Can Tyson recapture the magic?
Posted: Monday October 19, 1998 03:19 PM
Now that Mike Tyson has found out that he can work in Las Vegas, sources inside the Tyson camp tell me he'll fight December 5 -- probably at the MGM Grand Hotel. The most likely opponent is veteran heavyweight Lou Savarese, with Shannon Briggs a possibility.
My sources say Tyson was banking on Nevada officials to forgive him. He also hedged his bets if the Vegas hearing didn't go his way. Knowing other state boxing commissions would have honored a continued Nevada ban, Tyson considered a fight on an Indian reservation -- perhaps Foxwoods in Connecticut.
The other option if he had been rejected in Nevada was for Tyson to fight overseas. The bottom line is Tyson needs to fight before the end of year because he's desperate for money. The IRS is hovering, waiting to be paid $13 million Tyson owes in back taxes.
If he doesn't produce some cash by the end of the year, he could lose the three homes he owns in Las Vegas, Ohio and Connecticut that are worth about $20 million. If he doesn't fight, he'd be forced to file for bankruptcy, most likely Chapter 13, which would save his properties and buy Tyson time to pay off his creditors -- who include everything from jewelry stores to a lion tamer.
Tyson was generous to a fault with his money but it strikes most as incredible that a man who has made an estimated quarter of a billion dollars in the ring could be virtually broke. As for Tyson's new management team, Shelley Finkel is still the frontrunner to be his business manager. Finkel sat in on talks with Showtime television. And finally, there's Magic Johnson, whom we've learned is talking seriously with Tyson about becoming his next promoter and who attended Monday's reinstatement hearing.
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