The Damiani-Snipes Dive (for the WBO belt) and the Hit on Don King ...

Not sure if this was brought up or not. I wasn't here a lot earlier this month.



Apparently, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano wanted to have Francesco Damiani (who was controlled by two mob brothers) defend his WBO title against his fighter Renaldo Snipes in Italy, have Damiani throw the fight, and then have Tyson fight Renaldo Snipes for the WBO belt (for big money).

(Snipes is the "over-the-hill" guy he's referring to. He brought up Snipes in testimony during one of his trials.)

Apparently, King turned him down and said he didn't want any part of it for Tyson. Gravano told John Gotti, and Gotti told Gravano to send someone back to King and make the fight. And if King turned him down, the guy should shoot King in the head.

Gravano said he told the guy to go back to King and if he declined, to shoot King. But Gravano said the guy "disappeared" ... and he said Damiani lost to some lesser guy (who apparently was Ray Mercer in January 1991), so the mob lost the belt anyway.

But it is interesting that after the first Ruddock-Tyson fight in March 1991, Tyson was scheduled to fight Renaldo Snipes ... but the controversial Ruddock fight caused there to be a rematch. So the Snipes fight was put on hold. And then Tyson was charged with **** and didn't fight for years.

It's also interesting that this New York Times article King said it would be no problem to pay Snipes a "step aside" fee ... which one contender wouldn't normally have to pay to another ordinary contender if one contender just decided to fight someone else.

So maybe King did pay Gravano some money anyway to just get out of it and be rid of Snipes.

I listened to the whole interview. It lasts about two hours. Very good listen. He also blasts Teddy Atlas near the end of the longer interview and calls him a *****. Pretty funny.

Here's the New York Times blurb from March 26.

Mike Tyson and Razor Ruddock will meet in June at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas, Nev., in a rematch of their controversial fight, Tyson's promoter, Don King announced, yesterday. The date will be announced by King and Ruddock's promoter, Murad Muhammad, at a news conference today. It's expected to be either June 22, 28 or 29.

Tyson won a disputed victory on March 18 when Referee Richard Steele stopped the bout at 2 minutes 22 seconds of the seventh round following a flurry of punches by the former heavyweight champion that sent Ruddock stumbling backward. Ruddock, who earlier had been knocked down twice, appeared only slightly dazed and objected bitterly to Steele's decision.

King originally planned to match Tyson against Renaldo Snipes on June 8 at the Mirage, but said he anticipated no trouble in compensating Snipes to step aside. (AP)


A version of this article appears in print on March 26, 1991