ON holiday in Mexico last year I was allocated a horse called Tyson for a riding trip into the rainforest.

It made me very nervous.

This beast was as strong as an ox and clearly two stirrups short of the full saddle.

While carrying me bareback through a raging river, Tyson insisted on swimming against the current.

Any of these characteristics would have merited the name.

But a fourth characteristic probably clinched it.

Tyson stopped for a nibble at the vegetation every second metre before galloping back up to the head of the expedition.

But that was where the similarities end between my horse and the vulgar, odious, repugnant, offensive abomination that is set to earn millions of dollars in his next fight a week on Saturday.

I was sad to see Tyson the horse locked in his paddock at the end of the trek.

I would be overjoyed to see Mike Tyson the monster under lock and key for the rest of his miserable life.

For this man does not possess even a fragment of basic decent human values.

Tyson faces a further jail term for assualt charges following a traffic accident in Maryland in August while on parole.

But he should not be free to fight Francois Botha on January 16 - for two reasons. Firstly, the biting of Evander Holyfield's ear should not have been punished by a sporting body, the Nevada Boxing Commission.

If Duncan Ferguson can be jailed for a head-butt during a football match, Tyson should also have felt the full force of civil justice. And now Tyson has volunteered the prediction that Botha will die on January 16.

If anyone can inform me of anything more sick uttered in the name of sport, I would like to know.

Boxing always carries the burden of a sport that borders on the obscene.

I will never be able to accept that young athletes are paid vast amounts of money to enter a sporting arena with the intent of inflicting physical harm on their opponents.

Still, it seems to satisfy the bloodlust of the type of audience that would enjoy a public execution or an episode of the Jerry Springer Show.

Amateur boxing is a different matter, with protective headgear allowing a switch of focus to athletic prowess.

But, for someone of Tyson's stature to revel in the sport's brutality, to be allowed to walk the streets of Pheonix with Killer 1 shaved into his head and to profit handsomely from his warped approach, is simply unacceptable.

Boxing must define the boundaries of acceptable pre-fight publicity and the twisted rantings that mock the memory of those who have lost their life or suffered permanent disability in the ring.

In the meantime, Mike Tyson's boundaries must also be more clearly defined - the four bare walls of a prison cell.

Neil Bramwell is the Sports Editor

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