Former heavyweight champion boxer Mike Tyson is currently a debtor-in-possession in a chapter 11 bankruptcy case. This NY Times article outlines Tyson’s plan of reorganization, which is based on the income stream that Mr. Tyson supposedly will generate from fighting an unusually aggressive schedule on pay-for-view television:

The reorganization assumes that Tyson (50-4) will fight five times through November 2005 (with dispensation to stretch the fights out over two more years, when he’ll be 41), an extraordinary amount of work for a boxer who has not fought in 17 months and has not beaten a great opponent since Ronald Reagan was in his second term.
The reorganization requires that after keeping $2 million from each fight, Tyson must pay into a reorganization trust fund 50 percent of the after-tax proceeds from his bouts, or $19 million, to pay his taxes and his former wife Monica Turner.
Tyson’s first payment to the trust fund, $890,000, . . . is due next month. He must then pay the fund $4.9 million in each of the quarters ending Jan. 31 and April 30, 2005, followed by a payment of $3.7 million in the quarter ending October 31, 2005, and $4.6 million in the quarter ending January 31, 2006.
The plan does not state what will happen if he does not make the payments.

I can answer that one: Liquidation, which is where Tyson should probably be anyway.
It also turns out that Mr. Tyson has settled matters with his former promoter, Don King:

The best news for his finances is the $14 million that will come from the recent settlement of the $100 million federal lawsuit he filed in 1998 that alleged financial fraud against Don King, his former promoter.
King will pay Tyson $8 million soon after the reorganization plan goes into effect, $3 million plus interest in January 2005 and $3 million plus interest in January 2006.
For all the money that Tyson charged that King had siphoned off, he will get none of it; all of it will go for debts.

Meanwhile, those pesky chapter 11 operating reports provide some interesting information on Mr. Tyson’s current life:

According to the monthly financial reports Tyson files with the bankruptcy court, his personal earnings in February, $26.54, were overwhelmed by $67,960 in personal expenses. In March, his income improved to $15,127, while his expenses fell to $25,389. And in April, his income soared to $125,055 and his expenses rose again, to $62,589.

Mike Tyson is not a particularly good fighter anymore. Nevertheless, just as many people watch NASCAR events to see the crashes, many folks will tune into a Tyson fight in order to see the inevitable meltdown of Tyson in living color. About when you think the fight game has gone as low as it can go, people leeching off of Tyson push it even lower. Only in America.