SHORT TAKES : S.D. Viewers Saw Fight Free

Some San Diegans watched last weekend’s historic Tyson-Douglas title bout without paying the big bucks because they subscribe to the local cable system.

For at least the third time in two years, San Diego TV viewers were able to see premium boxing matches without paying any extra fee because a Tijuana station carried by Cox Cable broadcast the fights across the border for nothing.

The Tyson-Douglas bout, like January’s championship fight between Hector Camacho and Vinny Pazienza or the 1987 Sugar Ray Leonard-Roberto Duran fight, were shown over Cox Cable lines by station XEWT in Tijuana.

American viewers typically pay up to $50 to have such prizefights broadcast to their homes. But in Mexico, where cable and pay-per-view technology are not available, TV stations buy the rights to the bouts and broadcast them as regular programming. Cartoon commercials appear along the bottom of the screen throughout the bout.

Cox executives said Thursday that they were surprised to learn they were broadcasting the fights for free.

“That’s news to me,” said Marty Youngman, a spokesman for the cable TV company. “I thought we had blacked it out.”

XEWT usually informs Cox ahead of time when it will show a championship fight so Cox can black it out, James Gross, sales manager at XEWT, said.