MIKE TYSON

LAS VEGAS —  Mike Tyson remembers, even if others don’t.

When you’re 20 and the youngest heavyweight champion ever, you don’t easily forget.

It was Nov. 22, 1986, and the WBC belt Tyson had won by knocking out Trevor Berbick only hours before was proudly displayed around his waist as he walked around the Las Vegas Hilton lobby.

He wore the belt to bed that night and paraded through the hotel with it again the next day. It took him two days before he could bring himself to take the belt off.

“I just wanted the world to say, ‘Look at me,’ ” Tyson recalled.

Look they did, with a mixture of curiosity and awe at the new, ferocious champion with the squeaky voice.

And they’ve been looking ever since, through good times and bad. They’ve watched through multimillion-dollar fights and a prison sentence for rape, followed by a comeback and a biting that marked one of boxing’s darkest hours.

On Saturday night, Tyson takes the stage once again, fighting for the first time since he chewed off a chunk of Evander Holyfield’s ear on June 28, 1997.

And again, people will be there to look, as if they were stopping to check out a car wreck.

They will see a destructive Tyson or a Tyson who self-destructs. In the nearly 13 years since he knocked out Berbick, they have seen both.

Mostly, though, they will be there to see Tyson because they can’t bring themselves to stop watching him.

“People think I’m either a superstar or a freak,” he said. “I don’t blame them. I can definitely relate to that myself.”

Nearly 19 months after he was banned by Nevada boxing officials for biting Holyfield, Tyson returns to the ring at the MGM Grand hotel-casino for a scheduled 10-round fight against Francois Botha of South Africa.

Tyson’s second comeback in less than four years will earn him some $20 million for a nontitle fight, more than Holyfield is getting to try to unify the heavyweight titles two months later against Lennox Lewis.

The payday--which will allow the 32-year-old Tyson to settle a $13 million IRS lien--is evidence enough that he still has his magnetic draw.

“He’s bigger than ever, it’s just unbelievable,” said Tyson’s new manager, Shelly Finkel. “He does the unpredictable and people just want to see him. I also think a lot of people see him as being victimized.”

The huge money Tyson is earning for the 10-round bout is even more remarkable considering he has lost his last two fights, both to Holyfield, and many in boxing believe he has not been the same fighter since James “Buster” Douglas beat him a decade ago in Japan.

But Tyson continues to fascinate the public, even those who normally wouldn’t give boxing a second look. TV executives expect nearly 1 million homes to buy the pay-per-view fight with Botha at a cost of about $45.

“This is an individual who has surpassed his sport, for better or ill,” said Jay Larkin, executive producer for Showtime, which will televise the fight. “He probably commands more focus and attention than any fighter in history.”

Tyson’s allure was evident recently at his Phoenix training camp, where a few dozen people gathered to try to get autographs and pictures as the fighter pulled into the crumbling gym in a shiny new purple Rolls Royce.

They waited outside while Tyson trained, then were allowed inside where he joked with them, signed autographs and had his picture taken with everyone who wanted one.

Freed from some of the entourage he assembled under promoter Don King, Tyson has new management and, seemingly, a new attitude. He spent time talking to teen-age prisoners one day and handed out free turkeys another, drawing criticism that he was just looking for publicity.

He even found some sympathy among people who thought he was treated unfairly after biting Holyfield.

“Ordinary people in the street relate to me biting that guy,” Tyson said. “They said, ‘You were in a fight, man. You had to do what you had to do.’ People in boxing don’t relate to that. They look at it a whole lot different.”

Nevada boxing authorities looked at it so differently that they made Tyson go through five days of psychiatric exams in a Boston hospital before finally voting in October to allow him to return to the sport.

Doctors testified that Tyson suffers from low self esteem and was often depressed, but that he was unlikely to snap again in the ring.

Those close to Tyson said he felt humiliated by the tests--and one doctor said he was briefly threatened by the former champ. But Tyson said being allowed to fight again made it all worthwhile.

“How could I really be embarrassed going through that stuff?” he said. “I should be happy because I did. Imagine if I didn’t go through it. Where would I be now? I wouldn’t be fighting, that’s for sure.”

That Tyson is fighting again is remarkable enough considering the outcry after the Holyfield fight. He wasn’t allowed to reapply for a license for a year after it was revoked in July 1997, and Tyson went through one hearing in New Jersey and two in Las Vegas before getting his license back.

He still faces a possible jail sentence stemming from a Maryland traffic accident involving his wife. He pleaded no contest to assaulting two men and will be sentenced Feb. 5. Indiana authorities could send him back to jail if they decide he violated parole from his 1992 rape conviction.

But, after more than a year and a half without doing the thing he loves best, Tyson at least has his occupation back.

“The things that bother me aren’t fighting, but my personal life,” Tyson said. “Fighting is natural to me. It’s the other things in life I have problems with. Every day, I’m always trying to walk that fine line.”

Assuming he beats Botha--and he is a 7-1 favorite over the former IBF heavyweight champion--Tyson wants to fight every three months or so.

A third fight with Holyfield that would be boxing’s richest ever is tentatively penciled in for late in the year, possibly in November. That, of course, depends on whether Holyfield beats Lewis and Tyson wins his comeback fights.

“I would fight that fight like a Mexican fighter,” Tyson said. “If they fight a guy and get beaten, the next time they fight, they fight like they had knocked the guy out and not the other way around. That’s the way I’m thinking.”

The heavyweight title that seemed to come so easily at 20, though, is the ultimate goal for a fighter who a dozen years later finds time is not on his side.

“Everybody knows I want the championship back,” Tyson said. “But I need to do it one fight at a time.”