Tyson bit off too much

By STEVE SIMMONS -- Toronto Sun Teddy Atlas, in his own words, is no freakin' genius.
He speaks in street talk, with a New York accent almost as thick as the knife wound that decorates his face.
But he called it.
Before the fight and before the bite, he called it. The former trainer of Mike Tyson had told a number of well-connected boxing writers that the heavyweight title bout with Evander Holyfield would end in disqualification.
"He planned this,'' Atlas said of Tyson's maniacal chomps on Holyfield's ears on Saturday night as the MGM Grand offered up a new style of buffet.
"If there's one thing I know, it's weakness. Mike Tyson is a very flawed and very weak person. He didn't want this fight. He had to find a way out of it.
"I know the nature of this guy. His whole life has been a farce. His whole life had been an edge. His whole life has been having people protect him, having a way out of facing the real thing. When he didn't have that, he found a way to get out and his way of getting out - he knew that he was going to do this.
"I told them (writers) that he might bite him, that he might head-butt him. He might elbow him. He knew this. That's why he went forward with this fight. Soon as he saw Holyfield was going be the same guy and he wasn't going to be lucky with a punch, which he tried, then he went in and did this, which he planned to do, to get out.
"But like everything in his life, it will be misread. They'll say he's a savage. They'll say it was retaliating for something Holyfield did. They'll say he's an animal. And he'll be able to live with that. Once again, he'll be able to hide from the truth.
"He's a piece of garbage, but more important, he's a coward.
"He's a weak person. He did what weak people do. He found a way out he could live with in his world. He went in there only because he knew this was an option.''
The aura of Mike Tyson as invincible heavyweight died the November night he was first beaten up by Evander Holyfield. He was undressed then for all the world to see. The emperor had no clothes and no left jab either. The rematch, it says here, would have only further confirmed the truth, had it not been interrupted by savagery.
"Tyson is a myth,'' said Don Turner, Holyfield's trainer. "He could never beat Evander Holyfield.''
Tyson was a myth. Now, he is only a sick, disturbed, pathetic, weak, despicable human who should disappear from a sport which by itself is on the verge of disappearing. He is the juvenile delinquent who never stopped behaving juvenile or delinquent.
His bite on Holyfield never will be forgotten or forgiven and it mutilates the memory of Tyson's career, just as he attempted to mutilate Holyfield's ears. And now the question must at least be asked: Who, really, did Mike Tyson ever beat? And did he ever display guts, fortitude, intelligence, guile, everything that makes Holyfield so attractive a fighter?
The post-fight reaction to Tyson's toothy attack on Holyfield's lobes has been predictable. There has been the regular call for a ban on boxing. That happens after every controversy. There has been a cry to bar Tyson forever. There have been shouts that Tyson should return to the prison from whence he came.
The real problem is that he cannot be barred because there is no one to bar him. No one group controls boxing. A promoter with money does. If one commission - in this case, Nevada's - chooses to bar Tyson, there will be another commission somewhere willing to turn a blind ear to Tyson fighting again.
In spite of all that has happened, there always has been a disturbing public fascination with Mike Tyson. There was before he went to prison for rape. There was after he returned. And sadly, there is still now. This is still his sport, his story, which is even more reason to try to turn away from boxing when there is every reason to admire Evander Holyfield.
In his dressing room, after he made weak attempts to justify his bloody bites on Holyfield, Tyson reportedly said: "It's over. I know it's over. My career is over.''
Those words lasted only as long as it took to construct a nicely worded apology yesterday. Tyson apologized to his promoters, Las Vegas, the hotel, his television network, and afterward he got around to apologizing to Holyfield. Sincere it wasn't.
But even Evander Holyfield, after the disqualification, after a piece of his ear was discovered in the ring, after he was robbed of an opportunity to win with punches, wouldn't go so far as to rule out another bout with Tyson. He said it was unlikely before the apology.
The next question he might be asking is: How much money?
This is, after all, boxing, sick as it might be.

Steve Simmons can be reached via e-mail at ssimmmons@sunpub.com

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