Tyson tells commission ‘Please don’t torture me’

Tim Dahlberg

Monday, Oct. 19, 1998 | 11:26 a.m.

LAS VEGAS - Mike Tyson pleaded with boxing officials today to stop "torturing" him and allow him to return to the sport he once dominated.

Tyson told the Nevada Athletic Commission that he has suffered enough for biting Evander Holyfield's ears during a title fight last year and that he needs to box to make a living.

In one pointed exchange with commissioner James Nave, the former heavyweight champ said he was being humiliated by the hearing and the psychological tests the commission told him to undergo last month.

"Please don't torture me any longer, sir," Tyson said. "I made a mistake. Other fighters have made more.

"I'm just a human being trying to live my life."

With Muhammad Ali and a couple of hundred people watching in the commissioners' hearing room, Tyson said he has no one to blame but himself for biting Holyfield, but he once again said he was reacting to what he thought were intentional head-butts from the champion.

Tyson's hearing came one month after he was told to undergo the psychological tests to help the officials decide whether they should give him back the boxing license they revoked when he bit Holyfield.

The doctors who examined Tyson tried to reassure the commissioners that the fighter most likely won't snap again in the ring, a conclusion they outlined in their report, released last week.

Dr. Ronald Schouten, one of five doctors who examined Tyson at Massachusetts General Hospital, told the commissioners today that the boxer's low self-esteem was a "chronic situation" but that he could be helped through treatment.

He said Tyson was so upset by losing his license that he most likely would not do anything to jeopardize it in the future.

"The impact of losing his license has been devastating," Schouten said. "He wants his job back."

Dr. Thomas Deters told the commissioners that allowing Tyson to fight again would have "therapeutic value."

At one point, commission chairman Elias Ghanem told Tyson that he shouldn't feel he's being picked on.

"Forgive me for thinking that. I love you all," Tyson responded, drawing laughter from the audience.

Tyson lawyer James Jimmerson opened the hearing by reminding the commissioners that his client has done everything asked of him and urging them to meet him halfway. He said Tyson was approaching the hearing with a sense of "honesty, fairness and doing the right thing."

"You have his livelihood and his life in your hands," Jimmerson said.

Tyson, wearing a black sports coat and white dress shirt, sat next to his wife, Monica, at a table in front of the commissioners. He stared at the doctors intently as they testified and occasionally leaned over to whisper to his wife, a physician.

If he gets his boxing license back, Tyson will fight once again - perhaps as early as December - for the riches he has frittered away. A loss will put him out of the sport for at least another year.

In a gambling state, Tyson is taking a calculated gamble he can get three votes from the five-member commission to resurrect a career that seemed doomed after he bit Holyfield 15 months ago.

"I don't know, but I'm hopeful," Tyson adviser Shelly Finkel said before the hearing. "I think our chances are better than they were before."

The five-day exam was what commissioners wanted when they recessed a six-hour hearing Sept. 19 without making a decision on Tyson's license.

But a clean bill of mental health won't be enough to get Tyson back the license that was revoked when he also comes with questions about a Maryland traffic altercation still hanging over his head - questions that he refused to answer in his first Nevada hearing a month ago; questions that will have to be answered if he is going to fight again.

Jimmerson said today that Tyson would answer questions about the accusations.

Tyson's advisers pushed for the earliest possible hearing so that Tyson could fight before the end of the year, probably Dec. 5 at the MGM Grand hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

If the gamble fails, he will be banned from the sport for at least another year - a crippling blow for an aging heavyweight who owes the Internal Revenue Service $13 million in unpaid taxes despite having made more than $100 million in purses since his release from prison in 1995.

Tyson appears to have support from at least two of the commissioners, and his advisers privately say they believe they can pick up at least one more vote if Tyson is able to explain why he allegedly punched and kicked two men following a traffic accident Aug. 31 in Maryland.

Last-minute talks continued over the weekend with attorneys representing the two men in hopes of reaching a settlement.

"It's 50-50 that they settle," Tyson spokesman Peter Seligman said. "It's like Russian roulette. You put a number out there and if it's enough, it's enough. If not, you don't settle."

Tyson was to have undergone trial today on criminal charges in the case, but it was postponed until Dec. 1 at the request of his attorneys.

There's even more at stake for Tyson in the matter. He is still on probation for his rape conviction, and could be sent back to prison if convicted.

"The bigger problem is he'll go to jail," Seligman said. "Then none of this matters."