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In training-camp workouts and at ringside on fight night, the cauliflower reunions fill in another piece of the picture. They are bittersweet delights. Few of the usual suspects favor Spinks. Jake LaMotta thinks Tyson "is gonna go down as one of the greatest fighters of all times, and he's gonna break all records, and he's gonna be around a long, long time, and he's gonna make over $100 million. I could be wrong, but that's my opinion." Billy Conn, the patron saint of overblown light-heavyweights, says, "I think Tyson will fix him up in a couple of rounds." Ali likes Spinks, but then Ali liked Trevor Berbick, whom Tyson knocked down three times with one punch. "I don't think Tyson will even be able to hit Spinks," Ali says. "He's like rubber."
Nobody speaks it with huge conviction, but the most promising theory in behalf of Spinks holds that the real world has recently descended on Tyson in the forms of a famous wife, a flamboyant mother-in-law, a $4.5 million mansion in Bernardsville, N.J., a parade of luxury cars (including a dinged one worth $180,000 that he tried to give away to the investigating officers) and a custody battle that pits the well-cologned manager Bill Cayton against the understated promoter Don King. Last August, once Tyson had all the belts, King threw a coronation for history's youngest heavyweight champion. The melancholy scene recalled King Kong crusted with what the promoter called "baubles, rubies and fabulous other doodads." Beholding the dull eyes and meek surprise under the lopsided crown and chinchilla cloak, King said he was reminded "of Homer's Odysseus returning to Ithaca to gather his dissembled fiefdoms." Sighs Tyson: "It's tough being the youngest anything."
According to Patterson, "When you have millions of dollars, you have millions of friends." The Tyson camp's slice of this fight is $22 million, bringing his bundle so far to more than $40 million. "I originally picked him, and I still do," Patterson allows, "but now I give Spinks a chance." Torres looks at it the other way: "Who knows? It could be good. After all, doesn't he come from turmoil?" A little overwhelmed, Tyson says, "When I'm out of boxing, I'm going to tell everyone I'm bankrupt." In a sepia mood again, he adds that "Damon Runyon never wrote about fighters beating up their wife or getting into car accidents."
Before Tyson arranged to meet Robin Givens, 23, the television actress (Head of the Class) who took him for a husband in February, he once said, "I look in the mirror every day. I know I'm not Clark Gable. I wish I could find a girl who knew me when I was broke and thought I was a nice guy." Following the wedding ceremony, auditors and lawyers started to arrive. In Givens' estimation, "he's strong and sensitive and gentle. I feel protected, but he's so gentle that sometimes I think I have to protect him." Among her previous + heartthrobs were Michael Jordan and the comedian Eddie Murphy.
Tyson likes to say, "I suaved her." But he mentions, "It's no joke, I'll tell you. If you're not grown up and you want to grow up real quick, get married." In a slightly different context, but only slightly, he says, "So many fighters have been called invincible. Nobody's invincible."