TYSON SAGA WAS THE YEAR'S MAIN EVENT.

Byline: Associated Press 

Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis won in 1998, but the biggest boxing drama of the year played out in a Las Vegas hearing room when Mike Tyson got his license back.

Tyson's ban from boxing for biting Evander Holyfield's ears ended when the Nevada State Athletic Commission voted 4-1 on Oct. 19 to restore his license. He is set to fight Francois Botha on Jan. 16 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

Out-of-ring problems, however, did not end for the 32-year-old former heavyweight champion.

On Dec. 1, he pleaded no contest to misdemeanor charges that he kicked one man and punched another following a fender-bender on Aug. 31 in Gaithersburg, Md. He is to be sentenced Feb. 5, and an Indiana judge will then decide how it will affect Tyson's probation from his rape conviction. His probation is scheduled to end in March.

Holyfield and Lewis defended their heavyweight titles and were set for a championship unification fight March 13 in Madison Square Garden in New York.

Holyfield, the 36-year-old IBF-WBA champion, outpointed Vaughn Bean in less-than-exciting fashion in an IBF mandatory title defense before 41,357 fans in the champ's hometown of Atlanta. He was supposed to make a WBA mandatory defense against Henry Akinwande of Britain on June 6 in New York, but the fight was called off when Akinwande tested positive for hepatitis-B.

Lewis, the 33-year WBC heavyweight champion from Britain, escaped serious trouble in the first two rounds and stopped Shannon Briggs in the fifth round on March 25 in Atlantic City, N.J. He also made a mandatory defense in which he was unimpressive in outpointing Zeljko Mavrovic of Croatia on Sept. 26 at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn.

Boxing's biggest non-heavyweight attraction, Oscar De La Hoya, defended the WBC welterweight title twice. In the second defense, he stopped Julio Cesar Chavez of Mexico in the eighth round of their rematch.

De La Hoya was supposed to defend his title against former WBA welterweight champ Ike Quartey of Ghana, but that Nov. 21 bout was rescheduled for Feb. 13 in Las Vegas after De La Hoya got cut while sparring.

In November, a woman sued De La Hoya, accusing him of raping her in a hotel room in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in June 1996. A lawyer for the 24-year-old boxer said the suit was financially motivated.

Roy Jones Jr., considered by many boxing people to be the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world, fought three times - winning two championship fights and one non-title match.

In the non-title bout, he stopped Virgil Hill, a former light heavyweight champion, in the fourth round. Jones, who will turn 30 on Jan. 16, added the WBA light heavyweight title to the WBC championship he already held by outpointing Lou Del Valle on July 18.

Fernando Vargas emerged as a potential star on Dec. 12 when only five days after his 21st birthday and in his 15th pro fight, he stopped veteran Yory Boy Campas of Mexico to win the IBF junior middleweight championship.

De La Hoya's battering of Chavez, a former junior lightweight, lightweight and junior welterweight champion, probably ended the 36-year-old Mexican's career, at least as a major fighter.

The career of Roberto Duran, the stuff of legend, also apparently came to an end when the 47-year-old Panamanian was stopped in the third round by William Joppy in a bid for the WBA middleweight title.

Duran posted a 102-14 record and won lightweight, welterweight, junior middleweight and middleweight titles in a career that began in 1967. During that time, the only years in which he didn't fight were 1985 and 1990.

Archie Moore, Harry Markson, Chris Dundee and Don Dunphy, all who played key roles in boxing for decades, died during the year.

Moore, 84, scored 141 knockouts in an incredible 27-year career that ended when he was 49. He was light heavyweight champion for nine years.

Markson, 92, was involved in the promotion of more than 2,000 fights by the time he retired as president of Madison Square Garden Boxing in 1973. Dundee, 91, was a longtime promoter and manager and brother of trainer Angelo Dundee. Dunphy, 90, known as the Voice of Boxing, called more than 2,000 fights on radio and television.

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Photo

PHOTO Mike Tyson playfully bites shirt of 2-year-old Florin Bouros at a Phoenix gym after a workout in October.

Ken Levine/Associated Press