Will Rockers, Rappers Come to Blows?

David Lee Roth in the boxing ring against rapper Kurtis Blow?

Billy Idol duking it out with Grandmaster Melle Mel?

Ted Nugent vs. Willie D of the Geto Boys?

For rock and rap fans, it must sound too good to be true. And it just may be.

Brooklyn-based Step To Productions, a firm headed by the son and the former communications director of flamboyant boxing promoter Don King, claims to have lined up top rockers to do battle with rappers in a boxing card planned for October. And in the King tradition, Eric King and Gary Braverman are talking big about their plans.

The event would be a sequel to last month’s “Hip Hop & Bop,” a rappers’ boxing event held at the 369th Regiment Armory in Manhattan. Rappers Blow, Mel and Willie D were among those who participated in seven weight divisions. The bouts were judged by a panel of rappers including Chuck D., KRS-One, Afrika Bambaataa and Erik B & Rakim. Chuck D. also performed his Public Enemy song “Shut Em Down.”

The show was poorly attended--in part, the promoters say, due to memories of a rap celebrity basketball game last year where nine people died in a stampede. The boxing event was taped for possible pay-per-view TV broadcast and home video release.

Braverman promises that’s just a hint of things to come. He’s hoping the rock vs. rap event will be held in a first-rate boxing venue--he mentions the Forum in Inglewood, New York’s Madison Square Garden and several Las Vegas and Atlantic City sites as candidates. And he’s not shy about tossing names of top rockers into the ring.

While he says that Guns N’ Roses’ Axl Rose personally turned down an inquiry about participating in the match, he says that Roth, Nugent and Idol have all given verbal commitments to the bouts. He also says he’s gotten interest from Chris Isaak and Vince Neil.

But representatives of the rockers say don’t lay your bets just yet.

Eric Barrett, Idol’s co-manager, laughed off the suggestion that his client, still hampered by the serious leg injury he suffered in a 1990 motorcycle accident, has ever been approached about the boxing match, nor would he consider participating.

“It sounds like a Howard Stern stunt,” Barrett told Pop Eye.

A spokesman for both Roth and Nugent also said that those mouthy stars had not, to their respective managers’ knowledge, been asked to sign up.

Still, Braverman maintains that those artists themselves were contacted either by him or by Eric King at parties or other events, and have said they’ll be there.

“We try to shy away from the publicists and managers,” he says in response to the denials. “They don’t want their people boxing. Most of the time they don’t even pass along our messages.”

But he did admit that no one is officially signed at this point. Still, he insists that the event will live up to his boasts.

“Those guys I mentioned, you will see them on my card, rest assured,” he says.

Stay tuned.