Columnist Dean Juipe: L.A. can have this boxing card

Dean Juipe

Friday, April 25, 2003 | 10:14 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Some fights just don't deserve to happen, and Lennox Lewis vs. Kirk Johnson is definitely one of them.

This terrible excuse for a heavyweight championship fight is going to the Staples Center in Los Angeles, it was confirmed Thursday, with a June 21 date. Mike Tyson may or may not be part of the undercard.

No one in Las Vegas is shedding any tears.

Take Tyson from the package and the Lewis vs. Johnson card is virtually worthless. Add in the fact that it's a widely held belief that L.A. is a tough market for anything but Hispanic fighters at the lower weights, and you have to wonder who's going to pay to see this farce.

"Heavyweights don't sell in L.A.," said promoter Bob Arum, who put the Muhammad Ali vs. Ken Norton rematch into what was then the new Forum in suburban Inglewood in 1973. "We didn't draw 7,000."

And that was with Norton, a Californian, having beaten Ali (and broken his jaw) in their first fight.

Lewis vs. Johnson, with Gary Shaw as the promoter, offers no such hook or attraction.

I like Lewis as both a fighter and a person and generally look forward to his fights, but that won't be the case for this one. Johnson is a stiff, a bum, a man who didn't have the good sense or the ability to make the best of an earlier title try, and Lewis will either destroy him or be discouraged while trying.

Anyone paying to see Johnson fight is either oblivious to his past or failed to see or read about his fight in July with John Ruiz at the Mandalay Bay Events Center.

Ruiz, then the World Boxing Association champion, was stuck with a guy who generally wouldn't fight and when he did it was to throw low blows.

Right away, in Round 1, referee Joe Cortez took a point from Johnson for a low blow. Cortez warned Johnson again in Round 4. Cortez took another point from Johnson for another low blow in Round 7. And when Johnson delivered yet another low blow in Round 10, Cortez didn't say a word -- he merely waved his hands over his head to signal the end of the bout.

To a chorus of boos that began long before the final round, Johnson was disqualified, disgraced and seemingly exiled to boxing's back burner.

Yet he's well-connected, and when Lewis was looking for someone to fight (aside from World Boxing Council mandatory challenger Vitali Klitschko), Johnson resurfaced with a nauseating thud.

Don't be deceived by his 34-1-1 record. That draw came against a former cruiserweight, Al Cole, and the most recognizable wins on Johnson's resume came against fellow heavyweight slugs Danell Nicholson and Lou Savarese.

Otherwise, Johnson has plugged along -- battling hand and elbow injuries -- and beaten what can only best be described as a middling group of opponents. Along the way he has become known as a fighter with decent hand speed who, regrettably, often appears bolted to the floor.

He and Ruiz drew 6,752 for their fight here last year and it's hard to see his fight with Lewis doing any better in spite of being in a much larger population market. And this time, unlike the situation at Mandalay Bay where casinos purchased a healthy percentage of the tickets, blocs of tickets won't be going out at once and Shaw will be counting on individual ticket sales to pay the freight.

Good luck. But unless Johnson issues a formal apology for his performance against Ruiz and the braggadocio he displayed before that fight, I'm not interested in anything he has to say or anything he predicts he can do against a man of Lewis' talents.

Johnson, 30, is in there to make a few bucks for his retirement in Nova Scotia and to get his handlers a few dollars back on their investment. He has no chance whatsoever unless Lewis suddenly looks, feels and shows his 37 years of age.

This is a fight that should come with a warning that they can print right on the ticket: Mismatch Likely, Purchase At Own Risk.

How gullible are you, L.A.?