Columnist Dean Juipe: Tyson tests the powers of reason

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2003 | 9:57 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.

The many sides, if not faces, of Mike Tyson have been on display for the past couple of weeks and it challenges the imagination to think the ship he commands is fully operational.

Alternately passive and aggressive, self-deprecating and boastful, Tyson has rummaged through the candy store that is his mind and provided the public with a mixed bag of nuts.

One minute he comes across as indestructible, while in the next he's cowering in a corner.

Fearless or fearful? Gladiator or Gumby?

Who can say for sure anymore?

Two weeks ago when I had an audience with the former heavyweight champ he was polite yet vulgar, humbled yet heinous. He spiced his tales with unprintable asides, and tempered his confessions with ludicrous innuendo.

Through it all he was adamant that he was ready to fight, that he was rejuvenated after taking Lennox Lewis too lightly last summer. "Working harder than ever," was a quote both he and his trainer, Freddie Roach, used excessively.

But I went back through my notes that were taken prior to his fight with Lewis and found Tyson saying the same thing back then, as was his trainer at the time, Ronnie Shields.

Roach was duped and so was Shields, as many have been before them.

He may, on second or third thought, be fighting Cliff Etienne this Saturday in Memphis but maybe Tyson doesn't want to be there. From the moment 10 days ago that he sacrificed the left side of his face for an oversized tattoo, his commitment to fighting Etienne -- which, in theory will lead to a rematch with Lewis -- arguably had been reduced to zero.

Tattoos need time to heal and spontaneity doesn't explain why Tyson chose to get one in such a susceptible place at such an inconvenient time. It was a sign: He's either fried or a glutton for punishment.

It may be that this overtly confident man's confidence is so fractured that he's leery of fighting a guy who was once knocked down seven times in a single fight. The old Tyson could scare Etienne into submission, but this newer version of the "Baddest Man on the Planet" may be ready to submit -- if not commit -- himself.

Concocting an additional excuse, a vague illness that came with a phony "bedridden" clause for effect, Tyson went into seclusion and forced his handlers to pull the plug on the fight with Etienne. That he reconsidered Tuesday and promised himself to the project speaks more of Tyson's need for the $5 million he'll receive than to his devotion for reclaiming the heavyweight title -- a "crusade" he fabricated for sound-bite purposes just a couple of weeks ago.

Yet I can't help but think that there's more than trickery afoot and that the tattoo, the real or imagined illness and the on-off-on nature of this upcoming fight is Tyson's way of abusing himself. He no longer prefers to take the easy road or the least-worn path.

It could be this simple: He wants pain, he wants suffering, he wants to get hit in the face and have it hurt. He wants to be a recipient rather than a dispenser of abuse.

Can it be that he's merely flinging himself into hellish depths, just to see if he can climb back out?