Tyson Might Need a New Plan

Despite the fact Mike Tyson was knocked out by a lightly-regarded opponent Friday night, and despite the fact that the 38-year-old Tyson is facing surgery for a torn knee ligament suffered in the fight, Bob Arum says he is still interested in promoting the former two-time heavyweight champion.

But not for $80 million. And not against any major opponents in the foreseeable future. Arum says he has a new blueprint for rebuilding Tyson’s career, but he is not optimistic Tyson will be receptive to it.

“If he had beaten Danny Williams, so what?” Arum said of the man who stopped Tyson on Friday in the fourth round at Freedom Hall in Louisville, Ky. “Tyson shouldn’t have fought a real fighter. Being off 17 months, after fighting for only 49 seconds [against Clifford Etienne, whom Tyson knocked out in the first round in February 2003], and taking a bad beating from Lennox [Lewis] before that, Tyson needed to rehabilitate himself. He’s getting up in years. He should have been fighting a D fighter or, at best, a C fighter his first couple of fights.”

Before Friday night, however, Arum had been offering Tyson around $80 million for three fights with an option for a fourth. And Arum certainly wasn’t looking at D, or even C fighters. He had hoped to match Tyson against former International Boxing Federation cruiserweight champion Vassiliy Jirov on Nov. 13 and, assuming Tyson won, follow up with a match against one of the four men who hold a heavyweight title.

Now, Arum sees Tyson’s best path back to the top as the same road traveled by George Foreman, who was promoted by Arum in the second phase of his career after a decade-long layoff. Foreman fought no-names for several years, for no more than $15,000-$20,000 a match, until he was ready to step up to bigger names. He eventually regained the heavyweight crown at age 45.

“He didn’t care what he got paid,” Arum said. “He just wanted to get work and fight himself back into condition. But Tyson has an insatiable need for big money.”

That’s no surprise; Tyson is more than $30 million in debt.

“If Tyson is willing to do a George Foreman type of resurrection for relatively modest amounts,” Arum said, “well, maybe then his career can be rehabilitated. But he’s not going to listen to me or anybody else. I think that he can continue fighting and I’m still interested, but I don’t believe I’m going to be given the opportunity to work with him.”