Memphis may soon have something else to boast about besides Graceland.

If ticket sales for the Tyson-Lewis title bout go as expected beginning Wednesday, the city likely will be playing host to the richest fight ever on June 8.

With ringside tickets costing $2,400 and even nosebleed seats going for $250, Mike Tyson's fight with Lennox Lewis for the heavyweight championship could gross nearly $19 million from the live gate alone.

That would make it the biggest live gate ever, surpassing the $16.8 million that Lewis and Evander Holyfield brought in for their second fight Nov. 13, 1999, in Las Vegas.

"Nobody ever thought Memphis, Tenn., would host the biggest fight of all time," said Gary Shaw, Lewis' promoter.

Certainly nobody thought that in January when the fight was announced for April 6 at the MGM Grand hotel-casino in Las Vegas, the same property that was host to the infamous Tyson-Holyfield bite fight in 1997.

The fight was always going to be big, but many in boxing thought it was occurring five years too late and that Tyson's troubles outside the ring and the problems Lewis had inside of it would limit sales.

Tyson's outburst at a New York press conference in January, though, did more than just get the fight moved out of Las Vegas. It created a buzz that is allowing fight promoters to charge the highest priced ringside seats ever.

"This is the fight that boxing has been waiting for," said Shaw, president of Main Events. "It got derailed for a while and that derailment brought it more publicity than it would have ever gotten any other way."

Local promoters in Memphis landed the fight with a site fee bid of some $12.5 million. Their gamble figures to pay off now, assuming the public is willing to pay ticket prices astronomical even by boxing standards to be in the Pyramid arena on June 8.

Ticket prices for the biggest fights in Las Vegas are generally $1,500 at ringside, although the Lewis-Hasim Rahman fight in November had $2,000 ringside seats.

"I thought the prices were a little high, but I guess they can get it," said promoter Bob Arum, who does not have a stake in the fight. "I don't think the casinos would have stood for $2,400 tickets."

Local residents will get first chance at tickets Wednesday when a limited number of seats go on sale at the Pyramid. The tickets will be sold by lottery, with a maximum of two tickets each in the $250 and $500 categories.

Helping fuel sales will be an influx of British fans, who are expected to buy as many as 5,000 seats to cheer Lewis on.

"The demand is incredible. I think it will be sold out within a couple of days," Shaw said.

In addition to the lower priced tickets and the ringside seats, there are tickets in the $900 and $1,400 category. The average ticket price is more than $1,000.

In addition to the multimillion-dollar gate, the fight is expected to do big business on pay-per-view sales. The joint production by HBO and Showtime networks is expected to be bought by some 1.2 million homes, at about $50 a home.

Even at those figures, though, the fight will still lag behind Tyson-Holyfield II, which sold 1.9 million pay-per-view homes in addition to a live gate of $14.3 million.