Tyson Wins but Not by a Knockout : Decision Over Tillis Snaps a Streak by Young Heavyweight

It looks as if boxing will have to wait a few more fights for its savior, a curious block of muscle known as Mike Tyson, 215 pounds of promise that as yet remains unfulfilled. He’s still undefeated after 20 fights and still the hope of a desperate division. But he is not, as James (Quick) Tillis demonstrated, a finished piece of work.

In fact, Saturday, in an Adirondack arena hard by his Catskill camp, the boy wonder of boxing suffered some growing pains.

You could see it in his eyes as he stalked the ring afterward, looking uncertainly upon the Civic Center crowd. It wasn’t that the decision, yet to be announced, would be close, a freak knockdown being the difference between a victory and a draw on two judges’ scorecards, but that it was a decision at all. It was his first in 20 amazing fights, after 19 knockouts, and he didn’t like it and the crowd didn’t like it.

And you can be sure that the larger world of boxing, which is waiting somewhat impatiently for Tyson to grow into a credible champion and restore respect to the heavyweight division, didn’t like it either.

Tyson had never needed more than six rounds to dismantle his opponents, and 12 times he did it within one. The sight of this compact hulk moving across the ring, his gloves held tightly in front of his lips as if to hide a bone-chilling smile (it is actually cherubic), has been impressive enough that you wonder why some of those one-round knockouts lasted so long.

So how could it take 10 rounds to defeat, and narrowly at that, a warhorse like Tillis, a man who had lost every important fight he’d been in? What gives?

Later, Tyson would explain his failure to take Tillis out by saying he “was laying for one punch, an uppercut, and (I) wanted to take him clean. I never got that opportunity.” Later, Tyson’s co-manager, Jimmy Jacobs, would say that the lapse was a most positive experience. “It’s simply marvelous for the fighter,” Jacobs said. “Now, he knows he can go the distance.”

But neither Tyson nor Jacobs could cloak the disappointment in the air. It’s as if nobody thought that Tyson, after all, just 19, would ever have any trouble in a man’s game. Expectations have been high. But of course, they have been unrealistic as well.

Anybody would have had trouble with Tillis, 27, a promising contender until Mike Weaver sent him into decline five years ago. At 207 3/4 pounds, he was in the shape of his life. And though clearly an “opponent,” an upgraded stiff meant to provide some quality to Tyson’s list of victims, he was certainly of a mind to fight back. He had his own plans.

And if not for a wild left hand that Tyson easily evaded in the fourth round, Tillis might have had his own future. But Tyson stepped around and delivered a crisp left hook of his own, and Tillis, off-balance, spun down. Until that exchange, which came within 10 seconds of the bell, Tillis appeared to be winning the round. Had he won the round, the scores on two of the cards would have been 5-5 instead of 6-4, Tyson. Even with the third card, which favored Tyson, 8-2, the decision would have been a majority draw.

But what happened, happened. People ordinarily fall down when Tyson hits them. Tillis didn’t fall down as most had, but once was enough.

Tyson tried to shrug off the disappointment, saying: “I’m moving up in class. For people who don’t understand, if a fighter doesn’t want to get knocked out, he won’t get knocked out.”

Not that this punching prodigy was without visible effect. In the first round, Tyson delivered three right hands to Tillis’ body that resonated throughout the hall. And again in the fifth, he delivered several smacking rights to the body. He also opened cuts inside Tillis’ mouth in the sixth round and ripped a small tear above his left eye with a staggering right hand that Tillis, amazingly, recovered from.

The question, thus, was to Tillis: Did he hurt you? “I’d say he hurt me,” Tillis said. “You could see he was hurting me. . . .” Tillis, the Fighting Cowboy from Tulsa, went on to recommend that Tyson hereafter keep company with Earnie (Acorn) Shavers when hard hitters are evaluated. “He punches harder than the Acorn,” Tillis said, “and the Acorn can crack.”

Still, Tyson did not do as much damage inside as he normally does, and he was strangely inactive in the final three rounds. He said he was waiting for an opportunity to send Tillis back on the horse he rode in on. And Tyson got hit with some open shots, contradicting any possible notion that he can’t take a punch but still encouraging some other heavyweights in the division.

There is plainly work to be done. But in his amazing two-fights-a-month career, he has hardly shirked that. Since he has plans to fight again May 20 (Mitch Green) and again June 13 (Reggie Gross), you can be sure that he will get that work. But now, he doesn’t have to knock them out to win. He just has to win.