Tyson halted the charge of the “Black Rhino” with the sixth-fastest victory of his career, landing a stunning right hand to Etienne’s chin that knocked his fellow American flat on his back. Referee Bill Clancy ended it moments later.
“I kept my hands up, looking for the opening and I got it,” Tyson said. “I have gotten serious.”
Tyson, 36, rose to 50-4 with his 44th early stoppage. Etienne, 32, fell to 24-2 with one draw.
The victory set the stage for a possible rematch against Britain’s Lewis, the World Boxing Council champion who stopped Tyson in the eighth round here last June. Talk has already started about another meeting next June.
But after Tyson won the impressive triumph he needed to spark interest in a rematch with Lewis, the former undisputed world champion said he wanted one or two more tuneups before facing the much-larger Lewis again.
“I’m more confident now than I was last year, but I am not ready to fight Lennox Lewis,” Tyson said. “I want more fights. Maybe two, maybe three. I don’t know. Right now I’m not interested in getting beat up again.”
Lewis, who has not fought since beating Tyson, could invoke a clause from the first contract allowing each man only one fight before a rematch. But Tyson said he needs more work first.
“Fighters needs rounds, need to be active. If I don’t have two more fights, I’m not going to beat a fighter like Lennox Lewis,” Tyson said. “Real fighters need to go rounds. That’s what improves fighters.”
After losing, Etienne told Tyson to keep working and win back the title. Tyson responded by asking Etienne to help him train in Las Vegas.
“I just told Mike to stick to business, stop screwing around in the gym and fight and that if he kept working hard, he could be champion again,” Etienne said.
A fight that was off and on several times this week wound up being over almost before it began. The rendition of the United States national anthem before the fight lasted 18 seconds longer than Etienne did against Tyson.
The fight had been called off by Tyson’s camp last Monday but was reinstated Tuesday with Tyson getting a boost in his five million-dollar payday and Etienne staying for a career-best payday of one million dollars.
“I wasn’t ready for this fight. I was obligated,” Tyson said. “I have canceled too many fights in my career. I had to be a man. He needed the money. I always need the money.”
Tyson said he had aggravated a back injury from a 1997 motorcycle accident, but he showed no sign of being slowed in pounding Etienne to the canvas.
“I broke my back. My back is broken, my spine,” Tyson said. “It’s due to a motorcycle accident. One day I was doing pull-ups and I couldn’t move. The doctors found it. They said: believe it or not, your back is broken.”
Tyson turned back the clock and showed the power and ferocious attitude that marked his heyday in the late 1980s.—AFP