John Rawling : Boxing
Evander Holyfield is demanding a staggering $25-million to be tempted back into the ring to face Lennox Lewis in a rematch this year.
According to promoters, Lewis would be looking for a 50-50 split rather than the one-third he took on Saturday but the American television company which underwrites the deal is warning that the figures do not add up to making the fight a viable commercial proposition.
For three days Saturday’s Madison Square Garden fight has commanded front-page headlines in the New York Post. “It’s robbery” was followed by “It stinks'” then “Judge: I was wrong”. It is hard to believe any contest in recent memory can have generated this level of publicity, in this case most of it bad.
Lou di Bella, the powerful head of boxing at the American cable television network Home Box Office, said: “People may try to brush off the damage which has been done by the draw verdict in a fight which Lewis won but, when the state governor is up in arms and the mayor of the city is angry, it is for real.”
Any prospect of a rematch deal would be “difficult”, according to Di Bella, not least because he believes that a second Holyfield/Lewis confrontation would be less appealing than the first.
“History shows that rematches do not generate the same intensity of interest as the first meeting. The confidence of the public in boxing is at a pretty low ebb after this. Add to that, who will promote it and what sort of money are the fighters demanding?”
If Lewis is matching Holyfield’s $25- million purse request, it could be a major stumbling block. Holyfield was guaranteed $20-million for their first meeting with Lewis around $12-million and it may be the fighters have to rein back their demands to make a second meeting a sound economic prospect.
“Don King should have nothing to do with this next fight,” said Lewis’s promoter Panos Eliades. “I will be asking the three governing bodies to agree to put this out to purse bids and I will be prepared to fight for the right to stage it.” If Eliades does win the right to stage the contest, the chances of the rematch being a British event would be massively enhanced.
“I will go to the courts if necessary to make this fight happen,” Eliades added. “I have had talks with Home Box Office and they want it in August or September. And what I do know is that the people of America are now going mad for Lennox. He may not have won but he has been given 10 years’ worth of publicity in three days. They used to criticise him but now he is being seen as the people’s champion.”
Inundated by requests to appear on television chat shows and radio broadcasts, Lewis has stayed in New York, a little bemused by the hero worship now coming his way.
“Every time that we step out of a limousine, Lennox is mobbed by autograph hunters and people who say he was robbed in the fight,” says his older brother Dennis.
“Lennox has never been one to shout his mouth off. We were brought up by our mother to say please and thank you. He doesn’t naturally boast but all this attention is fantastic . It’s meant so much to him that the British fans have backed him so well.”
New York officials are less happy. The state’s Senate Investigations Committee began its inquiry this week. State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is mounting his own investigations, as is the government- appointed ruling body for boxing in the city, the New York State Athletic Commission.
“The judges’ decision was so out of line with the reality of what happened in the ring that it has raised legitimate questions of tampering, incompetence or both,” said Spitzer.
The three judges, including South Africa’s Stan Christodolou (who scored Lewis to win), will be asked to explain in detail how they compiled their scorecards. It is a controversy which will not be quickly resolved.