[BOXING]
WAILEA, Hawaii >> In what some may consider an unlikely setting for a fighter training for any fight, let alone the heavyweight championship of the world, Mike Tyson is preparing in Maui for his June 8 bout in Memphis with the titleholder, Lennox Lewis. Tyson is training in a gym not far from the Haleakala volcano, which before Iron Mike showed up was the lone volcano on this lush, splendiferous island. Tyson training for Lewis on Maui
Star-Bulletin wire services
In a hotel suite crowded with about 20 journalists from around the world, Tyson agreed to hold one of his few interviews before the fight.
In a discussion that lasted about 1 hour 15 minutes, Tyson, sometimes charming, sometimes bullying, dealt with a mind-spinning array of topics: Machiavelli (he's reading the book "Machiavelli in Hell"); the morality -- or lack of it -- of religious leaders; and even Lennox Lewis.
Tyson is famous, and infamous, for his volatile eruptions, a long list that includes street fights; road rage; smashing crystal in hotels; biting the ears of Evander Holyfield in a title bout; and a three-year prison sentence for rape.
Haleakala is dormant, and so was Tyson on Tuesday afternoon, but history tells us that he seethes. Tyson agreed with that assessment, saying, as he often has, that his growing up as a "dog guy from the den of iniquity" in Brownsville, Brooklyn, among other reasons, has produced the mercurial person he is today.
And how did he wind up in Maui to train? "I don't know how I got here," he said. "I came here one time with my second wife and didn't have a good time. I didn't want to be married."
He is now in divorce proceedings with that wife, Monica.
"I'm having a good time now," he said. "But that doesn't mean I'm not training hard."
Tyson recalled that when he was a teenager and living with Cus D'Amato, his manager and trainer, he liked to play around.
"Cus told me, 'If you do that, then you have to train three times as hard as you normally would."' Tyson said. "Well, I'm not playing nearly that hard, but I'm still training three times as hard as I normally would."