Lewis Turns Attention to Douglas and Briggs

With a heavyweight unification bout against Evander Holyfield ruled out for now, Lennox Lewis plans to make his next title defense against Shannon Briggs or Buster Douglas.

A bout against either one would take place March 28, probably in Atlantic City, N.J., Lewis and his manager, Frank Maloney, said Wednesday.

“I’m just looking forward to getting on with my career and eventually I will unify the belts one way or another,” said Lewis, the World Boxing Council champion. “Defending against Briggs or Douglas is not like fighting Holyfield, but I know I’ll have to be 100% because those men want to take the title away from me.”

Maloney said he made contingency plans in the event the Holyfield fight didn’t come off.

“We’ve continued to look in other directions,” he said. “We lost the March 7 date, but now we’ve got March 28, so we’re going full ahead with that.”

Briggs won a 12-round majority decision over George Foreman on Nov. 20 at Atlantic City. The outcome was so startling that even Briggs (30-1) was surprised to be declared the winner.

Douglas is 6-0 since returning from a six-year absence. He rocketed to prominence by knocking out Mike Tyson in Tokyo in 1990, but lost the title to Holyfield in his first defense. Douglas ballooned to nearly 400 pounds and slipped into a diabetic coma.

Baseball

Pitcher Steve Reed signed a one-year contract with the San Francisco Giants.

Reed, a 31-year-old right-hander, was 4-6 with six saves and a 4.04 earned-run average in 63 appearances last season with Colorado.

Free-agent outfielder Shane Mack has agreed to a one-year contract with the Oakland Athletics.

Mack, a former UCLA standout, spent last season with the Boston Red Sox, where he batted .315 with three home runs and 17 runs batted in in 60 games. Mack, 34, has a .300 average in eight major league seasons.

Former Dodger outfielder Brett Butler will be saluted at a Jan. 3 banquet honoring his work for CaliforniaKids, an organization dedicated to providing health care services to children of low-income families.

Miscellany

Tim Weiser is the new athletic director at Colorado State. Weiser, 39, replaced Tom Jurich, who became athletic director at Louisville in October. Weiser will leave as athletic director at Eastern Michigan and begin his new job next month.

Police in London are investigating reports that a betting syndicate may have been responsible for a blackout that postponed a Premier League soccer match.

The Daily Express suggested a Far East gambling group sabotaged the floodlights at a match between Wimbledon and Arsenal Monday night at Selhurst Park. The game was called with the score 0-0 early in the second half.

Olympic and World Cup mountain bike champion Paola Pezzo of Italy has tested positive for steroids and faces a ban of up to a year, Italy’s Olympic Committee said.

Pezzo became a celebrity in Italy last summer when she rode to victory in Atlanta wearing a revealing top. She has since appeared in dozens of ad campaigns.

Blood samples taken after Pezzo’s World Cup win Sept. 6 in France showed traces of a banned substance, and a Dec. 18 test confirmed the result, said Massimo Fabricini, spokesman for Italy’s Olympic Committee.