Fighter or Just a Freak Show?

By MICHAEL HIRSLEY

Oct. 20, 2000 12 AM PT

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

AUBURN HILLS, Mich. —

Mike Tyson’s tender ego and tough exterior are a combination akin to an egg perched on the dashboard of a monster truck in a demolition derby.

Tyson, the former heavyweight champion and reigning bad guy of boxing, is revving his engine again. Tonight he’ll face Andrew Golota in a scheduled 10-round test between two fighters with reputations for losing control when the going gets rough.

Both have won fights with roughhouse tactics. And both have been disqualified for carrying them too far.

Tyson, 34, still commands a $10-million payday although he hasn’t been in a title fight in three years and has fought only 12 rounds since 1996.

How long he remains a multimillion-dollar attraction seems to depend not so much on his talent as on the paying public’s morbid curiosity: What will crack first, an opponent’s face under Tyson’s fists or Tyson’s eggshell temperament?

Win or lose, crushing an opponent or crashing and burning, he has been a gaudy spectacle, never more so than in his last six fights. The best of them was his comeback against Francois Botha, whom he was trailing on points before landing a thunderous right that knocked out Botha in the fifth round in January 1999. The worst was June 1997, when he bit both of Evander Holyfield’s ears, leading to a third-round disqualification in a fight he was losing.

In wins, losses or no-decisions, Tyson’s transgressions have included biting ears, bending an arm he admitted he was trying to break, knocking an opponent down after the bell and knocking over a referee and an opponent after the fight was over.

On Wednesday, Tyson faced reporters after a workout at the Brewster Wheeler Center, a gym in Detroit’s inner city. He hit the media crowd with the confusing, inconsistent rhetoric that has long fueled his public’s leering fascination. He is boxing’s most vocally violent and openly paranoid practitioner.

“I enjoy being the bad guy,” he said at the outset, conceding that his wealth and fame did not mean he would win a popularity contest. Then, a few questions later, he hinted at retirement. “This is perhaps it right here,” Tyson said. “I’m tired. I have to get away from you all. I don’t need this. I can be enjoying my kids.”

Earlier this week, he said he was not ready to settle down as a father, adding, “I love my children, but they do not make me happy.” He is estranged from wife Monica Turner and his four children.

“This is definitely my last fight,” Tyson said Thursday after weighing in at 222 pounds to Golota’s 240.

At a Tuesday news conference at the Palace of Auburn Hills, the venue for Friday’s bout, Tyson voiced no retirement plans, and trainer Tommy Brooks said he was looking to future title fights. Tyson did not want simply to knock out Golota, Brooks said, but wanted “to make him pay . . . to send a message to [champion] Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield. It’s unfortunate that Golota has to be the one.”

Asked how long Friday’s fight would last, Tyson said, “However long it takes to kill somebody.”

Back in the ring for his third fight this year, Tyson said he picked the Detroit gym as his training center because Joe Louis once trained there.

But the basement area where Louis trained is shut in disrepair. And while Tyson spoke respectfully of Louis, it is the more troubled and mysterious ex-champ Sonny Liston to whom Tyson has more often compared himself.

In a statement that belied his claim of enjoying his bad reputation, Tyson this week echoed Liston’s long-ago sentiments on getting little respect in the U.S. after he had competed overseas: “I fought in London and Scotland and all the white people there loved me,” Tyson said. “I come back here and I hear all these bad things about me.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Tonight’s Fight

* Who: Mike Tyson vs. Andrew Golota

* At Stake: Possible shot at heavyweight title

* Where: Auburn Hills, Mich.

* TV: Pay-per-view

* Time: Four-fight card starts at 6 PDT

* Records: Tyson 48-3 (1 no-contest), 42 knockouts; Golota 36-4, 29 knockouts

Tale of the Tape

TYSON and GOLOTA

34: Age: 32

222: Weight: 240