Tyson Says His Biting Words Were Only to Help Ticket Sales

Mike Tyson’s bark sometimes seems worse than his bite.

“I was just talking smack, just hyping the fight,” Tyson said when asked about a Los Angeles Times story in which he indicated he wouldn’t hesitate to bite an opponent again in certain situations.

“I was just blowing off hot air,” the former undisputed heavyweight champion said Wednesday at a news conference for his 10-round fight against Orlin Norris on Saturday night in the MGM Grand at Las Vegas.

Tyson was disqualified and had his license revoked for biting Evander Holyfield’s ears in the third round June 28, 1997.

“I would do it again under those circumstances. [Referee] Mills Lane wasn’t protecting me [from head butts]. He didn’t handle the situation appropriately,” Tyson said in the Oct. 3 story in The Times.

“I was trying to sell some tickets,” Tyson said Wednesday. “The Nevada State Athletic Commission knew I wasn’t serious. They knew the trauma that I went through. I won’t do that in the ring.”

Marc Ratner, executive director of the commission, said what Tyson said was “what we call newspaper talk. What he does in the ring is the only thing we can judge him on.”

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The International Boxing Federation said it plans to suspend the registration of promoter Top Rank for withholding a $450,000 fee for the Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad fight and not following the sanctioning body’s rules.

Tennis

Second-seeded Todd Martin was ousted from the Lyon Grand Prix at Lyon, France, dropping a 6-1, 4-6, 6-4 decision to Sweden’s Magnus Gustafsson. Top-seeded Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia survived a troublesome match, overcoming qualifier Richey Reneberg, 6-3, 3-6, 6-4. . . . Top-seeded Mary Pierce of France never got past the first step in the defense of her Kremlin Cup title at Moscow. Ai Sugiyama of Japan upset Pierce, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3, in a second-round match at the $1.05-million tournament. . . . Top-seeded Amelie Mauresmo of France survived a first-round scare in the Eurotel Slovak indoor tournament at Bratislava, Slovakia, beating Hungary’s Rita Kuti Kis, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-4).

Miscellany

Joseph Barajas, a 15-year-old high school football player, died three days after injuring his head in a collision with another player and a month after a concussion in another game.

Hospital officials at San Jose listed the cause of death as “traumatic brain injury.”

Barajas, a sophomore at San Jose’s Pioneer High, collapsed on the sidelines Saturday after slamming into another player during a game. He suffered a blood clot on the brain and had been hospitalized since then.

Wind gusts to 35 knots forced postponement of the fourth day’s racing in the challenger series for the America’s Cup in Auckland, New Zealand.

NASCAR announced that Todd Parrott, crew chief for Dale Jarrett, has been fined $5,000 for use of improper language during the broadcast of last Sunday’s Winston 500 at Talladega Superspeedway.

Jim Goostree, athletic director at Alabama when the Crimson Tide was winning six national football championships, has died at age 69 at Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Athletes joined lawmakers and the White House drug advisor in asserting the International Olympic Committee is not doing enough to stop the spread of performance-aiding drugs at the Olympics.

The IOC’s efforts to crack down on drug use are “more public relations ploy than public policy solution,” Barry McCaffrey, head of the White House drug policy office, told the Senate Commerce Committee. The IOC, he said, is “literally in denial” in their approach to the crisis.

“The level playing field of the Olympic Games has now been chemically skewed, and taking illegal drugs is now the price of entry into the competition,” said Frank Shorter, the gold medalist in the 1972 Olympic marathon.

French champion Bordeaux, Portugal’s Porto, Scotland’s Rangers, and Germany’s Hertha Berlin picked up victories in the Champions League, putting themselves atop their groups and in position to make the final 16 of Europe’s top club soccer competition.

France’s Arnauld Tournant repeated as gold medalist in the 1,000-meter time trials in the World Track Cycling Championship at Berlin, which opened with two riders failing drug tests.

German sprinter Jan van Eijden, a former junior world champion, and Lithuania’s Edita Kubelskiene were banned for at least 15 days after testing showed their red corpuscle count was too high.