Card Heavy With Title Fights Five Championship Bouts Including Holmes’ Challenge
The heavyweight championship time-share program moves to Caesars Palace tonight as part of a card featuring five world title fights as upstanding as Don King’s hair.
Headlining the show are two heavyweight title bouts - Oliver McCall vs. Larry Holmes for McCall’s World Boxing Council belt, and Tony Tucker vs. Bruce Seldon for the vacant World Boxing Association title. Other bouts include three worthy attractions - Julio Cesar Chavez, Felix Trinidad and Terry Norris.
Chavez, in a rare undercard appearance, said he did not want to be left out.
“Julio doesn’t care whether he’s the main event or undercard, so long as he’s paid appropriately,” a Chavez interpreter said.
A check for $750,000 was enough to satisfy Chavez.
The story this week was about heavyweights, though. Unfortunately for the Caesars’ card, it was mostly about ex-con Mike Tyson, who browsed in the hotel’s Forum Shops with intense security less than two weeks after he signed a six-fight, multimillion-dollar deal with the rival MGM Grand.
As they used to say about Rome, all roads in boxing lead to Mike.
It is not a stretch to view tonight’s heavyweight bouts, put together by King, as elimination contests, the winners to be unified then fed to Tyson.
But first things first.
McCall (25-5, 231 pounds) is the WBC champion. Although he averages a loss every six outings, his right cross found Lennox Lewis’ chin last September in London and Lewis went down.
The second-round knockout not only made a champion of the journeyman McCall, 29, it was an even more important victory for his promoter, King.
“He put me back in the heavyweight division,” King said. “I can never forget that.”
And King is fixing to trash the place.
With Tyson in exile - the Indiana Youth Center correctional facility - King got busy.
To keep the WBC belt in the family, he called an old friend, Larry Holmes, and asked if he wanted to pick up some extra money.
This was a fight McCall could win. If not, no harm.
Holmes (61-4, 40 KOs, 236 pounds) claimed his WBC title in 1978, 17 years before McCall dropped Lewis. He’s 45 years old.
“I didn’t train for Larry Holmes today,” McCall said. “I trained for the Larry Holmes that won the title. … I wish I could have fought him back then.”
No he doesn’t.
Tonight’s WBA title fight, a late addition, comes with asterisks.
When George Foreman, who won the International Boxing Federation and WBA belts, refused to fight a mandatory defense against No. 1 contender Tony Tucker, the WBA stripped him of his belt.
Foreman plans to sue the WBA for his title back. For now, though, King holds the key to Door No 2.
Tucker, one of King’s fighters, was matched against Bruce Seldon and quickly added to tonight’s card for Foreman’s vacated title.
Tucker (52-2, 43 KOs, 243 pounds) has been around since 1980. He won the IBF title from James Douglas in May 1987 and lost it to Tyson on Aug. 1.
The 28-year-old Seldon (31-3, 27 KOs, 236 pounds) has survived a first-round knockout at the hands of Riddick Bowe to get his title shot.
A look at the other title fights:
Chavez (93-1-1, 80 KOs, 140 pounds) vs. Giovanni Parisi (29-1, 21 KOs, 139 pounds) for Chavez’s WBC super-lightweight title. Chavez, one of boxing’s all-time stars, is counting down the days to his 100th fight and retirement.
Parisi, from Vibo Valencia, Italy,
is the No. 5 contender and the 1988 Olympic featherweight champion.
Luis Santana (39-15-2, 153 pounds) vs. Norris (38-5, 23 KOs, 153 pounds) for Santana’s WBC super-welterweight belt. This is a mandatory rematch of last November’s controversial match in which Santana won the title after Norris was disqualified for throwing an illegal punch to the back of Santana’s head.
Trinidad (25-0, 21 KOs, 147 pounds) vs. Roger Turner (29-2, 17 KOs, 147 pounds). For rising star Trinidad’s IBF welterweight belt.