TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/082691/0826261.000

Text File | 1992-10-19 | 3.9 KB | 85 lines

                ▄                                                            ╚SPORT, Page 67

Tragedy of an Ex-Champ


Mike Tyson, who gets millions to kick butt in the ring, is sued
for millions more for allegedly pinching same at a beauty pageant


    Mike Tyson has inspired many epithets: the Mighty Joe Young of
boxing, Don King's twisted Trilby, America's most volcanic
son-in-law. For three years he was also known as the heavyweight
champion of the world. But the organizer of the Miss Black America
Pageant has topped all Tyson name callers. In a $21 million
lawsuit alleging sexual assault of 11 of the 23 contestants at
last month's competition, J. Morris Anderson charged the ex-champ
with being "a serial buttocks fondler."

    Innocent until proved guilty -- except, of course, on the
front page -- Tyson has been staggered by the body punches of
recent accusations stemming from his appearance at the
Indianapolis pageant. An 18-year-old contestant says the fighter
raped her in a hotel room. And Miss Black America of 1990, the
first to make the buttock-fondling charge, has sued Tyson for
$100 million. The allegations threaten to abort Tyson's November
fight with current title holder Evander Holyfield -- the
ex-champ's chance to recapture his old glory and the awe he once
commanded in and outside the ring.

    The charges simply amplify Tyson's police-blotter legend.
His nontitle bouts with actress-wife Robin Givens and her
mother were prime tabloid tattle. Other allegations of sexual
extravagances, such as that he treated women like sparring
partners, kept two unauthorized biographies selling briskly.
Writer A.J. Liebling had it right 40 years ago when he observed
in The Sweet Science, "Fighters of exemplary moral quality may
be bores. And fighters who do a lot of beautiful things nobody
else does may be children emotionally. The good boys get
married. The bad ones get in jams." Tyson did both.

    In his current jam, Tyson may plead that he was only doing
what is expected of a top dog in a vicious sport. A fighter's
business, which may also be his pleasure, is hurting people;
because it is the public's pleasure too, he is paid for his
work. It would be nice if this walking keg of testosterone
believed that what he does is just a job, a dispassionate
display of skill, and that his ferocious aggression is merely
an attitude to be shucked along with his mouthpiece after the
final bell. Nice, but not likely.

    And maybe not possible for Tyson, who, at 5 ft. 11 in., is
the shortest champ since Rocky Marciano, and one whose soft
tenor voice has given employment to many derisive
impressionists. How tough did this lisping lad with the
fire-hydrant physique have to be? In Tyson's mind, and the
popular imagination, plenty tough. From the start. His teen
years, which took him from juvenile prison into the gym of ring
wizard Cus D'Amato, made for great copy but little emotional
stability. Twenty-eight fights and 26 knockouts later, Tyson was
the youngest ever heavyweight champion -- a credit that looks
great on a resume but is an invitation to excess for any
20-year-old. Tyson, naturally, RSVPed.

    As long as he was the undefeated champ, implacably
separating large fellows from their wits, Tyson was exempt from
sweeping moral judgment. A killing machine knows no scruples.
His brutality was his aura. He was as bad as we wanted him to
be. But once he was unthroned by Buster Douglas in a humiliating
upset early last year, Tyson was not only revealed as mortal but
also held to mortals' rules.

    A champ is expected to be a role model: a monster at work,
a gentleman at play. But Tyson also needed to live out the
fight fan's fantasy -- and maybe his own -- that he is the
world's roughest, meanest, baddest stud. His worst offense may
be in believing that he is what he does.

    By Richard Corliss