Tyson cool, relaxed & ready

MANCHESTER, Jan 29 (AP): Height: 1.80 metres (5-feet-11). Weight: 101 1-2 kilos (223 3-4 pounds). Wrist: 1 million dollars.

This was tale of the tape Mike Tyson style.

The former world heavyweight champion turned the weigh-in for Saturday's fight against Julius Francis into some kind of jewelry catwalk as he posed on the scales with the diamond encrusted watch and bracelet he had bought in London last week.

He tugged away at his hair with his left hand to show off the glinting gems for the cameras. It wasn't so much the pounds on his body than the dollars on his wrist that mattered.

When the weigh-in was over and Tyson scaled 9.4 kilos (21 pounds) less than his opponent, he smirked as the two fighters came face to face for the photographers.

"He's kind of fat," Tyson said of his 110.9-kilo (244 1-2 pound) opponent as they tried to outstare each other.

"He can't hit me with his eyes. I'm cool, I'm relaxed and I'm ready to fight."

That contrasts with reports that Tyson fled his hotel and raced to Manchester Airport intending to fly home on the eve of the fight.

The reports suggested that he flew into a tantrum and instructed his chauffeur to take him to the airport. Jay Larkin, leading official here of Showtime which is screening the fight in the United States, said that Tyson went to the airport to pick up a friend.

Tyson has to do something special if he is to prove he could still be the Mike Tyson of old.

His last few performances have brought scandal and ridicule to a fighter once considered one of the greatest heavyweights ever when he unified the championship at age 20 back in 1987.

Disqualified and banned for biting off a chunk of Evander Holyfield's ear in 1998, Tyson suffered another setback in his last fight in October. He floored Orlin Norris after the bell sounded to end round one and, with Norris unable to continue because of a knee injury, the fight was declared a no contest.

Nothing less than a clear cut, early victory with no whiff of scandal will satisfy a skeptical fight public.

Although Francis, 35, is the British champion, he has a journeyman's record of 21-7. He is reportedly collecting some 500,000 dollars for the fight compared with Tyson's 11 million dollars and was expected to become victim No 47 against three losses on Tyson's record.

Tyson also wants to come back to Britain and fight again so that he needs a clean performance to silence his critics.

Because of his rape conviction in 1992, which led to three-years in jail, Tyson should have been turned away by immigration authorities whose rules say no one with a sentence of more than 12 months should be allowed entry. They say they can't guarantee he'd be let in again next time.

But he has an even bigger problem back home. Tyson is far less marketable in the United States these days and he needs far more than a victory over Julius Francis to get back his credibility.