Columnist Melissa Schorr: Tyson is left alone for NOW

Whatever the outcome of Saturday night's fight, Mike Tyson has already been declared victorious -- seemingly -- in one longstanding grudge match.

The Southern Nevada chapter of the National Organization for Women (NOW) has finally abandoned its protests that a convicted rapist shouldn't be allowed back in the boxing ring. After years of picketing Tyson fights outside the MGM Grand and spearheading an international write-in campaign in July decrying the boxer's reinstatement, the protesters have finally thrown in the towel.

Good. It's a fight that never made much sense to me, anyway.

First of all, you'd think a Tyson fight would give the women of NOW their ultimate gratification: getting to watch Tyson being slapped around by someone his own size. Also, when I first heard of it, I was confused: Do they mean to say that a former felon should never again be entitled to earn an honest living? Should the 32-year-old boxer just sign up for welfare for the rest of his days, rather than return to his old job?

I'd rest easier knowing that a convicted rapist is gainfully employed, rather than just sitting around hotel rooms with too much time on his hands, wouldn't you? Better to have him focus on knocking gloves than on knocking boots.

Of course, it turns out that it's not that Tyson is simply "earning a living" that peeves them -- it's that he's earning godawful gobs of greenbacks doing it.

Example 1: A Washington Feminist Faxnet item from July begged women to prove that the state of New Jersey "is not a haven for violent, convicted rapists to make millions of dollars."

Example 2: As Anne Golonka, NOW local chapter president, complains: "He can just waltz into town and make a fortune, and some other poor guy gets out of prison and can't get a job -- I found that offensive."

Ah, so if Tyson were employed as a famous boxer earning petty cash, then it might be OK? But no again. It's not the moolah he gets -- it's the admiration. What's really unacceptable here, they clarify, is that a convicted rapist has been reincarnated as a respected role model.

"Other men look at him and say, 'if he's doing all these things and making all this money, how can he be bad?' " Golonka notes. And New Jersey NOW President Bear Atwood moaned about athletes who assault women, then "return to play as heroes."

A hero? Um, hello? The kids singing "I want to be like Mike" on the Gatorade television jingles never meant Tyson. They meant Jordan. Tyson is hardly what I'd call an idolized sports figure, roundly ridiculed for his Betty Boop voice, ear-chomping escapes, thugster background, mangled finances and misguided choice in managers.

But if NOW really wanted to debunk Tyson's martyrdom, I could have told them long ago that their smartest strategy would have been to encourage , not protest, his returns to the ring.

After all, the more Tyson is in the public spotlight, the better the odds he'll make an oaf of himself again -- such as his expletive explosion last week. Thankfully, Golonka finally seems to recognize this truism. "Mike Tyson is his own worst enemy," she now notes smugly. "He's helping our campaign more than anything."

Tyson may have won this battle, but he's already lost the war.

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