4 places to watch big bout
Company (BBC) set to present a four-fight card on closed circuit television at four Island venues tomorrow night.
World Boxing Council heavyweight champion Mike Tyson headlines the card as he seeks to add the World Boxing Association crown, currently the property of the man that will stand in the opposite corner, Bruce Seldon.
The fight, billed Liberation -- Champion versus Champion, will be shown live at BAA Club, Pier Six, Somerset Country Squire and Spinning Wheel. Tickets are $40 and are available at 27th Century Boutique, as well as at the door.
Also on the card are matches featuring hard-punching International Boxing Federation welterweight champion Felix Trinidad (29-0, 25 KOs) of Puerto Rico, making his 10th defence against American Ray Lovato (21-1, 11 KOs), champion Terry Norris (43-6, 27 KO's) taking on Alex Rios (18-2, 14 KOs) for the WBC/IBF 154-pound title and female boxing sensation Christie Martin.
While overseas advertisements have the fight being available on Pay-Per-View the same is not true locally. Instead, the BBC purchased rights for the fight from Don King Productions Inc.
Bermuda Cablevision chose not to tender a bid for the event's airing due to a lump rights fee being charged, rather than a precentage split of actual sales, which is the policy of the local carrier.
And, perhaps also with an eye toward boosting pay-per-view sales in the United States for the fight, Seldon, a 22-1 underdog, is offering a litany of explanations this week for why the smart money should be on him at the MGM Grand Arena.
Seldon (33-3) listed four reasons the 30-year-old Tyson is beatable in their scheduled 12-round fight for Seldon's title: "His lack of timing, his height is two, his reach is three and his frustration is four.'' Seldon, who spent 4 1 years in a New Jersey prison for armed robbery when he was a teenager, was referring to Tyson's timing suffering from more than four years away from boxing -- three due to a prison sentence for rape.
He also was referring to Tyson's more than two-inch height disadvantage against Seldon, who has at least a six-inch advantage in reach.
By frustration, Seldon, who will receive a guaranteed $5 million to fight Tyson, said he meant that when Tyson "sees that his opponent is not going to just stand there and let him bulldoze him and his opponent is going to come back at him he changes his character. He loses something.'' The only fighters Seldon, 29, has faced who are generally recognised as world class defeated him: Riddick Bowe, who knocked Seldon down three times in the first round, and Oliver McCall, who stopped him in the ninth round.