Blood and Glamour

It was a media event of magnificent proportions.

Ali MacGraw was there and Cathy Lee Crosby and Lou Ferrigno and Yako Smirnoff.

Strobe lights blinked like diamonds on the Riviera, boxing writers stood on chairs to shout questions, and television sports anchors jockeyed for position with the skill of blooded yearlings.

Not since Marilyn Monroe married Joe DiMaggio has there been such a mix of sweat and glamour on the celebrity circuit.

I am speaking of Tuesday night’s Mike Tyson Beverly Hills Press Conference & Cocktail Party.

Wait, don’t leave.

This is a new Champeen of the World we’re talking about. Not the guy accused of knocking Robin Givens around, or grabbing that woman’s behind in a bar or slapping a parking lot attendant in the stomach.

This is a sweet kid with a new attitude who is full of . . . well . . . as fight promoter Don King put it, “positiveness.”

“There’ll be no more untoward incidents,” King boomed from the head table of a room jammed with 150 reporters, photographers and television cameramen. His trademark wild-Afro-punk hairdo bristled with excitement.

“We’re talking about a seven-figure deal here. The Japanese have reached out and touched a great, great star.”

The Champ nodded and smiled. His gold teeth flashed in the muted overhead light. Red Buttons shouted “Hooray!”

The purpose of the press conference in the Beverly Hills Hotel was to announce that Tyson is going to make Toyota commercials for release in Japan.

Because of his problems in the United States, namely the aforementioned Robin Givens affair, the commercials will not be shown in this country until the positiveness of the Champ’s new image effectively sweetens the negativeness of his old image.

If he can refrain from punching or grabbing anyone outside the ring for a decent period of time, no doubt Tyson’s ebullient persona will also grace American television screens as Toyota’s chief huckster.

All of this was explained to us by Don King who, in fact, dominated the proceedings. Tyson uttered perhaps 138 words during the hour, not counting “I dunno” and “uh huh,” which may, at that, constitute a major part of his vocabulary.

But then, I guess, grunts and mumbles are sufficient when your life consists of pounding people into the twilight zone.

Tyson’s longest comment of the evening came when a woman television reporter, frustrated with his silence, asked, “Don’t you talk?”

The Champ responded with, “You’re a pretty woman. I was lookin’ to see if you was wearing a wedding ring.”

In less positive times he’d have no doubt thrown her over his shoulder and hauled her to his cave.

During all of this, two television screens played tapes of Tyson’s victories over 37 opponents, often freezing frame on the sprawled figure of a vanquished boxer staring at, but not seeing, the ceiling, or of another flying backward through the ropes.

This is what the sports writers were there for, not Toyota and not positiveness, but the Champ’s ability, as King put it, to “knock people down.”

I was at the press conference on the off-chance he might at least punch out a celebrity. I came away disappointed . . . positively.

“This young man in sartorial splendor,” the promoter said, “is a legend in his own time.”

The sartorial splendor of which King spoke included Tyson’s white blazer and a tie that might have been purchased in a Las Vegas gift shop, but then working journalists are not known for their haute couture either.

With some exception, media dress of the evening consisted of faded jeans and sport shirts, a state of dishabille that made even Tyson look good.

The session’s piece de resistance was King’s announcement that the Champ’s next opponent would be someone named Michael Dokes, who will no doubt also be beaten bloody in the name of, for lack of a better term, sport.

When the press conference was over, wide double doors were thrust wide open and the Cocktail Party Phase of the festivities began in a large adjoining room, wherein most of the celebrities had already gathered.

The effect of this was to send the photographers crashing forward like wildebeests in the Masai Mara, carrying me by sheer inertia to a position nose-to-nose with the Champ. Well, actually, nose to chest.

I felt compelled to ask a question, so I said, “Will you jump? You know, like others in the Toyota commercials?”

“I dunno,” Tyson said thoughtfully. “I really dunno.”

Then he had his picture taken with Ali MacGraw, and I stood there pondering the uneasy synonymity of blood and glamour, and wondering at the consequence of their union.