Columnist Dean juipe: Tyson antics aid McCain’s boxing bill

Dean juipe

Friday, Feb. 21, 2003 | 10:10 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.

There are times when it seems hardly anyone affiliated with professional boxing favors the formation of a national commission to oversee the sport, yet the possibility of such a thing happening increased tenfold in the past few days. Thanks, in large part, to Mike Tyson.

Thanks, too, to Tyson for contributing to this: If a national commission is formed under the guidelines presented in a bill authored by Arizona senator John McCain, betting on fights in Las Vegas will soon be a luxury of the past.

"No question about it," promoter Bob Arum said Thursday. "I've read McCain's bill very closely and it's going to eliminate gambling on boxing, at least in the state where the fight takes place."

McCain, of course, parades a yearly and neverending series of bills related to boxing and Nevada's right to accept bets on sporting events to the U.S. Senate floor. But this year, with the Republicans in control, his intrusive bills have a chance to pass.

"This is hardball," Arum said. "Nevada and the Nevada (athletic) commission are under a calculated attack by McCain's forces and his media stooges.

"McCain's bill will pass this year and the president won't waste a veto on it. It's outrageous, but taxpayers around the country are going to be forced to fund this national commission."

Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Marc Ratner is meeting today with a representative of Nevada senator Harry Reid, who opposes McCain's boxing bill.

"I'm very concerned about Senate intervention," Ratner said. "I've felt for a long time that if we were to have a national commission, it should be made up of promoters and fighters and they should look out for the common good.

"It shouldn't be a federally mandated commission with all the power in the hands of one person."

McCain's bill calls for a federal boxing "czar" to be appointed by the president. By its very nature, such an appointment would have its political implications.

If McCain's bill now has to be seen as a looming reality, its passage was bolstered by Tyson's antics in the last two weeks. He's fighting Clifford Etienne Saturday in Memphis despite adding a facial tattoo and battling a supposed illness.

"No," Arum said, when asked point blank if he felt Nevada would have allowed Tyson's fight with Etienne to go through after all that has happened.

"But McCain's people are going to use the mess Tyson created as justification for passing his boxing bill," Arum added. "Tennessee isn't going to do anything to stop (the fight) and its commission is something of a joke. Even if it decides Tyson needs to be examined, it allows the promoter to appoint and pay the doctor of his choice."

Arum doesn't believe Tyson should be fighting, period, but that's another story.

Ratner wouldn't comment specifically on Tennessee's handling of Saturday's fight, but he did address the Tyson situation and its relationship to McCain's pending bill at least indirectly.

"Anything that reflects poorly on boxing helps the McCain bill," he said.

And that's bad news for Nevada, if not the sport itself.