All The Rage

So, lacking recent bona fides ( Lou Savarese? Julius Francis?), Tyson plays his part the only way he knows how. "I wish that you guys had children," he tells the broadcasters during their audience, "so I could kick them in the f———head or stomp on their testicles, so you could feel my pain."

Oh, you can now add youngsters to that endangered species list. Old men, children and women—mind your asses, testicles and, you know....

Tyson, acting as a sort of aggrieved bully at every opportunity, has encouraged this characterization, but now it's worse. During his three postprison years under the promotion of Don King, he fine-tuned his portrayal of a fighter who was both dangerously savage and distressingly vulnerable. That was an important part of a comeback that began in August '95 and earned him $112 million for six fights (nearly as much as Tyson's lawyers claim King earned!), up to and including his disqualification in the second Holyfield fight, in June 1997.

His second comeback, begun after he served a "parole" handed down by the Nevada Athletic Commission after the ear-biting debacle, is now the subject of a $100 million lawsuit by Tyson against his former promoter (more on which later) but has otherwise proceeded without the cunning contrivance that King brings to boxing promotion. As a result Tyson's postsanction career has progressed by fits and starts, with one irrelevant bout there ( England), an insignificant one here ( Michigan). No titles, no legacy, no savings have accrued in the past three years. Only the prospect of a bout with Lewis, in the talking stages since 1996, has kept Tyson at all relevant (and his nervously grinning handlers, in the hole for millions, hopeful). Big, wild talk is required.

Consequently, this latest campaign has been conducted without any subtlety whatsoever. Whether by calculation or by some organic loosening of his id, Tyson has become something of a symbol for prepackaged calamity: Just open and add opportunity. Disaster! Six servings! Against Fran�ois Botha he tried to break an arm. In the Savarese fight he took on the ref. Two others since the Holyfield disqualification ended as no-contests (one of those not actually Tyson's fault). Of course, this is not to ignore his January press conference with Lewis, at which, in a mix-up during a photo opportunity, a Lewis camp member shoved Tyson, who had menaced the champion, and punches were thrown and legs (well, one) were bitten, forcing a continued exile from Las Vegas and an invitation from Memphis, where the money is presumably not Confederate.

Tyson, who was never one to couch his comments in traditional sports quote, has dialed up the rhetoric accordingly. When he is not threatening old men, women and children, he serves vitriol to Lewis, offering to "smear his pompous brains all over the ring." This is a declamatory upgrade from previous offers, in which he proclaimed himself eager to eat Lewis's (unborn) children. Lewis, by the way, is not as excited by these threats as you might suppose. "He's nothing but a cartoon character," Lewis said when the parade of international reporters visited him for a response.

Still, this is great for the promotion of their fight, which will take place in a sold-out Pyramid in Memphis (although it has been reported that fewer than 2,000 tickets were actually available to the public) and which will certainly generate more than one million pay-per-view buys. (It will not approach the 1.9 million record set by Tyson-Holyfield II because of rampant cable piracy, say broadcasters.) The New York City press conference by itself increased awareness of the fight by a third, according to Showtime boxing chief Jay Larkin, even though as a fighter Tyson remains as suspect as ever.

The question becomes, how much is Tyson promoting the fight (which is in his interest, given that industry insiders believe he still owes Showtime $12 million, a figure that could be recouped only if the bout sells through the roof—and, in any case, he's still living large), and how much is he just going crazy?

Tyson enjoys confounding you here, becoming playful and thoughtful, a guy who might be fun to be around if he weren't periodically promising your destruction. Those books behind you, Mike, you reading those? "You think they're window dressing?" he says, laughing.

And then he goes on to discuss them, purposely poking fun at his own ignorance (in comparison with the better-educated "erudite" sitting beside him) but, at the same time, challenging your perception of him as an unwary brute. It is clear, even if he hasn't read as many books as he might like you to believe, that he has a surprising and wide-ranging curiosity and is capable of more absorption than a testicle-stomping savage ought to be. So he delivers a highly entertaining and informed treatise on John Brown, on Machiavelli. "A fool," he says, "but not a damn fool."