Tyson-Ruddock II Doing Heavy Business

There are two ways to look at tonight’s Mike Tyson-Razor Ruddock II pay-per-view boxing card.

--Ruddock rocked Tyson in the sixth round of the first fight on March 18, was robbed when Richard Steele stopped it in the seventh, and now has a shot of upsetting an under-trained and troubled Tyson, meaning the main event and an attractive undercard make the asking price of $34.95, or $39.95, a bargain.

--This is a fight that would never have been made without the premature stoppage of Tyson-Ruddock I, and this time Tyson will quickly dispose of Ruddock, leaving viewers feeling cheated. The undercard? Who cares.

The feeling here is, this is a better pay-per-view attraction than some of the others that have come along recently, especially if you consider the undercard.

And early reports indicate the public is buying.

Scott Kurnit, president of SET, a division of Showtime, the pay-per-view carrier, said late Thursday that sales of Tyson-Ruddock II are 35% ahead of the Tyson-Ruddock I pace.

With the fight available in a record 19 million homes, it could conceivably set a pay-per-view record. The record, set by Evander Holyfield-George Foreman, is $55 million if you believe TVKO, which carried that fight, or $48 million if you believe rival SET.

Which would be a bigger money fight, Tyson-Holyfield or Tyson-Foreman?

Promoter Don King, naturally, says Foreman-Tyson since Holyfield is controlled by rival Dan Duva.

Calling Holyfield “a nice boy” and “an altar boy,” King said Tyson-Foreman would be “by far the biggest money winner.”

Unfortunately, since name recognition is the No. 1 prerequisite for selling a fight, King, if you take away the “by far,” might be right on this count.

King, however, missed on a couple of others during a telephone conference with reporters this week.

For one thing, King called Tyson and Ruddock “the two best heavyweights,” conveniently forgetting the champion, Holyfield.

For another, he said 2 billion people will be watching tonight’s fight, including viewers in the Soviet Union, China and Cuba. “If we get India, then it becomes 4 to 5 billion,” he said in all seriousness.

The population of the world is about 5.3 billion.

Truth in advertising aren’t exactly bywords for King.

The pay-per-view show from the Mirage in Las Vegas begins at 6 p.m. with the two-bout undercard. The main event should start shortly after 7:30.

Even though unbeaten Julio Cesar Chavez had to pull out of his fight with Harold Brazier, a 12-round title fight between World Boxing Council super-featherweight champion Azumah Nelson (33-2) and 27-year-old Australian Jeff Fenech (25-0) makes the card appealing.

In the opening fight, heavyweights Riddick Bowe (23-0) and Rodolfo Marin (17-1) square off in a 10-rounder.

For those who can’t get the show at home, closed-circuit coordinator Sid Silver, hired by distributor J&J; Sports, has put together a network of an all-time-high 63 Southland locations.

These locations, most of which will charge $25 to $30 (or more if buffet is included), are such sports bar-restaurants as Legends in Long Beach and the new Legends in Santa Monica, the new Double Play on La Cienega, Spice on Hollywood Boulevard, the Sports Deli in Century City, the Strand in Redondo Beach, Villa Nova in Newport Beach and Champions at the Marriott hotels in Irvine and near LAX.

The Channel 13 experiment with a local boxing show from the Country Club in Reseda Tuesday night was, on all counts, a success.

The show averaged a 4.4 Nielsen rating, beating out the competition on Los Angeles’ other independent stations that night, except for the Angels’ game on Channel 5 and the 8 o’clock news on Channel 9.

The boxing show was also a successful production and had a couple of innovations. Fighters were interviewed just before entering the ring, and a judge was interviewed during a fight.

In this era of overpaid and spoiled ballplayers, here’s a refreshing story.

Former major league pitcher and current ESPN commentator Jerry Reuss, who played 22 seasons, including nine with the Dodgers and one with the Angels, is still playing baseball--simply for the fun of it.

He’s a first baseman on a team called Goodman’s Redbirds, part of an amateur league that plays at Cal State Los Angeles.

“I still enjoy strapping on the uniform,” Reuss said.

ESPN’s Joe Morgan, it is believed, will be the first commentator to work a nationally televised baseball game from all of the 26 major league parks when he goes behind the microphone for the Dodgers’ game against the Braves Sunday at Atlanta’s Fulton County Stadium.

Jon Miller, Morgan’s partner, has worked a game from every park except Arlington (Tex.) Stadium. The NBC crew never did a game from Seattle or San Diego.

Morgan’s favorite park is the Toronto SkyDome, and Dodger Stadium is No. 2 on his list.

Someone should give the people at radio station XTRA a lesson in credibility, not to mention journalistic ethics.

A number of times, they have tried to pawn off taped interviews, sometimes done weeks earlier, as live or close to live.

But the station might have topped itself Wednesday, playing a several-day-old interview with pitcher Dennis Rasmussen and trying to pretend it was Rasmussen talking about the previous night’s 8-2 loss to Cincinnati.

TV-Radio Notes

Channel 11, which recently won a Los Angeles Emmy for its Dodger coverage, will televise two midseason specials this weekend. “Ironman Mike,” saluting catcher Mike Scioscia, will be shown tonight about 9, after the Dodger-Atlanta Braves telecast, and “New Faces,” spotlighting Darryl Strawberry, Brett Butler, Bob Ojeda and Kevin Gross, will be shown Saturday at 7:30 p.m. . . . “The Greatest Games Ever Played” segment on Prime Ticket Sunday at 8 p.m. will focus on Game 5 of the 1980 National League playoffs between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Houston Astros. . . . “Sports Confidential,” with Mike Lansford and Janniene Keahl, on SportsChannel Monday at 10 p.m. will deal with athletes changing teams. Among those interviewed are Strawberry, Steve Wright of the Raiders, Dave Parker of the Angels, Jack Clark of the Boston Red Sox, Dwight Evans of the Baltimore Orioles and Kurt Rambis of the Phoenix Suns.

Owner Bruce McNall of the Kings, among the guests on “First Person with Maria Shriver” on NBC Saturday at 10 p.m., says of the team: “I put a little lipstick and makeup on her and now she’s a beauty.” Says Wayne Gretzky of McNall: “He’s a genuine person. It’s tough to find people like that, especially a man of his category. He could be a lot different, but he’s not.” . . . Lyle Alzado and Olga Korbut are also guests of Shriver.

“NBA Inside Stuff,” with Ahmad Rashad and Julie Moran, will complete its first season Saturday at 9:30 a.m. on NBC with a lighthearted review of the season in the form of a parody on televised awards shows. Presenters of so-called “Stuffy Awards” will include Spike Lee, Paula Abdul, Robin Leach, Woody Harrelson and Tony Danza. . . . Saturday’s Hollywood Gold Cup, besides being televised, delayed, on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” is being simulcast to 436 outlets in 23 states, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. The outlets are mostly racetracks, but there are 128 off-track betting sites in New York taking the telecast.

Beach volleyball continues to grow, and the latest indication of its popularity is an announcement Thursday of a three-year agreement between NBC and the Assn. of Volleyball Professionals. NBC will televise three AVP events this year--the Miller Lite Milwaukee Open on July 28, the U.S. Championships at Hermosa Beach on Aug. 24 and the World Championships at Las Vegas on Sept. 7. . . . Coca-Cola will donate $5,000 for every home run hit on July 4 in all major and minor league games--99 in all--and ESPN will provide periodic reports on the event called “Homers for America.” Proceeds will help build The Star-Spangled Banner Monument in Washington.