Round 1?

Showtime Event Television and Home Box Office Sports executives attending last Tuesday's press conference announcing the April 6 Mike Tyson-Lennox Lewis mega-fight got more than they bargained for. Instead of sitting on a stage together at the Millenium Hotel in New York, touting a rare union between the two rival pay-per-view networks, SET chief Mark Greenberg and HBO Sports head Ross Greenburg found themselves fleeing for safety after a full-fledged brawl broke out between Lewis and Tyson. No one from either networks' camp was hurt (unlike Tyson who suffered a cut on his forehead and Lewis, who allegedly was bitten) but both were disappointed at the events of the day.

"You never want this situation to develop for the sport. [World Wrestling Federation Entertainment president] Vince McMahon can go ahead and stage these type of events, but I have no interest in them," HBO's Greenburg said.

But the craziness didn't stop there. After the fracas subsided, Tyson came back on stage possibly set a world record for profanity when a writer suggested the ex-convict should be placed in a straitjacket.

Showtime and HBO aren't likely to air the ex-champ's amazingly obscene rant, but you can download every choice X-rated word on the Web site www.maxboxing.com.

Knicks Lose, Dolan Wins

Fortunately for Cablevision Systems Corp. CEO James Dolan, not even the horrendous play of the New York Knicks could put a damper on his spectacular wedding to Cablevision digital products executive Kristin Reynolds two weekends ago in Palm Beach, Florida.

Dolan accompanied the faltering Knicks on a road trip just before the wedding, and his spirits couldn't have been brightened by the Cablevision-owned team's recent losing ways. But the bad vibes surrounding Latrell Sprewell and company were quickly dispelled as some 400 wedding guests, including high-profile media execs like NBC's Bob Wright and VH-1's John Sykes, descended on Donald Trump's opulent Mar-a-Lago seaside estate.

Rock and roll ruled on Saturday night as Dolan whipped the crowd into a frenzy playing lead guitar for his Simpson House Band. The wedding ceremony the following afternoon was a more subdued black tie affair, and, according to one guest, no one doubted that the bride and groom were "two people very much in love."

Hopefully, Dolan was incommunicado on his honeymoon, because the next day the Knicks lost by 43 points, their worst loss ever at Madison Square Garden and eighth straight, as fans booed and chanted "Re-fund, re-fund."

Whatever Happened To…

Ever wonder where that person you worked with 10 (or five, or two) years ago landed? Well, don't despair. It turns out that Lela Cocoros, former flack at Tele-Communications Inc. and then AT&T Broadband, and now a principal, along with fellow former TCI/AT&T publicist LaRae Marsik at October Strategies, is compiling the cable industry's equivalent of the Book of Records. It comes in the form of an ever-expanding database of people who work — and used to work — in the business.

Cocoros says she has 1,600 names and counting in her FileMaker Pro database. The archive, it turns out, is a combination of her fondness for amateur sleuthing (she successfully tracked down her Romper Room teacher in Rochester, N.Y.) and a means to drum up business for Denver-based October Strategies.

She takes special pride in keeping track of former TCI employees ("several hundred" are currently on the list), and loves finding former cable people popping up in unexpected places — like ex-TCI and TCI Satellite Entertainment Inc. exec Lloyd Riddle, who's now president of Natraflex Brands, a velvet antler dietary supplement supplier. "In an environment where everyone is running around in different directions," Cocoros said, "we're like the keepers of the flame."

Look for some of those old familiar faces in the "as the leaf turns" section of the firm's Web site, www.octoberstrategies.com.

Where's The Commish?

Monster TV sports deals like last week's National Basketball Association $4.6 billion media contract with AOL Time Warner and The Walt Disney Co.'s ABC/ESPN don't happen every day. And when they do, network execs and the sports league's commissioner traditionally gather for a gala press conference/love fest.

This time around, however, Disney and Turner Network Television merely did separate telephone conference calls on Jan. 22 — and NBA commissioner David Stern wasn't on either one. An NBA official said Stern was attending a sports marketing event that morning, while Turner and ESPN executives opined that the logistics of having one press event for the deal (despite the fact that it was weeks in the making) were unfeasible.

Perhaps smarting from criticism that the agreements drastically reduce the number of games on broadcast TV, Stern finally got on the phone later in the day and went into spin mode on Bloomberg Television, ESPN.com and other media. Sounds to us like he scrambled to get back on defense.

Correction, And More

For those of you keeping score at home, MuchMusic USA viewers had the chance to vote for videos that do or don't suck as part of the interactive service's "Big Suck Weekend" on Jan. 19 and Jan. 20 — not "You Suck Weekend" as was reported here last week. As voted by viewers on www.mmusa.tv
the week of Jan. 14, those that made the suck list: Ozzy Osbourne's "Dreamer" and Sum 41's "Motivation." Among those that didn't suck: Wu-Tang Clan's "Pinky Ring" and Chemical Brothers's "Star Guitar." MuchMusic featured a new "Big Suck Weekend" on Jan. 26 and Jan. 27.