Columnist Dean Juipe: Is Tyson responsible for delays?

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at [email protected] or 259-4084.

It may have been a foolish notion but there was Dan Goossen and he expects to field any number of inquiries on the status of Mike Tyson.

As Tyson's promoter, Goossen has already been around the block enough to know there will always be questions of some sort regarding the 33-year-old former heavyweight world champion.

He signalled his agreement to meet and the summit was adjourned to a hallway in the Hard Rock hotel-casino.

There, Goossen was grilled -- unmercifully? -- on the subject of Tyson's motivations and career aspirations at this late stage of his boxing career. Specifically, he was asked pointedly and repeatedly whether it is Tyson himself who is holding up the announcement of a fight with Orlin Norris that looks to be locked into Oct. 23 at the MGM Grand Garden.

After all, Norris has agreed and is perfectly willing to accept the $800,000 that has been offered to him.

In addition, the Showtime cable network has settled on Norris and finds him to be at least a plausibly marketable opponent for a fight with Tyson. Plus, Norris is said to be OK with the MGM and the date appears to be doable.

To review the necessary components toward putting together a fight, this one has the promoter, the TV network, the host site and at least one of the participants ready to go. If there's a holdup -- and there is, as this fight could have been announced weeks ago -- then a troubled, unpredictable bad boy like Tyson is automatically the leading suspect.

Living and supposedly training in relative seclusion in Phoenix, Tyson is staying under wraps and saying next to nothing. If some printed reports are to be believed, he's having a good time and only slowly losing the extra weight he carried with him out of prison last spring.

Is it possible the man just doesn't want to fight again, regardless of his financial needs?

"No," Goossen said, although if he had answered any other way it would have been uncharacteristically frank in this consistently deceitful sport. "Mike's anxious to fight and he's fine with everything. But there's still a process we have to go through and -- unlike some promoters -- we're not going to make an official announcement until we're sure there's nothing we won't have to retract some day."

That announcement is so overdue even Goossen admits "I know you're tired of hearing this, but we think it'll come very soon."

Initially, Tyson was to have fought in August. Then it was to be September. Then it was to be early October, followed by Dec. 11.

For no specific -- or at least specified -- reason, the date continues to get pushed back to where it now seems unlikely he will fight twice this year. The only logical explanation is that something is wrong with Tyson himself, and that the "something" in question may very well be Tyson's desire despite Goossen's predictable reassurances to the contrary.

And if it's not his desire, it's his weight.

But Tyson vs. Norris is coming, if for no other reason than the fact Tyson needs the $8 million or $10 million he stands to receive for taking on the former cruiserweight world champ.

Yet given the sluggish and prolonged nature of this scenario, it's easy to argue that Iron Mike is more than a little rusty.

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