Tyson-Holyfield Talks Break Off : Boxing: Fight won’t be held until after January, if at all. Heavyweight champion will face another challenger in next bout.

NEW YORK —  After several hours of heated meetings Tuesday at the Manhattan offices of HBO, the Evander Holyfield-Mike Tyson fight was knocked out for January.

All parties--Holyfield promoter Dan Duva and manager Shelly Finkel, Don King and his lawyer, Bob Hirth, and executives of TVKO and Caesars Palace--were unable to agree on a January date for the fight, which had been postponed from Nov. 8 because of a rib injury suffered by Tyson. Tyson, charged with rape, is scheduled to go on trial in Indianapolis Jan. 27.

“It’s not our fault Tyson got indicted, and it’s not our fault Tyson got hurt,” said Lou DiBella, an attorney for TVKO, which was underwriting most of the $45 million in purses for the fight and providing the pay-per-view telecast.

“But we’re not going to jeopardize our income-making potential because of Tyson.”

The talks stalemated when it became apparent that none of three proposed dates in January--the 10th, 17th or 20th--were acceptable to both TVKO and Caesars. The first two were preferred by TVKO, but not by Caesars because of the lack of available hotel rooms. And the 20th was unacceptable to TVKO, which feared being sandwiched between a pay-per-view pro wrestling event two days earlier, and the Super Bowl on Jan. 26. And Holyfield had made clear his displeasure with fighting outdoors on any day in January.

“We are only interested in what’s best for Evander,” Finkel said. “Don was upset, but if the situation’s not right for us, we’re not going to do it.”

Yesterday’s meeting quickly turned nasty.

“There was a lot of yelling and screaming in that room,” said TVKO’s Mark Taffett. At one point, King outraged the Holyfield camp and TVKO by offering that Tyson would be available “any day after Dec. 13.”

On Saturday, Dr. Gerald L. Higgins said Tyson would need six to eight weeks to recover from his rib injury, and to force him to fight sooner would be “a moral compromise.”

King’s proposal was immediately rejected. A source at TVKO said: “We’re not going to be part of a sham. We all heard what the doctor said. What if we put the fight on Dec. 20 and Tyson takes a shot to the ribs in the first round and goes down? What happens to our credibility with the public that’s paying $40 to see the fight? That would be a disgrace.”

At another point, King told the Holyfield camp, “If it doesn’t happen now, it’ll never happen.”

Finkel said: “I don’t know if he meant that he was annoyed at us and was going to not fight us out of spite or if he meant that maybe Tyson is going away.”

It is expected that King and his attorneys will try to get a postponement of the trial, citing a delay in their obtaining transcripts of the grand jury testimony. If they are successful, the Holyfield-Tyson fight could be rescheduled for late March or early April.

TVKO, which had hoped to salvage a Nov. 8 show with Riddick Bowe fighting the main event, has now decided to cancel the entire card. Meanwhile, Holyfield will now make a lesser title defense in November on HBO, but details are unresolved.