Samuel Peter became the World Boxing Council's (WBC) interim heavyweight champion on Monday after Oleg Maskaev dropped out of their Oct. 6 title fight with a back injury.
Maskaev (34-5, 26 KOs) won the WBC heavyweight title by knocking out Hasim Rahman in August last year, but the Russian-American champion hasn't been back in the ring since December because of injuries and slow negotiations for new fights.
Last Friday, he scrapped his scheduled bout with Peter at Madison Square Garden because of several herniated discs in his back. Maskaev is expected to be out of action for at least three more months.
Faced with more than 14 months without a heavyweight title fight, the WBC's board of governors voted to hand the interim title to Peter (28-1, 22 KOs), the rising Nigerian fighter.
He still hopes to appear at the Garden on Oct. 6, though a replacement opponent hasn't been chosen or approved. Andrew Golota, the erratic Polish heavyweight who's winless in four previous title bouts, is thought to be the leading candidate.
Peter hasn't lost in four fights since dropping a decision to Wladimir Klitschko in September 2005 despite knocking down the current IBF champion three times. Peter beat James Toney twice in WBC elimination bouts over the last year while waiting for a title shot.
Peter's fight with Maskaev was to be the centerpiece of the first fight card on the Garden's new ring after its 82-year-old ring was donated to the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Tyson confesses love for drugs
Former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson on Monday pleaded guilty to charges of drug possession and driving under the influence stemming from a traffic stop last year as he was leaving a nightclub.
Tyson quietly acknowledged to a judge that he had cocaine and was impaired when he was stopped for driving erratically in the Phoenix suburb of Scottsdale on Dec. 29.
He pleaded guilty to a single felony count of cocaine possession and a misdemeanor DUI count and faces up to four years and three months in prison when he is sentenced on Nov. 19.
A felony charge of possession of drug paraphernalia and a second misdemeanor DUI charge were dropped as part of a plea agreement.
Defense lawyer David Chesnoff said Tyson has been clean and sober for eight months.
Police stopped Tyson after the boxer had spent the evening at Scottsdale's Pussycat Lounge. An officer said he saw Tyson wiping a white substance off the dashboard of his black BMW, and that his speech was slurred. Authorities said they found bags of cocaine in Tyson's pocket and in his car.
Tyson told officers later that he used cocaine "whenever I can get my hands on it," and that he preferred to smoke it in Marlboro cigarettes with the tobacco pulled out, according to court documents. He also told police that he used marijuana that day and was taking the antidepressant drug Zoloft, the documents state.
Since his arrest, Tyson checked himself into an inpatient treatment program for what his lawyer called "various addictions."
County Attorney Andrew Thomas said Tyson should be put in prison, noting that Tyson was convicted of rape in Indiana in 1992 and pleaded no contest to misdemeanor assault charges in Maryland in 1999.
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