The Fight Is Selling, but Favorite Places Have Been Barred

Is the George Foreman-Evander Holyfield farce, er, fight really worth $35.95 and up?

Apparently so. Consumers are ordering tonight’s pay-per-view meeting between the 28-year-old champion and the 257-pound, 42-year-old challenger at a record pace.

Promoters expect a take of more than $60 million from home television alone, with the live gate, closed-circuit and foreign television pushing the gross close to $100 million.

The previous highs were $41.5 million from home television and a $60-million gross for the Buster Douglas-Holyfield bout last October.

Tonight’s undercard starts at 6, with the main event expected to get under way around 8.

The fight is available in about 1.2 million cable households in Southern California, but the only closed-circuit showings will be at the Forum, the Anaheim Convention Center and the San Diego Sports Arena.

Bars that have paid to show fights in the past are being shut out for this fight.

Rick Kulis of Event Entertainment, who owns the closed-circuit rights, said the fee he had to pay was so high, there was no way he could recoup his expenses through bar showings.

“In the past, our network of bars had a seating capacity of 7,700,” Kulis said. “We would have had to triple the number of bar locations, or charge way too much at each location, to make this work.”

Another problem, he said, is Friday night is usually a big night for bars anyway. “They don’t need this fight as much as they would on a Monday or Tuesday,” he added. “Most bars operate at 100% capacity on a Friday night.”

Still, bar owners are upset. “And so are our customers,” said John Morris, who started Legends in Long Beach and is also the co-owner of a new Legends in Santa Monica. “Rick Kulis had a good thing going. Why mess with it?”

Kulis said this format is a one-shot deal. “It’s not an omen of things to come,” he said. “We’ll be back doing business with the bars for the next big fight. We were forced to go this way this time.

“We’ve tried to turn this into a positive by offering live fights along with the closed-circuit telecast at our three locations. We think for $30, the fans are getting a good deal--20 rounds of live boxing, plus Foreman-Holyfield.”

The prices are $30 for general admission at the Forum and Anaheim, and $25 at San Diego, with ringside going for $40, $35 and $30, respectively.

The live bouts--a six-rounder, a four-rounder and a 10-rounder--will be fought simultaneously with the undercard from Atlantic City, N.J.

That undercard has Tommy Morrison (26-0) facing Soviet heavyweight Yuri Vaulin (10-1) in a 10-round fight after Jorge Paez (37-3-3), International Boxing Federation featherweight champion, takes on Lupe Suarez (29-3) in a 10-round, nontitle bout.

At the Forum, the main event has featherweight Rudy Zavala (8-0) facing Ildefonso Bernal (25-13).

Kulis said a security force will police bars suspected of illegal showings. This week, he obtained a restraining order against such showings. He said 15 bars known to have shown fights illegally in the past have been served with the restraining order, and more may be served today.

Tonight’s fight is the first venture for Time-Warner’s new pay-per-view outfit, TVKO, headed by HBO Senior Vice President Seth Abraham.

TVKO plans to do at least 12 shows a year--three or four megafights plus lesser bouts, usually doubleheaders, that will sell for $19.95.

TVKO’s next show, on May 10, will have Michael Nunn taking on James Toney and Michael Carbajal fighting Domingo Sosa in a baseball stadium in Davenport, Iowa. Nunn, who lives in Agoura Hills, is from Davenport.

Jerry Buss is also entering the pay-per-view arena. His partners will be Bruce McNall, Caesars Palace, Kulis and, down the road, NBC. Buss’ first show will be the Thomas Hearns-Virgil Hill fight on June 3 at Caesars.

With TVKO, Don King and Buss all doing pay-per-view boxing, it seems the market will be saturated. But TVKO’s Abraham doesn’t think so.

“There are now so many pay-per-view households (16 million nationally), that even a small buy rate generates a considerable income,” he said.

One would have thought that Abraham would use HBO’s outstanding announcing team of Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant on the TVKO shows. But Abraham said he wants them to have a completely different look.

He has come up with some odd choices. New York sportscaster Len Berman, formerly with NBC, will do the blow-by-blow; Joe Goossen of Sherman Oaks, Nunn’s former trainer, will handle the commentary and Miami sportscaster Khambrel Marshall will serve as the host. Nevada boxing judge Cindy Barton will unofficially score the fight.

Goossen may be the biggest surprise. Although witty and knowledgeable, he has no broadcasting experience.

But Goossen has done two rehearsal fights, and Abraham is very high on him. “We think he could become the John Madden of boxing,” he said.

Another surprise: Promoter Bob Arum, who at times has feuded with Goossen and his brother Dan, recommended Goossen for the job.

Only in boxing.

Television work may be in Foreman’s future. Ross Greenburg, HBO’s executive producer of sports, has talked to Foreman about filling Sugar Ray Leonard’s former spot.

“He was very receptive, and I think he would be great,” Greenburg said while in Los Angeles this week.

ESPN used Foreman on its “SportsCenter” shows before and after the Mike Tyson-Razor Ruddock fight, and he was both funny and insightful.

TV-Radio Notes

ESPN will offer coverage of the NFL draft Sunday from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. ESPN is so proud of its planned coverage that Saturday at 7:30 p.m., on “Outside the Lines: Inside the NFL Draft,” there will be a behind-the-scenes look at a production meeting dealing with the draft coverage. . . . XTRA’s Lee Hamilton will have a special draft-day talk show from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sunday. . . . KFWB will have continuing coverage of the draft, and ABC will offer periodic reports during its World League of American Football game coverage Sunday. . . . With the prime-time season over, ABC reports that “Monday Night Football,” with an average rating of 17.2, placed sixth among 110 prime-time shows, its highest finish ever. . . . This year’s “Monday Night Football” opener on Sept. 2 will pit the San Francisco 49ers against the New York Giants.

KNX will offer reports after each round of tonight’s George Foreman-Evander Holyfield fight. . . . XTRA, which has had Jim Rome reporting from Atlantic City all week, will have Steve Hartman doing a special post-fight call-in show tonight. . . . The San Juan Capistrano Handicap at Santa Anita will be televised by SportsChannel Sunday at 4:30 p.m., with jockey Kent Desormeaux, who is still nursing a broken hand, as the commentator. Desormeaux, who plans to start riding again soon and is hoping for a Kentucky Derby mount, also worked the San Luis Rey Stakes for SportsChannel on March 25. . . . Sunday, from noon to 2 p.m., Chick Hearn will take part in Channel 13’s Arthritis Foundation Telethon. . . . CBS will begin its baseball coverage Saturday at 10:15 a.m. with the Detroit Tigers playing the Chicago White Sox at the new Comiskey Park.

Geoff Mason, who has won 13 Emmy Awards in the past two years, pulled a surprise this week by resigning as the executive producer of ABC Sports. Mason will move to San Diego to join the America 3 campaign to defend the America’s Cup in 1992. He will also take a more active role at the Betty Ford Center, where he serves on the board of directors. Mason, 50, former executive vice president of NBC Sports, was unemployed and battling alcoholism in 1983 but made a comeback at ABC. Lately, he’s been dating actress Ali McGraw, 51, and friends have said that, besides his love for sailing, their relationship is another reason for Mason’s move to the West Coast. . . . ABC announced Thursday that Jack O’Hara will replace Mason. O’Hara, 34, joined ABC Sports as a production assistant in 1983 and has been the vice president of programming the past year.