LENNOX LEWIS looks set to box Kirk Johnson, the Canadian, on June 21 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, but only his lightly regarded IBO heavyweight title will be on the line, after the WBC refused to sanction the bout.

Gary Shaw, the promoter, appeared to have beaten the Lewis team to the punch in announcing the contest, with Mike Tyson boxing on the undercard, but since he is a promoter affiliated to the Sport Entertainment Media Group, the company that manages Lewis, he has his ear close to the ground. It will be Lewis’s first bout in the city. “That’s why he’s so excited, to have everybody see him in Los Angeles,” Shaw said. “I think it will be a great card.”

There was silence, however, from the Lewis team. Adrian Ogun, his manager, is in the United States at present, ironing out whether the bout would be for Lewis’s WBC title, as well as for the IBO one.

However, the WBC issued a statement yesterday refusing to sanction the contest. The WBC’s No 1 contender is Vitali Klitschko, from Ukraine, and the organisation had only agreed to sanction a bout against either him or Tyson.

Shaw said that Tyson, whom Lewis beat with an eighth-round knockout in his previous bout in Memphis last June, was likely to box Oleg Maskaev, of Uzbekistan. It will be Tyson’s second bout since the Lewis defeat, after his one-round knockout of Clifford Etienne in February.