Columnist Dean Juipe: Nevada reps quiet yet mad at New Jersey

IN TERMS of overt pressure, there wasn't any.

Neither AT&T nor Sprint nor any other phone-service provider has profited on the rift between the Nevada State Athletic Commission and the New Jersey Athletic Control Board. Neither organization's long-distance bill has been anything out of the ordinary despite Mike Tyson wedging himself between them.

For the record, Nevada's representatives have not been calling New Jersey to plead for a little sanity. The NSAC voiced no threats and issued no ultimatums regarding New Jersey's handling of Tyson's request for a boxing license.

Not that the commission members or the state's attorney general's office or U.S. Senator Richard Bryan's office didn't want to be heard. Truth is, they had plenty to say.

But they decided to follow a plan of decorum that, for the most part, excluded public pressure. NSAC chairman Dr. Elias Ghanem expressed his dissatisfaction with New Jersey agreeing to hear Tyson's request rather than defer to Nevada, where Tyson's license was revoked last year, and Bryan limited his outspokenness to a few less-than-acetylene comments about state's rights and how the situation ought to be covered by a federal bill he co-sponsored with Arizona's John McCain a year ago.

Yet even without receiving an earful from the Nevada contingent, the three members of the New Jersey board -- along with non-voting commissioner Larry Hazzard -- know exactly how the NSAC and the state's Democratic senator feel.

Those in Nevada think New Jersey is wrong to allow itself to be used as Tyson's conduit back to boxing.

They think the issue ought to be settled in Nevada, where Tyson was penalized for his disqualification loss 13 months ago to Evander Holyfield at the MGM Grand Garden.

Nonetheless, there was Tyson in New Jersey this morning at an Athletic Control Board hearing, lobbying for a license that he would have received if he went through the proper channels in Nevada.

Nevada wasn't going to deny Tyson a license but it also wanted and expected to be the state that determined his eligibility. And until two weeks ago and Tyson applying in New Jersey through adviser Shelly Finkel, the NSAC didn't suspect it wouldn't be judge and jury in Tyson's reinstatement process.

NSAC executive director Marc Ratner said he has had no contact with New Jersey, aside from a phone call from Hazzard the day Finkel's application was received. Likewise, NSAC members haven't been in contact with their New Jersey counterparts.

Maybe they're still in shock.

What little orderliness there is in pro boxing is supported by one state respecting another's decisions, and the McCain-Bryan bill supposedly reinforced those procedures. Heretofore, if Nevada or any state suspended a fighter, that suspension was honored across the country.

Now Tyson is sublimating the process by applying for a license in New Jersey when it was Nevada that revoked it. Worse yet, New Jersey is failing to exercise the reciprocity and good sense that was expected of it.

Barring a reversal by New Jersey, a provoked Nevada may shelve this nice-guy approach. It may be time to take off the gloves.

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