NEW YORK -- Honestly, I don't know where to begin.

The Magazine sent me over to the Tyson-Lewis press conference just in case something happened. And, sure enough, something did. Something I've never seen before. Something really amazing. And bizarre. And sad.

Maybe the best place to start from is the beginning. The presser at the Millennium Hotel ballroom was supposed to get underway at 12:30 ET, but things were running 30 minutes late. To fill time, one of Mike Tyson's pals, a beefy, gravelly-voiced dude called Crocodile, livened things up. Even before he burst through the doors around 12:20, you could hear him coming. Covered in powder blue combat fatigues and sunglasses and yelling at the top of his lungs, he didn't shut up for 45 minutes. He railed about everything from Lennox Lewis' sexual orientation to Tyson's legacy. At one point, he started to holler about mink coats. Weird, I thought. He's a PETA guy? What next, a diatribe on human rights at Guantanamo Bay?

Not quite. Seems Crocodile had spied some cat Tyson fought outside a club last week. The guy, wearing a mink coat, was hanging out in the balcony waiting for Mike. Instead he and Crocodile got into it before four security guards broke it up. Turns out, that was just the undercard.

A few minutes before 1 p.m., ring announcer Jimmy Lennon Jr. (kind of a whiter version of Michael Buffer) hit the stage. The lights dimmed and he introduced a three-minute clip of Tyson's and Lewis' greatest knockouts. Then, he introduced Tyson, who had a few dozen of his boys in the theatre.

Wearing a tight charcoal sweater, Tyson strutted to the center of the stage, sporting a maniacal grin.

Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis scuffle at the start of the scheduled news conference

Then Lennon introduced Lewis, who entered the stage from the opposite direction and took about five steps before he realized Tyson was about to storm him. What followed was pure chaos. This much I know: Tyson threw the first punch, before everyone rushed the stage. Even Chuck Zito rushed the stage. (He's the guy from Oz, who you can see in the video clip wearing the Hell's Angels jacket.)

The brawl lasted about 10 minutes. Supposedly, Tyson bit Lewis. I can't say that I saw that or that I saw anyone land an actual punch. It was that kind of melee and no, I don't think it was staged.

I can confirm that when things "settled down," and Lewis was escorted by his handlers into another room in the Millennium to do interviews, Tyson took command of the spotlight. He grabbed his crotch a half-dozen times and threatened anyone who made eye contact with him. Then, he challenged some guy to come up on stage and face him. Actually, Iron Mike's words, and I can still hear them, were, "Be a man! Come up here, you f------ f-----. Be a man. I'll f--- you in the ass. B----!" The man Tyson was courting, I believe it was local sportscaster Russ Salzberg, declined the offer.

On the way out, I overheard a bunch of boxing writers talking about how Tyson had lost his mind. I'm not quite sure about that because, after all, this is a guy who had previously cannibalized someone's ear and went to jail for rape. Clearly this wasn't the most stable guy in the room to begin with. Supposedly, he had been through counseling. Although I'm wondering with who? Dr. Mengele, perhaps? Some people at the theatre think this was Tyson's way of backing out of the fight. That by fueling a near-riot, he ensured that Nevada would never license the bout. Maybe that's so. But I doubt that is part of Mike Tyson's thought process.

In reality, I'm not so sure he has a thought process. That, not his prodigious knockouts from more than 10 years ago, is why we're still sadly fascinated by Iron Mike.

Bruce Feldman is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at bruce.feldman@espnmag.com.