Vitali Klitschko

WBC heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis can fight Mike Tyson, as long as that bout is followed by a mandatory defense against Vitali Klitschko. WBC vice president Ruben Martinez said Saturday that Lewis has until June 30 to fight Tyson, a more lucrative fight than a bout against Klitschko. "We want to let him have that," Martinez said. "But whoever wins that fight has to box for the title against Vitali Klitschko within 120 days. " Tyson has not agreed to another fight against Lewis, saying he needs more fights to prepare.

VITALI KLITSCHKO will defend his WBC heavyweight title against Britain's Dereck Chisora before turning his attention to a possible last bout against David Haye . Klitschko's management group announced yesterday that the 40-year-old Ukrainian (43-2, 40 KOs) will fight Chisora (15-2, 9 KOs) in Munich's Olympic Hall on Feb. 18.   Colleges *  San Diego State will move from the Mountain West to the Big West in 14 sports, including basketball, starting in the 2013-14 academic year.

DERECK CHISORA apologized "wholeheartedly" yesterday for the brawl with David Haye that followed Chisora's loss to WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko . Haye blamed Chisora for the clash that followed his fellow Londoner's defeat in Munich and the beaten challenger has acknowledged that violence at the news conference had marred the biggest night of his career. Chisora, who was questioned for 7 hours by German police and is being investigated by the British Boxing Board of Control over the incident, did not say what provoked him to descend from the top table and confront Haye.

The NFL will begin a program to promote diversity in league hiring practices, including modifying a rule to allow assistant coaches on playoff teams to interview for head-coaching positions. The new rule to give more opportunities to minority candidates will go into effect immediately, the NFL said yesterday. League owners have also agreed in principle that any team seeking to hire a head coach will interview at least one minority. The exception would be when a team already has made a commitment to promote a current assistant, as the St. Louis Rams did with Mike Martz.

WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko yesterday announced he was retiring. Klitschko, 34, was facing a 6-month recovery after tearing a ligament in his right knee. He had pulled out of Saturday's title defense against Hasim Rahman in Las Vegas because he hurt his knee last week in training. The WBC said earlier this week that Rahman would be given Klitschko's title should the Ukrainian fail to defend it within 3 months. Auto Racing Four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Al Unser was resting and expected to make a full recovery after doctors in Colorado removed a tumor from his liver.

Heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis is considering retirement and has decided against fighting again this year, meaning a discussed rematch against Vitali Klitschko in December won't take place. "Lennox has been very public in his comments that he was seriously considering retirement, that he just wasn't sure he wants to go forward," Lewis' attorney, Judd Burstein, said yesterday from Westport, Conn. "He is still considering whether he wants to keep fighting. " Klitschko was upset upon hearing the news.

The World Anti-Doping Agency completed the final draft of global rules for drugs in sports, including 2-year suspensions for steroids. It represents the first international standard for banning and testing for substances and sanctioning offenders. WADA president Dick Pound expects the code to be approved at a conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, next month. Pound hopes to have the code in place for the 2004 Olympics, but some governments asked if it could wait until the 2006 Olympics.

Former heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe will fight for the first time in 3 years on the undercard of the IBF title fight between Wladimir Klitschko and Hasim Rahman in Germany. Bowe's opponent for the Dec. 13 fight is yet to be determined, promoters said yesterday. Bowe, 41, retired in 1996 and came back in 2004. He had another fight in 2005 and has not fought since. Bowe's only loss in 43 fights was against Evander Holyfield, who at 46 is preparing to fight Nikolai Valuev next month for the WBA title.

Former WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko gave up his bid to fight for his old title in June, allowing No. 1 challenger Samuel Peter to take on current champ Oleg Maskaev. Bernd Broente, Klitschko's manager, said yesterday the Ukrainian is guaranteed to fight the Maskaev-Peter winner later this year. The decision ends months of wrangling between Klitschko and Peter. The Nigerian refused $2.5 million to step aside and let Klitschko sign for a lucrative title bout in Moscow.

World champion Tyson Gay pulled out of the Van Damme Memorial track meet in Brussels, Belgium, yesterday, leaving Asafa Powell as the main challenger to Usain Bolt, the Olympic triple gold medalist. Gay, recovering from a hamstring injury, said the prospect of running in the cold weather was too risky. Bolt holds the world record in the 100 meters at 9.69 seconds. Powell, who finished fifth in the Beijing Games, matched the second-fastest time ever of 9.72 on Tuesday. Pro basketball NBA commissioner David Stern was so angered by the alleged actions of rookies Mario Chalmers and Darrell Arthur that he ordered their expulsion from the league's rookie transition program on Wednesday, ESPN the Magazine reported yesterday.

DERECK CHISORA apologized "wholeheartedly" yesterday for the brawl with David Haye that followed Chisora's loss to WBC heavyweight champion Vitali Klitschko . Haye blamed Chisora for the clash that followed his fellow Londoner's defeat in Munich and the beaten challenger has acknowledged that violence at the news conference had marred the biggest night of his career. Chisora, who was questioned for 7 hours by German police and is being investigated by the British Boxing Board of Control over the incident, did not say what provoked him to descend from the top table and confront Haye.

VITALI KLITSCHKO will defend his WBC heavyweight title against Britain's Dereck Chisora before turning his attention to a possible last bout against David Haye . Klitschko's management group announced yesterday that the 40-year-old Ukrainian (43-2, 40 KOs) will fight Chisora (15-2, 9 KOs) in Munich's Olympic Hall on Feb. 18.   Colleges *  San Diego State will move from the Mountain West to the Big West in 14 sports, including basketball, starting in the 2013-14 academic year.

Roxborough's Gabriel Rosado , relying on superior punching power, earned a 10-round unanimous decision over Keenan Collins of Reading for the Pennsylvania state junior middleweight title Friday night at the Asylum Arena in South Philadelphia. Rosado, 25, who won his fourth consecutive fight, improved to 18-5 with 10 knockouts. Collins, 34, dropped to 13-7-2 (9 KO's). The three judges had Rosado winning all 10 rounds with 100-90 scores. In the co-feature, undefeated welterweight Ronald Cruz of Bethlehem, Pa., improved to 14-0 (11 KO's)

Kyle Busch earned his 10th career victory at Bristol Motor Speedway with a dominating run in the Nationwide Series race on Saturday. Busch led 266 of the 300 laps for his third Nationwide win at Bristol. Kasey Kahne finished second and was followed by Dale Earnhardt Jr., Elliott Sadler , and Joey Logano . In her Bristol debut, Danica Patrick lost control on Lap 247 while running in close quarters with Ryan Truex and crashed. Her 33d-place finish knocked her to ninth in the standings.

Germantown featherweight Coy Evans doesn't want his claim to fame to be the answer to a trivia question: Which fighter won the final bout at the Blue Horizon? "I've heard a lot about that possibility lately," said Evans, who scored a unanimous, six-round decision over Barbaro Zepeda on June 4, 2010, possibly the last at the Blue Horizon. "I guess there is a pretty good chance that I'll wind up being the last fighter to win there. I'm hearing they might not reopen the place. " The Blue Horizon has been padlocked since Evans' bout because of an unpaid tax bill by its owners.

FORMER HEAVYWEIGHT champions Larry Holmes and Lennox Lewis, members of one of boxing's more exclusive fraternities, will be at ringside tomorrow night to support four-time former heavyweight titlist Evander Holyfield in his latest attempt to thwart Father Time, that most daunting of opponents for fighters on the shadowy side of 40. The 48-year-old Holyfield (43-10-2, 28 KOs) takes on journeyman Sherman "Tank" Williams (34-11-2, 19 KOs) in a scheduled 10-round, pay-per-view bout at The Greenbrier, a resort in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va.

Vitali Klitschko punished Shannon Briggs for 12 brutal rounds to retain his WBC heavyweight title with a unanimous decision in Hamburg, Germany. AUTO RACING: NASCAR will move to an ethanol blend fuel in all three of its national series beginning next season. The fuel will be blended at Sunoco's facility in Marcus Hook. NBA: Cleveland's Antawn Jamison and Anthony Parker missed the Cavaliers' exhibition game against CSKA Moscow with injuries. COLLEGE BASKETBALL: Tickets for Temple men's and women's basketball games go on sale 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Liacouras Center box office.

Since Lennox Lewis retired in 2003, the heavyweight championship of the world - most of the more recognized crowns anyway - seemingly have been held in the iron grip of two large, dominating Ukrainian brothers with high knockout percentages and, for whatever reason, limited appeal on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. So, what would it take to break that Eastern European stranglehold on what for so long was recognized as the most prestigious individual title in sports? For starters, a competitive bout - there haven't been too many of those of late - against someone as capable of putting a hurtin' on a Klitschko as they are of dishing them out. Such a matchup might be in the offing tonight, when IBF/WBO heavyweight champ Wladimir Klitschko (54-3, 48 KOs)

Fresno State and Nevada are leaving the Western Athletic Conference for the Mountain West. The schools ended a wild day by announcing they are accepting invitations to join the Mountain West, which has added three prominent members of the WAC in the last 2 months. Boise State already is bound for the MWC next year and now the Bulldogs and Wolf Pack are following as well, leaving the WAC's future in question and the Mountain West preparing for life after Utah and possibly Brigham Young.

HE HASN'T BEEN around quite as long as Bernard Hopkins , but it has been quite a spell since Michael Grant was considered the Next Big Thing in the heavyweight division. The 6-7, 250-pound Grant, with that body-by-Michelangelo, was hailed as the "most athletic heavyweight ever to put on gloves" by his then-trainer, Don Turner , in the days leading up to his April 29, 2000, challenge of WBC/IBF champion Lennox Lewis in Madison Square Garden. But Grant, despite myriad skills that might have resulted in a pro career as a football, basketball or baseball player, lacked a quality that is most useful to would-be boxing titlists: a sturdy chin.