Lewis in danger zone

Boxing

Lennox Lewis is to fight the former World Organisation heavyweight champion, Tommy Morrison, in Atlantic City on 7 October.

Panos Eliades, Lewis's main financial backer, expects the fight to be formally signed within the next 48 hours, adding: "A deal has been done for WBO champion Riddick Bowe to fight Evander Holyfield and for Lennox to fight Morrison.

"The first draft for Lewis-Morrison has been agreed, with one or two amendments. Atlantic City is the hot favourite to stage it. There's no doubt it's a dangerous one for Lennox, but at this stage of his career, only this type of fight will motivate him.

"He doesn't want to fight Joe Hipp [the next challenger to World Association holder Bruce Seldon] or Francois Botha [who meets Axel Schultz for the vacant International Federation crown]. Most of the other fighters in the heavyweight division seem to want easy bouts, but Lennox wants difficult ones."

Lewis-Morrison was originally set up for a World Council/WBO unification match in 1993, but the multi-million dollar fight came to nothing after Morrison's surprise WBO title loss to Michael Bentt.

But Morrison has hauled his way back and recently stopped Donovan "Razor" Ruddock, who was beaten by Lewis, and both men are set to earn big pay days for their non-title affair, which amounts to being a world title eliminator mainly funded by the American pay-per-view network, Home Box Office.

Lewis is also in contention for a WBC title fight, having halted Lionel Butler in May's final eliminator in Sacramento, but with Mike Tyson back on the scene as the WBC's No 1 contender without a warm-up fight, a meeting against the winner of the Oliver McCall-Frank Bruno fight on 2 September may not come automatically.