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Pastimes : Boxing: The Sweet Science -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LPS5 who wrote (3073)	4/16/2001 5:30:49 PM
From: LPS5	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 10489

Whisler: 'New' Tyson? Or just more of the same act? San Antonio Express-News "A guy born round don't die square." The old trainer Cus D'Amato was fond of using this expression to describe any of boxing's wild assortment of unsavory characters. But D'Amato, who trained the likes of Floyd Patterson and Jose Torres and acted as a surrogate father to a teen by the name of Mike Tyson, never used the phrase to describe Tyson. Then again, he didn't have to. Scores of others have tried their hand at analyzing Iron Mike, one of the more complex figures ever in the world of sports. For every high Tyson has reached over the years, there has been a free fall to a new low. In the ring, Tyson's transgressions have included ear-biting, bending an opponent's arm in an admitted effort to break it, and knocking an opponent down after the bell, not to mention knocking over both a referee and an opponent after a fight had ended. Out of the ring? Three years in an Indiana prison for rape. One year in a Maryland prison for assaulting a motorist after a traffic accident. And enough venom spewed to sicken even the Sopranos. What to make, then, of the Mild Mike we saw in San Antonio the past two weeks? From the fitness club manager to the hotel security supervisor to the car dealer (Mike bought a new Lexus while he was here, no doubt paying cash for it), Tyson by all accounts was friendly and well-behaved. Nice, even. And a soft touch around kids. Some of the people at the San Antonio Parks and Recreation Department, which runs the city-owned San Fernando Gym where Tyson trained here, weren't overly thrilled with having someone with Tyson's image rent one of their facilities. But they had no choice. It is a municipal gym, and they rent it just as they rent parks and pavilions. As one of them said, "We may have been in more trouble had we not rented it to him." There was some reluctance, yes, but apparently Tyson's stay brought no complaints. So what gives? Members of his entourage have used these words to describe Tyson — calm, laid back, relaxed, mature. Could they be talking about someone else? "A lot of what you get with Mike is hype," said his trainer, Tommy Brooks. "Mike is a salesman. He's not the person I thought he'd be. He's very intelligent and he's got a big heart. "And I think he's more mature now. I think he just woke up one day and said, 'Why am I so mad at everybody?'" In the past, Tyson sometimes chose to answer the question with a violent act. Other times, he'd answer by making threats or vulgar comments directed at the media, which has described Tyson as everything from a monster and mad man to a traveling freak show. "Mike has feelings, too," Brooks said during a training break here recently. But if feelings really were an issue, then Tyson wouldn't have been marketed as "the baddest man on the planet" all these years, an image Tyson admits he enjoys. Perhaps some of what Tyson has said is just another way to sell his reputation as a mean, nasty and unpredictable fighter fans will pay a lot of money to watch just to be able to see what bizarre thing he'll do next. But you never can really tell if it's really an act or really Mike. Take last month, for example, when Tyson invited a group of reporters to his home in Las Vegas. Among other things, he apologized for some of the things he's said to them in the past and told them he was tired of being boxing's reigning carnival act. He even apologized for saying he wanted to eat Lennox Lewis' unborn children and said he's rededicating himself to boxing. So is he a changed man or a con man? Dr. Jekyll? Or Mr. Hyde? As D'Amato said, "A guy born round don't die square." Maybe so, but for two solid weeks in the Alamo City, the man was cordial, respectful, in control — and halfway normal. All words you never hear used to describe Mike Tyson.