COMMENTARY : Tyson-King Road Show Nearing the End

The Mike Tyson-Don King era will come to an end with 1991 -- if King cannot make a Tyson-Evander Holyfield heavyweight title fight by the end of the year.

That is the opinion of people close to King and Tyson in the wake of the financial distrust and personal animosity that has grown during the past three years between the former heavyweight champion and his promoter, confidante and babysitter. Forget King’s pilgrimage to the Rev. George Foreman’s pulpit this week -- Tyson wants no part of that fight. He wants Holyfield and the title, and if King can’t deliver, then he is out.

A key clue came on Sunday, when Tyson spent his birthday not with King and his King-employed cronies, John Horne, Rory Holloway and Anthony Pitts, but at a barbecue with Harold (Wells Fargo) Smith and Thomas Hearns at Hearns’ home in Santa Monica, Calif. Afterward, the trio visited ailing ring announcer Jimmy Lennon and then returned to Hearns’ home for some chit-chat.

Among the items Tyson wished to discuss was the accounting of pay-per-view television revenues, a subject of interest to him ever since he failed to reap the financial bonanza King promised him from the first Razor Ruddock fight in March. And it is still a sore subject with Tyson that he has yet to see $2 million of the purse he earned for getting clobbered by Buster Douglas in February, 1990. “Everything’s not well between Mike and King,” said someone privy to the conversation. “He’s concerned with some of the business with his money. By the end of the year, we’re going to start seeing some changes, visible changes. Tyson will really start to take charge of his own affairs.”

In recent comments, King has hinted at a growing rift with Tyson. Before last Friday’s Tyson-Ruddock rematch, King railed about the problems of getting Tyson to cooperate with the rigors of fight promotion, particularly with a contract for a Tyson-Holyfield fight drawn up by Holyfield’s camp that called for a 10-city promotional tour.

“Now how am I going to get the ------ to go to 10 different places?” King said. “Hell, I can’t even get the ------ to go to one different place.”

And in a phone conversation with Newsday on Tuesday, King sounded like a man who had wearied of babysitting the erratic Tyson. “It’s getting close to evening time and there’s a lot more things I would like to do,” said the 59-year-old King. “I just want to move on, maybe get more into the television business. I think that when Mike wins back the crown, it may be my farewell.”

It could come sooner than that.

The King-Foreman confab fell apart Wednesday morning with no deal signed for Tyson-Foreman. King flew back to his Cleveland farm after a morning meeting with Roy Foreman, George’s brother. King and George never did meet face-to-face, although he was apprised of King’s offer by his advisers.

“Things are kind of at an impasse right now,” said Foreman adviser Ron Weathers. “George is mulling things over where he usually does, at the fishing hole. He’s got his line in the water and he’s waiting to pull something out.”

Right now, the offer for Tyson-Foreman is “in the neighborhood” of $25 million for a non-title bout on Nov. 1; the Holyfield deal is for $15 million plus a percentage of PPV sales for a Nov. 8 fight, plus Foreman gets a $5 million “bring your own music” dance on HBO Sept. 7. What the latter deal has going for it is that it is for the title, Foreman does want a tuneup fight, and he believes he can easily reverse his April 19 loss to Holyfield with the proper training and diet. And then, imagine how much more Foreman-Tyson is worth if the big man has the title?

According to Weathers, Foreman seems to be leaning to Holyfield, and not only because of the title. Foreman also is said to have been put off by some of King’s stipulations, which the Rappin’ Rev. saw as not quite kosher. “One thing you got to realize about George is that he’s a serious Christian,” Weathers said. “If the deal ain’t righteous, he won’t take it.”

Around the ring:

--Buddy McGirt may get his long-awaited title shot on Sept. 14 against WBC welterweight champ Simon Brown, on a doubleheader with a Julio Cesar Chavez-Terrence Alli WBC junior welterweight title bout.

--Speaking of Chavez, Harold Brazier has retained Michael Nunn’s attorney, Ron May, to see if he has the makings of a lawsuit against Chavez and King over Chavez’ pull-out of their bout on the Tyson-Ruddock undercard. Chavez claimed he had a 10-stitch cut on the bridge of his nose. Now, it’s bye-bye Brazier and on to Alli. Brazier, who would have earned $200,000 -- the equivalent of his total for 86 previous fights -- said he saw the “cut” and it was no more than a scratch. And remember, Chavez got hit 448 times by Meldrick Taylor and spilled not a drop of blood.

--Bronx middleweight Dennis Milton is another of King’s unhappy minions. The “world’s greatest promoter” first promised Milton a title shot at Julian Jackson, which fell apart either because of Jackson’s damaged retinas -- if you believe King -- or because Jackson wants to bolt to archrival Bob Arum, if you believe the archrival. Then, King promised Milton $100,000 to fight Pat Brennan on the Tyson-Ruddock undercard, but at the last minute, cut the purse to $50,000. Milton demanded and got a release from his contract. Milton says welterweight champ Simon Brown, who has fought once for King, came to him and asked for advice on how he could do the same thing.

Murad Muhammad, Ruddock’s promoter, will from here on be known as Malaprop Muhammad, because of his well-known and often hilarious mangling of the English language. Here is the latest Murad-ism, offered before the Tyson-Ruddock fight on what a Ruddock victory would have meant for the planned Tyson-Holyfield fight: “We’re here to upset the uppercut.”

He meant “applecart.” We think.