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Tyson circus bypasses
Hawaii

AH, it would have been fun.

As I see the circus that surrounds what will be tonight's Mike Tyson fight I have only one thought:

We were so close.

Last summer, we reported people were planning a Tyson fight at Aloha Stadium. It was all true. But as with all things Tyson, it was complicated, unpredictable, wacky.

It involved the martial-arts league K-1 and was KO'd when Tyson's management team refused to give its blessing (to go along with matchmaking disputes and Tyson's apparent hard-line stance that he wouldn't face a commission in order to get licensed) -- despite K-1's claim it had Tyson under contract for a fight. Any remaining hope for a Tyson event here was counted out when the guy lost in his comeback fight.

Let's just say the whole plan fell apart before it even came together. The highlight may have been when Aloha Stadium received a deposit check.

Some said it was for the best, that a Tyson fight here would only be a fiasco, a circus, a joke, a sham.

Yes, but it would have been OUR fiasco, circus, joke, sham!

And so I can only look wistfully at the unfortunate series of events heading up to tonight's fight.

The Associated Press reported that Tyson came to Washington, D.C., "promising a train wreck."

See! He guarantees it!

Then came news that during the pre-fight press conference the opponent's manager started talking and Tyson told him to quiet down for the good of his fighter.

"You'd better stop," Tyson said. "I'm going to gut him like a fish."

I'm going to gut him like a fish?

It would have been fun.

The Washington Post wrote that "the news conference in the Blackburn Center Ballroom certainly resembled a circus at times ..."

Sigh. That could have been our circus.

But, instead, it is Washington that gets to be Bizarro World for a night.

The hand-picked opponent is under the care of a hypnotist. The Post reports that Bert Sugar thinks the fight is ending somewhere between "Oh say" and "can you see." Tyson says he may become a missionary.

That's right. Mike Tyson, missionary.

Oh, what could have been.