Dan Gross: TAKEN BY FARCE! 'Nails' says he didn't screw anyone in local guy's celebrity boxing debacle

LENNY DYKSTRA did not fight Jose Canseco Saturday night.

That's all that we know for sure.

As for why the former Phillies star did not take part in the Battle of the Baseball Bad Boys, during Alki David's "Celebrity Fight Night" in Hollywood, we got a different story from all sides involved.

Damon Feldman, the Broomall-based Celebrity Boxing promoter, who is no longer allowed to legally promote fights in Pennsylvania after pleading to charges of promoting without a license and fight-fixing, initially said that he and David, a Nigeria- born Internet mogul, paid Dykstra $5,000 cash on Thursday to fight Saturday but that Dykstra alerted promoters just hours before the fight that he would not be participating.

But last night, Feldman recanted his previous claim that he had paid Dykstra $5,000 cash in person on Thursday.

"It was loud," Feldman said as to why he had misunderstood a question we asked him Saturday night and yesterday afternoon, when he emphatically stated that he personally had paid Dykstra in cash, in $100 bills.

Dykstra, in an exclusive statement to the Daily News, says that at no point had he agreed to participate in the fight, and that Dan Herman, 26, of Chester County, whom he calls "A starf---er," booked the fight without his consent and made up quotes in the press, including the Daily News, that Dykstra hated Canseco. Dykstra says that he doesn't even know Canseco and has no beef with him.

"I never agreed to anything," the embattled Dykstra told us yesterday in an email. "Damon Feldman and Alki David continued to use my name to sell tickets and promote their event up until the last minute. They showed up at my door unexpected, I didn't even know who they were," Dykstra explained. He then showed Feldman and David an angry email he sent to Herman Wednesday night, chewing out Herman for booking the fight without his permission.

By phone yesterday, Dykstra denied that Herman was ever his business manager. "If he's my business manager, I'm a f---in' ballerina," he told us.

"That's why he's a convicted felon, because he never tells the truth," Herman said yesterday.

"Lenny was very much aware of the fight," Herman said last night. "He needed the money. He had me go revise the contract at least five times before he agreed to the terms . . .. He told me he had clearance from the judge since it was in L.A. So I told Damon to go forward. Lenny then sent me the exact address where he wanted me to show up with the money. He did not tell me it was a rehab place."

"People contact me with s--- all the time," Dykstra told us by phone last night. "But there was no signed agreement. They can't promote an event with my name and make money off my name unless they have a signed agreement. They know that. What they did was actionable. I heard they sold the place out. How much money did they make from the pay-per-view?"

Dykstra wrote to us: "After they read the email and I made it clear to them that I was not going to participate in their event, Mr. Alki David immediately offered me $15,000 on the spot if I would agree to participate. As much as I would have liked the money, I respectfully declined." Still known to many as Nails, Dykstra said that David offered "to pay me $15,000 if I would make a comment on video stating the reason I couldn't participate was due to an injury. He said it would take no more than 30 minutes, but once again, I declined and turned down the $15,000 as I was not going to lie," said Dykstra, who adamantly stated that "I wasn't paid a f---in' penny."

Feldman admits that he and David showed up at the Hills Treatment Center, in Los Angeles, where Dykstra is under the treatment of Dr. Howard Samuels, to discuss the fight with Dykstra for the first time, having made previous arrangements with Dan Herman. Feldman denied that he or David had offered Dykstra money to record a video saying that he was injured. Dykstra, meanwhile, says he is not "in rehab," he is merely staying with a friend, Dr. Samuels, who runs a rehab facility.

Dykstra says that it is "disturbing" that Feldman and David "kept using my name to promote their event even after they learned the real facts and me telling them in person I would not participate."

"It is my understanding that Daniel Herman, of Philadelphia, a former associate of Lenny Dykstra, misrepresented himself as Mr. Dykstra's business manager to Damon Feldman, a promoter of Alki David's Celebrity Boxing Night," David said in a statement last night. "It is our understanding that Mr. Herman also misquoted Mr. Dykstra in a press release sent out earlier this week."

David said that he and Dykstra met last week and "even though Mr. Dykstra was willing to take part in the match against Jose Canseco as a charitable novelty event, Mr. Dykstra was unable to attend because of personal reasons."

The former Phillies outfielder, who declared bankruptcy last year and faces a variety of criminal charges related to his finances and alleged inappropriate behavior with a housekeeper, says that he planned only to speak with the Daily News because his dear friend, Fox 29 meteorologist John Bolaris, said that we could be trusted to write the truth.

"John has stuck by me through thick and thin, he is a real friend, a loyal friend, and an honest person who I happen to trust a great deal," Dykstra wrote. "That being said, John told me that I can trust you to write the truth, so thank John, because that is what you are going to get, the truth backed up by facts."

Dykstra said he was unable to comment in any fashion about any of the criminal charges he is facing, but he hopes to soon.

Meanwhile, Canseco fought Tareq Salahi, known from "The Real Housewives of D.C.," and for crashing a state dinner at the White House. Canseco won after Salahi bowed out after the first round. Other bouts: Joey Buttafuoco lost to Lou Bellera, husband of Buttafuoco's former teen mistress, Amy Fisher. Fisher lost to Nadya "Octomom" Suleman. Rapper Coolio lost to "Baywatch" actor Jeremy Jackson. Tattooed tramp Michelle "Bombshell" McGee, who slept with Sandra Bullock's ex-husband, Jesse James, defeated Violet Kowal. And pint-size reality star Tila Tequila lost to Cami Parker, from HBO's "Cathouse."