BOXING Heavyweights battle to regain fans support

The division has lost a lot of its fan interest in recent years.
NEW YORK (AP) -- The scene was the living room of Chris Byrd's Las Vegas home, and the subject was the state of the heavyweight division.
On one couch was Byrd, the IBF heavyweight champion. Across from him was Hasim Rahman, who wants to be champion once again.
Both fight Saturday night at Madison Square Garden. Not surprisingly, both are offended by the notion that the fractured heavyweight division isn't what it used to be.
"I think the fighters now are just as good but they just don't have the names that boxing used to have," Byrd said. "Everybody can fight, but we're not getting the publicity. People may think the division is weak, but I don't think so."
Blames promoters and TV
Neither does Rahman, who blames promoters and television networks for not making today's heavyweights the household names they should be.
"Promoters are playing keep away," Rahman said. "They're really hurting the heavyweight division by not letting their fighters fight anyone who might beat them. There's no reason why the top 10 fighters shouldn't be fighting each other."
Some of them will Saturday when Byrd defends his title against his good friend, Jameel McCline, and John Ruiz risks his WBA crown against Andrew Golota. Rahman fights Kali Meehan, with the winner in line for a title shot against WBC champion Vitali Klitschko, and 42-year-old Evander Holyfield battles on against Larry Donald.
In all, it's nearly a ton of heavyweights with aspirations but very little following from anyone other than the most die-hard of boxing fans. On a truck axle scale together at Thursday's weigh-in, they totaled 1,872 pounds.
The Don King card isn't likely to jump-start a heavyweight division muddled since the retirement of Lennox Lewis, but at least it will give some work to fighters such as Byrd and Ruiz who haven't always been given their due.
Good fights expected
"Maybe we don't have a Mike Tyson or that one dominant guy, but when everybody gets in line there will be some good fights," Byrd said. "Just like it was in the '70s, when those guys fought everybody."
Byrd is a headliner of sorts on the heavyweight card, though the Ruiz-Golota fight is attracting interest mainly because no one knows how Golota will behave in the ring against a boxer who can be very frustrating to fight.
Outside the ring, Byrd and McCline are close friends, and their wives even closer. But business is business, and McCline is the mandatory challenger for the IBF belt Byrd kept in April with a draw against Golota.
"We tried to avoid this for a long time," Byrd said. "But McCline is the mandatory for me. I had no other choice."
Takes clinical approach
Though he would rather not defend against his friend, Byrd says he will take a clinical approach to the third defense of the title he won two years ago against Holyfield.
"In the ring it will be pure competition," Byrd said. "I don't know you as a person in the ring. You're trying to knock me out and I'm trying to win a fight."
McCline faces the same problem. Not only is Byrd his friend, but also one of his idols.
But he seems to have put those thoughts out of his mind.
"I deserve to be here. I worked real hard to get a title shot," McCline said. "I dig Chris and his family, but I want what he's got, so I'm tired of this friendship stuff. This is business. Once you step in there, there are no friends."