Columnist Dean Juipe: D.A. could interrupt Tyson’s plans

Dean Juipe

Monday, Dec. 10, 2001 | 9:55 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.

Reactions were quick and decisive after Lennox Lewis and his people raised the stakes and made Mike Tyson an offer he couldn't refuse.

Tyson jumped at the chance to fight Lewis April 6 in Las Vegas, cancelling a planned Jan. 19 fight in Atlantic City with Ray Mercer.

And the Clark County District Attorney's office immediately responded as well, announcing that it would complete its investigation into a lingering sexual-assault charge brought against Tyson by a woman in September.

Tyson vs. Lewis is a go, but only if the D.A. dismisses the assault allegation and, in turn, the Nevada State Athletic Commission agrees to license the former heavyweight champion as well.

This frenzied turn of events was brought on last Friday when Lewis, et al, upped an offer to Tyson for an April fight that may be worth $20 million to each of the participants. The increase on Tyson's end was in exchange for him dropping the fight with Mercer, and the unspecified offer was incentive enough to move the fight with Lewis on to the fast track.

But it'll stay on only if Tyson is cleared by the district attorney. If any charge is brought against him, the fight with Lewis will be off and Tyson's already fragmented career might very well be over.

Police had been investigating the assault charge but it took the announcement of a Tyson fight with Lewis to spur the D.A.'s office into completing its examination of the facts. It promises a finding by the end of December.

The NSAC will then have the next say, and if there are no charges pending against Tyson it will absolutely, positively license him to fight again in Nevada, where he last fought in October of 1999. But if the D.A. presses charges against Tyson, the NSAC will unquestionably withhold licensing the fighter no matter how many stays, postponements or delays Tyson's army of attorneys can muster within the legal system.

Let's say the assault charges prove unfounded and Tyson is licensed, then and only then does he move on to a fight in which the risk is obvious: Given these legal distractions and how very little he has fought in recent years, Tyson runs the risk of being grossly unprepared for a man of Lewis' stature.

To be specific, Tyson fought only once in 2001, needing six rounds to dispose of Brian Nielsen Oct. 13 in Denmark. In the previous two years he had fought only five times and accrued a mere 12 rounds of work.

In fact, since the beginning of 1997, Tyson has totaled only seven fights and fewer than 21 complete rounds.

He needed that proposed January fight with Mercer, and Lewis was able to keep him from it by sweetening the offer for a fight in April in which both men have agreed not to take an interim bout. It was a ploy by Lewis that worked with surprising efficiency, and, arguably, a mistake on Tyson's part that he will come to regret in that he could have beaten Mercer and advanced to a fight with Lewis without suffering any negative financial consequence.

I think Tyson should have stuck to his game plan and got the work he needed to prepare for Lewis. But he has chosen another path, one he may see as lined with gold.

But he's going to lose that fight to Lewis -- assuming the D.A. even gives him the chance.