A Strange Reunion in Works?

When the week began, Staples Center President Tim Leiweke and promoter Gary Shaw had reached an agreement to stage a heavyweight doubleheader at Staples, featuring World Boxing Council champion Lennox Lewis defending against Kirk Johnson and Mike Tyson, in the semi-main event, against Oleg Maskaev. Leiweke was paying a site fee of close to $8 million and the top tickets, Shaw said, would cost about $3,000.

By week’s end, Tyson was meeting with promoter Don King and considering an offer to sign with him for $20 million. Tyson has skipped out of the Staples show, at least for now, despite approval for a license from the California State Athletic Commission.

Those who had assumed Lewis would defend his WBC crown were wrong, since the WBC will not sanction the bout, and the $8-million site fee and the tickets worth nearly $3,000 were expected to drop in value faster than a high-tech stock option.

Tyson has refused to have anything to do with King for several years, their split coming after Tyson kicked King out of his limousine. Literally. Tyson shoved King out the door with a powerful thrust of his foot.

Tyson accused King of stealing from him and has a $100 million-dollar lawsuit pending against the promoter.

With Tyson’s career opportunities fading after his thorough beating at the hands of Lewis last June, and with Tyson always in need of money and finding himself fighting in semi-main events, perhaps Tyson sees King as his only way off the ropes of life.

And King, perhaps, sees a way out of an expensive lawsuit.

This wouldn’t be a first for King. After Hasim Rahman knocked out Lewis, Rahman’s promoter, Cedric Kushner, thought he was sitting on a gold mine. Instead, he quickly learned that the gold had turned to dust when it turned out Rahman left Kushner after secretly meeting with King.

As for Lewis, his status with the WBC is uncertain after his refusal to fight that organization’s top contender, Vitali Klitschko.

Not to mention the status of the WBC, which declared bankruptcy this week.

As for all those big figures tossed around earlier in the week, Leiweke has learned boxing is not the NBA. You are told the NBA playoffs have begun, you reserve your building for the Lakers and the Minnesota Timberwolves and, amazingly enough, they both show up.

In boxing, you schedule Tyson and you start taking the customers’ orders. But if you’re smart, you don’t cash the checks until the man enters the ring.

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Will He Be Facing

the Mighty Ducks?

Vassily Jirov is:

a) a defenseman for the Dallas Stars;

b) a power forward for the Sacramento Kings;

c) a weightlifter on the Russian Olympic team;

d) a cruiserweight champion.

If you’re reading this column, you are undoubtedly a boxing fan. But unless you are a devoted fan, you probably don’t know Jirov is not only the International Boxing Federation cruiserweight champion, but is undefeated in 31 fights, 27 coming by knockout. All but nine of his matches have ended before the sixth round.

He was also a gold medalist in the 178-pound division at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta.

Yet even with those talented fists, he has been unable to make any impact on the boxing scene.

That he is from Kazakhstan and struggles with English is a problem. But an even bigger problem is that he is in one of the tweener divisions, caught between the big names of the middle divisions such as Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley and Fernando Vargas, and Lewis, Tyson and now Roy Jones in the heavyweight division.

Light-heavyweights have long had a problem. Jones had the skills to dominate that division and yet, to finally get the money and attention he craved, he had to move up to heavyweight.

Compared to light-heavyweights, however, cruiserweights rank with members of the Witness Protection Program in terms of visibility.

“It is hard to bring my name to this country,” Jirov concedes, “but I am very patient.”

But even his patience has to be running out. Take tonight, for example. Here he is, defending his title on HBO (9:30), a chance for national exposure, and he can barely get his face in front of the camera or his words out to the national media.

His problem in getting attention in the days leading to tonight’s main event at the Foxwoods Casino in Mashantucket, Conn. -- besides the latest Tyson controversy -- is Jirov’s opponent, James Toney.

Toney has impressive credentials. With a 65-4-2 record with 42 knockouts, Toney has held the IBF middleweight and super-middleweight titles. He has beaten such big names as Michael Nunn, Iran Barkley, Mike McCallum and Reggie Johnson.

He has a compelling story. Having lost his biggest battle, the battle of the bulge, Toney ballooned in weight and plummeted in boxing esteem because of managerial problems and an inability to maintain discipline.

And Toney has an explosive personality. Outlandish, abrasive and possessor of a motor mouth, Toney, who may well fail to outbox Jirov tonight, has already proved he can outshout him. In a half-hour media conference call this week, Jirov managed to get in only one sentence against Toney’s nonstop trash talk.

At least if he were in the NHL, Jirov would have a chance to get his name immortalized on the Stanley Cup.