Dealing with Iron Mike

Banning Tyson from Nevada won't fix boxing's problems

Boxing, as we all know, is belt-deep in its own mess anyway. It always has been. If there's not a crooked judge in the mix, or a phantom punch or some cartoonish "promoter," if there isn't a bunch of hoo-hah from any of the sport's ridiculously self-absorbed ruling bodies -- none of which anyone can keep straight without a lifetime subscription to Ring magazine -- well, it's just not boxing as we know it.

Throwing Mike Tyson and his multi-million dollar fight with Lennox Lewis out of Las Vegas won't fix it.

Tuesday afternoon, the five members of the Nevada Athletic Commission will meet to decide whether to grant Iron Mike a license to fight. At stake is the future of what's being called the richest fight in boxing history.

The Lewis-Tyson fight, scheduled for April 6 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, could bring a purse of more than $100 million. Deny Tyson his license, force him to fight in another state or another country, even, and an estimated $300 million boost to Las Vegas' economy will go with him.

It won't be an easy decision for the commission, which first banned Tyson after he chomped Evander Holyfield's ear back in 1997. He has tested positive for marijuana since then. He's punched a couple of opponents after rounds. (He wailed on Francois Botha after the bell in a 1999 fight in Vegas, which cost Tyson his Nevada license again.) He went after one poor sap after the fight was over.

He threatened, not so long ago in one of those classic Tyson moments that has earned him first-ballot entry into the Classless Jerk Hall of Fame, to eat Lewis' children. To eat them.

"I'm not a role model or Mr. Politically Correct," he said last week after his latest row, the one that prompted the Nevada board to force him into appearing Tuesday to argue for his license.

No, Tyson is no role model. Unless the role he's trying to model is of Out-of-Control Sports Idiot.

Still, all of Tyson's sins, past and present, may not get him booted out of Nevada in the end. Millions of dollars is a lot of money. And money talks, of course. In Vegas, it screams.

The casinos and hotels in Vegas could use this fight, for sure, hurting as they are after Sept. 11. And if they don't get the fight and all that money, someplace else probably will. There's already lots of talk that another state and another venue -- Madison Square Garden, anyone? -- will snap up the fight if the commission turns down Tyson.

"We're there to regulate and protect the integrity of boxing," commissioner John Bailey, a Vegas attorney, has been quoted as proclaiming.

So, then, how do you justify licensing a guy like Tyson? Last week, in a press conference for the fight with Lewis, he triggered an all-out melee on stage. Punches were thrown, bodies fell all over the place, legs were possibly bitten. Even the president of one of those asinine alphabetic ruling bodies -- I think it was the WBC -- was knocked cold in the fracas.

Afterward, Tyson went into one of the foulest-mouthed tirades ever heard outside of prison walls. It was all bleeped out on the evening sportscasts, but even then it was shocking in its brutal vulgarity.

The rant was racist. It was homophobic. It was vile and threatening and wildly obscene, even by boxing's standards. If John Rocker had said anything close to what Tyson said last week -- and Rocker's well-hyped diatribe against New Yorkers, Asians and others was a lullaby in comparison -- he'd have been banned from baseball for life.

Role model? Tyson is a convicted rapist who has another sexual assault charge hanging over him, a charge that could be taken into consideration by the commission Tuesday.

No. No one should ever want to be like this Mike.

The Nevada commission has a chore, all right. But as the members start to deliberate, they ought to know this: To allow this fight to take place, to put millions of dollars into Tyson's pocket is giving credence, however tacit, to Tyson's views, to his way of life, to his runaway ego.

It's true, banning Mike Tyson from fighting in Nevada won't fix boxing's problems. But the Nevada commission should ban him anyway. Just because it's the right thing to do.

John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.

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