|
Sidelines Kalani Simpson |
The fight behind the
scenes of Tyson fightMIKE Tyson's hype train is rolling and everybody's jumping back on for another ride. There is money to be made again. You can smell it.
But hold on. Wait a minute. Disturbing news flashes: Tyson is dropping his $100 million lawsuit against Don King. His lawyers have a seven-fight, three-year plan for Mike to punch his way out of bankruptcy. He's licensed in New Jersey now, despite a governor's objection, and he'll be in Louisville on Tuesday to officially announce that he'll be there again for a July 30 fight.
Disturbing, of course, because none of this stuff mentions September, or Hawaii, or Aloha Stadium or K-1.
That might be enough to make a few people nervous.
You see, Tom Moffatt is promoting the prospective Tyson fight in Hawaii in September. The state Boxing Commission has given its conditional OK. Aloha Stadium has already been paid the deposit and booked the date.
We've written about it.
And yet, with every one of these updates from Tyson's manager, Hawaii conspicuous in its absence, you have to wonder what the heck is going on.
OK, here it is: Tyson/K-1/ Aloha Stadium is real. K-1 has Tyson under contract for at least one fight, and K-1 is planning it here. This is real. Or more accurately, as real as you can say anything is when you're talking about Mike Tyson.
And as everything is with Tyson, this is a lot more complicated than it first appears.
TO UNDERSTAND THIS story we need to go back to the beginning. Mike Tyson was dead broke. And he wasn't just at zero; he owed people. The government. Ex-wife. He owed them millions.
It's mind-boggling that someone could have somehow just blown $300 million in career earnings.
"It could have been more," Tyson told the New York Daily News. "I don't want to say that because that makes me look like a bigger jackass."
But as he himself pointed out, it's not like he lost it all in one lump sum.
Then along came the K-1 people. And they were very nice people. In a line from irish-boxing.com, K-1 is, "to coin a cliché, 'Big in Japan.' " They have money, but want further exposure in the U.S. And Tyson, even in his deepest depths, is still one of the top draws in sports.
"It's been a very long courting process to get him," K-1 USA CEO Scott Coker said, the day he appeared before the state Boxing Commission.
Tyson joined up in a promotional capacity (making appearances, doing color commentary, jumping in the ring to challenge Bob Sapp to a fight "under Marquis of Queensbury rules"). Then he did it. He signed a contract to fight one boxing match (with the option for another, Coker said) for K-1.
"It's very expensive," Coker said on June 17, "to court Mike Tyson."
"A lot of boxers that I've talked to said that the reason they like the K-1 experience is because they're treated really, really well compared to boxing," Coker said.
And Tyson was very down and very out and very used to dealing with Don King.
OK, now fast-forward. Tyson is back with his old manager, Shelly Finkel, and it looks like he might be on his way back, period. He's reportedly in great shape and the heavyweight division is a mess and he could be a contender again. Finkel is wheeling and dealing, for Tyson's comeback fight, to get out of this bankruptcy mess.
But there is the matter of that K-1 contract ...
IT SEEMS SIMPLE. Do that one fight for K-1, then get back to business. And that's what Finkel wanted, at least at first.
Yes, Finkel knows all about the contract -- that's on the record -- even if we haven't quite gotten that impression with these last few news updates about Mike's future plans.
But it was a clash of visions. Finkel wanted this first fight, the Louisville one against Kevin McBride (now it's Danny Williams, like anybody cares), to be "promoted by" K-1.
But K-1 wanted what it wants in Hawaii. A K-1 martial arts extravaganza beamed back to the core audience in Japan, a Tyson pay-per-view showcase to introduce its sport -- a blend of karate, kickboxing, tae kwon do and kung fu -- to the mainland U.S. Sure, K-1 is on ESPN right now, but this would take it from niche sport to household name in one night!
Oh, and just to top it off, Tyson would be fighting one of their K-1 guys in the featured boxing match.
You can see the potential for conflict.
If you are a boxing manager with a guy looking for a title shot, can you seriously let him fight the hero from some Jean Claude Van Damme movie?
If you are K-1 and have the chance of a lifetime in your hands, can you afford to not take advantage of a signed contract?
It seemed -- when Coker and company made their pitch to the Hawaii state Boxing Commission -- that all this had been worked out.
But Finkel isn't returning calls and the K-1 guys have their phones turned off.
And recent news certainly does make one wonder.
SO WHERE'S MIKE? In the middle? Out of the loop?
Probably just In Training. Focused. Letting them all work it out.
Hey, he likes Hawaii. He likes these K-1 guys who were good to him when he was down. He trusts Finkel's counsel.
Power struggles within elite (or even formerly elite) athletes' inner circles have been legendary.
Best case, it hasn't come to that. Hopefully they're working on it, quietly. They're reasonable men. Maybe that's why the rings go straight to voice mail. They're talking to somebody more important. Each other.
So yes, it's real. But it's complicated. Hopefully it will happen. Maybe it won't.
But if it doesn't, at least it'll be interesting first.
See the Columnists section for some past articles.
Kalani Simpson can be reached at ksimpson@starbulletin.com