Bowe to Restore Spark at New York’s Garden : Boxing: He will defend against Dokes in city’s first heavyweight title fight since 1986.

The third heavyweight championship reign of the post-Mike Tyson era begins tonight in an arena where once nearly all heavyweight boxing championship bouts were staged--Madison Square Garden.

Riddick Bowe--who beat Evander Holyfield, who beat Buster Douglas, who beat Tyson--will have what appears to be an easy first defense, against a flabby Michael Dokes.

It was at Bowe’s insistence that his first match as the heavyweight champion is to be held in the Garden, and the MSG boxing staff said a sellout is possible. Surprisingly, for a fight that has all the earmarks of a mismatch--Bowe is a 12-1 favorite--more than 15,000 tickets had been sold by Friday afternoon. Boxing capacity is 19,000.

Bowe won the championship with a unanimous decision over Holyfield Nov. 13 in Las Vegas. The 1988 Olympic silver medalist, Bowe grew up in Tyson’s neighborhood, the Brownsville district of Brooklyn.

Tonight’s fight is part of a six-fight deal Bowe’s manager, Rock Newman, cut with HBO. If Bowe continues winning, both sides say, he could approach $100 million in earnings--and that would have to include victories over Lennox Lewis and, if he is freed from prison, Tyson.

Bowe will earn $7 million tonight, Dokes $750,000.

Dokes, however, wants more.

“You pulled a fast one on me, Rock,” Dokes shouted at Newman at Thursday’s weigh-in. “Let’s renegotiate.”

Dokes and his manager, Sterling McPherson, say Newman claimed during negotiations that a small Garden crowd was expected, and that they should not ask for a seven-digit purse.

Dokes, 34, a former world champion, weighed in at 244 (Bowe weighed 243). This was no surprise to a group of boxing writers who watched Dokes eat a four-course meal Wednesday afternoon, after he had decided to skip his workout at the Times Square Gym.

Dokes downed a Caesar salad for two, mushroom soup, shrimp scampi, pasta and the entire basket of garlic bread.

Bowe is not the undisputed heavyweight champion. He refused to fight Lewis, who beat Razor Ruddock, in his first defense. Bowe and Newman knew that Jose Sulaiman, World Boxing Council president, and his ally, promoter Don King, would strip him of the WBC belt.

So Bowe beat them to it, at a televised news conference, dropping his WBC belt into a trash can. Hours later, Sulaiman announced he had given Lewis the WBC’s portion of the title.

It’s the first time since Tyson unified all three titles in 1987 that the heavyweight championship has been split. Bowe retains the International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Assn. versions.

Meanwhile, King announced in New York on Thursday that he had won the purse bid, at $12.16 million, to promote a Lewis-Tony Tucker WBC title fight May 8 in Las Vegas. It’s expected that a Bowe-Lewis showdown--a rematch of their 1988 Olympic gold medal bout, won by Lewis--won’t happen until late this year.

Meanwhile, New Yorkers tonight will revel in memories of bygone years, when heavyweight title fights were synonymous with New York, before anyone ever thought of staging fights in Nevada’s desert parking lots and tennis courts.

This is the first New York heavyweight title fight since 1986, when Bonecrusher Smith knocked out Tim Witherspoon during the first round for the WBA title. Smith, months later, lost to Tyson--in a Las Vegas parking lot.

Eight of Joe Louis’ championship fights were in the old Garden. The first heavyweight title fight in the old, old Garden was in 1916, when Jess Willard defeated Frank Moran.

When Dokes last fought here, in 1990, he nearly killed boxing because it was thought that Razor Ruddock had killed him. After Ruddock hit him with a left hook, Dokes crashed to the canvas and was unconscious for seven minutes. He was given oxygen before finally getting up.

Dokes, for 10 months in 1982 and 1983, owned a piece of the heavyweight title, winning it from Mike Weaver and losing it to Gerrie Coetzee.

Dokes’ last great effort was on March 11, 1989, at the Caesars Pavilion in Las Vegas. There, he stood toe to toe with then-contender Holyfield and they exchanged best shots until the ninth round, when Dokes finally came apart.

Holyfield-Dokes is still regarded as one of the best heavyweight fights of the last decade.

Dokes has survived several bouts with cocaine addiction, and says he is addicted now only to ginseng extract. However, he has never, even in his prime, shown anyone an addiction to the kind of hard gym work necessary to beat a heavyweight champion in his prime.

Even so, Dokes still has some of the fastest hands among the heavyweights. On his superior hand speed alone, some give him a puncher’s chance tonight--certainly more of a chance than anyone gave Douglas against Tyson, when he was a 43-1 shot.

Tale of the Tape The tale of the tape for the WBA and IBF heavyweight title fight between Riddick Bowe and Michael Dokes which will be held Saturday, Feb. 6 at Madison Square Garden, New York:

Bowe Dokes Age 25 34 Weight 243 244 Height 6-5 6-3 Reach 81 78 Chest (normal) 46 44 Chest (expanded) 50 46 Biceps 17 17 Forearm 15 13 Waist 36 35 Thigh 26 1/2 25 Calf 16 1/2 15 Neck 17 1/2 17 1/2 Wrist 8 7 1/2 Fist 13 1/2 12 1/2

* DE LA HOYA

Olympic gold medalist hasn’t been challenged in his first three professional fights. He faces Curtis Strong today. C7.

* BOXING COLUMN

Gabe Ruelas is worried about Azumah Nelson, not a big crowd. C6