Mike Tyson

NEWS REPORTS say that legendary boxing promoter Butch Lewis died of a massive heart attack. That sounds about right to me. Because Butch had a massive heart. He was a paradox, a contradiction in terms. He was the original little big man, a fierce boardroom brawler who could strip you clean in a bargaining session, then become your most trusted partner when the deal was done. When he carried the shield for one of the fighters or entertainers he represented, Butch could be tough as nails.

As if heavyweight champ Mike Tyson doesn't have enough problems, he's now being roughed up by Madison Avenue. The New York Post reported yesterday that because of his image problems (reports of a suicide attempt and wife-beating, both of which he has denied), Tyson is losing literally millions and millions of dollars, as various companies are dumping him as their TV spokesman. "Mike image is at low ebb and it's going to cost him a lot of money," reports the Post, quoting a source "close to Tyson.

If I'm following this correctly, in the months since she first accused Mike Tyson of rape, Desiree Washington, Miss Black Rhode Island, has offered the following accounting of herself and her motives: She isn't interested in money, and she only pressed charges because Tyson didn't say he was sorry. What she really wanted was to put the whole incident behind her and get on with her life. She only pressed charges because Tyson needed help. She turned down a million-dollar offer to drop the prosecution - a charge, incidentally, that the U.S. attorney in Indianapolis has been looking into for several months.

Mike Tyson, a man who can be monstrous one minute, benign the next, is all monster right now. The undefeated World Boxing Council heavyweight champion is banging away at a sparring partner, leaving him draped across the ropes like a wet towel. The beating goes on for about three minutes. Then both fighters start snorting - one from enthusiasm, the other from exhaustion. "Time!" a handler yells, stopping - at least temporarily - the bombardment. For the sparring partner, it stops just in time.

Mike Tyson will regain his heavyweight title tomorrow night, says his trainer, Richie Giachetti. Why? "Because he is Mike Tyson," Giachetti asserted. Giachetti, who earned his reputation training former champion Larry Holmes, was Tyson's trainer for four winning fights immediately before Tyson was imprisoned in 1992, and that's the Tyson we will see this time, Giachetti promised. He said he was sick when he saw how poorly Tyson looked in his loss to Evander Holyfield in November.

Mike Tyson, the once and perhaps future undisputed heavyweight champion, looked as though he longed to be somewhere else. Tastefully attired in a navy suit, white shirt and red-striped tie, the Iron One fidgeted in his chair at his first public question-and-answer session since he was released from prison in March. After promoter Don King droned on for more than an hour as part of the promotion for Tyson's return to the ring Aug. 19 in Las Vegas against unheralded Peter McNeeley, it was Tyson's turn to take center stage.

In an exclusive interview yesterday, Jose Torres, author and former light- heavyweight champ, revealed he has 12 hours of taped interviews with Mike Tyson to back up some of the sensational revelations of sex and violence in his book, "Fire and Fear. " With TV crews camped outside his home in New York, Torres was interviewed in his secret midtown hideout. He was stashed there by his publisher, Warner Books, to control the media frenzy - he had more than 30 calls from reporters yesterday - surrounding the book.

Those ringsiders who have sensed something missing in Mike Tyson's last few fights are quite right. Something important was missing even before Tyson let Buster Douglas heist his heavyweight title last year in Japan. It's called technique. As I make this diagnosis, I pause to stare in disbelief at a page-wide photograph that was published in a European newspaper shortly after the once- and-maybe-never-again champion settled for an awkward 12-round decision against Donovan "Razor" Ruddock in Las Vegas.

Mike Tyson gets his first unsupervised yardout in 1,094 days this weekend and self-anointed counselors everywhere have been availing of free air time and print to instruct him on how to resume the only trade he's ever known. At present, there are two major schools of thought. One is that Tyson should go for a title shot as soon as possible, while public curiosity is such that it probably will produce the greatest combined purse in heavyweight boxing history. The other is that he should fight his way back to top form at a measured pace against a succession of barely warm bodies, as in the old Italian aphorism so often recited to him by long deceased Svengali Cus D'Amato: Chi va piano, va sano e lontano, or "He who goes slowly, goes safely and far. " The first option already has been proposed by Rock Newman, the opportunistic manager of Riddick Bowe.

IT WASN'T HARD for filmmaker James Toback to get Mike Tyson to open up for his new documentary, "Tyson" - the two men have been friends for 20 years. "I met him on the set of 'The Pick-up Artist,' " Toback told Daily News film critic Gary Thompson (see Gary's review on Page 42). "He'd come down to meet [Robert] Downey. I'd heard of him from Brian Hamill, Pete's younger brother, who also boxed with Cus [D'Amato, the trainer]. He knew Mike from the time Mike was 13, and he had told me early on that Cus had said he'd never seen a fighter like Tyson.

  RECENTLY RETIRED Daily News sports writer Bernard Fernandez, for the 11th consecutive year, had placing entries in the Boxing Writers Association of America writing contest, known as the "Barneys" in honor of the late former president of the BWAA, Barney Nagler. Fernandez took first place in the column category, for an analysis of why retired former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson still mattered in a division dominated by Eastern Europeans and bereft of compelling American contenders.

"LOYALTY" is written in the center of a giant spider web on the right side of Jamar Wheeler's neck, beneath a spider that appears to dangle from his ear. "I get tattoos like a stress reliever," said Wheeler, 23, of Oxford Circle. Below a tattoo of a cross near his right eye is a teardrop tattoo, adorned by a facial piercing. The letters "FOE" line the arch of his hairline - Family Over Everything. The same tattoos and piercings decorate the left side of Wheeler's face - except for the "$OMM" near his hairline, which stands for Money on My Mind.

Georgia's depth chart at tailback was wiped out when three backs, including starter Isaiah Crowell , were suspended for one game and top backup Richard Samuel had ankle surgery. The one-game suspensions of Crowell, the starter, Ken Malcome and Carlton Thomas for unspecified violations of team rules were announced yesterday. The three will miss No. 18 Georgia's game against New Mexico State on Saturday. "We have certain standards in all that we do and their actions do not reflect the Georgia way," coach Mark Richt said in a statement.

"How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard. " - From the musical "Annie" I WAS 12 when my mother trapped a local merchant in a fiendishly clever extortion plot. "How much do you think I spend here each week?" my mother asked Sam Zepper, proprietor of the Girard beef market. "I don't know exactly, Mrs. Mitchell. Why do you ask?" "Because my son needs a job. " I started work that day and was never out of work for more than a week or two until January 1973 when the Philadelphia Bulletin hired me as a nightside rewrite man for $5 an hour.

Gwyneth Paltrow received an award for her guest role on Glee at the Creative Arts Emmys in L.A. on Saturday, and Justin Timberlake was honored for the Saturday Night Live monologue for which he wrote the music and lyrics. But the night's big winner was HBO's chronicle of Atlantic City's heyday, Boardwalk Empire , which netted seven drama awards, including for casting and cinematography. The ceremony will be shown Saturday on ReelzChannel, and the Primetime Emmy Awards can be seen the following night at 8 on Fox.   That was fun, but . . . The real show Saturday was the taping of Comedy Central's Charlie Sheen roast with Mike Tyson , William Shatner , Kate Walsh , and a slew of comedians riffing on Sheen's high-profile antics, meltdown, and March firing from Two and a Half Men . "Charlie's meltdown was so bad, Al Gore 's making a documentary about it," said comic Jeffrey Ross . Asked Jon Lovitz : "How much [cocaine]

CHEF MICHAEL Schulson , owner of Center City hotspot Sampan (124 S. 13th) and Izakaya at the Borgata in Atlantic City, and his wife, Jill , a business attorney at the Obermayer firm, have separated and are getting a divorce, say friends of Schulson. The chef, host of three TV shows - TLC's "Ultimate Cake Off," Style network's "Pantry Raid" and Discovery Channel's "Go Ahead, Make My Dinner" - recently has been spending a fair amount of time around town with Wojdak lobbyist Nina Tinari , a former special assistant to Gov. Ed Rendell . Tinari declined to comment on the nature of her relationship with Schulson, who also isn't talking.

NEWS REPORTS say that legendary boxing promoter Butch Lewis died of a massive heart attack. That sounds about right to me. Because Butch had a massive heart. He was a paradox, a contradiction in terms. He was the original little big man, a fierce boardroom brawler who could strip you clean in a bargaining session, then become your most trusted partner when the deal was done. When he carried the shield for one of the fighters or entertainers he represented, Butch could be tough as nails.

Encircled by about a dozen unhappy boxing fans inside the Blue Horizon, Carol Polis didn't feel she had any explaining to do. So when she was questioned about why she'd scored one of the fights on that night's card the way she did, Polis took a deep breath and said: "I don't even remember which fight you're talking about. But if your fighter didn't win, better luck next time because I score it the way I see it. "Then I turned around, gave them the peace sign, and hoped they'd let me out," Polis recalled after calming her two Scotties in the dining room of her residence in North Wales.

I WAS WRONG. Very, very wrong. Following Mike Tyson's fourth-round knockout loss to Danny Williams on July 30, 2004, in Louisville's Freedom Hall, I wrote, "At 11:32 p.m., Mike Tyson ceased to matter in a heavyweight division that only 20 minutes earlier, he seemed poised to ascend again. " Those words should have carried the finality of a truth that lays bare the shortcomings of any fighter who dares to continue too far past his obvious expiration date. But they didn't.

Name: Michael Gerard Tyson Born: June 30, 1966 (age 44) Hometown: Brooklyn, N.Y. Height: 5-10 Weight class: Heavyweight Record: 50-6 (44 KO) Triple crown: Tyson was the first heavyweight boxer to hold the WBA, WBC, and IBF titles simultaneously. He is thought by many to be one of the greatest heavyweights of all time. However, he lost his titles to James "Buster" Douglas on Feb. 11, 1990, in Tokyo, even though Douglas was a 42-to-1 underdog. Quick to the punch: Tyson won his first 19 professional fights by way of knockout.