BOXING : Is Tyson-Ruddock Rematch Really Necessary?

LAS VEGAS — After days of silence from the Mike Tyson-Don King camp, Tyson’s rematch with Razor Ruddock is apparently back on, unless Tyson is found to have another case of pleurisy.

No one has yet offered a reason for a second Tyson-Ruddock fight. Because referee Richard Steele stopped the last one too soon? Nonsense. Steele was, in fact, quick on the trigger that night, but Ruddock was a badly beaten fighter at the finish, about to be knocked senseless.

Based on his performance last March 18 at the Mirage, there is little reason to believe a second meeting will wind up with a different result.

Ruddock went into that fight with a vaunted left hook, said by some to be one of the most formidable punches in boxing. And it was. He jarred Tyson with it several times. Trouble is, it was his only punch that night.

For a while this week, the fate of Tyson-Ruddock II seemed to rest with the Nevada Athletic Commission. Murad Muhammad, Ruddock’s promoter, had been fined $25,000 and suspended for a year for a ring melee after Tyson-Ruddock I. Ruddock had said he wouldn’t fight Tyson again without Muhammad.

But when he changed his mind, saying he would fight with or without Muhammad, the heat was off the commission. Muhammad’s sanctions were not lifted, by the way, when he appealed this week.

But for three days this week, neither Tyson, King nor King publicists Al Braverman and John Solberg would confirm that Tyson-Ruddock II was on. King had begun negotiations for a far richer fight this fall between Tyson and champion Evander Holyfield, negotiations that appeared to founder Friday.

Sources say Mirage President Steve Wynn is angry over King’s handling of the June 28 show. Nevertheless, on a day that seemed like a good one to call the whole thing off, the Mirage called a news conference Friday and announced that everyone now agrees there will be a fight.

So one skeptic, recalling that Tyson had signed to fight Ruddock in Edmonton, Canada, in 1989 and then bailed out after a doctor found he had pleurisy, was moved to say: “Why do I have this feeling Tyson’s going to the doctor again?”

The Forum’s debut on boxing’s big-time stage Monday night at Caesars Palace is one of the best cards, from top-to-bottom, of any pay-per-view show in recent years.

For $29.95, you get an intriguing main event, Virgil Hill-Thomas Hearns; maybe the most exciting little guy in the sport, 108-pound Humberto Gonzalez, and Tony Tucker, one of the world’s best three or four heavyweights.

Hearns, who was one of boxing’s best in the 1980s, will fight a light-heavyweight champion who hopes to make $10 million or so in the 1990s.

The 5-foot-1 Gonzalez, who will fight Melchor Cob Castro, is a thunderous little puncher aiming at for boxing’s first million-dollar flyweight fight, a hoped-for match with Michael Carbajal.

The 6-foot-5, 240-pound Tucker, for all his past drug problems and management squabbles, has shown in recent Forum appearances that he still is one of the heavyweight division’s best performers. If he beats Orlin Norris Monday, he will be positioned for another chance at the championship.

He nearly floored Tyson in the first round of their 1987 meeting, on a night when he lost a decision. That’s the last time anyone went the distance with Tyson.

New York boxing writers are finding that theirs is a perilous business.

Two weeks ago, the New York Post’s Mike Marley was beaten up in a Reno hotel lobby by, he says, Hector Camacho’s manager, Pat Flannery. Marley, who is also a lawyer, filed a civil suit in New York last week.

Now, Bert Sugar, editor-publisher of Boxing Illustrated, is walking around with a lump on the side of his head. Seems two men barged into Sugar’s New York office May 21, cut his telephone wires, knocked him around, tipped over a desk and then left without stating their business.

“I thought it was a couple of angry subscribers who didn’t get the last issue,” Sugar said.

“They were both right-handed. One guys says: ‘Are you Bert Sugar?’ When I said I was, he hit me on the side of the head. And when I asked: ‘Who are you, what’s this about?’ he grabbed my shoulders and threw me into the radiator.

“He tried to hit me again, but this time I ducked. Now I’m really (angry) because by now my hat is starting to fall off.

“I noticed the second guy is walking around cutting the phone wires. And the guy who’s knocking me around says: ‘I’m going to mess up your office a little bit.’ So he tips over a desk as they’re walking out.

“The cops are there in three minutes, but the torpedoes were long gone. I have no idea who they were or what their problem was.

“When the cops asked me who might have a grudge against me I said: ‘How long do you have?” I showed them an unsigned fax letter I got weeks ago that said: ‘To Bert Sugar from a fan: Drop dead, Bert. Do everyone a favor. Don’t wait for a natural death.’ Later, the cops traced the letter to a law firm.

“I didn’t know sportswriting was a contact sport.”

Boxing Notes

Applications are still being accepted for the California Athletic Commission’s post of executive officer, which will become vacant July 19 when Ken Gray retires. His replacement is expected to be announced the same day. The job pays $64,728 a year. Suggested requirements: A bachelor’s degree, regulatory or enforcement experience, fiscal and budget preparation experience, supervisory skills and a knowledge of boxing. . . . For ratings freaks: Boxing Illustrated has ranked the world’s 1,000 best boxers on a pound-for-pound list. No. 1 is Pernell Whitaker. No. 1,000: Knute Blin of Germany.

An hour after Hector Camacho had beaten Greg Haugen in Reno May 18, his promoter, Dan Duva, said that Camacho had positioned himself to earn seven-digit purses against four fighters. He named the opponents and Camacho’s projected purses: Meldrick Taylor, $3.5 million; Julio Cesar Chavez, $3 million; Whitaker, $2 million, and Loreto Garza, $1 million. And all because he won a close decision over Haugen, who earned $1.2 million. Such is the depth of the talent well today.

Rumor: Taylor, who will defend his welterweight championship against Luis Garcia in Palm Springs tonight, has had all kinds of trouble making 147 pounds. In Reno, where he watched Camacho-Haugen, Taylor looked like a middleweight. . . . Channel 13 will televise the Ten Goose Boxing card from the Reseda Country Club June 25. . . . Southland boxing record-keeper Dick Mastro wonders why Detroit boxer Tony Montgomery has four Social Security numbers.

Paul Kagan Associates, the cable-TV research firm, says pay-per-view revenues for all events will pass the $1-billion-a-year mark in 1996. . . . Jeff Ryan of Ring magazine points out one of the best fights of 1991, Tony Lopez-Brian Mitchell last March in Sacramento, was seen by .000039% of the U.S. population. The fight was not televised. Attendance was 10,018.

Oscar de la Hoya’s close decision over Cuban Julio Gonzales at Ft. Bragg, N.C., last weekend was the Garfield High senior’s most significant victory yet, but the 5-foot-10 lightweight will have to box at a faster pace if he expects to win a gold medal in next summer’s Olympics in Barcelona. By standing around too much, de la Hoya gave away the first round against Gonzales, whom de la Hoya could very well meet again in the Olympics.