LONDON -- Mike Tyson made banner headlines in Britain again Wednesday -- this time with his prediction that he will "kill" Julius Francis in their heavyweight bout in Manchester this weekend.

In a television interview aired Tuesday night, Tyson said: "I think that I'm going to kill Julius Francis. I'm just ready for this fight. I want it bad."

But Tyson then backtracked, saying he didn't mean it literally.

"I hope he gets up if he is knocked out, but this is just the motivation I have," he said.

Asked if he was worried about his suggestion that he would kill Francis, Tyson shrugged it off.

"That's OK," he said. "Can I tell you something? It doesn't faze me what anyone says about me. It doesn't matter."

Predictably, Tyson's remarks made prime fodder for the British tabloids.

"I'M GOING TO KILL FRANCIS" was the backpage headline in the Daily Mirror.

The Express blared: "I'LL KILL JULIUS".

The coverage further boosted the publicity for Saturday night's fight in Manchester. The fight is already a 21,000-seat sellout at the MEN Arena, but the bout is also being shown on pay-per-view television in Britain.

Training Tuesday in front of 300 reporters and photographers before moving camp to Manchester, Tyson continued to show another side of his personality.

Since arriving 10 days ago the former undisputed world champion has mounted a public relations campaign to soften his image. On Tuesday he told how he'd been humiliated recently in California.

"My wife (Monica) and I were in Hollywood and we went to a wax museum," he said. "We went into the Chamber of Horrors and there was a wax dummy of me in a cage. It devastated my wife. They humiliated and degraded me in front of my wife. All my life I have been humiliated."

Tyson is a 16-1 favorite to beat Britain's Francis, so the talk Tuesday was about post-Francis fights.

Francis (21-7), a former kickboxer, is undergoing hypnosis and has also sold the sole and heel of his boxing shoes to The Mirror. The London newspaper expects such a purchase to come in handy when Francis lands flat on his back from a Tyson punch.

Tyson's boxing adviser Shelly Finkel said a March 25 bout at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, N.J., or in Europe -- against either Lou Savarese or Shannon Briggs -- was next. Finkel wants a June or July bout to keep Tyson sharp and hone him on a fight every three or four months.

"He'd like to come back here, but it's up in the air," Finkel said. Mentioned as possible British sites for a summer fight are the new Millennium Stadium in Cardiff and Wembley outside London.

Other possible sites Finkel and Showtime producer Jay Larkin listed included: Germany, France, Russia, Austria, South Africa, Japan, China, Wales and Australia.

But a showdown with undisputed world champion Lennox Lewis may never happen. Tyson fights under contract for Showtime and Lewis is with HBO.

Showtime's Jay Larkin said there were no negotiations with HBO. Basically, he said it's Showtime or nothing and jokingly challenged his counterpart at HBO -- Seth Abraham -- to get into the ring to decide the issue.

"We feel we've done enough of that (dealing) in the past with HBO," Larkin said. "We stood aside and let Evander Holyfield fight Lennox Lewis twice, we stood aside and let Felix Trinidad go fight Oscar De La Hoya. It's time for a little quid pro quo."