A BEAUTY OF A BEAST

www.InsideBoxing.com

By Rick Folstad

Photo: TOM CASINO

INSIDE BOXING (May 6, 2002) - Must have been a wild night in Maui.

Get a bunch of reporters together on a beautiful island, put them in a single room, toss in the Beast from Brooklyn and wait three hours.

Tell me there isn’t going to be a lot of  late-night story-telling over strawberry daiquiris when that door finally opens.

Mike Tyson?  He’s boxing’s answer to Attila the Hun, though Attila didn’t have the bad reputation Tyson has.  And we didn’t have to listen to the crazy Hun rant and rave on the evening news about the villages he and his men were going to plunder and pillage.

Instead, we get to hear what Tyson has to say, which is about as informative as listening to the cashier at Checkers tell us our hamburgers are ready. At least the guy at Checkers is giving us a little news. The last time anything of substance came out of Tyson’s mouth, it was a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear.

Training in Maui for his June 8 fight in Memphis against Lennox Lewis, Tyson was foolishly allowed to talk to the press recently.  Turning Tyson loose on the media is like flipping your car keys to a drunk friend and telling him to take the freeway because it’s quicker.  That’s Tyson, a terrible accident waiting to happen.

Among the nicer things he had to say last week was this little gem directed at a woman reporter: “I normally don’t do interviews with women unless I fornicate with them. So you shouldn’t talk anymore.’’

Great stuff, Mike. Have trouble getting dates?

Or this one, directed at the male reporters (no one got out alive): “I wish you guys had children so I could kick them in the (not a nice word) head or stomp on their testicles so you could feel my pain because that’s the pain I have waking up every day.’’

Yeah, waking up every morning and seeing Mike Tyson stare back at you in the mirror must be painful. Wealth, fame,  the title of former heavyweight championship of the world. Those are heavy crosses to bear. How do you manage, Mike?

Along with his self-inflicted pain, Tyson keeps whining about how he’s misunderstood, and maybe he’s right. When he told reporters he wanted to stomp on their children’s testicles, maybe he meant it in a good way.

Friendly suggestion to Tyson’s handlers. Keep this psycho bound and gagged until the night of the fight. Don’t allow him near women or children.

Another friendly suggestion, this one to the good people of Memphis: Don’t forget to lock your doors on the night of June 8. He may get loose.

It’s too bad. I never thought I’d cheer for a Brit over an American. But that was before Mike Tyson.

Kick his butt, Lennox.