BOXING : Tyson-Holyfield Appears Set for June 18

Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, who should have been matched last summer, will finally enter a boxing ring together, primed for battle, on the night of June 18, most likely in Atlantic City’s Convention Hall.

That’s what participants in the negotiations are saying as the talking part reaches contract-preparation time. A final contract, it’s said, should be agreed to in the next week or two, and the formal announcement should be made in mid-February.

Don King, Tyson’s promoter, acknowledged the other day in Beverly Hills that the fight is finally coming together.

“We’re close--it looks good for June 18,” King said. “But you never know, these things have a way of coming undone at the last minute.”

King and Tyson were in Beverly Hills for a satellite news conference to Tokyo for the Feb. 10 Tyson-Buster Douglas fight in the Tokyo Dome, the setting for the heavyweight champion’s two-round knockout of Tony Tubbs in March, 1988.

One reason Tyson-Holyfield has been so long in the making is that King and Holyfield’s promoters, the Duva family, don’t speak to each other. The liaison is Shelly Finkel, a one-time New York rock-concert promoter.

He said that once King and the Duvas were able to get together on another major fight, the Julio Cesar Chavez-Meldrick Taylor showdown in Las Vegas March 27, it smoothed the way for Tyson-Holyfield. Chavez, King’s Mexican superstar, is the World Boxing Council junior welterweight champion, and Taylor, who fights for the Duvas, is the International Boxing Federation champion.

“It was that, plus the fact that it was just time for the fight,” Finkel said. “A deal of this magnitude is never easy, but with all the other elements to deal with, it’s really tough. Once Don and I started having regular conversations about the fight, things began to move.”

With this one, King believes, Tyson has a chance to exceed his record $21-million payday for knocking out Michael Spinks in one round. Holyfield, the negotiators say, will earn about $10 million. But each fighter’s purse may be linked to revenue from the pay-per-view telecast.

King, Finkel and Bill Cayton, Tyson’s estranged manager, all agree the bout should gross from $70 million to $75 million, or at least as much as Tyson-Spinks. And a promotional home run could produce boxing’s first $100-million gate.

Against Tyson, Holyfield will be a decided underdog. But here, for one of the few occasions in the recent history of the sport, we’ll see two outstanding heavyweights, both undefeated, coming together in a ring at the prime of their careers.

The last time a similar matchup produced a memorable battle was Larry Holmes-Ken Norton, in 1978. And before that, it was Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier I in 1971.

If it turns out to be as intense as the Holyfield-Michael Dokes war last March, it will go down as a classic.

Cayton, incidentally, believes the fight should have been made immediately after Holyfield’s victory over Dokes. The King-Duva feud prevented that.

“Tyson-Holyfield will never be hotter than it was after that fight,” he said.

Donald Trump has a right of first refusal for the privilege of forking over about an $11-million site fee to hold the fight in Atlantic City. He obtained that right by paying $11 million for Tyson-Spinks.

If Trump passes this time, it’s expected that next-door neighbors in Las Vegas, Caesars Palace and the Mirage, will bid for the fight.

Boxing Notes

A name from the past, Anton Josipovic, pops up on the roster of Yugoslav boxers who will compete in Wednesday’s USA-Yugoslavia amateur duel at Rapid City, S.D. Josipovic was the controversial winner of the light-heavyweight gold medal at the 1984 Olympic Games. The American light-heavyweight, Evander Holyfield, was disqualified in the semifinals for hitting--and knocking out--New Zealander Kevin Barry on a break. Barry, under amateur rules, was suspended for 28 days because of the head blow, and couldn’t box in the final. So Josipovic won the gold on a medical walkover. And if you remember the name of the referee who disqualified Holyfield, it’s a 1,000-pointer on the ’84 Olympics trivia test. Give up? Bligorije Novicic of Yugoslavia.

Kathy Duva is the early leader in the clubhouse for the best boxing quote of the ‘90s. Commenting on the widely unpopular manager of a prominent boxer, she said: “He’s the most despicable human being I’ve ever met, and that’s saying a lot because I’m in the boxing business.” . . . Principal U.S. amateur boxing dates for 1990: national championships at Colorado Springs, Feb. 26- March 2; USA-USSR at Moscow, April 29; Goodwill Games at Seattle, July 28-Aug. 5.