Francois Botha

The instructions before this fight should be interesting. No hitting below the belt. . .no biting the ears. . . Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson's next fight will be against Andrew Golota Oct. 20 in the Palace at Auburn Hills, Mich., Showtime announced yesterday. Critics will use it as an example of the sad state of boxing; purists will be hoping for a fight and not a charade, and pro wrestling fans will be hoping Tyson and Golota will emulate Hulk Hogan or Bam Bam Bigelow.

Three Kentucky basketball players - center Jamaal Magloire, forward Myron Anthony and guard Ryan Hogan - will be suspended for their offseason troubles, but the length of those suspensions has not yet been decided, coach Tubby Smith said. Smith said he would announce the number of games before the first exhibition game Nov. 3. In May, Hogan pleaded guilty to drunken driving and Anthony admitted driving teammate Wayne Turner's car in a hit-and-run accident. In June, Magloire was in a car with two men who were arrested on charges of marijuana and heroin possession.

Francois Botha tested positive for an anabolic steroid after winning the IBF heavyweight championship last month, the IBF president and a German boxing official said. Botha, a South African who lives in California, outpointed Axel Schulz, of Germany, Dec. 10 in Frankfurt, Germany, for the title. Alois Teuber, president of the Association of Professional German Boxers, said yesterday that the A-test on Botha was positive by the Cologne-based Institute for Biochemistry for the steroid Nandrolon.

Mike Tyson, the former world heavyweight champion who has spent far more time in legal hearings than in boxing rings lately, goes before yet another judge today, seeking clemency one more time for yet another behavioral problem. In his last hearing in October, before the Nevada State Athletic Commission, his boxing license was at stake. Today, he goes before Judge Stephen Johnson in Montgomery County District Court, and his freedom is at stake. Tyson is to be sentenced on two charges of second-degree assault stemming from an altercation with two motorists after a minor auto accident in Gaithersburg, Md., in August.

Ten days after Francois Botha was knocked out by Mike Tyson, Axel Schulz yesterday was knocked off the list of prospective opponents for Tyson's next fight. Wilfred Sauerland, Schulz's manager, said in Frankfurt, Germany, that Showtime, the cable network with a multiple-fight deal with Tyson, was not interested in the German heavyweight fighting Tyson April 24 in Las Vegas. "It's the end of all dreams," said Sauerland, noting a fight contract had been drawn up. Botha, knocked out in the fifth round by Tyson Jan. 16, outpointed Schulz for the vacant IBF title Dec. 9, 1995, at Stuttgart, Germany.

Jim Courier blew too many big points yesterday in the quarterfinals of the Lipton Championships in Key Biscayne, Fla., and lost, 7-6 (7-3), 2-6, 7-5, to Arnaud Boetsch. Sixth-seeded Chanda Rubin advanced to the women's semifinals by beating No. 4 seed Gabriela Sabatini, 6-3, 5-7, 6-3. Boetsch (pronounced Butch) became the first Frenchman to reach the Lipton semifinals since Yannick Noah in 1989. Tomorrow, he'll play No. 3 seed Andre Agassi, who beat unseeded Michael Joyce, 6-4, 6-1. For Courier, who has climbed from 13th to eighth in the computer rankings since the start of the year, the loss halted early-season momentum.

Larry Holmes would like to believe the check is in the mail. Holmes said he was assured yesterday by promoter Roger Levitt that two letters of credit - $9 million for George Foreman and $3.6 million for himself - were in the process of being delivered. Holmes, 49, and Foreman, who turns 50 on Jan. 10, are scheduled to box on Jan. 23 in Houston, but there have been reports the fight is in jeopardy. Levitt was to have deposited the letters of credit in the bank Dec. 23. So far, Foreman has received $1 million and Holmes $550,000 in nonrefundable deposits from Levitt, but nothing else.

Get used to seeing and hearing the name Roy Jones Jr., because the International Boxing Federation super middleweight champion is about to blitz the boxing world. Starting tonight. Jones, 27, undefeated and virtually unchallenged through a 32-0, 28-knockout career, says tonight's title defense here against Bryant "BB" Brannon of Trenton is the beginning of an active campaign in which he plans to take on all comers. Criticized for fighting puff challengers much of his career, like the untested, little-known boxer he faces tonight at the Theater in Madison Square Garden, Jones' Square Ring boxing camp tentatively outlined a fight schedule at a Wednesday news conference designed to put him in the ring with champions from the 168-pound division on up. There are three reasons for Jones' sudden aggressiveness, said Fred Levins, his attorney and advisor: He wants to shut up his critics, relieve his boredom and show the world just how good he is. "I told HBO to go out and do what I've been trying to do - line them up myself," Jones said.

Francois Botha has never been jailed, convicted, indicted or arrested. He never ran the streets or had a run-in with police. Never abused his wife or anybody else's. Never had a drinking problem. He never did drugs, either, unless you count the steroids he tested positive for in 1995, which he swears to this day were administered by a doctor for an elbow injury. "Look at me," he said at the time, revealing a soft, pink body. "Do I look like I'm on steroids? If I am, they're not working.

Get used to it. World heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis is in a league by himself, and it's likely to stay that way for the rest of his career. "There is no heavyweight in the world who can beat him," said his trainer, Emanuel Steward, after the champion from Britain had demolished American Michael Grant in two rounds Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. "The other fighters out there are not even good enough to be his sparring partners. " David Tua from Samoa? Too small.

The instructions before this fight should be interesting. No hitting below the belt. . .no biting the ears. . . Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson's next fight will be against Andrew Golota Oct. 20 in the Palace at Auburn Hills, Mich., Showtime announced yesterday. Critics will use it as an example of the sad state of boxing; purists will be hoping for a fight and not a charade, and pro wrestling fans will be hoping Tyson and Golota will emulate Hulk Hogan or Bam Bam Bigelow.

Lennox Lewis wants to fight Mike Tyson, and calls him a "train wreck ready to happen. " After Tyson stopped Lou Savarese in 38 seconds in Glasgow, Scotland, the former heavyweight champion said of Lewis: "I want your heart. I want to eat your children. " Tyson added that when he does fight Lewis, "I will rip out his heart and feed it to him. " Lewis dismissed Tyson's taunts and said he's ready to give up his IBF belt to fight him. "He's a train wreck ready to happen," Lewis said in British newspapers yesterday.

Get used to it. World heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis is in a league by himself, and it's likely to stay that way for the rest of his career. "There is no heavyweight in the world who can beat him," said his trainer, Emanuel Steward, after the champion from Britain had demolished American Michael Grant in two rounds Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. "The other fighters out there are not even good enough to be his sparring partners. " David Tua from Samoa? Too small.

It is not Mike Tyson's once-dreaded punch that will be in question when he enters the ring here tomorrow night for the first time in nine months. Not his fire. Not his legs. Not his age. The question about Tyson, who is attempting to regain a place at the top of the heavyweight division at 33, is whether he has lost his calm. "He has always fought his best when he is calm," said Jay Bright, his once and present co-trainer who has known Tyson since the fighter was 13. More than anything, Bright said, the scheduled 10-round bout with Orlin Norris, 34 and a 10-1 underdog, which is to be broadcast by Showtime at about midnight, will be a pressure barometer.

Orlin Norris will be Mike Tyson's first opponent since Tyson's release from a Maryland jail. The 12-round fight on Oct. 23 is signed for the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and will be televised on Showtime, the Associated Press said. That will be the second bout of the year for Tyson, who was released May 24 from a Maryland jail, where he had served 31/2 months for assaulting two motorists over a fender-bender. Norris was the second choice to fight the 33-year-old former undisputed heavyweight champion.

Mike Tyson, the former world heavyweight champion who has spent far more time in legal hearings than in boxing rings lately, goes before yet another judge today, seeking clemency one more time for yet another behavioral problem. In his last hearing in October, before the Nevada State Athletic Commission, his boxing license was at stake. Today, he goes before Judge Stephen Johnson in Montgomery County District Court, and his freedom is at stake. Tyson is to be sentenced on two charges of second-degree assault stemming from an altercation with two motorists after a minor auto accident in Gaithersburg, Md., in August.

It is boxing's equivalent of bait-and-switch. You take two of the sleeker, shinier models on the showroom floor, plaster their names and features on billboards and in TV spots, and give everyone the impression they're somehow being paired off. Unsuspecting consumers who do not read the fine print might not catch the fact that the luxury vehicles on display actually are going against a pair of clunkers from the trade-in lot. But Saturday...

Ten days after Francois Botha was knocked out by Mike Tyson, Axel Schulz yesterday was knocked off the list of prospective opponents for Tyson's next fight. Wilfred Sauerland, Schulz's manager, said in Frankfurt, Germany, that Showtime, the cable network with a multiple-fight deal with Tyson, was not interested in the German heavyweight fighting Tyson April 24 in Las Vegas. "It's the end of all dreams," said Sauerland, noting a fight contract had been drawn up. Botha, knocked out in the fifth round by Tyson Jan. 16, outpointed Schulz for the vacant IBF title Dec. 9, 1995, at Stuttgart, Germany.

Mike Tyson returned to the ring last night, showing the rust of a 19-month absence. But he still had his punch. The former undisputed heavyweight champion knocked out Francois Botha in the fifth round at the MGM Grand Arena, ending a scheduled 10-rounder that sometimes looked more like a barroom brawl than a prizefight. Tyson, missing with wild power shots and often getting caught by Botha's short left-right combinations, dropped the South African with a short right hand to the chin late in Round 5 and watched without expression as referee Richard Steele counted to 10. Botha (39-1)

Francois Botha has never been jailed, convicted, indicted or arrested. He never ran the streets or had a run-in with police. Never abused his wife or anybody else's. Never had a drinking problem. He never did drugs, either, unless you count the steroids he tested positive for in 1995, which he swears to this day were administered by a doctor for an elbow injury. "Look at me," he said at the time, revealing a soft, pink body. "Do I look like I'm on steroids? If I am, they're not working.