Tyson Lacking Power Punch

If Oscar De La Hoya looks worn down, it could be because he spent Thursday morning carrying Mike Tyson on his back.

When Tyson’s promoter, Dan Goossen, chose the hours between 10 a.m. and noon for a news conference at the MGM Grand to officially announce the Oct. 23 fight there between Tyson and Orlin Norris Jr., the timing was hardly coincidental.

Much of the world’s boxing media is in town for Saturday night’s welterweight title fight at Mandalay Bay between De La Hoya and Felix Trinidad and, with no further media access to either of those fighters until tonight’s weigh-in, Goossen made Tyson available to fill a couple of hours of their time and maybe their notebooks.

De La Hoya’s promoter, Bob Arum, was furious, charging that Goossen was diverting attention from the welterweights. The two promoters had angry words during a formal dinner here Wednesday night to honor the chairman of Nevada’s State Athletic Commission.

“A total bush leaguer,” Arum said of Goossen.

Arum should calm down.

If he does, he will realize that Goossen’s ploy was nothing more than a desperate attempt to attract attention to a has-been heavyweight in a town that belongs at this moment to De La Hoya.

There is evidence of that everywhere here.

The De La Hoya-Trinidad fight in the 12,000-seat Mandalay Bay Events Center was sold out even before the tickets could be offered to the public. The promoters and the sponsoring hotels took them all. If you want a seat now, the going price from the scalpers for ringside is $5,000 and up.

Pay-per-view sales could be the highest for any non-heavyweight fight in history and might approach the magical number of 1 million. But even if the number falls short of that, a distinct possibility if electricity in the wake of Hurricane Floyd is off on the East Coast, the fight is still being talked about like none other not involving a heavyweight since Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler 12 years ago.

It’s the kind of buzz you used to hear in Las Vegas about Tyson.

Even after Tyson returned from prison, after the rape conviction, he was the undisputed champion of pay-per-view. His comeback fight against a never-was named Peter McNeeley had 1.55 million buys, the highest ever until surpassed by Tyson vs. Evander Holyfield (1.59 million) and then by Tyson vs. Holyfield II (1.99 million).

But Tyson lost more than a chance to regain the heavyweight title he had won twice before and his license when he bit Holyfield’s ears in that second fight. Although he came back again, most of his fans didn’t.

A mere 500,000 bought his fight Jan. 16 against Francois Botha, a tremendous disappointment, as well as financial loss, for the Showtime executives who had believed that Tyson guaranteed at least 1 million in sales.

Then he went to jail again.

Now, coming back for the third time, he is fighting a beefed-up cruiserweight who is famous mostly as Terry Norris’ brother.

In introducing Tyson on Thursday, Goossen said he is still the world’s “most exciting” and “most dangerous” fighter.

But he’s a hard sell.

The Showtime executives admitted as much when they decided to offer the fight for free to their premium channel customers instead of on pay-per-view, and Goossen didn’t sound confident when asked if he thought he could sell out the 16,000-seat MGM Grand.

“They won’t sell 3,000 tickets,” Arum said. “Tyson is a punched ticket. Nobody cares about him anymore except some of the press guys.”

I’m not sure “cares” is the right word. Most of the press guys I know are intrigued by him, by his predictable unpredictability, but it has been a long time since any of them thought of him as a great fighter.

Three of the first four questions he was asked during Thursday’s news conference were about De La Hoya and Trinidad. The fifth question was about Holyfield and Lennox Lewis.

When they finally got around to asking Tyson about himself, there were, as usual, some interesting exchanges.

Asked by a reporter from Philadelphia how he had managed on Maryland jail food to balloon to 280 pounds, Tyson said, “Have you ever been incarcerated?”

When the reporter assured him that he hadn’t been, Tyson said, “Then you go outside and hit somebody with a car and get incarcerated and see how fat you will be when you come out.”

Tyson said he weighs about 235 now and will be in fighting shape for Norris.

On whether he agrees with Goossen that he is still the world’s most exciting and dangerous fighter, Tyson said, “If anybody makes a mistake, they’re going to take a dirt nap. That’s what I get paid to do, to knock people out spectacularly.”

But he didn’t sound as if his heart was in boxing. When he mentioned for a second time his contractual obligation to Showtime and his financial responsibilities for his family, it was impossible not to wonder whether he came back again merely for the money.

If so, that’s fair. When Tyson used to get hugged by the people around him, he thought it was because they loved him. Now he knows that most of them are simply trying to squeeze the money out of him. They’ll squeeze until it runs out.

Butterbean, the 325-pound, four-round fighter who is on the De La Hoya-Trinidad undercard, was in the lobby of the Mandalay Bay on Thursday when he learned that Tyson was holding a news conference. He said that he might go over to the MGM Grand, challenge Tyson to a fight. Don’t be surprised if that’s in Tyson’s future.

Randy Harvey can be reached at his e-mail address: randy.harvey@latimes.com