TYSON DOESN'T LIKE IMAGE BUT TAKES ADVANTAGE OF IT.

Byline: Earl Ofari Hutchinson

WHILE watching the sorry and shameful performance by Mike Tyson in Las Vegas, I remembered what he once told an interviewer, ``If I wasn't in boxing, I'd be breaking the law.''

He was never more wrong. Tyson broke the law both outside the ring when he was convicted and imprisoned on rape charges. And in the view of just about everybody who was glued to a television set and watched the fight, he's broken the law inside the ring by hacking off part of his opponent Evander Holyfield's ear.

Now sports fans, writers, boxing officials and even many African-Americans are demanding that Tyson be banned permanently from boxing, his purse withheld and that he be hit with a stiff fine. Some even say he should be jailed for assault.

I say they're all hypocrites.

Tyson has long been much of America's poster boy for perversion. Nearly everyone who is jumping on the bandwagon and screaming for his head knows of his history as street thug, bully, brute and lecher.

During his trial for rape, his attorneys played hard on his bad-as-I-wanna-be image. They evidently hoped that since everyone knew that this was his public image, the jurors might cut him some slack if they thought that the woman he was accused of raping should have known what would have happened if she went to his room. The jurors didn't buy it, and convicted him.

After his release from prison, many boxing promoters and corporate media owners openly played on Tyson's bad boy image. They greedily hoped that this would swell the gate and bring mega paydays back to the dying sport of boxing. They were right.

Thousands of fans forked up premium dollars to cheer and jeer the bad boy Tyson in his quest to reclaim his spot on top of the boxing world.

Many sports writers continued their love-hate affair with Tyson. They plied the public with a barrage of scandal and gossip stories on him, lambasted him as an animal and a savage, and then leaped over each other to grab their seats at or near ringside to eagerly build up the next Tyson extravaganza.

Many African-Americans claimed that Tyson was being persecuted by white society, especially the white media, for being an outspoken black man. They turned him into a hero/martyr. This only added to the Tyson mystique. But there has never been any political principles at stake in any of Tyson's misdeeds or the controversies that surrounded him.

Tyson always seemed to me to be uncomfortable with his marque image as America's poster boy for greed and dysfunctionality. Every chance he got he lashed out at society for turning him into an extravagantly-paid punching bag. He told one interviewer ``They pay $500 to see me. There's so much hypocrisy in the world.''

But Tyson, pumped up by sports fans, admirers, the media and boxing's money crowd as boxing's primal force gladiator, took full advantage of that hypocrisy. He believed he was ``Iron Mike,'' a man above the law who could do anything and get away with it.

He was almost right.

Tyson rightly deserved and got a second chance to become one of the richest ex-cons in history.

I, like many others, sincerely hoped that he wouldn't blow his chance. I wanted him to succeed in making at least some of his detractors finally take his mug off their bad boy poster. During that fight, it was painfully clear that it would and should stay there.

Big money and sports fame could never turn Iron Mike into clean Mike.

While Tyson deserves to have the book thrown at him for his barbarous action, the frightening thing is that in an era when much of the media routinely turns the thug behavior and clownish antics of some athletes and celebrities into big bucks and ratings, Tyson's stock may soar even higher.

In fact, I'm betting that if, or when, Tyson fights again, many of those who are now clamoring the loudest for his blood, will be the ones clamoring the loudest for tickets to see him bludgeon someone else in the ring. They've excused or shed crocodile tears over his sordid behavior too many times in the past for me to believe there'll be a requiem for this heavyweight.