Tyson Not Worth the Trouble

If he is bloodthirsty, what are they?

If his values and sense of decency are out of whack, so are theirs.

If we want to understand him, we need only look at their faces.

The saddest sight, and the most enlightening, Tuesday afternoon in midtown Manhattan was not the brawl initiated by Mike Tyson on the stage of the Hudson Theater in the Millennium Hotel.

It was the friendly crowd that surged around him as he made a victory lap around the block afterward.

Tyson’s act long ago became old and repugnant. Tuesday didn’t plow any new ground.

On the Hudson stage to promote his April 6 fight against heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, the former two-time heavyweight champ charged Lewis as he walked onstage, and took a swing at a Lewis bodyguard who tried to intercede.

Lewis responded with an overhand right to the back of Tyson’s head and the melee was on. According to Lewis, somewhere at the bottom of a pile of bodyguards, security people, boxing officials and publicists, Tyson bit through Lewis’ pants and into the fighter’s thigh.

Jose Sulaiman, head of the World Boxing Council, suffered a mild concussion when he fell and banged the back of his head. Gary Shaw, Lewis’ promoter, briefly lost consciousness after getting hit several times.

When calm was somewhat restored, Tyson spewed a string of epithets at a reporter in the crowd who had the nerve to suggest the fighter might be better off in a straitjacket. One television station, airing a 29-second sound byte, had to use 16 expletive-masking bleeps.

Been there. Done that.

Remember Tyson biting both of Evander Holyfield’s ears, indeed chewing off a piece of one ear, in their heavyweight rematch?

Tyson has been spewing expletives in public since he became a public figure. He once began a news conference by referring to the gathered media as “perverts, pedophiles, freaks and deadbeat dads.”

And that’s the cleaned-up version.

He has threatened to eat Lewis’ children.

But why should Tyson cool his act when he receives such reinforcement from the man in the street?

“I think he’s going to win the fight,” one excited bystander yelled into a cell phone as he hovered near Tyson on Tuesday. “He didn’t seem at all afraid of Lewis.”

Nobody has ever, or will ever, confuse Tyson with Cal Ripken. Yet watching Tyson parade around 44th Street, receiving pats on the back and requests for autographs, was like watching a bizarre, twisted version of Ripken’s victory trot around Camden Yards after breaking the consecutive games record.

How sad.

It is from the streets of this city that Tyson rose, deprived, bitter and determined to battle his way out of the ghetto. It is here that he operated as a bully and small-time thug.

And as proven Tuesday, it is here that he can still receive approval now that he is a big-time thug.

So why change?

But it’s not just the crowd on the street that is to blame for Tyson’s ongoing rampage. Many elements of society, knowing full well this is an emotionally ill individual who requires medication just to get through the day, continue to look the other way.

How sick is the restaurant owner in Cincinnati who has a piece of Holyfield’s ear on his wall as a souvenir? Is he now going to bid for the chunk of Lewis’ thigh?

Tyson is weaned off his medication before each fight, thus becoming a raging lunatic, merely for our collective amusement.

If a lion or a tiger in a zoo were treated that way, there would be a huge howl of protest. But, of course, a lion or tiger cannot generate $100 million from their act.

Why would the Nevada State Athletic Commission, in good conscience, give this man a boxing license at his hearing Tuesday, ruling that it believes he can control himself in the ring?

One hundred million dollars.

Why would officials of Las Vegas’ MGM Grand Hotel agree to welcome Tyson and the posse of troublemakers he attracts when an earlier Tyson-Holyfield fight ended with a riot in the MGM casino, resulting in injuries and mayhem?

One hundred million dollars.

Even if the fight isn’t sanctioned by the athletic commission, Sulaiman said the rematch had the approval of the WBC.

Perhaps Lewis himself will have more sense than any of them. He has said he will evaluate his options after the commission rules.

Lewis stands to make at least $20 million. He knows he should be able to easily beat a fighter whose skills have long since deserted him.

But he also knows that Tyson, facing sure defeat and more humiliation, is liable to resort to some outrageous exit, to perhaps again bare his teeth and search for a body part.

And all that will stand between Tyson and Lewis is a referee half their size.

Lewis may ask himself, who needs this?

It is a question we all should have been asking ourselves about Mike Tyson a long time ago.