Although the other commissioners for the most part avoided speculating about what Tyson should do in the next 12 months, Mack was to the point, naming promoter Don King and others as people who have not done what's best for Tyson.
"I need to see changes," Mack said, referring to the actions before and after the fight by Tyson's co-managers, John Horne and Rory Holloway, who derided Holyfield and attacked the credibility of the Nevada commission.
"I understand now that he has a doctor doing some [psychological] evaluations. Before he comes back, I think we need to look at that, talk to the physician, understand what's been going on, what he's been doing to solve the problem.
"He said he snapped in the ring. Will it ever happen again? What caused it to happen? We need to hear those kinds of things.
"I don't know about Don King. I think Tyson is one of those guys who needs a mentorship with some positive attitude in his life . . . somebody who would do it not for money, who would do it from the heart, like a church, a minister.
"I don't think [King provides that]."
Tyson's absence, Goodman's promises of bringing Tyson to next year's hearing and his rumbling that a one-year ban is the very limit of what they would tolerate all signaled that Wednesday's actions were only a precursor to the far more interesting activity expected in July 1998.
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If Tyson is denied in 1998, he would not be able to force another hearing for another full year.
"Two years is absolutely unacceptable," Goodman said. "Not even close. We're going to be back here in a year, and we're going to be making a presentation that Mike Tyson should be fighting, that he's fit to fight and enough's enough."
But James Nave, considered one of the commission's hard-liners, made a special point during the hearing to indicate that Tyson is far from free from the commission's scrutiny once the year has passed.
Even without further evidence, Nave said, the commission can keep Tyson out of fighting in Nevada for as long as it wants.
"I wanted to make it clear the commission did not have to provide any more evidence in order to say 'no' next year," Nave said later, "that the evidence presented today would be enough to say 'no' if that commission wanted."
* A HARD HIT
The Nevada commissioners didn't pull their punches. Mike Downey's column. C1
