COMMENTARY : For Want of a Plan, Tyson Career Adrift

The Mike Tyson comeback ledger, after seven months of freedom: Two scheduled fights, two fiascoes and the potential for larger fiascoes down the line.

First came the 89-second Peter McNeeley vaudeville show, which will be remembered far more for the launching of McNeeley’s career as a jester than for anything Tyson did in the ring.

Now, because of a thumb injury, comes the 11th-hour cancellation of Tyson’s fight against Buster Mathis Jr., scheduled for Saturday at the MGM Grand in direct competition with the Riddick Bowe-Evander Holyfield bout down the street.

Though the money is being offered, and though the public craves to see him in action, Tyson’s career is as adrift and uncertain as it was the first day of his freedom.

Does anybody know where Mike Tyson is headed, and when he’ll get there? What does it mean for boxing when its biggest draw is continually and uneasily shrouded in wild controversy?

And, if the delays and the frustration continue, with his promoter, Don King, in the final stages of his federal trial for allegedly defrauding Lloyd’s of London in a $350,000 insurance claim and facing potential jail time, eventually, will anybody care?

John Horne, Tyson’s co-manager, assured the media Wednesday that he is going ahead with loose plans to move Tyson-Mathis either to December or January at the MGM, assuming Tyson’s right thumb heals in two or three weeks.

The Mathis fight, assuming a Tyson victory, would lead directly and conveniently to the already scheduled March 16 Tyson title bout against World Boxing Council champion Frank Bruno.

But already there are problems with that scenario--the Fox Network was willing to pay $10 million to televise Tyson-Mathis during the important ratings month of November, but December and January are far less key; other dates could be complicated at the MGM--and with Tyson, even the clearest plans come and go.

“I think successful fighters like Evander, like Bowe, like Roy Jones, the people behind them have an agenda, an idea of where they want to go with their fighter,” said Time Warner’s Seth Abraham, who has emerged as King’s primary rival in the heavyweight division.

“Right now, it would seem they have no agenda, they’re sort of going fight to fight without a plan. Maybe King’s got an agenda, but right now it’s not very clear.”

If the agenda was to harm sales for the Bowe-Holyfield bout at Caesars Palace, the late pullout serves no gain, since the Caesars fight has already benefited by the media coverage of the dueling fights, and fight organizers expect a 200,000-to-300,000 surge in pay-per-view buys in the wake of the Tyson cancellation.

“I can’t understand how it looks bad,” Horne said. “Mike Tyson was preparing to fight.”

The reality probably is that the Tyson camp was so intent on staying on Nov. 4, and facing down Time Warner’s Bowe-Holyfield show, that it denied itself the chance to cancel the fight with less hoopla three weeks ago, when the fracture was first discovered.

If the agenda was to retain control of the heavyweight division for King, even as his legal problems reach a crescendo, that’s out the window now that Bowe-Holyfield has the date alone, and the winner probably will be recognized as the best heavyweight in the world, including Tyson.

“Don is hurt,” Horne said. “He really wanted this to go forward. He worked hard with Fox to get it to this point.”

Said Abraham: “This was maddening to go through this for Nov. 4. This was terrible. [But] Don is a bully, and I wasn’t going to let Don push my company around.”

If the agenda was to get Tyson to a title fight as quickly as possible--and there’s already a deal to fight Bruno March 16--that’s thrown into confusion by the cancellation.

“This definitely sets Tyson’s schedule back substantially,” said Dan Duva, promoter for Holyfield.

If the bone doesn’t heal in time for Tyson to fight Mathis on the Saturday before the Super Bowl, the Bruno show could fall by the wayside. It might come down to moving Mathis all the way to March, on pay-per-view, but that would give Tyson only two almost irrelevant opponents in the year since his prison release.

Or, Tyson could skip Mathis--a better possibility if Fox, as expected, chafes at televising a January bout--and go directly to Bruno.

“We are solid on March 16,” Horne said.

But Horne recognizes that heading into a title bout with only the McNeeley victory under his belt after his four-year layoff is not the first choice.

“If you think Mike Tyson can beat the titleholder tomorrow, you do what you think is best,” Horne said. “But we’re very aware that once we put him in that category, against the best in the division, there’s no coming back.

“I know Mike can beat anybody on any single night, but, over time that doesn’t consider the building process. . . .”

Time Warner, meanwhile, has its own plans for the middle of March: the winner of Bowe-Holyfield vs. former WBC champion Lennox Lewis.

If the agenda was to move Tyson slowly along the ranks of heavyweights until he is ready to take on a Bowe or a Holyfield, perhaps not until November 1996 or spring 1997, that’s a mess now because Tyson may not have fought anybody worthwhile until even the middle of next year.

“I don’t know when Tyson will be ready,” Abraham said.

Rock Newman, Bowe’s manager, predicts that the uncertainty over Tyson’s status may make it even more difficult for Tyson to avoid fighting the winner of this Saturday’s bout for any significant length of time.

“I think [the cancellation] could create a certain urgency in the minds of the public to demand he fight better fighters sooner,” Newman said.

Or at least an urgency to avoid any more fiascoes.