Tyson KO’d

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2002 | 9:51 a.m.

Mike Tyson came out of his licensing hearing with an MGM limousine at his disposal and perhaps a need for the Yellow Pages.

There are 33 outlets in the valley that cater to would-be international travelers who desire a passport, and the former heavyweight champion was suddenly in need of one. His boxing career, or what's left of it, is back on the road.

Denied a license by the Nevada State Athletic Commission at a lengthy yet drama-filled Tuesday hearing, Tyson may yet find a jurisdiction in America that will license him. But it's at least as likely that he will find himself fighting overseas, where three of his four most recent fights have been held.

Not that Tyson is going quietly.

"I think Lennox Lewis is a coward," he brazenly told reporters awaiting his exit from the Grant Sawyer Office Building near downtown. The voluntary admission was in reference to his proposed April 6 opponent, the International Boxing Federation and World Boxing Council heavyweight champion who had agreed to fight Tyson at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, contingent on the NSAC giving Tyson a license.

But by a 4-1 vote, Tyson was denied that license. Options such as granting him a "conditional" license, or licensing him with a multimillion-dollar bond that he would have to post, were not discussed.

Repentant under questioning by the commission, Tyson once again played the leopard and changed his spots after scurrying out a side door before the NSAC finalized its decision. "I'm going to fight (Lewis) anytime I see him on the street," Tyson proclaimed as he exited.

He added that he was not surprised by the commission's vote and that "I didn't think I was going to get a license but Shelly Finkel was forcing me to come anyway."

Finkel, Tyson's self-described adviser, took some heat from the NSAC as well for allowing a Jan. 22 incident at a New York press conference that served as the "last straw" for most on the panel. While it had been known that Tyson was likely to be licensed in Nevada in spite of his bedraggled past had this hearing been held two weeks ago, his violent behavior in New York served as the catalyst for denying him a license to fight here in 2002.

He can apply to the commission for a license again next year.

"He's not happy," Finkel told reporters, commenting on Tyson's frame of mind after commissioners Amy Ayoub, John Bailey, Dr. Tony Alamo Jr. and Dr. Flip Homansky sent him packing. NSAC chairman Luther Mack voted in favor of licensing Tyson.

Tyson's lead attorney, Bob Faiss of Las Vegas, attempted to get his client's licensing status off the commission docket at the last minute and once the panel's destination was obvious. But his request for a withdrawal was denied, although Bailey -- a former colleague of Faiss' at a local law firm -- made a motion (that failed to be seconded) on that very subject.

Speaking softly whenever he addressed the commission, Tyson portrayed himself as a loner who had attempted to comply with the NSAC's 1998 request that he undergo regular psychotherapy. But when neither he nor Faiss could document or substantiate the dates or results of those supposed sessions, it only added to the commission's anti-Tyson fodder.

"I don't have one friend in my entire life," Tyson said sullenly, as Mack questioned him about the advice he may be receiving.

Tyson, 35, is a two-time former champion with a record of 48-3 and two no-contests who was to have received $17.5 million for the April fight with Lewis. That fight may yet go on, but it won't be here.

"There are three other sites that have already expressed interest," Faiss said as the hearing got under way, arguably attempting to intimidate the commission.

While Lewis has said he is taking a "wait and see" approach about a fight with Tyson, he may also choose to disassociate himself with Tyson even at the expense of being stripped of the WBC portion of his crown. Tyson is the WBC's mandatory challenger, and it isn't out of the question that it will strip Lewis and sanction a Tyson vs. Vitaly Klitschko fight in Germany for its version of the heavyweight championship.

Contractually, Lewis can quash a fight with Tyson by a specified (and largely secret) date. But promoters are known to have received interest from factions in Detroit, London and Copenhagen who would host the fight, and Lewis -- who was to have received $20 million for the bout -- might yet agree.

Also, as a peripheral issue working against Tyson, the Association of Boxing Commissions is under no legal requirement to follow Nevada's lead and refuse to issue Tyson a license, although there will be a subtle pressure on the ABC to conform to Nevada's view.

What buried Tyson's chances at the hearing was his inability to show any marked improvement in his behavior since he last appeared before the board, which had revoked his license following a 1997 fight with Evander Holyfield before reinstating him two years later. The NSAC then denied Tyson a license after he fought here twice in 1999, with both fights marred by Tyson's unsportsmanlike antics.

"It all goes to the core of your behavior," Ayoub said to Tyson, indirectly referring to such transgressions as Tyson pleading guilty to assaulting two motorists in Maryland; being investigated at least three times on sexual assault allegations; and having a track record that now includes blemishes in six of his last seven fights.

"Your life is surrounded by controversy," Bailey told Tyson. "Everything you do, everything you say, is scrutinized.

"Your actions in and out of the ring have had an impact on the sport of boxing."

A renowned slugger who has accrued some $170 million for the 16 fights he has had in Nevada, Tyson attempted to diffuse the commission's fears about him by telling Mack "I'm not Mother Teresa but I'm not Charles Manson either."

He was adamant that his scuffle with Lewis at the press conference in New York was choreographed up to a point.

"I was doing great ... until that guy hit me the other day," he said, speaking toward Bailey and referring to a Lewis bodyguard who intervened as Tyson approached the champion. "In the heat of the moment, anyone -- even you yourself -- might do something that shouldn't be done.

"Shelly Finkel instructed me to face Lennox Lewis and go towards him. There was a communications problem; I didn't want to inflict pain on anyone."

As for his ensuing billingsgate-filled diatribe directed toward a member of the press conference's audience, Tyson said it was an honest reaction.

"A gentleman said something sensitive to me," he said, referring to a heckler suggesting a "straitjacket" was appropriate. "I was humiliated and embarrassed at that time and I didn't care what was right or wrong. I was embarrassed -- that's why I struck out the way I did.

"It was a bad day that day ... but he violated me and I violated him."

As for the traffic mishap in Maryland that led to Tyson pleading guilty on two counts of assault in a penalty that was lessened from two years to time served when Tyson donated $200,000 to charity, he proclaimed his innocence.

"The people lied and I gave them a bunch of money," he said, succinctly. "They gave me two years for a lie."

Other incidents were tread on lightly, with Tyson saying "Mr. Botha was fighting dirty and to avert that, I twisted his arm" about a 1999 fight with Frans Botha that had its painful moments, and "It was all a big joke and he didn't come to fight" about another '99 fight with Orlin Norris that was called after one round when Tyson hit Norris after the bell and the latter claimed a knee injury.

Receiving virtually no discussion were the subjects of Tyson traveling illegally to Cuba, as well as an ongoing sexual-assault investigation that may yet lead to an indictment by the Clark County district attorney's office. As for Tyson failing a drug test in Michigan after a 2000 fight with Andrew Golota, his benefactors disputed the result and the NSAC had no evidence to the contrary.

But Ayoub and later Bailey wanted more information on Tyson's medical status and the outcome of his alleged therapy, which seemed to catch the fighter and his legal team by surprise.

"Are you on medication today?" Ayoub inquired.

"No, ma'am," Tyson replied.

When Ayoub continued in something of an accusatory tone, Tyson rebelled for a moment.

"You don't know me, ma'am," he said. "You don't know my horror stories."

When Bailey quizzed him on the therapy he had agreed to undergo -- "Please let me go to therapy ... I would love to go through therapy" he told the commission at a similar hearing in 1998 -- Tyson was evasive and Faiss was silent.

"I just stopped using them," Tyson said of the therapists he claimed had been treating him. "I'm no longer in need of them."

It was apparent the NSAC members thought otherwise, and they held it against Tyson that he had not complied with the informal edict that he seemingly and eagerly embraced in 1998.

"I'm not being combative," Ayoub said to Tyson and those who surrounded him at a table in a relatively small chamber room within the Sawyer Building. "It's just that I have some concerns that need to be addressed."

While Faiss painted Tyson as merely another in a line of delinquent heavyweights that stretches back to John L. Sullivan -- "not a model citizen," Faiss said -- and Jack Dempsey -- "initiator of the 'killer instinct,' " Faiss maintained -- his appeal and that of his client eventually was rejected.

But Tyson fled before the formality of a vote, which the NSAC members were adamant would go on the record and not be undermined by Faiss' request to withdraw the item once the outcome was apparent.

While that roll-call vote was held and announced to the crowd's rapt attention, Tyson was on his way outside and through another throng of media en route to the limo the MGM had provided. His comments about fighting Lewis anytime, anyplace that he gave as he slid into the back seat of the vehicle notwithstanding, he was likely oblivious to his most pertinent need.

Abell's Rat Pack on South Nellis Avenue was only a few miles away, had the subject of acquiring a passport superseded his angst.

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