ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, May 12, 1996 TAG: 9605130181
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: NEW YORK
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
FORMER CHAMPIONS Lennox Lewis and Tim Witherspoon also win heavyweight bouts.
Evander Holyfield, who has his sights set on becoming heavyweight champion a third time, stopped Bobby Czyz after five rounds Friday night at Madison Square Garden because Czyz had trouble seeing.
Holyfield, a former undisputed champion, dominated Czyz through the first five rounds. During a rest break after the fifth round, Dr. Rufus Sadler went to Czyz's corner and Czyz told him, ``My vision is blurry and my eyes are burning.''
Sadler asked Czyz if he could continue and the fighter told him ``not realistically.''
Czyz's corner thought Holyfield might have had something on his gloves but referee Ron Lipton said that after the fight was stopped, he rubbed Holyfield's gloves against his own eyes and nothing happened.
While Holyfield had it easy, former WBC champion Lennox Lewis had all he could handle in scoring a roundly booed majority decision over Ray Mercer in the second fight on the three-bout card.
In the opening bout, Tim Witherspoon, a former WBC and WBA champion looking for another title shot at the age of 38, knocked down Jorge Luis Gonzalez twice and stopped him at 2:54 of the fifth round.
The three 10-round heavyweight bouts were watched by 17,041 fans that paid a gate of $1,938,965.
Czyz, a former IBF light-heavyweight champion and WBA cruiserweight champion, simply did not have the strength or punching power to keep Holyfield away.
The 33-year-old Holyfield, 211 pounds, got inside any time he wanted and scored well with short punches to the head.
In the third round, Holyfield pinned Czyz, 210 pounds, to the ropes and worked him over until Lipton gave Czyz a standing-eight count.
In the fifth round, Holyfield landed several short rights to the head that stunned Czyz early in the round and hurt him with left hook just before the bell.
Czyz said he started having vision problems after the second round.
Lewis, 30, of Britain, said he thought he did enough to win his fight against Mercer, but many in the crowd disagreed.
One judge scored the fight even, another gave Lewis a two-point victory margin and a third favored Lewis by one point.
The 6-foot-4 Lewis, 247 pounds, scored often with his left jab and landed several sharp uppercuts, but the 35-year-old Mercer, standing 6-2 and weighing 236 pounds, landed many punishing left jabs that backed Lewis up and had him in trouble on a couple of occasions.
There were no knockdowns but both fighter's faces were badly marked and both were bleeding from the mouth.
``I hit him with some shots and he kept coming,'' Lewis said. ``Ray Mercer gave me a lot of pressure. This was a positive step toward a [Mike] Tyson fight. I'm not taking any easy fights. This was preparation for a Mike Tyson fight.''
Holyfield, 32-3 with 22 knockouts, and Lewis, 29-1 with 24 knockouts, each were guaranteed $2 million. Witherspoon, 35-4 with 30 knockouts, earned $200,000.
LENGTH: Medium: 70 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP Lennox Lewis (left) takes a blow delivered by Rayby CNBMercer during their bout late Friday night in Madison Square Garden.
Lewis won the match by split decision. KEYWORDS: BOXING