Tyson Begins His Career A.B. : Boxing: After Buster, the world will see what his first professional defeat did to the former champion when he faces Tillman, who beat him as an amateur.

When Mike Tyson entered the ring in a domed baseball stadium in Tokyo Feb. 11, he was two victories from acknowledgment, by at least some boxing scholars, as the greatest of the 19th and 20th Century heavyweights.

At 23, he was 37-0 with 33 knockouts, steamrolling his way toward Rocky Marciano’s heavyweight record of 49-0. All he had to do was knock over a hopeless longshot named Buster Douglas, and he would set up the big fight against Evander Holyfield.

Tyson-Holyfield was to have been Tyson’s breakaway fight, his opportunity to become one of history’s dominant heavyweight champions.

It was to have been the long-awaited matchup of unbeatens, a $35-million fight for which contracts already had been signed. It was to have been held June 18 in Atlantic City.

Buster Douglas? Buster Douglas was easy money, a quick $6 million that Tyson’s promoter, Don King, had extracted from Japanese promoter Akihiko Honda. The Caesars Palace sports book carried Tyson as a 42-1 favorite.

And so Mike Tyson went to Tokyo, where his world came crashing down. And so did his pending fight with Holyfield. So instead of Tyson-Holyfield Monday night in Atlantic City, we have Tyson-Henry Tillman here tonight.

On the afternoon the championship was taken from him, Tyson fought bravely at the end. But he had been caught wholly unprepared for an even more courageous performance by Douglas, who, crawling off the deck, knocked Tyson out and put the heavyweight championship in the federal courts.

There it has remained, trapped in a snarl of lawsuits among Douglas, King and Mirage Hotel president Steve Wynn, who wants to promote and present Douglas vs. Holyfield.

Since Mike Tyson is Mike Tyson, he isn’t required to start over at Square 1. But he has gone down a peg or two. Instead of the $20 million-plus he would have earned for the Holyfield fight, his purse tonight will be a humbling $2 million when he fights Tillman, his old nemesis of amateur days. He is, though, still earning income from his $27-million, multifight deal with HBO.

George Foreman, another former champion who will share the bill with Tyson tonight, fighting Brazilian Adilson Rodrigues, suggested that Tyson is on the right path.

He compared Tyson’s situation to that of Joe Louis after Louis, a previously unbeaten prospect, had been knocked out by Max Schmeling in a 1936 shocker.

“Neither manager (Louis’ or Schmeling’s) wanted a quick rematch,” Foreman said. “You wait, you let a rematch grow. And Louis needed to get his confidence back. They got Louis some easy fights. He got his confidence back. Then, by the time they put Schmeling in front of him again, all they had to say was: ‘Sic him!’ ”

Foreman also suffered a humiliating, unexpected defeat early in his career. In 1974 in Zaire, Foreman was a big favorite against Muhammad Ali. Foreman, the champion, was coming off sensational knockouts of Joe Frazier and Ken Norton, and Ali, the former champion, was trying to regain his former stature. But Ali suckered Foreman into a fool’s fight, often lying on the ropes, taking punches.

It was the premier of rope-a-dope. Foreman flailed away, round after round, until his strength was gone. Ali knocked him out in the eighth round and never granted Foreman a rematch.

“I was depressed for over a year,” Foreman said.

“I’d dream about the fight and wake up sweating. I was ashamed to see anyone. I was ashamed even in front of skycaps and taxi drivers. I felt a great need to spend money, so I bought a lot of new suits and cars. But I got to the point where I realized nothing mattered but getting my championship back.”

Six weeks after his loss to Douglas, Tyson admitted to being embarrassed by the defeat but never mentioned shame. In recent days in Las Vegas, he has appeared more animated and relaxed than before any of his pre-Tokyo fights.

And he certainly hasn’t bought any new suits. Currently, he favors jump suits. As for new cars, he apparently has too many as it is. He was notified last week that his $85,000 Mercedes, in an impound yard in Hudson, N.Y., would be seized unless he paid $126 in towing and storage fees.

After the Tokyo fight, Tyson spoke of being embarrassed at being introduced at New York night clubs, and of a desire to be alone, at least for a while, with his defeat.

“I had a lot of easy victories early in my career, and I began taking short cuts in training,” he said. “In Tokyo, I picked the wrong guy to go in against without being properly prepared. That will never happen again.”

This week, he has said much the same.

“Basically, I just screwed up,” he said. “But I am no less of a person or less of a fighter than I was. I had a great situation . . . and it was taken from my grasp. But I’m not on the verge of killing myself. I had one bad night and 37 good ones.

“(The loss) was devastating emotionally at the time. When I got back home, I had an abrasion over my eye, and I didn’t want to go out because it wasn’t a delightful sight. Once it went away, I went out and lived my life normally.”

Since Tokyo, the former champion has hired a new trainer and been presented a son.

Most observers of his Tokyo debacle believed Tyson’s cornermen performed even more poorly than their fighter. By the middle rounds, when it was apparent that Tyson was in serious difficulty against an inspired opponent, there seemed to have been no leadership, no direction from his corner. Nor was there any ice to reduce the swelling of his eye.

The new man in charge is Richie Giachetti, who will do the talking in Tyson’s corner tonight. Giachetti, the trainer of former champion Larry Holmes, may provide more offense than either Tyson or Tillman. He’s an emotional type who has been known to do some between-rounds slapping, just to make sure his fighter is getting the message.

Giachetti says he has seen talent in Tyson that the fighter hasn’t shown yet.

“This is a great young fighter,” he said. “He’s going to do things in the ring no one has seen him do yet.”

In early May, Tyson’s girlfriend, Natalie Fears of Los Angeles, gave birth to his son, and the boxing scholar-fighter named him Damato Kilrane Tyson. The late Cus D’Amato found Tyson in an Upstate New York reform school and taught him to box. Less clear is why Tyson selected the name of Jake Kilrain, who lost to John L. Sullivan in history’s last bare-knuckle heavyweight title fight, in 1889, as his son’s middle name.

“I like the sound of his name and he was a great fighter,” Tyson said.

Coincidentally, Tyson’s comeback begins at the setting of his last pre-Douglas defeat, Caesars Palace. Tonight’s show is outdoors, in the hotel’s 15,300-seat stadium. But in the summer of 1984, inside the adjacent Caesars Pavilion, he lost his chance to make the 1984 U.S. Olympic team when Tillman beat him at the Olympic team boxoffs. Tillman also had beaten Tyson on another decision six weeks before, in the Olympic trials tournament at Ft. Worth, Tex.

After the second loss to Tillman, 18-year-old Tyson raised Tillman’s hand good-naturedly and his cornermen cut his gloves off. Then he walked outside the building, and kept walking until he reached a salt cedar tree growing next to a freeway on-ramp.

There, he let it all go--the rage, the fire, the heartache. With taped fists, he pounded the tree for a minute or two, wailing like a wounded animal. Then D’Amato and Kevin Rooney, later to be his trainer, hugged Tyson and led him away.

Shortly afterward, Tyson turned pro and raced off to one of modern boxing’s great starts.

Now, six years later, the boxing community will be inspecting him closely tonight. At the end of the 10th round in Tokyo, Tyson took four successive brutal punches from Douglas, the final one a tremendous left hook. Tyson landed so hard on his back that the impact knocked his mouthpiece from his mouth.

Old boxing guys will tell you that many young, talented fighters, once badly beaten, are often never the same. Tillman, who is 24-4 and is not a top 10 heavyweight, was selected as an opponent upon whom Tyson can probably rebuild his confidence, should he need to do so.

But should Tillman land a solid punch or two early in the fight, clues may be immediately visible as to whether Mike Tyson left anything behind in Japan, other than the heavyweight championship.