Columnist Dean Juipe: Commission can’t allow Tyson fight

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Jan. 23, 2002 | 10:28 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Because of who he is and the trouble that inevitably swirls around him, Mike Tyson's presence at Mandalay Bay was deemed to be too dangerous by the people who make the decisions at the massive Las Vegas resort.

As they sat in a room earlier this month and discussed pursuing an April fight between Tyson and heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, the Mandalay Bay execs studied their options and determined it wasn't worth the risk.

They pulled out of a sweepstakes that was eventually "won" by another hotel giant, the MGM Grand. The irony is that the MGM had been burned by Tyson and the crowd he attracts on a fight night before, yet it stuck its neck out again and paid a $12 million site fee to promoters.

Now, of course, the fight is in grave danger of being called off following Tyson's maniacal display at a New York press conference. But the onus to call it off apparently will fall to the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Tempting as it is for Nevadans to court the tourists and high rollers who attend big fights, it's clear that the commission has only one reasonable course of action: It has to deny Tyson a license.

The guy is flat-out crazy and it's up to the NSAC to set aside the monetary gains the fight would provide. With Tyson not only acting more and more deranged but with the district attorney breathing down his neck on a sexual-assault allegation that is close to being a charge, the commission cannot approach this with a blind eye.

It has to do the right thing and a failure to do so will cost it its integrity.

Based on his antics, Tyson doesn't really want to fight Lewis and by causing the disruption he did Tuesday he gave himself an out. He knows he would lose the fight and he's scared, so his solution was to behave like a madman and force the authorities to ban him.

His reputation as the "baddest man on the planet" remains intact, only now it's not so cute. He's out of control and in need of professional help.

The same can be said, more wistfully however, about the MGM bigwigs who decided to pay for a fight that comes with a huge potential for disaster. As has been proved, the threat of destruction within a casino is very real when Tyson and his equally volatile crowd are around.

The MGM has firsthand experience with this, having been the site of a wild melee following Tyson's disqualification loss to Evander Holyfield on June 28, 1997. The sound of gunshots -- real or imagined -- triggered a stampede that resulted in thievery and the casino locking its doors and police sealing off a two-block area outside.

That episode followed the shooting death of rapper Tupac Shakur on Sept. 7, 1996, after he had attended the Tyson vs. Bruce Seldon fight at the MGM.

When Tyson fought Frans Botha on Jan. 16, 1999, at the MGM, a security force of 500 -- including 178 off-duty Metro officers -- patrolled the grounds.

But now Tyson is acting crazier than ever and the danger factor is compounded by the nuts who don't buy tickets but line the walls of the casino on the nights of his fights.

It's time to put a stop to this. There is not a single valid reason to license Tyson in Nevada.