BOXING : Chavez, King Back on a Fight-to-Fight (-to-Fight-to-Fight?) Basis

Julio Cesar Chavez and Don King have apparently kissed and made up . . . again.

Chavez, the light-welterweight champion from Mexico, declared himself free and clear of the flamboyant promoter after a last-second TKO victory over Meldrick Taylor last March. There was some snickering, because the two had bickered and patched things up before.

Now they’re together again and looking for an opponent to earn $4 million for a Nov. 29 date King says he has at the Mirage hotel in Las Vegas, although the hotel will not confirm the date.

“I’ve got Julio signed for his next six fights,” King said Friday.

Alberto Gonzales, Chavez’s U.S. adviser, says that’s not the case, that Chavez has signed with King, but on a “fight-to-fight basis.”

So, who to fight Nov. 29?

Not Taylor, says trainer Lou Duva, adding that Taylor’s Aug. 11 Lake Tahoe fight with Primo Ramos will be his last at 140 pounds. Taylor can’t make 140 anymore, Duva says.

Said King, “He hasn’t got weight problems, he’s got chickenitis.”

King said he also suspects the Duvas of holding him up on price.

“Taylor can make $4 million fighting Chavez again,” King said. “If he goes up to welterweight, can he make that fighting Aaron Davis?”

The status of Hector Camacho, another oft-proposed Chavez opponent, also is unclear. It’s said Camacho is entangled in a legal beef with his manager, Dennis Rappaport, which could prevent his signing for Chavez.

Chavez’s people are looking for a nonthreatening opponent for an Aug. 18 stay-busy, 10-round fight in his hometown, Culiacan, Mexico.

If Chavez manages to meet and beat Camacho, Taylor or both, King says he would try to match Chavez with Sugar Ray Leonard.

Carlos Chavez, who fought seven world champions but never won a world title, was shot and killed during a street altercation Wednesday night in Eagle Rock.

Chavez, a prominent 1940s Los Angeles bantamweight and lightweight, was 68 when he was gunned down less than a block from his home.

“Carlos had just walked around the corner from where he lived to a candy store, and was accosted on the sidewalk on his way back by a guy with a gun,” said Vince Delgado, a Southland boxing referee and Chavez’s nephew.

Police, who said Chavez’s wallet was not taken, have not established a motive for the shooting.

Chavez fought seven champions in the 1940s and 1950s: Tony and Paddy DeMarco, Lou Salica, Manuel Ortiz, Harold Dade, Jimmy Carter and Willie Pep.

Sugar Ray Leonard and his attorney-adviser Mike Trainer keep talking about a “grand tour” of bouts in Japan or Europe, yet the not-so-small matter of Leonard’s pending divorce remains unsettled.

Leonard, who has earned more than $100 million since turning pro in 1977, has a hearing Sept. 5 in Montgomery County, Md., where a trial date will be set--unless Leonard and his wife, Juanita, settle their differences.

Juanita Leonard’s attorney, Marvin Mitchelson, recently took a seven-hour deposition from Leonard, during which time Leonard was asked about the Leonards’ prenuptial agreement.

Mitchelson said: “I asked Ray if he’d ever discussed the prenup with anyone and he said, ‘Yes, with Donald Trump.’ It seems they were seated together at an Atlantic City fight, and commiserated over their respective prenups.”

Two 108-pound fighters who staged a title fight on ABC last Sunday in Phoenix topped every other televised sports event in the Los Angeles market last weekend, including the replay of Muhammad Ali-Joe Frazier I.

Light-flyweights Michael Carbajal and Muangchai Kittikasem drew a 7.4 Nielsen rating, meaning it was seen in about 364,000 households.

Last weekend’s top three most-watched sports events were boxing shows. ABC’s Dennis Andries-Jeff Harding light-heavyweight title fight from Australia received a 5.2 rating, about 256,000 households; and NBC’s Ali-Frazier I was 4.8, or 236,000 households.

Comparisons: The most-watched major league baseball game was viewed in about 230,000 of the 4.9 million households in the Los Angeles market. The highest-rated of six televised golf events was seen in 160,000.

And USA Network is delighted with its national 3.8 rating for its Tuesday telecast of George Foreman’s third round knockout of Ken Lakusta. It was the second-highest boxing rating for USA, exceeded only by the 4.6 Foreman pulled a year ago, when he beat Everett Martin.

Boxing Notes

The Forum’s boxing staff continues to be stymied by California’s mandatory neurological testing program for pro boxers. As of mid-day Friday, the Forum had no idea who would be Genaro Hernandez’s opponent in Monday’s co-main event, after scheduled foe Alvarado Velasquez flunked the exam. . . . Forum matchmaker Tony Curtis left Friday for the New York funeral of his brother, Rene, who was killed by lightning while playing golf Tuesday at Cliffside, N.Y.

Add Forum: Raul Perez, the World Boxing Council bantamweight champion from Tijuana who has fought four times at the Forum, will defend his title in Culiacan Aug. 27. Seems the Forum lost a purse bid to a Culiacan promoter. . . . When Michael and Danny Carbajal returned to their E. Fillmore Street neighborhood in Phoenix Sunday, after Michael had won his world light-flyweight championship, they couldn’t believe the sight: more than a thousand friends and well-wishers filling the street in front of their home. “Someone called the cops, not because there was trouble, but because someone had to direct traffic,” said Danny, Michael’s brother and manager.

Bob Arum, Carbajal’s promoter, said he now thinks a Carbajal-Humberto Gonzalez light-flyweight unification bout at a Las Vegas hotel can be developed into a $2 million fight, providing Gonzalez can first get a U.S. network television date or two. “If you had told me two years ago I’d be talking about light-flies fighting for that kind of money, I’d have told you you were crazy,” Arum said.

Jerry Nathanson has been appointed by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown to another four-year term on the state Athletic Commission, of which Nathanson is chairman. . . . Gonzalez, the WBC light-flyweight champion, fights Aug. 24 in Cancun and may have a late-September fight in Sacramento. Any chance the Forum and Arum could co-promote a Carbajal-Gonzalez fight in Inglewood? “If we got that one, we could fill this place,” Forum matchmaker Curtis said.

Olympic heavyweight champion Ray Mercer will get his biggest test Sunday against Bert Cooper on CBS. . . . Nigel Benn will fight Iran Barkley Aug. 18 on ABC. . . . The hype begins Tuesday for the Mirage’s Buster Douglas-Evander Holyfield fight Oct. 25. It will be Douglas’ first title defense since he upset Mike Tyson last February. Rumors grow that Douglas, unhappy over the way his lawsuit against Don King was handled, may soon shake up his management picture with the addition of Butch Lewis. . . . John Bray, the Van Nuys heavyweight who was beaten by a West German at the Goodwill Games Monday, is learning another trade. His adviser, Joe Bradley, owns a private detective agency and is teaching Bray the business.