Boxing: Lewis offers dollars 8m to fight Foreman

FRUSTRATED by the impasse between himself and Riddick Bowe, Lennox Lewis has turned his attention to a world champion of an earlier vintage by offering to fight George Foreman for a purse of at least dollars 8m ( pounds 5.2m).

Frank Maloney, the manager of the World Boxing Council title holder, sent Foreman, 44, an offer earlier this week saying that the fight would be staged in New York at a date to be negotiated. Foreman's advisers stated that he was interested but committed to fighting Tommy Morrison in April.

Foreman, who knocked out Joe Frazier to win the world title in 1973 and lost it to Muhammad Ali the following year, has enjoyed a prosperous comeback, his challenge to the then undisputed champion, Evander Holyfield, ending in a narrow points loss two years ago. Bowe's manager, Rock Newman, recently had discussions with Foreman to try to bring past and present champions together some time this year, at the end of which Foreman has vowed to retire for good.

Dismissing Maloney's offer as a 'public relations exercise', Newman added chaos to confusion by suggesting that Frank Bruno deserved a chance to aim his arrows at Bowe. 'They are two giant men who would set the boxing world on fire,' he asserted.

ITV, meanwhile, have signed a deal to screen Bowe's next five fights, four of them on an exclusive basis. Coverage of Bowe's first World Boxing Association /International Boxing Federation defence against Mike Dokes in New York on 6 February, will be shared with the BBC.