Little guys could wind up stealing the show in the ring

Last Friday afternoon, in the Maryland jail he calls home these days, Mike Tyson threw a fit, then a TV set, and finally got himself tossed into an isolation cell for the weekend. All things considered, it probably could have been worse.

Because if Tyson had been sitting in front of the TV set the next evening, when welterweights Felix Trinidad and Pernell Whitaker fought 12 very entertaining rounds at Madison Square Garden in New York, he might be feeling more desperate still.

Not too long ago, Iron Mike was the glamour puss in boxing's glamour division. It seemed like people would throw down good money forever to see him fight anybody, so long as he was bigger than Joe Pesci and smaller than a Chevy Cavalier.

Tyson probably wasn't thinking career when he got into it with two older men during a traffic altercation in Maryland last summer, which is how he wound up being jailed. But truth be told, a few months in the slammer didn't figure to affect his appeal much, one way or the other.

All of a sudden, though, the tectonic plates below boxing's surface are shifting dramatically. All of a sudden, neither Tyson nor the heavyweights he's been carrying all these years can count on fans of the "sweet science" to make pay-per-view deposits directly into their retirement accounts. All of a sudden -- first with last Saturday's Oscar De La Hoya-Ike Quartey bout, and then the Trinidad-Whitaker fight -- their faster, lighter, flashier cousins are proving to be much more entertaining buys.

This fact was not wasted on Don King, who promotes Trinidad and used to promote Tyson, but now is being sued by Iron Mike. The referee had barely raised Trinidad's hand in victory Saturday when King opened negotiations for what could be a megafight against De La Hoya.

"Is he going to be chicken De La Hoya and not fight Trinidad or will he be macho Oscar and accept this challenge?" King said.

"The people deserve to see the best fighting the best. Tito Trinidad is ready to fight anybody, any place, any time. Are you listening Oscar?"

If the welterweights intend to steal the thunder from the heavies, they had better move quickly to match Trinidad and De La Hoya -- even though his promoter, Bob Arum, is King's sworn rival.

Both fighters are committed to opponents in May, De La Hoya against Oba Carr, Trinidad against Vincent Pettway. The only remaining obstacle is agreeing to a TV network into which the rest of us can pour our pay-per-view dollars.

archive