WORLD heavyweight boxing champion Evander Holyfield was in phlegmatic mood last night nursing a right ear, the top of which Mike Tyson had "bitten off" and spat onto the canvas of a Las Vegas boxing ring before an astonished referee called a halt.
"I'm not angry - it's over. I have my ear," said Holyfield, after plastic surgeons reattached the piece Tyson had bitten off. "I just thank the Lord it's not as bad as first appeared."
After being escorted from the arena (where 16,331 fans had paid between $200 and $1,500 to watch the fight), Tyson sought to justify his conduct by blaming Holyfield.
"He butted me in the first round and then the second round and he was going to butt me again," said the former champion.
"No one warned him and no one took any points off."
Pointing at a gash above his right eye, Tyson continued: "I can't continue getting butted, I've got children to raise and they'll be scared of me. He cut me and I've got to retaliate."
The incident happened in the third round of a match that commentators say was not going well for Tyson, who was beaten by Holyfield last November. In the third round, Tyson bit Holyfield twice - once on each ear. The defending champion insisted after the fight was stopped he had been boxing cleanly.
"I went back out there, to really try to get the fight over," Holyfield said. "I hit him with a great shot and he bit me again. You start out thinking, `things like that can happen'. But when it happens twice, you think he's completely lost it."
Mitch Libonati, who tidies up the Las Vegas ring, found the piece of Holyfield's ear on the canvas when the fight was over. He wrapped it in a latex glove and rushed it back to the dressing room.
Tyson's excuse - blaming his victim - recalled his futile attempts to dodge his rape conviction in 1992. Released in 1995 claiming to have found solace in Islam, Tyson returned to boxing and in his first five months of freedom earned $105 million.
Last night, it was deemed unlikely he would collect the $30 million purse he was due from the Las Vegas fight. All he was collecting was opprobrium.
"Tyson was despicable," said Barry McGuigan, president of the Professional Boxers' Association. "He was abominable and he behaved like a spoiled child. He was totally malicious. Everything done was premeditated... He couldn't win fair and square so he decided to get out the easy way by getting disqualified."