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

If ticket sales for the Tyson-Lewis title bout go as expected beginning today, 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.