A 1-2 combination

WASHINGTON -- Rock Newman, Riddick Bowe's former manager, stood at the dais Wednesday at Howard University and asked those in attendance to believe the unbelievable. He's in boxing. It's his job.

''This is about the future," Newman, a Howard University alumnus, said of tomorrow night's Mike Tyson-Kevin McBride heavyweight mismatch at the MCI Center. ''This is about who ascends and who descends."

This fight will be about many things, but it's not about who ascends and who descends. This is a fight about the past.

That's what Tyson is selling and it's what McBride is trying to erase. As far as the future goes, it seems bleak for both, not to mention for promoters Darryl Stuckey and Marty Wynn, who got people to invest in this circus act being sold on Showtime as a sporting event.

If things go as expected, neither man will ascend very high after McBride quickly descends to the floor. If that doesn't happen, Tyson will descend even further into becoming a fistic footnote because, as he admitted Tuesday, ''I've had 30,000 chances. I'm going to take advantage of my 30,351st."

Not sure what happened to numbers 30,001 through 30,350, but Tyson has a point. Former Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver used to say of players who had finally run afoul of him, ''I gave him more chances than I gave my first wife." That would certainly apply to Tyson and a public that remains intrigued by him, but not as enthralled as it once was.

For months Tyson has been telling anyone who would listen that he is a new man. Soon to be 39, he says he has learned from his wayward past and is no longer interested in wild nights or worldly possessions. He said this after plunking down $420,000 as a down payment on a 7,778-square-foot home outside Phoenix that had a price tag of $2.1 million. Admittedly, this may be downsizing by Tyson's standards, but it's not exactly a vow of poverty.

Such contradictions are what Tyson has been about since he first burst onto the sporting scene. The youngest heavyweight champion in history, he reached his height at 22 when he destroyed Michael Spinks in 93 seconds, then went on a mission to destroy himself.

Spinks fared better against Tyson than Tyson has fared against himself. After earning $400 million in purses, he recently found himself $34 million in debt and filed for bankruptcy protection. He blames promoter Don King and he's probably right, but as King once put it, ''Even if I robbed him of $200 million -- which I didn't -- where's the other $200 million?"

Not at the IRS office because Tyson is still fighting to pay an estimated $12 million in back taxes, and that debt is what tomorrow night is really about. It's about paying some of it off, erasing memories of his last fight, when he was stopped by journeyman Danny Williams in four rounds, and erasing all recollection that the last time he won a major fight is in the distant past.

It is not about preparing for the future, however, because guys like Kevin McBride don't prepare Tyson, even in his dissipated state, for that. Tyson acknowledged as much when asked what he thought of McBride. ''He doesn't look like he punches very hard," Tyson said.

Indeed, he doesn't, which is why McBride's here. He's here to be what he's been whenever he has stepped up from club fights to the lowest rung of the next level. He's here to be knocked out.

McBride says he's here to erase his past, which includes four stoppages against Axel Schulz, DaVarryl Williamson, Michael Murray, and Louis Monaco. He says it's his time, not Tyson's time. But the fact is, they're both about out of time.

When Tyson entered bankruptcy court, his attorneys and accountants presented a plan to not only pay off his debts but to make him solvent again. It involved a seven-fight schedule that would pay off more than $15 million to the IRS, more than 80 percent of his other debts, and leave him with an estimated $20 million. The court approved, showing it may know about finance but not much about fighting.

Tyson lost the first of those fights to Williams and is now earning, according to King this week, what he used to pay Tyson in training expenses. But Tyson is a long way from the $25 million paydays he once lived for, and there seems little reason to dream he will reach them again, unless you are one of his creditors.

Among the latter is Monica Turner, Tyson's second ex-wife. According to Newman, Wednesday's press conference emcee, Turner has ''worked tenaciously" on Tyson's behalf to create this fight card. She stands to leave with $750,000 in support payments, which is about $500,000 more than Tyson will net. If she wants to continue to get such checks, Tyson has to keep fighting, and to keep fighting he needs to keep winning -- which brings us back to McBride.

Nothing in McBride' past indicates he'll impinge on the bankruptcy plan the way Williams did. He's 6 feet 6 inches and 271 pounds and so anything can happen, but even he says he's slow, which is being kind.

Tyson went so far as to call McBride a ''tomato can" Wednesday, which may be the most honest remark yet uttered about this pay-per-view clash ($44.95, are you kidding me?), although a bit harsh for a guy who says after his fighting days are over he wants to become a missionary in Bosnia or in Africa because he's learned that life is about loss and becoming a better person.

''When I was younger, life was about acquiring things, but as I get older I've realized life is about losing," Tyson said. ''It's not about being the best fighter in the world or the worst fighter in the world. It's about being a better person. A championship belt doesn't define who I am as a person."

Despite this new outlook, Tyson remains a strangely intimidating force even in decline. He is 50-5 with two no contests and nearly all his fights have ended with somebody being counted out, including himself against Buster Douglas, Evander Holyfield, and Lennox Lewis. No one doubts that Tyson can still punch. The question is what happens against someone willing to punch back and with the skill to do so?

That is not McBride, as Tyson and the promoters know, which may be one reason Tyson has avoided the erratic behavior he exhibited before the Holyfield and Lewis fights. Regardless, Stuckey said he has three options on Tyson and figures to capitalize on a later bout with World Boxing Council champion Vitali Klitschko. Stuckey claims he's already negotiated with Sport5, the German company that represents Klitschko, and that sites such as Johannesburg and Beijing are ''in the talks." He says it will be the final fight in his deal.

Only problem is, Tyson said Wednesday, ''I need four more fights," when asked what it would take to be ready for Klitschko. That's one more than Stuckey has optioned, and already Tyson's adviser, Shelly Finkel, claims those options are based on Tyson being guaranteed certain purse figures.

In the end, this fight may be about the future for Darryl Stuckey and Marty Wynn or Shelly Finkel and Monica Turner. Certainly it's about the future for the IRS, which will leave with 38 percent of Tyson's $5 million, plus $2 million to the bankruptcy court, but for Mike Tyson it's still about the past.

A sad past that doesn't seem likely to change as long as his future is based on what happens inside a boxing ring.