Thought of a Dull Night Has Him Fighting Mad

The question sounded like a bloody corner.

“So, Lennox, ya gonna knock him out early?”

The answer sounded like a tea party.

“If the opportunity presents itself.”

If the opportunity presents itself?

*

It has been nearly 45 years since a heavyweight title fight last spit its mouthpiece here, so maybe things have changed.

But shouldn’t goliaths behave like, I don’t know, Goliath?

Lennox Lewis and Vitali Klitschko held their final showdown news conference Wednesday, with the atmosphere more about Miss Manners than Mr. T.

If their behavior during the warm and funky event is any indication, Saturday’s fight at Staples Center will include many long clinches that are, in fact, hugs.

If the entire promotion is to be believed, we’re looking at a night not of fun chaos, but dull civility.

“A wonderful chance,” oozed Klitschko.

“A good challenge,” waxed Lewis.

“You’re both honorable men,” announced Adrian Ogun, Lewis’ business manager.

Aren’t we just thrilled.

For big-time boxing to be accepted here again, it can show up on our front porch in many forms. It can be ugly. It can be sloppy. It can be less than Golden. It can be a substitute for Sugar.

But it cannot be boring.

The first big fight at Staples Center was thrilling, “Sugar” Shane Mosley defeating Oscar De La Hoya, smack in the middle of the Lakers’ first championship run, outbrawling even Kobe and Shaq.

But the second, and most recent, big fight here was as dull as De La Hoya’s singing voice, Roy Jones Jr. against Julio Something, a yawner that stole much of Los Angeles’ momentum as it tries to climb back into the national ring.

This fight must be different, because this is the fight that can convince Staples Center bosses to bid on future cards. This is the fight that can convince promoters to bring back a game that belongs here as much as the NFL.

This has us worried.

Contrary to recent desperate attempts by Staples folks, they don’t need Mike Tyson to make this work. But they also can’t afford Cicely Tyson.

Sometimes I wonder if Lewis, one of the smartest yet unbelievably dull heavyweight champions, understands there is a difference.

For some fighters, the news conference is a time to sell tickets by insulting the opponent’s mother.

On Wednesday at Staples Center, Lewis brought his mother.

“I raised him right,” said Violet Lewis, sitting in the front row, having flown here from her Toronto home. “To me, it’s more important for him to be a gentleman. I don’t like all those ragamuffin things. How could it profit him to be that way?”

Certainly, Lewis has been an ideal citizen away from the game. But would it have hurt him so much Wednesday to call a shot? Guarantee a victory? Say something, anything, that would be silly and frivolous and inviting?

Would it have hurt him to sell?

“Who was the last great heavyweight talker? Riddick Bowe?” Ogun asked. “How memorable was he? Does talking make you memorable?”

Well, it makes you interesting. Having not yet filled an arena that has gone strangely quiet this spring, this fight needs interesting.

When the fighters were asked to pose together -- a tense occasion that has sometimes led to brawls -- it seemingly took all their energy to clench their fists.

When Klitschko gamely attempted an insult -- “I have seen some weaknesses,” he said of Lewis -- the champ was proper enough to repeat the rip before responding.

“He’s said he’s seen weaknesses in me, I’ve seen a whole heap of weaknesses in him,” Lewis said. “He’s never seen a fighter like me.”

Am not. Am too. Am not.

The only real passion Wednesday came from somebody on the undercard.

Somebody, not surprisingly, named Ali.

“You’re definitely going to see a knockout in my fight!” proclaimed Laila Ali, the daughter of The Greatest and the middleweight opponent of Valeria Mahfoud.

She fretted that Mahfoud was not there to exchange the trash talk. She filled the podium with anger and intensity.

And afterward, she mourned the lack of sizzle. Was this news conference too refined?

“If you are asking me if it was boring, yes, it was boring,” she said. “Growing up watching my father, I learned the importance of selling a fight.”

Here’s hoping the fight is the polar opposite of a promotion that has twisted her father’s legacy into something barely recognizable and not a bit fun.

Float like a buttercup. Sting like a flea.

Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com.