Rick Telander This as Close as Title Fight Will Ever Get to Windy City

LAS VEGAS I know it's a dry heat, but dang it, the wind in this tackyEgyptian city is so hot and dry it could fry the warts off a Gilamonster.

I am in Egypt, aren't I?

I mean, there's at a pyramid just down the street.

And there's the Sahara over there.

Of course, there is also a billboard nearby advertising the"Thunder From Down Under," which is the name for the six Australianguys wearing grins and jockstraps and now performing their art atsome local hotel.

And workers in another hotel are running around in togas andolive wreaths.

And last night there was a volcano erupting along the boulevard.

And I'm looking right this moment at a Martian with desiccatedFrosty-Whip hair screaming into a microphone, singing the words to"Chicago," like a demented Frank Sinatra impersonator.

But it's only Don King.

Which means this could be no other place than the dear old USA,Vegas-style.

King is actually responding to a question I threw at him, as hesits on the dais at the MGM Grand Hotel, linked via phone andloudspeaker and frighteningly strong vocal cords to WBC heavyweightchampion Oliver McCall, who is in London promoting his Septemberrematch with Frank Bruno.

What I asked King was this: "Ask Oliver if he misses Chicago."(McCall being a Chicagoan, and me just wanting to make idle chatterwith a local guy.)

McCall said over the phone he would make his next fight a titlefight against, "hopefully," Mike Tyson, in none other than Chicago atComiskey Park, "because I've been dreaming my whole life to fight athome."

And then King went off.

"The Windy City, here we come!" he bellowed. "Wind blowing offLake Erie. At the United Center! My kind of town! Chicago needsthe lamp relit!" Etc.

And then the Sinatra stuff.

The fact that both Tyson and McCall are King fighters certainlydidn't dampen King's enthusiasm and voice. A Chicago title fight isa doubtful thing - unless it's held aboard a riverboat in theSanitation Canal - but a matchup of Tyson and somebody who actuallycan fight will happen sooner rather than later, somewhere.

Though not here Saturday night.

Tyson's opponent for his second fight, Nov. 6, is supposedlyBuster Mathis Jr., who allegedly owns the United States BoxingAssociation heavyweight title.

Most people might confuse Mathis with the guy who retired yearsago and opened a chain of weight-loss salons with former pudgy champJames Douglas, calling the establishments "Fat-Busters."

Instead, this is his son. And Tyson is set to mop up any greasespilled by any of the crown holders in any of the many boxingorganizations.

And as he comes out now for the official prefight weigh-in, inthe actual ring in which he will flatten a fine young side of beefknown as Peter McNeeley in 48 hours, Tyson looks somber as anexecutioner.

This fight coming up, Tyson's first in more than four years, isnot really even a test.

Just the thoughts of metal doors clanging shut for so many daysand nights should provide enough juice for him to swiftly escortMcNeeley to the avenue of broken dreams.

But then there's the actual person himself, McNeeley, front andcenter.

Smiling, the happy lad from Massachusetts strips to his whitebriefs, tips in at 224 pounds, waves to the crowd, flexes, spins toshow his soon-to-be-canvas-covered back, and reveals that he has hisdrawers on inside out.

Oh, please.

McNeeley has a 36-1 record over opponents who, at fight time,differed from corpses only in their (allegedly) measurable pulses.

One McNeeley victim hadn't fought in 10 years. Another hadnever won a fight. One came into his bout with a 1-9 record and wasknown as "The Fighting Mortician."

And McNeeley's final tune-up before the big event?

A one-round TKO in April over a body named Frankie Hines,possessor of 63 losses, including 11 in a row.

But here's Tyson now in red undies, 220 pounds of muscle andfresh tattoos, surprising even moderator Al Bernstein, by blowingglaringly past him and off-stage.

Tyson's a serious destroyer.

Soon McNeeley will have a scrapbook to remind him of such.

In Tyson's vacuum, Don King comes forward to take the limelightand talk the talk. Work the room.

This fight is a joke. Everybody knows it.

But my goodness, the wind.

Rick Telander's column appears Sunday, Monday, Wednesday andFriday.