Holyfield-Tyson Bout Is Postponed : Boxing: Former champion, whose rape trial is to begin in Indianapolis on Jan. 27, suffers a rib injury during training.

Mike Tyson suffered a non-contact rib injury during training and his Nov. 8 heavyweight title fight against Evander Holyfield was postponed Friday.

Details were to be revealed this morning at a news conference in Las Vegas. Meanwhile, executives at Caesars Palace and TVKO, the pay-per-view subsidiary of Home Box Office, were meeting Friday night to find a new date for what is projected as history’s richest prize fight.

Tyson suffered a cartilage injury to his left rib cage Oct. 8 during an afternoon workout at the Golden Gloves Gym in Las Vegas. His training schedule was adjusted to allow time for recovery, but the former heavyweight champion reinjured the area Oct. 15.

A postponement was decided upon after Las Vegas orthopedist Dr. Gerald L. Higgins examined Tyson. Higgins also said he had recommended that Tyson not train for six to eight weeks.

Holyfield and Tyson originally were scheduled to fight in June of 1990, but that bout was scrapped after Tyson was knocked out by Buster Douglas in February of 1990 in Tokyo. Holyfield, meanwhile, knocked out Douglas to win the heavyweight championship. He then defended the title against George Foreman.

When Holyfield-Tyson was scheduled for Caesars Palace Nov. 8, it was projected as boxing’s first $100-million fight, with home pay-per-view revenues alone expected to reach $80 million. But any talk of postponing the match into 1992 is complicated by Tyson’s legal difficulties. He has been indicted on a rape charge in Indianapolis, and is the defendant in several civil suits filed by women.

The bout’s promoter, Dan Duva, said Holyfield-Tyson couldn’t be rescheduled until February or March.

“We’re extremely disappointed,” said Duva, who is also Holyfield’s promoter.

“Evander was in terrific condition and he was looking for a great fight. The promotion was going along successfully . . . but we’ll just have to gear it up again. We’ll know more tomorrow after we talk with the Caesars people, but I’d say we’re looking at February or March.”

Tyson’s Indianapolis rape trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 27. Earlier Friday, a Marion County, Ind., judge denied a request from attorneys for Tyson to delay the trial.

This is the second time a Tyson fight has been postponed because of illness or injury. He was to have fought Razor Ruddock in Edmonton, Canada, in November of 1989, but that bout was postponed because Tyson suffered from pleurisy. The Ruddock fight was canceled, and Tyson later signed to fight Holyfield, contingent on a Holyfield victory over Douglas.

There was no comment Friday from Holyfield, who was in Houston to train.

“I don’t even know if Evander knows,” Duva said, when asked Friday night for Holyfield’s reaction to the postponement.

The Holyfield-Foreman fight April 19 is the all-time pay-per-view leader, at $48.9 million. But it was anticipated that as many as 2 million cable households would have purchased Holyfield-Tyson at $40 each, for live TV revenue of $80 million.

A live gate of $11 million, foreign sales of more than $5 million, merchandising and delayed telecast revenues would have pushed the total over $100 million.

Holyfield signed for a guaranteed $30 million, Tyson for $15 million.