By Ferd Lewis
Advertiser Columnist

How, you wonder, did Showtime end up with the Mike Tyson-Clifford Etienne heavyweight fight when there must have been so many more appropriate bidders it could have gone to?

The Jerry Springer Show.

Ringling Brothers Circus.

A network reality show.

If Tyson is back in the ring — and that has apparently been a day-to-day proposition this week — then it is surely time to send in the clowns. Check that, they are already there.

In one corner, we have Tyson who, between getting a "warrior" facial tattoo and saying he was too sick to fight, has kissed off most of his workouts for the week. Only the threat of losing a much-needed payday has brought him back.

In the other corner is Etienne, who has been knocked down as many as seven times in one bout. His jaw, if it had a tattoo, might spell out "Noritake."

As such, all tomorrow's fight in Memphis is missing is the presence of the sword swallower, the bearded lady and some calliope music to round out the freak show.

Which is, of course, what is likely to ensure the success of the venture. Just the possibility of watching Tyson punch Etienne back into oblivion would not — and was not going to — pack Pyramid Arena, where they are scheduled to collide.

As a pure fighter, the 36-year-old Tyson has long since forfeited the hope of ever realizing the remarkable potential he once possessed at 20 when he was the heavyweight division's youngest champion. Between his periods behind bars and the struggles with a myriad of other problems, the fighter that Cus D'Amato once bragged, "would be better than 'em all" no longer exists, if, indeed, he ever did. That image of Tyson likely went to the grave when D'Amato did.

Tyson, the once self-described "baddest man on the planet," has become largely irrelevant as a heavyweight of historical note even in the division's current weakened state. He still has a punch to be reckoned with even if he now sometimes has trouble pulling the trigger on it, as his eighth-round knockout by Lennox Lewis last year underlined.

People no longer tune into or show up for Tyson fights so much as to see who'll win but to be witness to the strange and bizarre situations that tend to surround them.

Between actually snacking on Evander Holyfield's ear, threatening to dine on other people's children and his latest episodes, Tyson's bewildering, sometimes calculated, behavior has usually obliged.

"Boxer" might be what Tyson puts on his income tax returns under the category of "occupation," but, sadly, that is no longer what brings the curious into the circus tent to view him.