AMERICA AT LARGE: The guessing here is that Don King won't be within a thousand miles of Memphis on the night of June 8th. The self-proclaimed World's Greatest Promoter will neither be bankrolling nor sharing in the proceeds of what unquestionably looms as the Fight of the Century (all right, it's been a pretty short century), but, perhaps unwittingly, King paved the way for Lennox Lewis v Mike Tyson to take place in Memphis, Tennessee on that night.

By last week, the other pretenders had fallen by the wayside, and it was abundantly clear that Lewis-Tyson was either going to happen in Memphis or it wouldn't happen at all. Backed by a consortium of casinos across the state line in Tunica, Mississippi, a pair of club-fight promoters named Brian Young and Michael Lampley thought they had rounded up the cash to post the requisite $12.5 million site fee, which was approximately $12.5 million more than anyone in Washington had raised.

Then, a week ago today, the First Tennessee Bank, which had initially agreed to post the letters of credit, convened an emergency session of its board of directors, and, citing "moral grounds" (read: Tyson) withdrew the financial commitment. "This," a board member apologetically explained, "is still the South."

While the local promoters were beating the bushes for hard cash over the weekend, a more ominous deadline loomed for Lewis. The International Boxing Federation had given the champion until last Monday to either sign to fight Tyson, agree to face number one contender Chris Byrd, or be stripped of recognition as the organisation's champion.

King, in the meantime, had slinked in under the radar with a counter-proposal of his own: Lewis could ditch Tyson and fight Byrd atop a King-promoted all-heavyweight card which would also have included WBA champion John Ruiz's compulsory defence against Canadian Kirk Johnson, and a third bout matching former champions Evander Holyfield and Hasim Rahman.

The scheme was intriguing for a few reasons. First of all, with three competitive match-ups involving recognised names, the card would have had the Las Vegas casinos falling all over one another in a bidding war, and second, would not, in Tyson's absence, have faced any licensing problems in Nevada.

Moreover, by tying up the half-dozen participants, King would have effectively deprived Tyson of any credible opposition, meaning in turn that the cannibalistic ex-champion might have had to settle his impending lawsuit with King if he wanted to fight a big-money opponent.

If King's scheme would have been unpalatable to Tyson, it would have represented disaster for Showtime. The network, which had already entered into a co-operative agreement with arch rival HBO to telecast the pay-per-view coverage of the fight, has approximately $10 million tied up in loans and advances to Tyson, which it wouldn't have had a hope in hell of recouping had Lewis-Tyson fallen apart.

And by midday Monday, the chances of exactly that happening were good.

Young and Lampley had managed to come up with just $4 million in secured letters of credit, but, staring two deadlines in the face, Showtime opted to bite the bullet and "backstop" the gate. After persuading Tyson to take a reduction in his $17.5 million guarantee, Showtime agreed to make up any shortfall.

The irony is that the network, which doesn't even have the rights to the live telecast, has become the largest single investor in the Lewis-Tyson fight.

SINCE all indications are that the heavyweight bout is going to hit a home run at the box office, the risk may be minimal, but Showtime now faces another task: they have to get Tyson through the next 11 weeks and make sure he actually climbs into the ring with Lewis.

Ross Greenburg, the head of HBO sports, suggested this week that extraordinary precautions will be taken. Lewis and Tyson, for instance, will conduct separate press conferences, the better to avoid any repetition of the ugly scene which ensued at their January gathering in New York, when Tyson precipitated a free-for-all during which he allegedly bit a chunk out of Lewis's leg.

The casinos in the dusty towns across the Mississippi line have reportedly guaranteed the purchase of all the ringside seats at the 20,000-seat Pyramid, the venue for the fight, although tickets have yet to go on sale.

Even though the ticket prices haven't even been announced (best guess is that the nosebleed seats will start at $250, with ringside seats costing $2,500), the Pyramid's website (which normally gets 1,000-2,000 hits per hour) was tracking 70,000 hits an hour on Tuesday morning, topping out at 100,000 hits over the noon lunchtime hour.

The Memphis Convention and Visitors Bureau opened its switchboard at 6:45 a.m. and hotel rooms in downtown Memphis are already virtually sold out.

"Anybody who's anybody is trying to put the squeeze on us," the manager of the downtown Marriott told the Memphis Commercial Appeal. "George W Bush himself couldn't get a room right now."

In a time-honoured Southern tradition, the hostelries that do have space have tripled their rates and are demanding three-nights' prepayment to hold a room. Flights connecting between the United Kingdom and Memphis are sold out for three days before the bout. A representative of Lennox Lewis Travel in London (which is no doubt holding considerable space on the sold-out flights) expects that as many as 4,000 to 5,000 fight fans might fly in from Britain.

For what? That Tyson still represents a credible force on the heavyweight scene is surely an illusion. Consider: Over the past decade he has averaged just four rounds a year, much of it against nondescript opposition. He lost (to Holyfield) both of the last two title fights in which he participated, and since being released from prison seven years ago he has, let's see, bitten off Holyfield's ear, punched Orlin Norris after the bell, tried to break Francois Botha's arm, attacked referee John Coyle in Glasgow, tested positive for marijuana in Michigan, and threatened to eat Lewis' nonexistent children. He did a stretch in jail for beating up two elderly motorists in a Maryland road-rage incident, and has been accused of, but not prosecuted for, at least three rapes.

He has earned over $200 million in the ring but is by all accounts dead broke. Showtime holds liens on his houses and his cars, he reportedly owes America Presents' Mat Tinley another $2.5 million, and is so deeply in arrears to the tax man that the Internal Revenue Service will take a healthy chunk of his purse even before Showtime gets a chance to recoup its money.

Tyson could well come out of this "blockbuster" fight with less money than he started with, but at least he'll have the IRS off his back. And for that he can thank the man he believes to be his worst enemy on earth - Don King.