Boxing: Hype, hype hooray for Rocky horror show

I fear disappointment awaits those who are hoping that Mike Tyson's next appearance will be in an orange jumpsuit in Guantanamo Bay. Indeed, three forecasts can be offered today with varying degrees of confidence following his leading role in the brawl that wrecked the televised press conference to promote his fight with Lennox Lewis for the world heavyweight championship.

First, Tyson will be allowed to proceed with his challenge for Lewis's title in April. Secondly, the assorted abolitionists, outraged columnists, self-certified psychiatrists and general bandwagoners who have been carrying on alarmingly will be unable to resist taking a peek at the action along with millions of the rest of us. Thirdly, whether you revel in these over-blown confrontations or are revolted by them, make the most of the spectacle, because there will never be another once 2002 is over.

Boxing will carry on, without a doubt, but these mammoth extravaganzas that have been allowed to define the sport for too long have surely reached the end of the line. For a start, there are no mammoths left – at least, none with the semblance of skill and power necessary to give the event some sporting credibility – and the birth rate of suckers is likely to fall well below the old rate of one a minute when they realise that there's nothing left to scrape barrel-wise.

These boys are the last of a breed and, for different reasons, have reached the stage when they can manage only one more hype, hype, hooray. Their contract has a return clause so it may be that they fight twice, but even then it would be only two halves of the same farewell.

This is one of the reasons that, I suspect, will convince the Nevada State Athletic Commission to renew Tyson's boxing licence when they meet on Tuesday. Any morality weighing on their deliberations is likely to be dispersed by two considerations.

The first is the aforementioned opinion that Tyson's runaway train is already fast approaching the buffers. They and other boxing authorities have had plenty of opportunity, and certainly ample cause, to wipe out his boxing career in past years. Why bother now when it is about to wipe itself out sometime over the next year? There is also the realisation that if they reject him, the fight would be moved from Las Vegas, and there are other states who would be happy to accommodate it and collect the hundreds of millions of dollars it would generate.

I can't predict what will happen with the sex-related allegations about Tyson now being scrutinised by the police, but if the Nevada Commission confine themselves to the theatrical mayhem that occurred in New York last week I don't see that they have strong case for drastic action. The press conference was organised by the two cable TV firms who are the prime movers behind the fight, HBO and Showtime, and since the bout is still four months away, titillation of interest was its only purpose.

As is customary, an agreed amount of nose-to-nose belligerence – or in Tyson's case, nose-to-breastbone – was included in a script that got a bit out of hand, but hardly enough to deserve the howls of horror.

The only casualty among the non-combatants was Jose Sulaiman, the Mexican president of the World Boxing Council. He fell off the stage, hit his head on a table and was unconscious for a few minutes. It was a pity, because he was fine at the rehearsal.

Lewis did not exactly take a back seat in the proceedings (neither did he in a similar fracas before his last fight, with Hasim Rahman) and the only surprise is the number of people who were shocked by the episode.

Pre-fight hype has come a long way since the "I'll moider da bum" days and the man who hustled it along to new heights of sophistication was Muhammad Ali, to whom the world bowed respectfully when he reached his 60th birthday recently.

They used to say Ali was mad when he embarked on his opponent-baiting. He wasn't, of course; just brilliantly artful. While there is every reason to be wary of Tyson's manic tendencies, remember that once he is in the ring he is subject to far stricter control than he seems to be on the outside.

So it is appropriate for that to be where his sporting persona is brought to an abrupt end. It's the perfect scenario for a sporting drama. The ogre is firmly fixed in our minds as an object of hate and derision and against him we have a fine, upstanding nice guy; and he's British, too. It is St George and the dragon, and we trust our hero can rid us of this menace.

My only real upset of the week was that, as usual, the press has generously provided its hysterical hyping services free of charge. If we sent a bill to those who are going to make untold millions out of this fight it would go a long way to solving the cash-flow problems now troubling the newspaper industry.