Chavez Fights for Attention With Tyson : Boxing: Tough junior welterweight has two titles on the line Saturday, but the card’s big-name bout pits Alex Stewart against the ex-heavyweight champ.

Mexico’s Julio Cesar Chavez, widely regarded as pound-for-pound the best boxer in the world, will defend his two junior welterweight titles Saturday but former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson is stealing most of the attention.

Many boxing fans will be focusing on finding out just how far Tyson has come since James (Buster) Douglas knocked him out last February to win the heavyweight crown.

Chavez will defend his International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Council (WBC) titles against Kyungduk Ahn, 29-1, of South Korea. The 28-year-old is the top-ranked WBC contender.

Chavez, who has won five world titles in three different weight classes, took the IBF crown last March after a furious battle with Meldrick Taylor.

Chavez, behind on all three judges’ cards, caught Taylor with a right to the head with less than 30 seconds left in the final round. Taylor rose at the count of six but did not respond to the satisfaction of the referee and the fight was stopped.

Tyson, 24, will fight Alex Stewart, 26, in a scheduled 10-round fight at the Atlantic City convention center on the boardwalk of this Atlantic resort and gambling city.

This will be Tyson’s second fight since losing the title. He easily knocked out lightly regarded Henry Tillman in the first round in Las Vegas last June in his first post-Douglas fight.

Stewart, although a 12-1 underdog against Tyson, gained considerable credibility by nearly stopping Evander Holyfield in the fifth round of their fight in November, 1989. But Holyfield, who knocked out Douglas in the third round two months ago to win the heavyweight title, weathered the onslaught and stopped Stewart on cuts.

It was revealed later that Stewart’s hand had been injured prior to the fight and that during the bout he tore tendons in his left hand. In Holyfield’s defense, he had been suffering from a bad cold.

One of the big questions surrounding Tyson is just how much he still intimidates his opponents.

Tyson’s 38-0 record before his loss to Douglas was built on an often awesome display of power and aggression, which many ringsiders believe intimidated so many of his opponents that they were reduced to merely wanting to survive the fight, not win it.