Lewis-Tyson rerun tonight: rematch next?

6/15/2002

There's no additional fee for LTV (Lewis-Tyson Viewing) this weekend.

The first rebroadcast of the much anticipated Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson heavyweight championship bout will air tonight at 9:45 on HBO.

The fight, which took place in the southern ambience of Memphis a week ago, was a hit in attracting viewers, despite the steep $54.95 price tag. The highest grossing event in pay-per-view history resulted in a $103 million pay day. A total of 1.8 million buyers purchased the HBO/Showtime joint venture telecast.

The clash between Lewis, boxing's reserved, gentle giant, and Tyson, boxing's bad boy, didn't necessarily live up to its pre-fight hype. While it was intense, it won't be remembered as a legendary match. An eighth-round knockout of Tyson put an end to what many experts had scored as a one-sided fight favoring Lewis, the undisputed heavyweight champion.

But could a rematch be around the corner? After all, it was not the first, but the rematch between Tyson and Evander Holyfield that stood as the highest grossing pay-per-view event ($100 million) before Lewis-Tyson.

Furthermore, in a joint venture between HBO and Showtime, wouldn't they have worked out a deal where one of the cable stations would have the opportunity to rebroadcast the first fight and the other would rebroadcast the rematch? Showtime is not scheduled for a rebroadcast this weekend.

A rematch should not come as a surprise. After all, it's professional boxing, and there probably would be many who'd go for LTV II.

Speaking of HBO, it will premiere the documentary :03 from Gold on Tuesday night at 10. The 90-minute special looks back at the 1972 Olympic debacle that resulted in the Soviet Union men's basketball team stealing the gold medal from the favored United States. The controversy surrounding how the final three seconds of the game played out deserved far more media attention back then than the recent Winter Olympics skategate that took place in Salt Lake City.

HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel and On the Record with Bob Costas are two of the best sports talk shows on television. While Gumbel's show is more feature-oriented toward sports issues and personalities, Costas takes a seat with his subjects for candid one-on-one interviews. It was on On the Record's season-finale, which aired Thursday, where Barry Bonds told Costas he hasn't taken steroids and would support baseball drug testing.

The two shows are nothing alike, yet they share something in common: They're worth watching.

Channel changing:

Buckeye Cable subscribers will have a chance to see NASCAR racing from an “enhanced” perspective beginning this weekend with the Winston Cup Sirius Satellite Radio 400 at Michigan International Speedway. The race is tomorrow on Fox, beginning at 12:30 p.m.

Jeff Gordon, Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the rest of the Winston Cup racers will have cameras and microphones installed in their cars. The extra NASCAR package, which is limited to cable subscribers and will cost $89 for the season, will not have any effect on race broadcasts on network television.

Buckeye promotions manager Kris Euler said Buckeye subscribers will be able to see the enhanced viewing of the Michigan 400 for free tomorrow.

A day before NBC aired its final NBA telecast on Wednesday, completing a 12-year reign as the primary NBA network, ABC, ESPN and the WNBA agreed on a six-year deal to keep the women's professional basketball league around until the year 2008.