Mike Tyson's latest comeback lasted all of three minutes. When the bell sounded to end the first round of Tyson and Orlin Norris's heavyweight bout at the MGM Grand Garden on Saturday night, referee Richard Steele moved between the combatants to break a clinch.

But instead of going quietly to his corner, Tyson opted to use the would-be peacemaker as a human shield. Nearly chest-to-chest with Steele, Tyson fired a chopping left hook over the referee's right shoulder. The punch caught a startled Norris flush on the jaw and dropped him in his tracks.

Norris revived and made it back to his corner under his own steam, but was subsequently deemed unable to continue because of a knee injury incurred in the fall. Steele, who had immediately informed the ringside judges that he was deducting two points from Tyson as a result of the infraction, now found himself in a quandary.

The last time a referee had disqualified Tyson in the same arena it sparked a chaotic conflagration whose brush-fires lingered into the next morning. The ugly skirmishes that spilled out from the hotel's bars onto the casino floor had cost the MGM millions of dollars in lost revenue.

What had taken place in the ring this time plainly appeared to warrant disqualification, but with an eye to an arena packed with a pro-Tyson audience numbering over 12,000, and following consultation between Marc Ratner, the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission, a battalion of police and security personnel were summoned into the ring, after which it was announced that the bout had been terminated by an "accidental foul," and that it had been decreed a "No Contest."

The audience vented its displeasure, but fortunately, the host casino had taken the precaution of requiring spectators to pass through metal detectors. Additionally, at the hotel's bars, restaurants, and gaming tables they had stopped serving drinks in bottles or glasses at midday. Armed with nothing more lethal than plastic cups, the grumbling and cursing crowd was eventually dispersed without incident.

Tyson's reaction was more predictable. Just as he had done after raping a beauty pageant contestant seven years earlier, just as he had done when he was banned from the sport for making a meal of Evander Holyfield's ears two-and-a-half years ago, he tried to blame the victim.

Norris, claimed Tyson, egged on by his entourage, which included promoter Dan Goossen and adviser Shelly Finkel, had deliberately refused to continue in the hope of either being awarded a disqualification or, even better, a rematch. "He quit," fumed Tyson. "How could I hit him in the jaw and he hurt his knee? Anyone who's competitive, even if he's got a fractured leg, would get back up and fight." "He hit me after the bell. I just went down the wrong way on my right knee," said Norris, who, following a spot examination by the ringside physician, Dr Flip Homansky, was taken on a stretcher to Las Vegas Valley Hospital afterwards, where an MRI was performed on the knee.

It marked the third consecutive time that Tyson had lost control during a fight. He bit each of Holyfield's ears before being disqualified in their 1997 fight, and in January, in his last ring appearance before being sentenced to a stretch in a Maryland jail for beating up two elderly motorists, he grabbed the arm of opponent Francois Botha during a clinch and, by his own admission, did his best to snap it.

The verdict will leave Steele a bit of explaining to do. The referee had already warned Tyson once for hitting off the break, and the infraction which ended the fight seemed sufficiently egregious to have warranted disqualification. Since Steele had already deemed it serious enough to deduct two points, how did it suddenly become "accidental?"

Tyson, of course, claimed that it was, and that he hadn't heard the bell. Unmoved by this argument, the Nevada State Athletic Commission ordered Tyson's $8.7 million purse to be withheld pending a formal review of the films today and a meeting later in the week.

Ratner said that following its review the commission would "do what is right." NSAC chairman Dr Elias Ghanem implied that could include changing the result to a disqualification ("that's what we'll have to decide"), but don't bet on it.

Tyson, however, was already prepared for the worst.

"They'll probably keep it like they did before," grumbled Tyson, who was fined a record $3 million for his cannibalism in the Holyfield fight.

"He could have continued," charged Tyson. "I could have quit against Buster Douglas, and against Holyfield, but I stayed there and took my beating like a man."

Interestingly, and while it should have no bearing on the original foul, Tyson's claim that Norris may have exaggerated his injury may not be entirely baseless. Earlier in this decade the opponent's brother, former WBC light-middleweight champion Terry Norris, was twice disqualified under remarkably similar circumstances in back-to-back fights against Luis Santana, mainly because after being belted after the bell Santana had the good sense to stay on the canvas until a satisfactory result had been obtained.

Put it this way: Norris's knee injury (although it was real enough, according to Dr Homansky) appeared to get a lot worse in the minute between his walk back to the corner and the bell announcing the start of the second round, and television tapes reveal members of his entourage urging him to remain on his stool - which, as the aggrieved party, he had every right to do.

"He walked back to his corner," complained Tyson. "That shows you how twisted his knee was. He must have hurt it getting on the stool." Norris was in any case paid his $800,000 purse - although between his manager's share, a $266,667 attachment stemming from a lawsuit filed by British promoter Frank Warren and a lien filed by the Internal Revenue Service, he actually collected barely one-fourth of it.

"I'm tired of this bullshit," moaned Tyson. "I don't really even want to fight any more."

If the Nevada Commission, which had put him on notice when conditionally restored his boxing licence last year, does the right thing at this week's hearing, he may not have any choice in the matter.