Tyson’s Fight Against Tubbs Gained in Weight What It Lost in Length

By the hour, it admittedly was poor value. Mike Tyson earned $10 million for less than six minutes’ work, about $28,000 a second, which is believed to exceed even the rate of a Tokyo cab ride.

Yet the Japanese, who paid as much as $800 a ticket to watch Monday’s fight, can comfort themselves that, by the pound, it was a butcher’s bargain.

There were a lot of pounds, after all. The challenger to Tyson’s various heavyweight titles, the aptly named Tony Tubbs, came into the ring at a jiggling 238 1/2 of them. Not even his pajama-style trunks could hide the cascading rolls of fat.

Tubbs’ condition was so sorry that even boxing analyst Larry Merchant, of the co-sponsoring HBO broadcast, was left to dismiss him as a “fat bug” on Tyson’s windshield.

Yet his weight allowed a certain consolation: If Tyson’s rates seem exorbitant--it works out to $100 million an hour--you can calculate Tubbs’ downright modest worth. He goes for just $210 a pound.

Had Tubbs claimed the promoter’s reward--he was offered an incentive of $50,000 to come in at 235 pounds--it might have been a bit higher. But former trainer Richie Giachetti said Tubbs ate “ice cream and chili dogs” every night, effectively voiding the clause. Tubbs evidently calculates his worth differently; his extra 3 1/2 pounds is worth more than any $50,000.

All the same, the Japanese may come to review the value of heavyweight fights in general. Although Tyson was enormously pleasing to them in his two-round destruction of Tubbs, Tokyo fight fans are not getting much of a look at the division. The last heavyweight title fight there, George Foreman vs. Joe (King) Roman, lasted just two minutes. In 15 years, they have now seen less than 8 minutes of boxing.