Tyson’s Ability Is Clear, His Future Is Not

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. —  Are there any stars on Mars?

At least one boxing trainer figures that the search for a credible ring opponent for heavyweight champion Mike Tyson may require interplanetary travel.

“This guy is really out of this world,” said Richie Giachetti, trainer of former heavyweight champion Larry Holmes.

“I know a lot of trainers who are going to the Olympics, looking for heavyweight talent. Forget it. I’m going to go see NASA, see if I can get a trip to Mars or Venus. Think there’s any fighters out there?”

That seemed to be the day-after consensus here Tuesday, in the wake of Tyson’s 91-second destruction of Michael Spinks. Tyson, nearly everyone seemed to agree, has graduated well beyond the ranks of merely good heavyweights.

“Since I’ve been around, I’ve seen two other heavyweights who hit as hard as Mike, Earnie Shavers and George Foreman,” Giachetti said.

“But Mike is much quicker, punches much more accurately and is much more aggressive than either of those two guys. Believe me, this is a great heavyweight.”

Tyson’s off-handed remark at the postfight news conference that “As far as I know, this could be my last fight,” was dismissed by one member of Tyson’s inner circle, Jose Torres. Tyson is contracted to fight Frank Bruno in London Sept. 3.

Torres dismissed Tyson’s remarks.

“He just wants to get away from all this for a while,” Torres said. “He will fight Bruno on Sept. 3, positively.”

Shelly Finkel, the rock music-boxing promoter who coordinated the national pay-per-view television network for Tyson-Spinks, indicated that Tyson is seriously thinking of retirement. “Mike told me a week ago that he thought he’d retire after the Bruno fight, but after what he said last night, I don’t know,” he said. “He’s got a lot of hassles in his life right now, and the easiest thing for him to do at this point is nothing.

“I see him taking several months off, maybe longer. But I just don’t think at his age and his mentality, he can stay out of a gym for very long. If everyone leaves him alone for July, I think he’ll be back in the gym in August.”

Meanwhile, the first salvo was fired Monday night in the battle for control of the heavyweight champion, who turns 22 Thursday.

Tyson’s manager, Bill Cayton, was served with legal papers in a suit filed by Tyson in New York state Supreme Court. Tyson is seeking to sever his four-year management contract with Cayton, 70. Cayton was served at his ringside seat in Atlantic City’s Convention Hall.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Cayton, attorney Thomas Puccio and Lorraine Jacobs, widow of Tyson’s late co-manager Jim Jacobs, expressed outrage over the suit.

“The allegations in Mike Tyson’s lawsuit are truly not worthy of a champion,” Puccio said. “They dishonor Jim Jacobs, who is no longer with us and is unable to respond.”

Jacobs died March 23.

Tyson alleges in the lawsuit that he was “improperly induced” to sign a four-year extension of his first contract last February, when the contract still had a year left.

“The charges are all patently false, and they will be shown to be false,” Puccio said. “All these charges are a sham and totally unsupportable. It is almost beyond belief that Mike Tyson would sign his name to them.”

Said Cayton: “I’m very disappointed in Mike, in fact I am outraged by this lawsuit.”

Tyson claims in the suit that he was unaware of how ill Jacobs was when he signed the contract renewal.

The suit charges that Jacobs had “the duty to disclose” his terminal illness.

During the news conference Tuesday, both Puccio and Cayton were asked if Tyson had been aware of how ill Jacobs was--he had leukemia--at the time of the contract extension. Neither would answer the question.

Lorraine Jacobs, also speaking from Cayton’s office, said: “Jim and I knew Mike since he was 13,” she said. “I’m very disappointed in Mike. I can’t believe Mike would do this . . . it’s very hard for me to speak.”

Mark Etess, vice president of Trump Plaza Hotel, said the hotel was a big winner in the casino after the fight. Trump Plaza chairman Donald Trump paid a record site fee of $11 million for the fight.

“We had our all-time biggest casino drop,” Etess said. Drop is a casino term meaning the number of dollars exchanged for gambling chips.

“Our previous record was the day of the Tyson-Holmes fight (last Jan. 22), which was $8,466,000,” Etess said. “Yesterday, we did slightly better, $8,477,000.”

Annually, Etess explained, Trump Plaza earns a 16% profit on its casino drop.

“Obviously, we’re a little disappointed in the brevity of the fight,” he said. “Our casino manager said the gamblers ‘charged’ into the casino after the Tyson-Holmes fight, but that last night they came in with much less enthusiasm, sort of with an anti-climactic mood.”

Where does Don King figure in all this?

King, who was paid $3 million to promote the fight--Cayton says King did “absolutely nothing” to promote it--says he’s waiting to hear from “the boss.”

“Mike Tyson is the boss,” King said. “That’s something that Bill Cayton never understood. When Mike Tyson speaks to Don King, Don King listens.”

King was asked what chance he gives for the Sept. 3 Tyson-Bruno fight for actually coming off.

“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s something only the boss can tell you.”

Finkel said that early returns on the closed-circuit and pay-per-view telecasts indicated the show met projections.

“It’ll come out where we said it would, a gross of $70 million for the whole thing,” he said.