While most NBA superstars are forced to remain idle while the lockout drones on with no end in sight, one of them has an interesting option.

Shaquille O'Neal has been offered $2 million by promoter Bob Arum to box the king of the four-rounders, Butterbean. Arum called Shaq's agent, Leonard Armato, to make what Arum called "a very serious offer for the bout."

If the lockout goes on, Arum says the four-round bout could be staged early in 1999. He said it could be billed as a battle between the two heaviest bald men in the world. No word yet from Shaq.

Winner take all
The Ring magazine's fighter of the year award will be decided on Saturday when Floyd Mayweather Jr. defends his WBC super featherweight crown against Angel Manfredy.

The winner of that match will recive Ring's highest honor, adding extra suspense to what is already a highly anticipated match. Both Mayweather and Manfredy won big matches in 1998. But the oddsmakers say Mayweather will win this one. He's now a 2½-to-1 favorite. We'll see on Saturday.

That's not the point
The Ivan Robinson-Arturo Gatti rematch was almost as good as the original -- and that's saying a lot.

Robinson won again, but it wasn't easy, nor was it always fair. In the eighth round, Gatti was finally penalized a point for low blows after many had strayed low in the match. But this punishment hardly deterred him. In the next round he unleashed a ton of illegal punches below the waist line that went unnoticed and unpunished by referee Benji Esteves. At the very least, another point should have taken away.

As it turned out, amazingly, Gatti lost by only one point on two of the scorecards, so that one deduction was the difference. That's astonishing since Robinson landed 102 more punches, according to CompuBox numbers.

It's in the genes
Two members of the Spinks family have already won world titles. That would be brothers Leon and Michael. But, soon another member of the family may join them.

Twenty-year-old Cory, Leon's son, is a sure bet to win a world title. He failed last week to take the IBA junior welterweight crown from Antonio Diaz, but lost a very close split decision. Spinks has hands and foot speed to burn, and the only thing he needs to win a world title is experience.

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