TAPIA-ROMERO TITLE BOUT CAME AT OPPORTUNE TIME.

Byline: MICHAEL ROSENTHAL

The entertaining, incident-free fight between Johnny Tapia and Danny Romero on Friday came at the right time for boxing. And HBO.

The television cable network had endured a three-ring string of embarrassments: Two bouts in which Andrew Golota was disqualified against Riddick Bowe for low blows and Henry Akinwande was disqualified against Lennox Lewis for incessant holding.

And, of course, these disasters came around the same time as the Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson bomb and other sorry fights.

``I don't like to see anything that makes boxing look like wrestling,'' said Seth Abraham, head of Time-Warner Sports. ``Wrestling is like vaudeville, burlesque. It's a form of entertainment.

``Boxing's a serious sport, a serious business. These spectacles (Tyson, etc.) make it look more like wrestling. It's bad for boxing, bad for business.''

What to do?

Abraham believes his company's longstanding policy of ignoring the myriad - and all-but-meaningless - boxing organizations is a start.

There are four ``major'' sanctioning bodies - the WBC, IBF, WBA and WBO - and so many minor organizations it's difficult to keep track. Each ranks fighters in the 17 weight classes to determine who must fight whom for their respective titles.

One problem, though. Echoing what everyone in the boxing business knows, Abraham said: ``Ratings are bought and sold.''

That means promoters and managers slip the organizations a few bucks and their fighters - regardless of ability - find themselves in big-money fights but often don't have the skills to perform.

Abraham thinks the Lewis-Akinwande fight is a perfect example.

``After the fight, the WBC was trying to defend Akinwande's No. 1 ranking. It's absurd,'' Abraham said. ``. . . People like Don (King, Akinwande's promoter) take advantage of what the organizations let them do. What does HBO do? It tries to get promoters to pay its fighters the same amount of money to fight quality opposition, regardless of the rankings and mandatory defenses.

``That's the real cancer of the sport.''

Sometimes HBO's tack works. It did with Tapia and Romero, whose junior bantamweight title bout was an intense, but controlled and clean exhibition of top-level boxing.

Another good example is King and Showtime's Tyson-Holyfield I, one of the most exciting and meaningful bouts in years.

Sometimes it doesn't work. Take the Golota-Bowe fights. Golota, perhaps the best heavyweight in the world, certainly deserved his shots against Bowe but refused to fight cleanly.

There's no way to avoid the latter. In boxing, with its fine line between human competition and animal behavior, fighters will occasionally resort to their back-street instincts.

The point is this, though: It is rare when two fighters at the top of their game meet in the ring. The more it happens, the better off boxing is.

Contradiction: With all his talk about quality matchups, Abraham is in on negotiations to have Lennox Lewis defend his title against 49-year-old George Foreman.

Talk about disasters.

Lewis-Foreman would be a terrible fight. Lewis is far too quick and athletic for old George. The Briton could punch and move for 12 rounds without taking a single punch.

Foreman needs to fight someone like Ray Mercer or Golota or Tyson, someone who will come right at him.

Virtuoso performance: As remarkable as the fact the Tapia-Romero fight came off without a hitch was Tapia's performance.

Long underrated, Tapia proved he's one of the 10 or 15 best fighters pound-for-pound in the world. His combination of raw intensity and natural ability are rare, indeed.

Tapia seems to be one of the few who fight as much for the love of boxing as for the money.

Before the opening bell against Romero, he wanted to get at the challenger so badly he had to be held back. And between rounds, he could barely remain seated on his stool he was so anxious to mix it up.

COMING UP

Friday: On ESPN, Orlando Canizales faces Edwin Santana in a 12-round featherweight bout in Las Vegas.

Saturday: Hector Lopez of Palmdale defends his NABO junior welterweight title against Mark Lewis in Las Vegas.

Also Saturday, in Japan, Stevie Johnston defends his WBC lightweight title against Hiroyuki Sakamoto.

Sunday: On ESPN2, in Baton Rouge, La., Otis Grant faces Danny Garcia for Grant's NABF middleweight title.

July 28: At the Forum, Jorge Eliecer Julio takes on Oscar Maldonado for the vacant WBO bantamweight title.

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: The fight between Johnny Tapia, left, and Danny Romero on Friday was a good show for HBO.

Associated Press

Box: COMING UP (see text)