Heavyweight title fight highlights this week's boxing

Alan Rogers

Saturday night in London, undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis will defend his titles against Frans Botha in a scheduled 12-round title fight.

Lewis (36-1-1) will defend his WBC and IBF titles even though he won those titles, plus the WBA title, when he beat Evander Holyfield. Lewis no longer has the now-vacant WBA title because of the politics of boxing but boxing fans know he is the true champion.

Lewis is expected to post an easy win over South Africa's Botha, whose main claim to fame is his fight against former champion Mike Tyson. Botha lost, after being far ahead on points, when a Tyson right to the jaw finished him off in round five of that fight.

Botha (40-2-1) has a flashy record but he really isn't in the same class as Lewis and the bookmakers agree, listing Lewis as a 15-1 favorite with Botha at +10-1. That seems about right because Botha, while a game competitor, lacks the skills to whip Lewis. He still could be a pain-in-the-butt for Lewis, who has been looking ahead at a fight with Tyson and may be taking Botha a tad lightly, but that's only speculation on my part.

Assuming Botha doesn't "freeze" and get whacked out in the first round - like Andrew Golota did in his title fight against Lewis - I look for Botha to give Lewis a tough fight before being either knocked out or stopped by cuts.

It doesn't appear that Botha would have much of a shot at winning a decision over the English fighter Lewis in London, but you never know. Botha could get lucky and land a punch or two that could take Lewis out.

I don't see that happening, but one only has to look back to the fight between Lewis and Oliver McCall to see that anything is possible.

In that fight McCall landed a right hand to the jaw of Lewis that put Lennox down and out in round two of their WBC title fight in London. McCall lost the rematch - his famous crying fight if you recall - but that wasn't the same Oliver that won the first time around.

So, yes, Botha has a shot. You could say that about most heavyweight fights because one punch from a heavyweight can change a fight in a hurry, but I like Lewis to win by knockout!

Official prediction - Lewis in four rounds or less. I believe Lewis will try to better Tyson's fifth-round KO of Botha and that's why I think he'll make quick work of Botha.

Also, Lewis did learn from the McCall fight not to take anyone lightly and to finish off an opponent as quickly as possible so don't look for a long fight in this one.

- The fight can be seen on HBO starting at 9 p.m. Also on the telecast will be the semi-main event heavyweight fight featuring Russian boxer Wladimir Klitscho (33-1) and New York's Monte Barrett (23-1) plus one or two other fights, depending on how long the main event and semi-main last.

- Carson City boxers fared well at the Silver State Games in Reno over the weekend. Mike Peralta, Dwayne Pope and Louis Loe won gold medals and Ruben Gutierrez and Evarado Pacheco won silver medals at the games.

"It was a good weekend of fights," said Carson City's Norm Budden, chief of officials for the Silver State Games. "We had 13 fights on Saturday and 12 on Sunday. It was a successful show."

Teams from Reno (Jets and ARCE Boxing), Fernley/Wadsworth, Fallon, Elko and Carson City sent fighters for the card, as did California teams from San Leandro, Santa Rosa and Stockton.

Congratulations to the winners and to all the fighters who participated in the games ...

- Caesars Tahoe has announced they will host a professional fight card on July 29 at the Stateline resort.

The card, which will be televised live to Southern California, features a junior featherweight title fight between Nestor Garza and Daniel Jimenez in the main event. There will be five undercard fights on the card, which begins at 7 p.m. For ticket info call (775) 588-3515.

- That vacant WBA heavyweight title mentioned earlier will be up for grabs on Aug. 12 at the Paris Hotel in Las Vegas.

Former champ Evander Holyfield fights the WBA's No. 1 contender John Ruiz for that title and that fight, along with the WBA welterweight title fight between champ James Page and challenger Andrew Lewis can be seen on Showtime cable TV.

It's a Don King promotion so be prepared for anything to happen, including a bad decision or who-knows what?

- The Friday night ESPN2 fights produced another stinker in the main event when undefeated Angel Vazquez (21-0) took on "Mad" Max Gomez (24-11-1) in a 12-round USBA featherweight title fight.

Vazquez, from Hartford, Conn., who was a heavy favorite, bored the crowd to death as he fought a defensive and not-very-interesting fight against Gomez, who is from Denver. Gomez tried to make a fight of it but Vazquez wouldn't let him as he boxed his way to an easy decision win.

Maybe they'll do better this Friday (6 p.m. start) with Greg Wright (18-5-2) fighting Chris Johnson (21-1-1) in the main event.

- On the FOX Sports Network Sunday night fights they showed Angel Manfredy fighting late substitute Shawn Simmons. It was a complete mismatch as Manfredy (28-4-1) had the 38-year old Simmons down three times before it was stopped just 87 seconds into round two.

The 25-year-old Manfredy, from Gary, Ind., had target practice against the Murray, Kent., fighter Simmons, who tried but was no match for former champ Manfredy.

FOX has another pro card set for this Sunday starting at 8 p.m.

Alan Rogers is the Nevada Appeal boxing writer.