Columnist Dean Juipe: Destructive tendencies derail Tyson

Dean Juipe

Friday, July 31, 1998 | 10:33 a.m.

THE ABSOLUTE unvarnished truth of the matter is that he's out and out self-destructive.

Mike Tyson cannot stand prosperity. Provide him with good fortune or an opportunity to correct an earlier wrong and he will inevitably make an erroneous decision that reveals a mean and foolhardy streak.

Forget the multiple arrests as an underprivileged teen in New York -- just this decade Tyson has repeatedly damaged his image and his career with blunders so preposterous they're starting to seem intentional. Everyone makes mistakes yet Tyson, curiously, repeatedly compounds them.

He did it again this week in New Jersey by cursing in front of that state's Athletic Control Board as it heard testimony regarding his relicensing. Until that misstep, Tyson was certain to pass his oral exam and be licensed some 13 months after having that license revoked in Nevada.

Now there's some doubt about New Jersey's response, even if that commission seems inherently inept and blind to Tyson's indiscretions.

It's getting to where Tyson's unpredictability is so pronounced it has become, in an odd sort of way, his greatest asset as a fighter. The best reason to buy a ticket to a Tyson fight is not to see the mauling bully who was once the heavyweight champion, but to see what type of craziness might be on display.

He has become a spectacle.

Some would-be Freudians believe he's to the stage where his self-defeating actions reflect a frightened man who really doesn't want to fight again and who is no longer comfortable in a public spotlight. They point out Tyson could have already been relicensed and fought in Nevada this month if he were so inclined, but, instead, he misguidedly took his appeal to New Jersey and now he has put that commission on the spot by uttering the ultimate swear word in front of it.

It's a behavioral pattern with some history.

For example: there were the drinking binges in Las Vegas prior to Tyson shockingly losing his championship to Buster Douglas in Japan in 1990; there was the harmless invitation to a beauty pageant that preceded a rape and conviction in Indianapolis; there was his decision to align himself with a less-than-scrupulous promoter and shady managers following his release from prison in 1995; there were multiple marriages, one with a Hollywood star; there was his failure to attend a prearranged meeting in Louisville in which he was expected to apologize in person to Evander Holyfield for biting his ears during the 1997 fight in Las Vegas that led to Tyson being banned from boxing.

In each case and in many others too lengthy to elaborate, Tyson seemingly did his best to present himself in the worst possible light.

He has always been a bundle of contradictions -- claiming he studied Mao and other philosophers while in prison yet admitting he can't read or understand a boxing contract -- but that's separate from this inclination to habitually shoot himself in the foot.

Maybe Wednesday's outburst in New Jersey wasn't just the random if crude spontaneity of a ghetto-trained tough guy, but another sign of distress from a man with a severe personality disorder.

At a mere 32 years old, he seems closer to the end than he does to a new beginning.

He may even be deadly, bent on ruination at any cost.