Tyson will fall before you can find your seat

The pick is easy. Lennox Lewis, quickly.

In 91 seconds. There's something poetic about 91 seconds. It would match Mike Tyson's most dramatic victory, in 91 seconds over Michael Spinks. That was 14 years ago to this month. That's when he dumped Kevin Rooney as his trainer under the influence of Robin Givens, his then wife.

He has gone downhill ever since.

There shouldn't even be a fight today at The Pyramid. Literally and figuratively. Tyson doesn't deserve to box, doesn't deserve to be No. 1 and doesn't deserve to win.

Plus, there's no way he deserves to be picked. How can you pick a guy who virtually takes off for 12, 14 years, goes to Hawaii for three months and tells one of his handlers, Stacey McKinley, "I quit fighting 10 years ago, but I'm ready to fight again"?

That's not how it works. You can't turn it off and on like a faucet. You can't fear fighting, especially for other people to get rich off your sweat and blood, and then pose as a wild man.

The small money is on Tyson in Las Vegas. As expected, the odds dropped Thursday to 9-5 on Lewis at Caesars Palace. The champ opened at 5-2. The smart money is waiting to see how many suckers are out there who think they're getting the real Mike Tyson as an underdog for the first time.

Tyson, who has committed so many fouls against boxing that it's only 5-1 there'll be a disqualification (you have to lay $8 to win $1 if you think there won't be a DQ, or no-contest), has long ceased to be the most feared fighter in the world.

He shouldn't have been licensed here, or anywhere. There's no way, Jose, that Tyson should be ranked No. 1 by the World Boxing Council. Beating Brian Nielsen, a pillowy prune Danish, last Oct. 31 -- his only victory in the last two years, or since he kept hitting Lou Savarese after knocking him out -- should not put him in the top 20. Jose Sulaiman, the WBC president who is going to sue Tyson for injuries suffered at the Jan. 22 press conference in New York to announce this mismatch, has steadfastly refused to acknowledge the passage of time.

As Emanuel Steward, Lewis's wise trainer says, "People are clinging to an image of Mike Tyson."

Tyson looked good at Thursday's weigh-in. Forget the announced 234 pounds. There is no question the scales were off. He looked as if he finally did some training before a fight. But that mostly solid body is also an image.

Muhammad Ali looked wonderful before he foolishly challenged Larry Holmes in 1980. Ali was a shell, a beautiful shell, but a shell nonetheless with no reflexes. His trainer, Angelo Dundee, said Ali would stand before a mirror, admiring his svelte look and gaining in confidence.

You don't beat Larry Holmes with mirrors, I told Angie.

Here's the caveat. Tyson, who has not led a monk's life (please, no jokes), has little left. But of course he still has a chance. The good ones often manage to conjure up one more good fight. And he's not facing any Larry Holmes.

Holmes had one of the better chins in heavyweight history. Lewis does not. It's not as bad as some might think, maybe even Lewis, who often fights as if he has absolutely no confidence in his ability to take a punch.

Lewis, who was not the 249 pounds officially announced, cannot come out tentatively against Tyson. He has to stand his ground or, better, move Tyson back. Tyson can fight only one way, moving forward. Lewis must go for him, with the confidence that if he does get clipped once or twice, so what -- in 1996, he managed to withstand the blows of Ray Mercer, no Tyson, but a pretty fair puncher.

He can not be confident because he's on God's side. This is not good vs. evil. Boxing is no morality play. Two days and a wakeup - as Crocodile was shouting Thursday -- and the Lewis camp seemed more concerned with peripheral stuff. There was a tepid threat that unless Greg Sirb, the former head of the Association of Boxing Commissioners -- a federation of all state and Native American commissions -- and the current chief in Pennsylvania, was brought in to supervise, Lewis would walk away from $20 million plus.

The Lewis camp had no confidence in the inexperienced Tennessee commission, especially when it couldn't properly run a weigh-in, putting the scale on what must have been an unlevel platform. But more worry was whether the locals would be strong enough to police Tyson's corner, to make sure the banned trainer, Panama Lewis, did not have a voice there.

My last winner was Dewey in 1948. But as the great boxing writer Pat Putnam used to say, "You get paid to pick them, you don't get paid to be right."

Lewis in 91 seconds. Tyson will jump right into a right hand.

Michael Katz is a boxing writer for the Memphis (Tenn.) Commercial Appeal.