Fit to fight?
Tyson begins psychological testing ordered by Nevada
Posted: Thursday September 24, 1998 10:55 AM
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The sculpted Tyson will now work on his mental health AP |
BOSTON (AP) -- Mike Tyson, suspended from boxing for biting an opponent's ear, will let a team of Massachusetts General Hospital doctors determine whether he is psychologically fit to return to the ring.
The former heavyweight champion was in Boston on Wednesday to begin the psychological and neurological tests ordered by the Nevada Athletic Commission, which gave him a list of three facilities to administer the tests, and a deadline of next Monday for doctors to submit reports on his mental state.
Besides MGH, the other facilities were the Mayo Clinic in Rochester Minnesota, and C.F. Menninger Memorial Hospital in Topeka, Kansas.
The examination was ordered by the commission following a six-hour hearing last Saturday on Tyson's request for reinstatement. He has been banned since the commission revoked his license July 9, 1997 for biting Evander Holyfield's ears.
"We're putting together a complete evaluation, like any evaluation involving the ability of people to return to work," Dr. Ronald Schouten, who heads MGH's law and psychiatry program and is overseeing Tyson's comprehensive work-up, told The Boston Globe.
"It's a very sensitive matter, so we're being very careful about confidentiality," said Schouten.
Schouten would not discuss details of the exams, or say when the results might be completed.
Mark Ratner, spokesman for the Nevada commission, told the Boston Herald the battery of tests was expected to last three days.
A letter sent to Tyson and his advisers on Monday from the Nevada commission said the team of doctors evaluating him must include a psychologist, a psychiatrist and a neuropsychologist. Also, boxer must be given comprehensive neuropsychological testing as well as an MRI of the brain and a complete drug screen.
In addition, the commission wants the doctors who evaluate Tyson to look at videotape of his fight against Holyfield, as well as from post-fight interviews and license reinstatement hearings in New Jersey and Nevada.
"What we expect from the team that will be evaluating him is a team approach to Mike, his cognitive abilities and his psychological abilities, and his ability to go back into the ring," Dr. Edwin "Flip" Homansky, chairman of the medical advisory board to the Nevada commission, told the Globe.
If Tyson is cleared by the doctors, the Nevada commission is expected to give the former heavyweight champion a new boxing license on October 3.
After his 1995 release from an Indiana prison, where he served a rape sentence, Tyson's first opponent was Peter McNeeley of Medfield, Massachusetts. That bout ended after 89 seconds when McNeeley's corner threw in the towel.
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