Here we go again. Mike Tyson is back. On June 11, the man who was once the most compelling fighter in the world will face off against Kevin McBride at the MCI Center in Washington DC.

This is the least anticipated Tyson fight since Iron Mike stepped into the ring with Lorenzo Boyd 19 years ago, but you wouldn’t know it from the former champ’s press conference yesterday.

“I just hope these people of Washington, D.C., are prepared to handle this,” Tyson said as he announced his return to the ring. “It’s going to be a train wreck.”

Tyson (50-5, 44 KOs), who turns 39 in June, is a shell of his former self. In the past 8 1/2 years, he has won five fights (against Frans Botha, Julius Francis, Lou Savarese, Brian Nielsen, and Clifford Etienne). He has been knocked out three times (by Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, and Danny Williams) and been disqualified once for biting off part of Holyfield’s ear. In addition, he has fought “no contests” against Orlin Norris (the fight was stopped when Tyson hit Norris after the bell) and Andrew Golota (Mike tested positive for illegal drugs after the fight).

As for the opponent, McBride (32-4-1 27 KOs) was born in Clones, Ireland, and fights out of Brockton, Mass. At 6-feet, he calls himself “The Clones Colossus.” But it would be more accurate to say that he’s a Peter McNeeley clone.

McNeeley, fight fans will recall, was the Massachusetts heavyweight with a padded 36-1 record who was knocked out by Tyson in 89 seconds 10 years ago. That matchup was excused because Iron Mike was appearing in the ring for the first time in four years following his rape conviction. McNeeley was later knocked out in the first round by Mike Bernardo and Eric Esch, aka Butterbean.

McBride has been knocked out four times, most ignominiously by Michael Murray and Louis Monaco. To put those last two defeats in context, Murray lost 17 of his final 18 fights before retiring in 2001; his sole victory during that stretch was his knockout of McBride. Monaco is still fighting, but has won only 13 of 46 career bouts.

“It’s a no-win situation for me,” Tyson acknowledged yesterday. “If I knock him out in two seconds, he’s a bum. If he gives me a shellacking, I’m a bum.”

“I’m going to shock the world,” was McBride’s response. But no one believes him.

Each minute that Tyson-McBride lasts will be further evidence of Tyson’s decline as a fighter. But it should be noted that Iron Mike still hits as hard as anyone in the heavyweight division.

The plan is to get him a few easy wins and then put him in the ring against one of the alphabet-soup champions. Given his punch, Tyson could always get lucky. In fact, against some of today’s “elite” heavyweights, he wouldn’t even need luck.

Also, there’s a potential megafight down the road for Tyson against 42-year-old Evander Holyfield. Both men are shot as boxers, but bloodsucking hangers-on are already beating the drums.

It would be like Ali Frazier III, supporters of the fighters claimable and Joe were both past their peak when they fought in Manila. But their downward curves intersected perfectly, so it was a great fight.

Holyfield wants to fight Tyson a third time. Iron Mike is ambivalent about meeting his nemesis in the ring again. At present, Evander is under medical suspension in New York, which means that he’s precluded by federal law from fighting in all 50 states. Thus, Holyfield-Tyson III, if it happens, could wind up as an outlaw bout overseas.

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In an effort to engender press attention, the promoters of Tyson-McBride plan to pair that fight with a women’s match-up between Laila Ali (20-0, 17 KOs) and Erin Toughill (6-1-1). That means there will be two big-name fighters in mismatches on the same card. Ali is a quality fighter, who has steadily improved over the years. Meanwhile, Toughill doesn’t figure to be tough. She has beaten only one fighter with a winning record and has never knocked out an opponent.