BITING MAD

If you scored it like a fight, you wouldn’t have given the man from the New Jersey attorney general’s office many points for his questions to Mike Tyson. They were nothing more than glancing blows, certainly not as aggravating as Evander Holyfield’s head butts.

Even so, Tyson let them get the better of his famous temper, proving to New Jersey’s State Athletic Control Board and more than 100 media representatives inside the Hughes Justice Complex, as well as a dozen protesters outside from the National Organization for Women, that five sessions of anger therapy in the last seven months weren’t enough for this still raging bull.

He snapped during a closing statement by his attorney, Anthony J. Fusco Jr., near the end of a 3-hour 40-minute hearing Wednesday to decide whether Tyson should be licensed to box in New Jersey.

Tyson, who had become increasingly agitated during persistent but gentle probing from state Assistant Atty. Gen. Michael Haas, had already declined his opportunity to read a pre-prepared closing statement, saying, “I don’t want to say that now because I’m angry.”

Fusco was trying to explain his client’s frustration to the five-man panel sitting behind a table at the front of the crowded hearing room, when Tyson blurted, “You know what I mean, man! Why do I have to relive my [bleeping]. . . .”

Fusco quickly cut him off.

“C’mon, Mike,” he said. “Calm down.”

Later, during a news conference in the building’s lobby, Tyson was asked about his outburst.

“I never lost my cool,” Tyson said, even though it was apparent he had. “I was just expressing my hurt.”

Then Fusco reacted like someone in Tyson’s corner at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand should have on the night of June 28, 1997, when the boxer was disqualified from a heavyweight title fight for biting Holyfield’s ears. Fusco ordered Tyson to keep his mouth shut.

“We’re going to concentrate on the positive for a change,” Fusco said.

The positive for Tyson, 32, is that he probably will be granted a license to fight in New Jersey when the three-member State Athletic Control Board meets again in executive session to vote Aug. 6, meaning he could start his second comeback in Atlantic City by November or December. Vaughn Bean, Lou Savarese and Jeremy Williams have been mentioned as possible opponents.

That’s not meant to imply that the fix is in. But Shelly Finkel, Tyson’s boxing advisor since he fired promoter Don King and co-managers John Horne and Rory Holloway, presumably investigated before choosing to appear before boxing administrators in New Jersey instead of Nevada, where Tyson’s license was revoked for a year after a July 9, 1997 hearing regarding his fight with Holyfield.

“If I believed Mike Tyson would be licensed in Nevada, I wouldn’t have gone to New Jersey first,” Finkel said.

Until Tyson’s tantrum, New Jersey’s board members didn’t hear anything to prejudice them against him.

Most persuasive was Tyson’s pediatrician wife, Monica Tyson, who said, “Boxing is his passion, and he really, really, really misses it. He needs boxing, and I think boxing needs him.”

Fusco called eight character witnesses, all of whom swore Tyson meets the state’s criteria for character, honesty, integrity and responsibility.

“Mike is not anywhere near as bad as all them people say,” said former fighter Bobby Czyz, a friend of Tyson for 12 years. “He made a mistake. I also know he has changed considerably. Mike Tyson has gone out of his way to cut out the evil forces from his life.”

With a couple of exceptions, all of Fusco’s witnesses have a financial stake in Tyson’s boxing career. But that doesn’t make them different from the sport of boxing or, for that matter, the state of New Jersey.

Fusco said no fewer than three times that Tyson’s first fight upon returning would be in New Jersey, even if other states got in line by also licensing him.

That no doubt has casino operators, such as Donald Trump, dreaming of takes like the one in 1988, when the Tyson-Michael Spinks fight in Atlantic City produced the largest single-day pit drop in the city’s gaming history.

Urging the board to vote in favor of Tyson, a local newspaper, the Trentonian, editorialized Tuesday, “. . . New Jersey should see this situation as an opportunity to take the lucrative fight business away from Las Vegas and plant it, possibly for years, in Atlantic City.”

But even if there were no money involved, if the fighter appealing to the board were an unknown who had been convicted of rape and had his license revoked in another state because of an outrageously violent act in the ring, he probably would be welcome to box in New Jersey and almost every other state. When it comes to who is allowed in, boxing’s standards aren’t that much higher than the county jail’s.

In a light moment, Chuck Wepner, the Bayonne Bleeder who was Sylvester Stallone’s inspiration for “Rocky,” recalled referee Tony Perez’s instructions before a 1975 fight against Muhammad Ali.

“He didn’t want me to choke or rabbit punch,” Wepner said. “Those were my two best punches.”

Czyz was more graphic when he said, “If I hit a guy and his eye fell out, I would eat it before I gave it back. That’s the kind of mind-set you have to have as a boxer.”

Perhaps only a boxer can understand.

One exhibit Fusco presented to the board Tuesday was a letter in support of Tyson from Holyfield.

Dissent came only from the NOW protesters outside, with their lapel buttons that said, “Stop Honoring and Rewarding Violent Athletes.”

Wearing a gray pinstriped suit and a black T-shirt but still complaining on three occasions about the cold in the sterile hearing room, Tyson was asked in detail about his 1992 rape conviction in Indianapolis.

“That’s over, I served my time,” Tyson said. He has still never apologized to victim Desiree Washington, who hasn’t been able to dismiss the incident so easily.

Tyson, however, has apologized repeatedly to Holyfield.

He said Wednesday he doesn’t remember biting Holyfield, only the head butts that unleashed his temper.

“Man, I was in a rage,” he said. “It just happened. I went berserk.”

Asked by Haas if it could happen again, Tyson said, “I doubt it very seriously. My life has been--I don’t want to say tragically devastated--but my personal life has been devastated over this.”

When Haas later returned to the question, Tyson said, “This ordeal ruined my life internally. You think I want to do it again?”

No one thinks that. The question New Jersey’s State Athletic Control Board should be wrestling with after seeing him lose his cool Wednesday is whether he can restrain himself.

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Tyson’s Trials and Tribulations

* June 21, 1987: Accused by parking-lot attendant of trying to kiss a female employee and then striking attendant. Charged with misdemeanor assault and battery and assault with a deadly weapon. Settles out of court for $105,000.

* Aug. 23, 1988: Has a street brawl with pro fighter Mitch “Blood” Green and breaks bone in right hand.

* Sept. 4, 1988: Knocked unconscious after driving car into tree. New York Daily News reports it was suicide attempt caused by chemical imbalance.

* Sept. 30, 1988: In national TV interview with Barbara Walters, wife Robin Givens says Tyson is a manic-depressive and that she is afraid of him. On Oct. 7, 1988, she files for divorce.

* July 22, 1991: Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant, files complaint, alleging Tyson raped her.

* Feb. 10, 1992: Tyson found guilty of one count of rape and two counts of deviate sexual conduct. On March 26, 1992, sentenced to 10 years (four suspended) in prison.

* May 8, 1992: Found guilty of threatening a prison guard and disorderly conduct, adding 15 days to sentence.

* March 25, 1995: Released from the Indiana Youth Center.

* June 28, 1997: Disqualified after third round of rematch with Evander Holyfield because of biting Holyfield twice. Nevada State Athletic Commission withholds Tyson’s $29.8-million purse, pending a hearing.

* July 1, 1997: NSAC suspends Tyson pending hearing to determine punishment for biting Holyfield. Also withholds $29.8-million fight purse.

* July 9, 1997: NSAC revokes Tyson’s boxing license. He cannot reapply for at least a year.

* July 9, 1998: Date Tyson can reapply for license.

* July 29, 1998: Hearing held in Trenton, N.J., as Tyson applies for a license in the Garden State instead of Nevada.