Give them this much: Vaughn Bean and Zeljko Mavrovic appear to have effected what all the King's horses and all the King's men could not accomplish.

If the boxing world is to see its first undisputed heavyweight champion in half a dozen years (and with the agreement hammered out in London this week, that would appear to be on the cards), Bean and Mavrovic deserve at least as much of the credit as Don King and Panos Eliades, the promoters who brokered the deal for an Evander Holyfield-Lennox Lewis fight early next year.

Despite their obvious ineptitude, Bean and Mavrovic, a pair of top-ranked but second-rate heavyweights, managed to make Holyfield and Lewis appear sufficiently woeful in a pair of points decisions last month that their respective promoters were sent racing to the bargaining table.

Although the two champions (Holyfield holds the titles of the World Boxing Association and the International Boxing Federation; Lewis is recognised by the World Boxing Council) had been skilfully avoiding one another for the past two years, the message forthcoming from last month's defences was that it was time to cash in the chips before the pot disappeared.

For one thing, both Holyfield and Lewis looked vulnerable enough that there loomed a clear and present danger that one or the other might lose the next time he stepped into the ring, thereby costing himself the biggest payday of his career.

For another, if they had a few more fights like those in which they engaged last month, nobody might have cared whether Holyfield and Lewis fought each other or not.

On September 19th in Atlanta's Georgia Dome, Bean extended the 36-yearold Holyfield the 12-round distance in an odoriferous contest. Although the champion was credited with the evening's only knockdown, even that was dubious. (Already comfortably ahead, Holyfield shoved Bean through the ring ropes and then floored him with a right to the head as he attempted to disentangle himself; had, say, Mike Tyson done the same thing he might have been disqualified.)

Lewis had even less trouble with Mavrovic, the Croatian creation with whom he did battle a week later. Staged in a 5,000-capacity tent erected beside a casino on a Connecticut Indian reservation, the bout saw Mavrovic land just 11 punches (and just over four jabs) per round. Despite the fact that he was engaged in what amounted to a protracted sparring session with an opponent whose style made him almost impossible to miss, a huffing and puffing Lewis was unable to dispatch the challenger.

"I trained wrong," he would later explain. "I thought this guy was going to run from me, so I trained by chasing my sparring partners around the ring. That was a mistake I won't make again."

The verbal sparring began almost immediately. Lewis's trainer Emanuel Steward, who once trained Holyfield, began to refer to the three-time world champion as "Evader."

King started describing Lewis as "the most wanted man on earth."

And, with a sense of impending urgency, HBO, the Time-Warner cable network which will underwrite the $28 million purse guarantees ($20 million of which will go to Holyfield), nudged both camps toward a rapprochement.

"But the offer we had on the table was pretty much the same one we'd made before," said HBO sports vice-president Lou DiBella. "I think if anything, Evander may have put some pressure on Don."

King, who had co-promoted a boxing card at the Palais Omni Sport Bercy on Saturday night, flew from Paris to London last Monday, and following whirlwind negotiations with Eliades and Lewis's manager Frank Maloney, reached an agreement for a 1999 fight which will produce what the promoter called "the undisputed, unadulterated, unmitigated heavyweight champion of the world."

Although neither champion has yet signed the contracts for the fight (which will take place on either February 27th or March 7th, probably in Las Vegas), King insisted: "I have already talked to Evander and the fight is on.

"We do not want no outs," added the self-styled `World's Greatest Promoter.'

Ironically, the agreement was reached on the same day the Nevada Supreme Court ordered the release of Tyson's psychological profile. The 41page study had been ordered by the Nevada State Athletic Commission which will consider the relicencing petition of the former champion at a hearing this coming Monday.

Conducted by a six-man team of shrinks from the Massachusetts General Hospital, the report concluded that Tyson, while profoundly disturbed and in need of psychotherapy, is nonetheless "mentally fit to return to boxing," an assessment which suggested that while the doctors might not have a very high opinion of Tyson, they share an undeniably low regard for boxing.

The psychological evaluation (which Tyson himself described as "a crazy-test") might have been the biggest hurdle, but it is by no means the only one the former champion will have to clear if he is to be re-licensed Monday. He is also scheduled to go on trial in Maryland that same morning on assault charges filed after he allegedly kicked one man and punched another after a minor traffic accident in August. While Tyson, on the advice of his attorneys, did not address the incident at last month's hearing in Las Vegas, the Nevada commissioners have said that will not be good enough this time around. The Internal Revenue Service has a $13 million lien against Tyson. Presently cash-strapped, Tyson has also filed a $100 million breach of contract suit against King.

Tyson, who has been training in Phoenix, already has a date (December 5th) and a site (Las Vegas) for his first foray into the ring since the night he ate Holyfield's ear 16 months ago. What he does not have is an opponent - or the $13 million.

Holyfield, on the other hand, has both.