MADE IN JAPAN: A RISING STAR : Unbeaten Tyson Wins Hearts of Japanese Fans as He Puts Title on Line Against Tubbs Tonight

In a dark second-story boxing gym above a noisy downtown Tokyo street Saturday, a great Japanese champion from the past tried to account for Mike Tyson’s enormous popularity in Japan.

Fighting Harada, as Masahiko Harada was known in the 1960s when he was both a flyweight and bantamweight world champion, talked animatedly in a long conversation during which one word was repeated frequently.

The word was spirit .

“Tyson’s appeal in Japan has to do with his spirit,” he said, through an interpreter. “Japanese sports fans are fascinated by the fact that while he is relatively short (5 feet 10 inches) for a heavyweight, he fights with great energy, with great intensity, and always defeats taller opponents, like I did.”

Fighting Harada allowed himself a smile and a little giggle. And it was OK, because two decades ago, he was Japan’s Iron Mike. Barely 5 feet tall, Harada, now 45, was an Asian sports superstar of the early and mid-1960s. With a non-stop, swarming, punching attack, he often wore down opponents with superior physical condition.

That scene is supposed to be played out again Monday (7 p.m., PST, Sunday) in the first major sports event in Tokyo’s new domed stadium, The Big Egg. If Fighting Harada is right, Tyson will hit 6-3 Tony Tubbs on the head a lot, and then the spirits will make Tubbs fall down.

And for this anticipated scenario, Nippon Television and Dentsu Advertising will pay Mike Tyson Inc. $10 million.

So far, the Mike Tyson World Tour ’88 (it’s London in September) has been a smash in Tokyo. He has been here five weeks, and except for a few well-publicized side trips with his wife, actress Robin Givens, it’s been either hard work in a downtown gym, roadwork, or watching movies in his hotel suite.

That’s another thing Fighting Harada likes about Tyson: No funny business.

“You can’t be a world champion without being very serious,” he said. “I visited Mike at his hotel and invited him to have dinner with me. And he said, very politely, that he was here on business and that as much as he would like to have dinner with me, it would be play, not work.

“And as much as I was disappointed, I also liked to hear him say that. It showed to me why he is a great champion.”

Tyson, 21, is showing an acumen for public relations beyond his years. At a Feb. 9 New York “news” conference televised live to a gathering of sportswriters in Japan, Tyson scored huge points here when he said:

“I would like to acknowledge a great champion in your country: Fighting Harada (who was in the Tokyo audience). I’m a great admirer of his, and I’ve studied his fights on film.”

Ever since, Tyson, at times, has seemed startled by the attention he has received here. In the first week of his stay, he’d emerge from the hotel lobby in a jogging suit, for 5 a.m. roadwork jaunts with aide Steve Lott. Waiting for them would be up to 15 news photographers and TV news cameramen, shod in running shoes, trekking along in the darkness with the heavyweight champion, cameras clattering.

A Japanese word, kokoro , has been applied to the champion’s style. Its meaning isn’t literally translated to English, but it refers to a blending of heart, mind and spirit. It’s also the motto of Dentsu, the advertising firm that is a co-sponsor of the fight.

And so when Tyson and his wife visited a Tokyo orphanage with a battalion of photographers, it was kokoro .

Five blocks from his hotel, a sushi bar owner hangs out a paper pennant every morning that reads: “Welcome M. Tyson, Champion.”

And so they like this guy here. And because of that, advertising firms really like him. A couple of weeks ago, Tyson was driven in a limousine to a downtown ad agency, where he was photographed holding a bottle of Suntory Dry beer.

Smile, Mike. Click.

When they drove him back, he had a $615,000 check in his pocket. Kokoro .

And to think, here’s a guy who only four years ago cried when he failed to make the United States Olympic team.

But his opponent here, Tony Tubbs, has actually traveled a more unlikely road to his $500,000 payday. Two years ago, Tubbs’ career was all but over. He was offered $15,000 for a fight in London. He had had a cup of coffee as a world heavyweight champion, World Boxing Assn. version, by beating Greg Page in 1985, but he lost to Tim Witherspoon in his first defense.

That January 1986 split-decision loss to Witherspoon in Atlanta (one judge called it a draw, one had it 144-143 and the third scored it 144-141), is the only blemish on Tubbs’ record.

After that, Tubbs, who lives in Santa Monica, fought no one for 15 months. He hired a new manager, Mike Love, who had him fight three times in six months in 1987. At roughly the same time, Tyson’s co-managers, Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton, were negotiating for a March 1988 Tyson title fight in Tokyo.

Money? No problem. You want $10 million? Where do we sign?

There was one problem, though: Tubbs. Even though he is 25-1 (Tyson is 33-0), a former champion and had beaten almost everyone else, including James (Bonecrusher) Smith and Greg Page, Tubbs has a bad reputation. All his life, he has looked fat, and has at times fought in less-than-peak condition.

Tubbs isn’t as fat as was Buster Mathis, but he will probably never be asked to model swimwear, either. Since not much else was available, the Japanese promoters reluctantly swallowed Tubbs as an opponent.

Tyson said at a press conference this week that his physical condition is “tremendous.” He weighed 216 at Sunday’s weigh-in. Tubbs said he was in shape, and he weighed 238.

“People keep telling me what I should weigh, that I should weigh 215 or 220,” Tubbs said. “I’m tired of people telling me what I should weigh. When I weigh 230, I feel like I’m in good shape.”

The truth is, a lot of boxing people think Tony Tubbs is a pretty good fighter. They talk about his quick hands and feet, his natural athletic ability and his ability to take a punch . . . and then they whisper: “But the guy just won’t pay the price.”

In 1980, Muhammad Ali told everyone Tubbs would eventually be a champion. He was right, but Ali had a longer run in mind.

Not long ago, Angelo Dundee, Ali’s trainer, told The Times: “Tubbs can fight, but I don’t think he’s ever fully understood how good he really is. He’s never given boxing the 100% effort. Look at him--he moves well, he’s got good hand speed, he knows how to use the ring, he takes a good shot . . . he should be really lickin’ guys, but he ain’t.”

Tubbs learned how to fight in Cincinnati, where he came under the instruction of U.S. Olympic boxing official Rolly Schwartz.

“If Tubbs could punch, he’d be the Mike Tyson today, instead of Mike Tyson,” Schwartz said. “He’s an excellent defensive boxer, he’s got that good shoulder bob, he’s slippery, feints well, slides under a lot of punches. . . . The guy has won most of his bouts with a speed jab, counter punching and making the other guy miss.

“I see him maybe winning a few rounds against Tyson, if he’s in shape, but he just doesn’t have the firepower to stay in there the whole way with him.”

It looks as if the only people in Tubbs’ camp with firepower are his lawyers. In the past few months, despite a snarl of lawsuits, he fired his manager and trainer, Mike Love and Richie Giachetti, in favor of Lee Smith and Odelle Hadley.

Hadley, Tubbs’ trainer, talks about his man breaking “every bone in his (Tyson’s) body.” Tubbs offers a more plausible, if improbable, scenario: “I’m sure the referee and judges will all be New York and New Jersey guys, so there’s no way I’m going to win a decision. If it goes the distance, I’m in trouble. I’ve got to stop Mike, and I have a plan to do it.”

That’s the spirit, Tony.