DON KING was last night stripped of the rights to promote a WBC heavyweight title bout, a move that will cost Britain's Lennox Lewis £1 million but should assure him a fight in three months.

US Superior Court judge Amos Saunders ruled Don King Productions had failed to meet contractual obligations when the WBC, on September 26th, accepted the company's £6 million purse bid for a Lewis Oliver McCall fight.

Judge Saunders instead awarded the bout to New Jersey based Main Events, which bid over £4 million for the fight. Lewis and McCall are each guaranteed £2 million instead of the £3 million each would have received from King.

Lewis told Judge Saunders in the action in Paterson, New Jersey: "My concern is that a number of different times a fight was supposed to happen and it didn't happen. Every time it's in Don King's hands, it seems like something goes wrong."

WBC attorney Bob Shaffer called the contract problems "hypertechnical". Legal staff indicated they would appeal the decision.