Tubbs Is No Problem for Tyson : Crush of Photographers Presents Bigger Threat to Unbeaten Champion

Kevin Rooney, Mike Tyson’s trainer, didn’t have much to worry about from Tony Tubbs Monday afternoon. Like so many opponents before him, Tubbs wilted under a furious second-round assault by the 21-year-old heavyweight champion, went down and stayed down.

But a near-combat situation, tougher than anything Tubbs presented, arose as Tyson sat down at a table in the interview room 30 minutes after the bout. About 50 Japanese photographers frantically fought each other for position a few feet in front of Tyson, cameras clattering.

In seconds, those in the back row were literally climbing up the backs of the front-row cameramen. It was human-pyramid building. The whole group seemed as if it would collapse on top of Tyson and Rooney.

Finally, Rooney stopped the melee by shouting: “All right, back off!”

Order restored, Tyson talked about his 34th consecutive victory, his first outside the United States and his first as a married man.

He entered the room wearing a hachimaki , a Samurai headband on which the Japanese lettering said: “ Hisho !” which means certain victory.

In this one, certain victory seemed assured midway through the second round.

Many at ringside and one judge scored the first round for the flabby Tubbs. Another called it even. Another for Tyson. Tubbs cracked Tyson on the side of the jaw with a short left hook midway through the round. The champion scarcely blinked. Twice Tyson caught Tubbs on the ropes, but twice he got away.

At the midway mark of the second, Tyson backed Tubbs on the ropes again and rocked him with a left hook to the head. Tyson (216) now punching his way into a rhythm, began scoring repeatedly with left jabs that backed up Tubbs to the ropes.

Tubbs’ last credible moment came when he scored with another left to the jaw at center ring. It was tempting to think at the time that Tyson must now know the guy in front of him came to fight.

However, seconds later, Tyson began closing the show. Tubbs was again on the ropes, where Tyson nearly knocked him on top of the photographers. Then there was a Tyson right to the body and Tubbs began stumbling sideways along the ropes, like a sleepwalker to a neutral corner. There, after a left hook to the head, he would bid sayonara to the 51,000 in attendance at The Big Egg, Tokyo’s brand new domed stadium.

Tyson pursued Tubbs into the corner, but the challenger, now 25-2, was already going down. Just as referee Arthur Mercante began a count, Tubbs’ trainer, Odelle Hadley, crawled through the ropes with the towel. Tubbs stayed down for two minutes.

Hadley, remember, is the guy who last week said Tubbs “would break every bone in Tyson’s body.” The end came at 2:54 of the second round. Heavyweight title fights in Japan keep getting longer. The last one here, in 1973, George Foreman knocked out Joe Roman in two minutes flat.

“He was very strong, but it was just another fight for me,” Tyson said.

“He was cute, like Greg Page, with very fast hands, and I watched him close on the ropes because I knew he wanted to counter on me. But I got him with some good body shots and I could tell they were hurting him, because he started laying all over my shoulder.”

Jokingly, a U.S. reporter asked Rooney if he had noticed if his fighter had lost any steam since his February marriage. Tyson piped in with: “Slowing down? Hey, you didn’t notice that I’m more explosive and more dangerous than ever since I got married?”

At that, Mrs. Tyson, actress Robin Givens, burst out laughing and applauded vigorously.

Forgotten for the moment were pre-fight concerns that Tyson’s opponent was overweight and out of shape. At a flabby 238, he looked like he was in awful shape. But he did come to fight. Finally, now, the Tubbs fat jokes are over. One gag had Tyson being awakened by the 6.1 earthquake at 5:34 Friday morning, and saying: “Somebody call Tubbs, and tell him to quit jumping rope this early.”

The worst critic of Tubbs’ waistline has been promoter Don King, but he seemed satisfied after the bout. And even though Tubbs didn’t make the magic 235 number at the weigh-in, the Tubbs’ camp said before the fight that King had promised to give Tubbs his $50,000 bonus anyway for showing up in shape.

“I think Tony fought admirably,” King said. “There’s no way to tell if he was in shape or not in a two-round fight. He got caught with some clean shots, it wouldn’t have mattered if he was in shape or not, not with those shots.”

Tyson: “He didn’t fight like he was out of shape, he came to fight. No, none of his punches had any effect on me whatsoever. It was just another fight. I’m happy to get it over quickly.”

A questioner wanted to know if he longs to face an opponent who can give him a challenging fight. A what-a-dumb-question look came over his face. “I’ve practically knocked out everybody I’ve faced, and you’re saying that’s a knock? How about if I knock everybody out and then retire? Would you knock that?”

Tyson was asked if the quick demolition of Tubbs was a message for Michael Spinks, whom he meets next in a megabucks bout on June 27 in Atlantic City. “Well, Spinks will be difficult. He will be evasive . . . but now he knows what’s coming,” he said.

He was asked again, as he was at last week’s press conference, if a long string of easy victories would bring about an early retirement.

Curiously, he’s not dismissing the question as he would have, say, a year ago.

“I’ll wait until the end of my HBO contract (three more fights), and then we’ll see,” he said. “I might still want to fight after that.”

And again the question of Rocky Marciano’s 49-0 career record, now 15 victories away.

“In my mind, predictions like that are arrogant and disrespectful,” he said.

After Spinks, Tyson goes on the road again, to London, to fight England’s Frank Bruno on Sept. 3. In November or December, he’ll box a top-five ranked opponent in the United States. The only thing written in ink, so far, for 1989, said co-manager Bill Cayton, is a bout in Milan, Italy, against Francesco Damiani.

And, like the bullet train, the Tyson Inc. money train rolls right on.

He picked up $10 million-plus for this appointment, and they’re talking about $17 to $19 million for Spinks. Damiani, too, is projected as a big payday.

Ringsiders Monday paid $850 at The Big Egg, and paid $16 for the fight program.

Tubbs, who abruptly left the stadium after his defeat, got something like $500,000. Tubbs had to endure as much fighting in his own camp as he did in the ring. Right up to the opening bell, his ex-trainers, ex-managers and advisers were back-biting at ringside.

Lee Smith, apparently his manager now, was said to have threatened to pull Tubbs out of the fight late Sunday night unless more money was forthcoming from the promoters. And she told ringside writers moments before the opening bell that an extra $93,000 for Tubbs had been “posted” by the Japanese Boxing Commission.