WASHINGTON - Mike Tyson says he's a new man. Considering his financial plight, he'd best be a new fighter as well.

Tyson returns to the ring Saturday night for the first time since he was beaten by British journeyman Danny Williams more than a year ago. Tyson is fighting an even less formidable opponent this time in Kevin McBride, an Irish heavyweight who was knocked out several years ago by a guy (Michael Murray) who had lost 17 of his previous 18 fights.

That being the case, Tyson has been the picture of calm and rectitude in the weeks leading up to what seems a glorified sparring session. He has been introspective in nearly every interview, talking about the many problems of his checkered past, his failures outside the ring as well as inside it and his desire to change. At times he sounds like he's auditioning for a role on Dr. Phil's television show.

This has led many to speculate that there is a new Mike Tyson in our midst, an older and wiser Tyson who will turn 39 on June 30, an age that has caused him to re-evaluate his life and try to turn it around after having blown all of the $400 million he grossed in purses and squandering what was once a unique talent.

Tyson doesn't deny any of these foibles, although he often seems to fall back on the difficulties of his youth as an explanation for most of it, as if no one else ever had a difficult time as a child. But the bigger issue at the moment for him is that he remains deeply in debt to the Internal Revenue Service and more than a few other creditors. To get out of that debt, he has to start winning in a hurry. Whether he's still capable of that is debatable, although that's won't be a factor against McBride, who Tyson called "a tomato can'' Wednesday.

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That was a pretty unkind remark coming from a guy who keeps talking about wanting to become a better person, but if accuracy is any defense, Tyson is covered. McBride is nothing more than a sacrificial lamb whose presence at the MCI Center will allow Tyson to earn $5 million, although he will leave with little of it. It is a fight that will tell the world nothing about what Tyson has left as a boxer, which is probably not an accident because there's a sneaking suspicion that what he has left is like what he has left from his purses — not much.

"It's not about being the best fighter in the world or the worst fighter in the world,'' Tyson said this week. "It's about being a better person. A championship belt doesn't define who I am as a person.''

Tyson has already proven that the last two times he wore such belts but for a guy who still owes various creditors over $20 million it had best become about being among the best fighters in the world because that is the only way he's ever going to get the albatross of debt off his back.

When Tyson filed for bankruptcy protection he claimed to be $34 million in debt after having earned over $400 million. He still owes more than $12 million in back taxes to the IRS and will, of course, owe them an additional 38 per cent or so off his purse Saturday night, meaning the selection of a nonentity like McBride was as much a financial decision as a professional one after losing to Williams in his last outing.

If one does the math, of the $5 million he will receive on Saturday Tyson will net about $250,000. That's after roughly $2 million in taxes and another $2 million that will go to the bankruptcy court and another $750,000 that will end up in the hands of his ex-wife, Monica Turner, who is said to have worked hard to make this weekend's card in Washington a success and with good reason.

That leaves $250,000 but Tyson will still have to pay new trainer Jeff Fenech and assorted other camp personnel as well as other creditors so what he nets is, simply put, not much. Yet he has to continue fighting for dwindling paydays because he has no choice and he has to fight guys like McBride for as long as possible because his handlers know he needs several big wins to get himself at least to the end of what promoter Darryl Stuckey claims is a three-fight option deal he's negotiated with Tyson that is supposed to lead to a big-money title fight with WBC champion Vitali Klitschko.

For Tyson to get there he must win two or three more fights and he must also find a way not to derail himself outside the ring as he has in the past. That, one fears, as much as any new found sense of self-awareness is what is fueling the present round of "Mike Tyson warrior-philosopher.''

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"I'm a bankrupt guy,'' Tyson said this week. "Having money is not going to make you a decent person ... When it's all over, I don't want people to say Mike Tyson was dishonorable and didn't pay his debts.''

That's a great sentiment but how does a "bankrupt guy" buy a $2.1 million, 7,788 square foot home outside of Phoenix, as Tyson recently did?

Where does he come up with the $420,000 down payment he said he had to place on it to secure a mortgage? How does he make the $11,000 monthly mortgage payment? And who pays for the gas in his Rolls Royce, Hummer SUV and BMW coupe?

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