Sideline Cut/Keith DugganI stared long and hard at the photograph of Iron Mike's Maori tattoo yesterday and thought, wow, the tough guy is getting on a bit. A lot of water, blood, blasphemies, court testimonies and tears have passed under the bridge since Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion of the world.

The facial embellishment neither looks fearsome nor mystical but actually like the shadow of a camp seahorsey thing with its dukes up. It is the latest stunt of a man who has grown weary of the sound of his own lisping voice. As Tyson famously remarked: "Outside of boxing, everything is boring."

The problem is, the ennui is creeping in towards the Memphis arena and across the canvas floor that is to be Tyson's stage, his Old Vic, for this evening's heavyweight fight. Mike's tattoo, acquired during his yawn of a walkabout that jeopardised this step-towards-redemption bout against Clifford Etienne, was, of course, designed to shock and provoke and try to keep the ticket sales brisk.

But it just looks tired and dated and is a fitting emblem for the man to wear. The most sensible and funny remark surrounding Tyson's latest attempts to tape up the pieces of his devastated boxing career for a glorious or at least lucrative twilight chapter came from his little niece.

The girl, domiciled with the "baddest man on the planet", emailed her pal to complain she was staying with her "crazy uncle". It was the perfect description, almost pitying, and one that brings to mind a sheepish eccentric rather than the tyrannical boor Tyson paints himself as.

A way with words must run in the extended Tyson family bloodline for although he likes to use swear words and generates headlines with comments that are often simultaneously amusing and offensive, Iron Mike also cuts to the quick when it comes to the fight game.

Consider what is happening in Memphis tonight. Two Afro-American ex-con's, both drifting through their 30s, slugging it out in front of punters willing to shell out $900 for a velvet seat and the pay-per-view masses who whipped out $25 and stocked up on beer.

But to see what? Nobody is honestly expecting to see a fight that will do anything to enhance the washed-up world of heavyweight professional boxing. And few reckon Tyson's handlers would have set him up for a money-making bout with anything other than a stooge.

So the main reason the fight is attractive is that a lot of people, media included, secretly hope to see a freak flipping out as he has done in the past. If something beyond the old Queensbury rules occurs, the usual round of morally outraged comments will follow with calls that surely, now, the animal will have to be thrown from regulated cage of boxing.

But it is hard to avoid the suspicion Tyson will somehow find a way back to the only home he knows, just as he has after his conviction for rape, after his periodic bouts of rage, throughout his blithe disregard for taxation, and despite the inevitable road towards self-destruction on which he toils.

After all, we have been hearing about Iron Mike heading forlornly and irreparably, like ole' Sonny Liston before him, along the age-old path of self-annihilation for quite some time now. The lonely walk began just after Cus D'Amato passed away.

Hasn't it occurred to anyone he is taking a damn long time in actually reaching the great house of despair? Speed, after all, was meant to be Tyson's thing back in the days when they proclaimed him as possibly the greatest fighter of all time, even though in his prime, there was no worthy opponent.

So here is Mike in 2003, 11-odd years after he was officially counted out from civilised life after the rape of Desiree Washington, his personal life in tatters, financially compromised and on medication for mood stabilisation, but still playing the game the best way he knows.

His mantra has grown familiar; guilty purges against his own wicked ways and his desire to better himself spiced up with rants about being a slave in a white man's world. As usual, some of his comments this week cut to the core: "Who cares if a nigga' like me from Brownsville, Brooklyn, dies in the ring? One of you reporters? A white doctor who never stole a loaf of bread in his life?"

The deans of the fight game constantly state Tyson's gift for damaging other men has been in decline for a decade or so now and his comeuppance against Lennox Lewis last year was presented in stark terms as a bully brought to book by the saviour of the heavyweight sport.

But it isn't Tyson's jab or hook that needs to count anymore. He has been punching above his weight with his mouth for a long time now and continues to fascinate a motley crew, from the mainstream newspaper and television outlets to social essayist and novelist Joyce Carol Oates.

Mike got his tattoo, he says, because he  hated the way his face looked. Boy, he knows how to throw out a juicy titbit for the psychologists. The self-loathing, the self-pity, the cries for help, the rage, the badness - comic and real - are all probably manifestations of Tyson's true personality. But the guy is just a couple of rounds off 40 years of age and he is still hauling in the big bucks. Even if his fight career ends tonight, he has still fared better than a lot of heavyweight title fighters who didn't make excuses for failing to abide by the rules of society.

Not that he will be counted out anyhow. Given that George Foreman is taking time out from flogging the lean mean grilling machine to consider another comeback, it could be said Iron Mike is in the first flush of youth. There is a sucker born every minute and for too long too many of us have been suckers for the big bad myth of Mike Tyson.

When it comes to the big promo, Mike is as keen minded as they come and he knows his reputation is the only card left in the heavyweight arena that still stirs a response from the public.

Perhaps the Mike Tyson story will end in the terrible and spectacular combustion that so many have predicted. But with each passing year, the sneer grows more stagey and the eyes more crafty.

At this stage, it isn't hard to see him in 10 or 15 years' time grey and chunky and semi-settled, spouting philosophy and telling how he was the best there ever was. Turning up on some talkshow, hosted by Eminem, complaining about how the young don't show no respect no more.