LAS VEGAS – Now, it’s up to Mike Tyson.
Does he really want to fight anymore?
Or does he just want to get paid to make appearances against men who masquerade as fighters, as he has for the past four years?
Now, the last stumbling block to the fight he has claimed to want has been cleared. The inconvenient obstacle of Hasim Rahman has been moved out of the way. Lennox Lewis is the heavyweight champion of the world again. Mike Tyson is his mandatory challenger.
Finally, there is nothing standing in the way of them getting together.
Not long ago, Tyson claimed he wanted to eat Lennox Lewis’ children.
Now, would he rather eat his words?
“I don’t think it’ll be a money issue,” said Gary Shaw of Main Events, Lewis’ promoters. “Right now, it’s strictly a Mike Tyson issue. If he wants to fight, we can do it by April. I think he’ll take a lot of heat if he doesn’t fight Lennox Lewis right away.”
But will he do that considering how devastating Lewis looked against an admittedly outclassed Rahman Saturday night?
Would he risk it in light of his plea for two more tune-up fights following his sloppy KO of Brien Nielsen last month?
Can he dare it not having fought a legitimate opponent since he was driven to bite off one of Evander Holyfield’s ears to avoid being knocked out in 1997?
Only Tyson knows for sure.
Late Saturday night, after Lewis had KO’d Rahman in the fifth round to regain the titles he had lost in April, Shaw got a call on his cell phone while entertaining reporters.
The caller was Shelley Finkel, Tyson’s advisor. “I can’t talk to you right now, Shelley,” Shaw said. “I got a bunch of reporters around me.”
The bunch of reporters groaned. All he had to ask Finkel was if Tyson was willing to exert the power of his mandatory over Lewis for his next fight. Shaw chose not to do so.
“Don’t worry,” Shaw said. “We’ve spoken about it already. We’ve been waiting for this day. I believe if I deal with Shelley Finkel I can get the job done better than anyone else.”
That last was a shot at Don King, who promoted Rahman-Lewis II and has been making overtures to move in on the remainder of Lewis’ career since the fight was signed.
“I will be talking to Lennox Lewis’ people very soon,” King said after the fight. “They have indicated to me they want to talk. They saw from my performance how good I am. I’m the best.”
But when asked if, assuming Lennox comes on board, King would push to make a Tyson fight next, he said, “Forget Mike Tyson. Tyson is not bigger than the champion.”
King had several reasons for saying that, not the least of which is the dueling $100 million lawsuits he and Tyson are currently purusing against one another.
Another is that King controls just about every other heavyweight of note, including WBA champion John Ruiz, who is fighting Evander Holyfield for a third time on Dec. 15.
King would like nothing better than to bring Rahman back against the Ruiz-Holyfield winner, with that winner to fight Lewis.
“I would be so delighted just to be promoting Lennox Lewis, I don’t know what I would do next,” King said.
But clearly, the only heavyweight title fight that can be sold to the public in significant numbers right now is Lewis-Tyson, regardless of how faded Tyson may be.
“I could easily see that fight grossing $100 million,” Shaw said.
Lewis, for one, sounded as if he didn’t believe money would be enough to convince Tyson. “After that last fight, when he fought that blimp (Nielsen), he said he needs two more fights,” Lewis said. “We’ll see how it all comes out. There’s other guys who deserve a title shot as much as Tyson.”
Since the second Holyfield debacle exposed Tyson for what he has become, the former heavyweight champion has fought a half-dozen times, mostly in Europe, and exclusively against fraudulent opposition.
One of his opponents, Julius Francis, was a rank amateur. Another, Lou Savarese, went down so easily Tyson nearly killed the referee to take a few more swats at him. After that fight, Tyson made his infamous “I’d like to rip his heart out and eat his children” boast quote about Lewis.
But after he struggled into the sixth round against Nielsen, a Danish tub of goo without a shred of boxing skill, Tyson seemed to have lost his appetite for both Lewis and his children.
“I’m not ready yet,” he said. “Two more fights, at least.”
At 35 years old, Tyson is nowhere near the destructive force he once was.
Still, it is his name, not Lewis’, that comes to the mind of most fight fans when they think of heavyweight boxing.
“That’s the fight I want to see,” Shaw said. “And that’s the fight I think the public wants to see.”
The only question left is, does Tyson still want to see it?
