotional license for signing Tyson to a promotional contract without first consulting Cayton, Tyson’s manager.

But the real story is that Cayton is dumping his problem into the lap of commission chairman Randy Gordon when it belongs in a court of law. If Cayton thinks King has stolen his fighter, he should sue him. Instead, he is asking the commission to do his dirty work for him, and Gordon, constrained by the commission rules he was hired to enforce, must sit through this tiresome exercise in the pursuit of avarice knowing that no matter how he rules, it is unlikely to have much effect on the future business of King, the Teflon promoter with the teased Brillo hairdo.

New Jersey boxing commissioner Larry Hazzard already has said he would not in this case invoke the reciprocal agreement by most U.S. boxing commissions to honor each other’s suspensions. “The only interest I have in reciprocal agreements are those that involve the health and safety of boxers,” Hazzard said. “This thing is between King and Cayton, and we know what that’s all about.”

Yes, it’s about greed, and which of them gets to skim and scam off Mike Tyson’s purses. Dr. Elias Ghanem, the chairman of the Nevada commission, has gone on record as calling the New York hearings a “kangaroo court” and has asserted that “Don King has done wonders for Mike Tyson.”

Ghanem’s scandalous closeness with King and Tyson has been well-documented in Newsday. He is the man whose clinic provides medical services to the Las Vegas Hilton while also ostensibly regulating that hotel’s performance as one of Nevada’s leading boxing promoters. He is the man who escorted King and Tyson across the court to their seats during a nationally televised UNLV basketball game, holding up the tipoff. He is the man who threw a private party at his home for Tyson, King and some selected high rollers. He is Tyson’s personal physician, so he can work the same wonders he did when he was Elvis Presley’s doctor.

But rule against King? Not Ghanem.

As for New York, King has not promoted here since Dec. 12, 1986 -- the disastrous Madison Square Garden show on which Bonecrusher Smith knocked out Tim Witherspoon to win the World Boxing Association heavyweight title. And the only reason that fight ended up in New York is because King could not sell his trash anywhere else.

The only agency that might honor a King suspension is the New Jersey Casino Control Commission, which can deny a promoter a license to promote in a casino. If King is suspended by New York, the CCC might follow suit, effectively putting him out of business in New Jersey.

But the bottom line is, who really cares who Mike Tyson’s promoter or manager is? Randy Gordon ought to throw all of them out of his office and do his real job -- trying to bring boxing matches, not court fights, back into New York.

Enough about money-grubbers. There is a group of New York boxing people who have given something back to the community, and now they need help. The South Queens Boys and Girls Club, an oasis in the wasteland of Atlantic Avenue, is badly in need of $1.5 million for repairs to the rapidly deteriorating building. On Sept. 25, a $200-a-plate benefit dinner will be held at the Sheraton Centre in Manhattan to raise some of the money. Wednesday, champions Mark Breland and Doug DeWitt and former champs Iran Barkley, Eddie Mustafa Muhammad and Vito Antuofermo, all of whom trained there at one time, showed up to lend support for the fund-raiser. All of them will be at the dinner, along with Joe Frazier, Roberto Duran, George Foreman, Jake LaMotta and Emile Griffith.

The Ring, seemingly down for the 10-count a few months back, will climb off the deck one more time. The financially crippled “Bible of Boxing,” started in 1922 by Nat Fleischer, has been bought by G.C. London Publishing, which also puts out “KO” and “Boxing ‘89” as well as a bunch of wrestling rags.

“We’re going to try to maintain the flavor of the old Ring,” said KO editor-in-chief Stu Saks. KO senior writer Steve Farhood will be The Ring’s editor, and Bob Cassidy Jr., son of the former light-heavyweight contender from Levittown, has been hired as a staff writer. So far, however, there are no plans to revive the Ring Record Book and Boxing Encyclopedia, an invaluable reference tool for promoters, managers, journalists and fans.

Contrary to the way he felt Monday evening, Gordon is leaning toward not disqualifying himself from the King-Cayton hearing. He may, however, disqualify his loose lip. One of Rappin’ Randy’s comments in Monday’s hearing caused King’s lawyers to demand that he step down