Columnist Dean Juipe: If Tyson’s perturbed, he hides it

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Jan. 12, 1999 | 9:53 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

Luckily for Mike Tyson, he found the right vocation.

Or it found him.

Either way, as a professional fighter, Tyson -- who says he's in the "hurt business" -- has one of the few occupations where a man can take out his frustrations on a rival and be rewarded for doing it.

And Tyson has to have a laundry list of frustrations, a constant source of potential grief.

This is a man who seemingly hasn't lived a day in the past decade without having one or more legal disputes pending. If he was a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker, his tolerance for court entanglements would have long since expired.

But as a fighter, we're led to believe he can set aside his worries and smack someone into oblivion as he pleases. Fact is, Tyson comes across as quite carefree.

The average man would be devastated by the sheer volume of legal headaches Tyson faces virtually every day. He could -- and maybe has! -- wallpapered one of his fancy homes with the many subpoenas he has received.

He knows every legal courier in five states.

And as a millionaire many times over (despite his poverty pleas), the suits brought by and against Tyson are always for inflated fees. Whether he wins or loses, he doesn't get off cheap.

As he prepares for fighting Frans Botha on Saturday at the MGM, Tyson faces an array of pending litigation that many a typical man would find distracting. For instance: he is suing his former promoter, Don King, and managers, Rory Holloway and John Horne, for $100 million; he is, in turn, being sued by King and Horne for $110 million; and he still owes $7 million of what was a $12 million bill imposed by the IRS in 1996.

In addition, if he was bothered by such things he might be frightened by the prospect of returning to prison, as he will learn early next month whether his guilty plea on a pair of assault charges in Maryland will require him to surrender his freedom either there or in Indiana, where he remains on probation for sexual assault.

Tyson's bio reflects a chronology of misdeeds that have led to numerous federal charges, civil suits and assorted accusations of various merit.

Add in the fact his personal life is habitually played out in the media -- often by his own doing -- and it's a wonder Tyson is ever anything but sullen.

Yet there are times, including lately for the most part, when his disposition is downright jocular. As any amateur psychiatrist can see, Tyson might well be to the point where he's no longer outwardly affected by his many travails.

Simply put, he may rationalize his problems this way: "What's one more?"

It's an odd existence and one few among us would envy. The king of pay-per-view boxing is in that position not only because he can fight but because his life constantly appears to be in shambles.

As his difficulties mount, so does the public's fascination with him.

It's a goldfish bowl he lives in and it could be said he willingly shares it with adversity.

Now, after so many years, he treats his troubles as if they were routine. Outwardly at least, he doesn't stew in the anxiety or worry and lose his hair.

He's fortunate to be a fighter and to have an outlet, a place to vent. The hard part is limiting his explosions to the first-bell cue.