The latest chapter in the Mike Tyson saga is hardly a glorious one.

Tyson (50-5, 44 KOs) steps into the ring at the MCI Center in Washington, D.C. on Saturday night to face Kevin McBride (32-4-1, 27 KOs) in a pay-per-view bout. Fans who shell out $44.95 are unlikely to get their money’s worth. Tyson, despite his fall from grace, can still punch, and McBride is a club fighter. It has been suggested that McBride wear a blindfold into the ring for what is expected to be a quick execution.

The only interesting question surrounding Tyson-McBride is, “Why do people still care about Mike?”

Tyson will turn 39 later this month, and his motivation for fighting is simple: He needs the money. Under a plan confirmed by U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Allan L. Gropper last October, Iron Mike is obligated to pay $36.6 million of the $44.1 million he owes his creditors. The most reliable estimates are that he’ll earn $5 million for fighting McBride. That’s an absurdly large number, given the fact that Tyson hasn’t won a big fight since he knocked out Michael Spinks 17 years ago. But there’s always someone with deep pockets willing to put up big bucks to get Mike in the ring.

Like Michael Jackson, O.J. Simpson, and a handful of other superstars, Tyson has become part of the national psyche. Everyone knows who he is and everyone has an opinion about him. Tommy Brooks, who trained Tyson several years ago, said recently, “I once told Mike, ‘Man, you’re going to be in a wheelchair, and people are still going to wonder what you’re up to.'” Tyson himself bragged two days ago: “I’m an icon. I’m an international superstar. If they don’t know my name, they’re from another planet.”

Tyson feeds the press frenzy simply by being Tyson. When he threatens to eat people’s children and gets into street fights, it’s tabloid fodder. When he tries to clean up his act and behave responsibly, there are endless stories about the “new” Tyson.

Last week, at an open workout to publicize his upcoming fight against McBride, both Tysons were on display.

“I’ll never be happy,” Iron Mike told the assembled reporters. “I believe I’ll die alone. I would want it that way. I’ve been a loner all my life with my secrets and my pain. I’m really a sad, pathetic case. My whole life has been a waste. I’ve been a failure. I just want to escape. I’m really embarrassed with myself and my life.”

Then his thoughts began to stray.

“I want to be a missionary,” Tyson continued. “I think I could do that while keeping my dignity without letting people know they chased me out of the country. I want to get this part of my life over as soon as possible. In this country, nothing good is going to come of me. I’m so stigmatized, there is no way I can elevate myself. They would give Jeffrey Dahmer a second chance before they gave me another one. If you saw a lineup and saw Tyson and Dahmer and they asked, ‘Who killed and ate those people?’ you would pick me and not Jeffrey.”

Jeffrey Dahmer, of course, died a decade ago. But Tyson had made his point. He is what he is. And the public’s fascination with him seems endless. There are newspapers that haven’t staffed a fight since Iron Mike fought Lennox Lewis three years ago, and more major press outlets will be on hand for his encounter with McBride than for any non-Tyson heavyweight fight this year.

Mike Tyson has become larger than life. Still, it’s worth recalling the thoughts of essayist Gerald Early.

“Tyson is not the sum of his myths; he is the remainder,” Early wrote last year. “Myth tries to invest lived experience with greater meanings. But despite the stories that have proliferated around him, Tyson’s life can never point to anything larger than itself, his own self-serving actions, his own madness, his own befuddlement and consternation before the revelation of his limitations. Tyson’s biggest drama was, and continues to be, with himself for the salvation of himself alone.”

Given the sad state of the heavyweight division today, Tyson is just one fight away from being a contender. But Tyson-McBride won’t be that fight. For those who can wait to see what promises to be a dud, Showtime will offer a tape of Tyson-McBride on July 2, just prior to its live telecast of Samuel Peter versus Taurus Sykes.