Tragedy of An Ex-Champ

By RICHARD CORLISS

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.