by David P. Greisman

Former heavyweight titleholder Herbie Hide will spend less time behind bars for conspiring to supply cocaine. His attorney appealed the original 22-month sentence, and the appeals court judges cut the sentence to 18 months, according to BBC News.

Hide pleaded guilty in November. He’d been accused of arranging for an undercover reporter from tabloid newspaper The Sun.

The reporter posed as a wealthy man and “talked of a lack of good quality cocaine in the Norwich area, but Hide offered to get some,” a past BBC article said. “He arranged for [another defendant] to obtain four grams of cocaine worth £400, which he then handed over to the reporter.”

The 42-year-old was 49-4 with 43 knockouts. He held a heavyweight world title twice during the ‘90s — losing it to Riddick Bowe in 1995 and Vitali Klitschko in 1999 — and had continued to box at or around cruiserweight over the past several years. His last bout was in April 2010.

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