Thursday, April 20, 2000 | 9:20 a.m.
Dean Juipe's boxing notebook appears Thursday. His sports column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4084.
The politics of boxing rankings are such that the most deserving challenger isn't always the mandatory challenger.
As a result, when an undisputed champion like Lennox Lewis chooses to fight the best available contender -- as he'll do April 29 in New York City when he takes on Michael Grant -- it doesn't always satisfy the various sanctioning organizations and their many constituents.
While Lewis has the World Boxing Council, World Boxing Association and International Boxing Federation heavyweight titles, the WBA is under a court order to pull its belt from Lewis if he goes through with the Grant fight.
He's going to go through with the fight and contest the court order in an appeal that will soon be filed with a federal court in New York.
The WBA has moved John Ruiz into the mandatory challenger's spot and promoter Don King is working the courts on behalf of a Ruiz vs. Evander Holyfield fight scheduled for June 10 in Las Vegas. If King prevails, Ruiz and Holyfield will fight for the WBA title that Lewis may be forced to vacate.
"Don King has a lot of influence with the WBA," Lewis said this week during a conference call. "The belt's being stolen, that's all I can say."
Lewis, 35-1-1, united the three major belts by defeating Holyfield last November in Las Vegas.
Grant, 31-0, may deserve to be ranked No. 1 by the three organizations, yet, in actuality, he's No. 2 in the WBC, No. 2 in the IBF and No. 6 in the WBA. Hence, his fight with Lewis is an "optional" defense for the champion, and it's one that may split the heavyweight belts once again.
Ruiz is ranked No. 1 by the WBA and the WBC, and David Tua is No. 1 with the IBF.
"What can I do?" Lewis wondered aloud.
"All these mandatories keep coming at me. It's the politics of the game and I'm getting pressure from all sides.
"But the man at the top can only fight one man at a time."
He doesn't believe Ruiz, 36-3 and a first-round loser to Tua, deserves his high ranking.
"Basically he's just sat around," Lewis said. "Who has he fought?"
He's also not enamored of Holyfield and the role he has played in this heist.
"Evander's a person that's never stuck by the rules," Lewis said.
"I don't need to call him a hypocrite again (but) he's doing the same thing he usually does."
Lewis' promoter, Panos Eliades, hopes a court appeal will remedy the earlier decision that went against them.
"The judge we had took great pleasure in running our side down," Eliades said of Lewis Kaplan, a New York federal jurist.
"From the beginning we were on the defensive. Don King was Mother Teresa and we were like rapists.
"But the appeal will be heard in May or June and once that comes around Lennox could still be the WBA champion. Ruiz and Holyfield could be fighting each other for no belt whatsoever."
Eliades added that he asked each of the three major organizations if they were interested in sponsoring a "box-off" in which one legitimate challenger would emerge, "but I never heard a reply from any of them," he said.
He also said he would be meeting next week in New York with Tua's promoter, Dan Goossen, in an effort to finalize a proposed fight in the fall. In between, Lewis will fight July 15 in London against an opponent still to be determined, although Eliades mentioned Frans Botha and Wladimar Klitschko as possibilities.
Of course if Lewis fails to defeat Grant any and all plans will be subject to revision.
"I don't believe he's better than me," Lewis said of Grant. "But he deserves a chance. He's kept busy, so the public demands a fight between him and me.
"My main plan is to fight the best boxers out there and appease the public."
Someday, he feels, that will lead to a fight with Mike Tyson.
"Eventually, I'm sure the public would like to see me and him together," Lewis said. "But right now his mind isn't on boxing."
* QUICK HITS: Tyson's twice-postponed fight with Lou Savarese may never be held, the result of Tyson's dissatisfaction with the fact it was going to be televised by Showtime and would not be on pay-per-view, which would have added to his $10 million purse. ... Ruiz and Holyfield were to have held a press conference Tuesday in Boston to formally announce their June 10 fight, but the luncheon was called off. ... The Avi resort in Laughlin has a Saturday card in which welterweights Scott Walker -- who has lost to Julio Cesar Chavez and Alexis Arguello -- will take on Daniel Mendez in the six-round main event. ... Clark Earls, a former Las Vegan once trained by the late Johnny Tocco, has come out of a five-year retirement and will headline a May 2 card in Philadelphia. Earls, 11-0-1 with five knockouts, launched his comeback by fighting twice late last year.
James Toney is out as WBC cruiserweight champion Juan Carlos Gomez's opponent May 6 in Germany. ... WBA junior lightweight champ Jong-Kwon Baek is being brought to America for a May 21 defense in Kansas City in which prospect Joel Casamayor is expected to grab his title. ... Guty Espadas, who won the WBC featherweight title last weekend, likely will lose that belt against current super bantamweight champ Erik Morales when they fight in the fall. ... Top Rank is working on an Antonio Diaz vs. Arturo Gatti fight for the fall, with HBO televising. ... Kostya Tszyu's mandatory defense of his WBC 140-pound belt will be held July 1 at a site still to be determined, with shopworn Julio Cesar Chavez in for his last significant payday.
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