Angry Young Men Have King on Ropes : Boxing: Tyson, Chavez are unhappy with promoter’s handling of their careers going into tonight’s bouts.

Two of boxing’s best attractions, Mike Tyson and Julio Cesar Chavez, will appear on the sport’s last major show of 1990 tonight, but the man who seems to have the toughest fight on his hands is their promoter, Don King.

King is in hot water with both fighters. Tyson is unhappy because he doesn’t understand why he has to fight the Alex Stewarts of the world instead of the heavyweight champion. Chavez is unhappy because King pays too much attention to Tyson.

How unhappy? On Thursday, Chavez stormed out of a news conference because King virtually ignored him during the session, except to tell several hundred reporters: “I love Julio and Julio loves me.”

Both Tyson, the former heavyweight champion, and Chavez, the world junior-welterweight champion, are fighting for King at the Atlantic City Convention Hall, but both act as if they would rather be fighting for someone else, against more substantial opponents, for substantially more money.

On a card to be shown by HBO, Tyson (38-1) will fight Stewart (26-1), and Chavez (72-0 or 71-1, depending on who is keeping track), will defend his two championships against South Korean Ahn Kyung-Duk (29-1).

Also, heavyweight Razor Ruddock (24-1-1), who hopes to fight Tyson for the World Boxing Council title in the spring, will fight Mike Rouse (14-5-1), and welterweight champion Simon Brown (32-1) will take on Ozzie O’Neal (14-9-2) in a non-title bout.

Ruddock hopes that he and Tyson will win tonight, then both hope that WBC President Jose Sulaiman will strip Evander Holyfield of his WBC heavyweight title. Sulaiman has been prohibited from doing so by a New Jersey judge, but if the WBC did somehow relieve Holyfield of the WBC crown, Tyson and Ruddock could fight for that piece of the heavyweight championship in the spring.

But Tyson is growing impatient. He wants an opportunity to win back his heavyweight championship and King can’t seem to arrange it for him.

Tyson created this situation, of course, by showing up out of shape and losing to Buster Douglas in Tokyo in February. Since then, King has experienced a succession of failures.

First, he tried and failed to get the Tokyo result overturned, citing a “long count” by the referee over Douglas after Tyson knocked him down in the eighth round. Next, he couldn’t arrange an immediate rematch with Douglas, who fought Holyfield instead. Then, King couldn’t put together a renewal of Tyson’s HBO contract, said to be the richest deal for a single athlete in sports history.

Now, nearly a year after his loss to Douglas, Tyson still has no guarantee of a title bout. Holyfield will fight George Foreman in Atlantic City April 19, and while the new champion’s promoter, Dan Duva, has said that Holyfield would then defend against Tyson, there is no contract.

King is not his usual ebullient self this week. Thursday, it was a toned-down, almost sorrowful King presiding over a 2-hour 15-minute news conference, which was delayed one hour because Tyson was late.

At the news conference and at a Tyson workout Wednesday, body language between the fighter and King spoke volumes: No eye contact, no conversation, no back-slapping--King on one side of the room, Tyson on the other.

The recent breakup of negotiations in the HBO deal, after nearly two years of talks, was certainly the most expensive of King’s recent setbacks. Before Douglas lost to Holyfield, HBO was said to be offering “about $85 million” for a 10-fight Tyson deal. Tonight’s bout with Stewart is the eighth and last match in a $27.1-million Tyson/HBO deal signed in 1987.

But negotiations collapsed, at least temporarily, after Douglas lost to Holyfield and Holyfield signed to fight Foreman. That meant there would be no Tyson-Douglas rematch and, probably, no Tyson-Foreman fight, both of which had been included in the proposed 10-fight deal.

Enter Rick Kulis, the Los Angeles-based, pay-per-view boxing executive.

King flew Kulis here for talks this weekend. Presumably, King needs to know what Tyson is worth on a long-term pay-per-view basis before going back to the table with HBO.

Meanwhile, Chavez, from Culiacan, Mexico, is weary of playing second fiddle to Tyson on King’s cards and at King’s news conferences--and for much less money. Chavez will earn $300,000 tonight; Tyson will get $2.5 million from the live gate--a crowd of 16,000 is expected--and $2.5 million from HBO.

King is contractually required to provide Chavez with a big-money rematch against Meldrick Taylor in the first quarter of 1991. But since Taylor has signed to fight Aaron Davis for the World Boxing Assn. welterweight title next month, a Chavez-Taylor bout must wait.

Chavez, while behind on points, stopped Taylor in the final seconds in Las Vegas last year, and a rematch on pay-per-view is thought to be potentially the biggest-grossing fight ever for the lighter weight classes.

But Taylor’s promoter, Duva, has reportedly signed Taylor to a soon-to-be-announced exclusive HBO deal, along with Hector Camacho and Pernell Whitaker. If true, it means King would not be able to deliver Taylor for Chavez on pay-per-view.

Tonight, Chavez seems to be facing an overmatched challenger. South Korean boxers such as Ahn Kyung-Duk have a mysterious way of suddenly appearing high in World Boxing Council ratings, signing for title fights in the United States and then, invariably, losing.

Tyson seems to be confronted with a better opponent. Stewart made Holyfield fight for his life here 13 months ago before Holyfield pulled out an eighth-round technical knockout.

In the fifth round of that bout, Stewart, a Jamaican, hit Holyfield repeatedly with right hands and several times seemed on the verge of putting him on the floor.

Tyson’s only fight since Japan was a one-round knockout of Henry Tillman at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas last summer.