Wednesday, June 9, 1999 | 9:30 a.m.
It's a six-page spread in the nation's No. 2 sports magazine, with seven photos and what seems like 100 inches of copy.
The subject is a Las Vegas athlete, a very interesting Las Vegas athlete.
Andre Agassi?
No, Cliff Couser.
Profiled in the current (June 14) issue of ESPN the Magazine, Couser -- a professional fighter who not only bears an uncanny likeness to former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, but who has the accompanying idiosyncrasies down pat -- has his life microscoped for a national audience.
It's an in-depth look at Couser and his relationship -- or lack thereof -- with Tyson, as well as an examination of the almost innumerable trials, tribulations and personality conflicts that earlier this year forced the 29-year-old to seek professional counseling.
It's his life story on full display.
"The ESPN story is OK, I guess," Couser said Tuesday over lunch at Canton Chinese Cuisine on East Flamingo, where the patrons routinely kept a wandering eye on a man they undoubtedly believed was Tyson. "But the trouble I have with it is that it makes people think I'm not a legitimate heavyweight fighter."
His girlfriend of the past year, Charina Rodriguez, quickly chimed in with a succinct point.
"They made you look like you were crazy, like you were a stalker or something," she said. "That's what people are going to remember from that magazine."
Couser, as he has only recently come to learn, is a half-brother to Tyson in that his mother, Ada Richardson, had a relationship with Tyson's father, Jimmy Kirkpatrick, that led to Couser's birth. After being told of that link, Couser (pronounced coo-zer) was both bewildered and obsessed.
He wanted to meet Tyson and did everything in his power to pull it off, including sending him some 50 written messages. Tyson, however, has never reciprocated the interest even though Couser has portrayed him in an HBO movie.
"Well, I don't even care about Tyson anymore," Couser said. "I'm sure he'll read the ESPN article, but whether he reacts or doesn't won't bother me."
That indifference wasn't easy to come by, and, in fact, it took countless hours of therapy with Dr. S.F. Russo for Couser to break the one-sided bond he had developed with Tyson.
"I finally said 'I've got to go to the doctor,' " Couser said. "It got to where I'd have a fit and I'd throw things and break things because of my anger about Tyson."
Russo, who, purely by coincidence, has also treated Tyson, put Couser on Zoloft, an antidepressant. Couser says it has made a big difference in his outlook and behavior.
"I guess he decided he had to do something after he asked me to look into a mirror and tell him what I saw," Couser said. "I told him I didn't know for sure, but that I saw myself on one side and I saw Mike Tyson on the other. And that I was angry about it."
Couser had become a prisoner of his own self-image, a little too like Mike for his own good. But even with his medication he may never escape this incredibly complex problem: He wants to be himself, while everyone he meets wants him to be Tyson.
"It's hard to handle," he said. "It got to where I'd fake it just to be nice. I'd put on a facade to give the people what they wanted, so that they'd eventually leave me alone."
This internal conflict constantly surfaced, including the night ESPN the Magazine talked Couser into posing -- in boxing trunks and more or less as Tyson -- on the Strip.
"I was about to freak out," Couser said. "There must have been a thousand people around and it seemed like they all were asking for pictures and autographs and stuff like that. I had to get out of there."
It's impossible to spend any time with Couser without being overwhelmed not only by his similarities to Tyson, but by the nonstop, if misguided, attention directed his way. No one in this city turns people's heads like Cliff Couser.
"It's actually terrible," he said. "At first all the Tyson stuff was OK, but now I don't feel I need it. Like one guy, offering me $10,000 just to call his sick father and talk to him because he thought I was Tyson.
"I always did the best I could with that type of thing, even if I was making Tyson look better than he really is."
When Couser is out in public, autograph seekers are never far away. Of course, they're looking for Mike Tyson's signature as Couser puts pen to paper.
Couser doesn't quite oblige.
"They may not know it until they look closer later on, but I always sign my own name," he said. "If you ask me for my autograph, you get my autograph."
It's easy to see why the man on the street can be fooled. Couser not only shares facial and body structure traits with Tyson, he has a gold front tooth and several tattoos. Beyond the physical resemblances, he can mimic Tyson's voice -- and scowl.
"He's extreme," Rodriguez said.
Both she and he would like to see some influential promoter give his boxing career a badly needed boost. Couser, fighting mainly in the Midwest with Tony Holden as his promoter, is 17-5-2 but has lost his last two fights.
"I've only tapped about 70 percent of my boxing ability," he said. "I haven't been getting better, plus I got a late start with only seven amateur fights."
He said he was using this newspaper article -- "When he reads it, that's when he'll find out" -- to fire his trainer, Jacob Duran, who made what Couser feels are disparaging remarks in the ESPN story. Likewise, Holden has expressed some interest in renewing his working relationship with Couser, but the fighter would much rather do business with a local firm, Top Rank.
"I'd love to sit down and talk with them," he said. "I'm hoping they can do something for me."
He does not have a fight scheduled although there have been preliminary talks about facing ex-champ Razor Ruddock this summer. The bottom line is that whether Couser has championship ability or not, there's money to be made with this Tyson thing.
"A fight with Tyson would be perfect," Rodriguez said. "Cliff is the most marketable fighter out there, and everyone knows Tyson. You know how many people would pay to see them fight?"
"She's perfect, she's 100 percent behind me," Couser said, happy to have the support after this recent, turbulent, identity crisis. It was in February that Couser initially sought counseling for the quandary he felt he was in.
"I'm trying to be Cliff Couser," he said. "Since I've gone on these pills, I've been able to sort a few things out."
He knows he is reliant on boxing and would like to capitalize before it's too late.
"There isn't any doubt I'd be gang-banging if I didn't have this," he said, going into some detail about the many scars he carries as the result of street fights earlier in his life in St. Louis. "My fighting ability was completely born on the street with wild-knuckle fighting. I've done a lot of things I should be in jail for."
Coincidentally, so has Tyson, who was released from a Maryland prison May 24 and who expects to resume his boxing career with an August fight in Las Vegas.
Couser will not be his opponent, not yet at least, although the exposure he received via the magazine piece may upgrade his stock.
"I didn't have any idea it would be that big of a story," he said. "It was just about as big a story as the one they had on Tiger Woods."
It's Woods on the cover of the magazine, although Couser's piece in it has forced him to purchase an extended voice-mail package from Sprint. "I was getting so many messages my machine was overflowing," he said.
He weeds through his calls, hoping the right one is incoming.
"People may think I'm a movie star trying to be a boxer, but I've been an athlete all my life," he said. "I just need a little help. But I do thank God for the focus I have today.
"I'm happier than ever."
He looks and acts happy, even with the uncertainty remaining in his life.
"Boxing has so many fake people," he says, "that you never know who's real."
No, you never really do.
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