Trouble to follow McCall to LV for his Feb. 7 fight

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Dec. 17, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

When Oliver McCall arrives in Las Vegas for his Feb. 7 World Boxing Council heavyweight title fight with Lennox Lewis, he'll be carrying some extra baggage.

McCall, the former WBC champion, was arrested Monday in Nashville, Tenn., and charged with vandalism, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest.

His latest run-in with police comes on top of a July arrest in Chicago, which followed an April arrest in Winston-Salem, N.C.

McCall, 31, also spent August in a drug rehabilitation facility in North Carolina, where he was treated for cocaine and marijuana abuse.

While his out-of-the-ring struggles have to qualify as a distraction, McCall apparently will keep his appointment with Lewis. They'll fight at the Las Vegas Hilton on a card promoted by New Jersey-based Main Events.

A statement released late Monday and attributed to McCall and released by promoter Don King, who handles McCall, quotes the fighter as saying "I will be ready to go February 7."

In the Nashville incident, police maintain McCall threw a Christmas tree, a drinking glass and an ashtray in a hotel lobby. Police were summoned and they asked McCall to leave, but, instead, he allegedly shouted abusive language and then resisted arrest and spat on a police vehicle.

"Unfortunately, I had a bout with depression," McCall said in his statement, adding that the depression was brought on because he was no longer scheduled to fight on a Jan. 11 boxing card in Nashville. (His fight with Lewis was moved from Nashville to Las Vegas last month after King surrendered the rights to promote it and Main Events picked it up.)

"I was one of the 26,000 people who went to the grand opening of the beautiful Nashville Arena on Sunday," McCall states. "It made me distraught but I will overcome this. I missed a great opportunity not being able to fight before the great people of Nashville in the new arena."

He'll overcome his distraught feelings, in part, by resuming his drug and alcohol rehabilitation treatment.

It's unclear how McCall's latest arrest will affect his probationary status. Following his arrest in Chicago (on charges that were reduced to cocaine and marijuana possession), he was placed on 18 months probation by a Cook County judge. McCall's earlier arrest in Winston-Salem brought charges of marijuana possession.

McCall, 28-6, held the WBC heavyweight title in 1994-95, knocking out Lewis and adding a successful defense against Larry Holmes in a fight held in Las Vegas. He lost his championship when he was beaten by Frank Bruno in September 1995.

Lewis is 29-1.