Just between you and I, and I'll deny it if it's repeated, Andrew "Foul Pole" Golota wasn't knocked down by a punch Mike Tyson could have called in from his car phone. He slipped. He wasn't cut by razor-sharp blow to his left eye. He was head-butted. And, as Andrew himself, said, "it wasn't my night."

Hum. Let me see if I get this right. After the fight, in his dressing room, with moisture in his eyes, and with a total lack of conscience, Golota told millions of unhappy viewers, "Tyson head-butted me, you know. Nobody took care of this. I was head-butted and the referee didn't respond to it."

And with that, the man who received mostly applause before he entered the ring some 15 minutes before, fell within striking range of boxing's rarest and most cherished prize -- another crack at the heavyweight championship of the world. His cartoon-like greatness equaled only by the chrisma to explain his abnormal behavior. We all have bad nights. The cast is like fuggeddaboudit: John Dillinger had one outside a Chicago movie on July 22, 1934 . Bob Crane's bad night happened in the Winfield Apartment-Hotel in Scotsdale, Arizona on June 29, 1978. Johnny Stompanato had a bad night. Few men have understood bad nights better than billionaire Bill Gates. One night in Las Vegas, His Wealthiness lost $25 million at the gambling tables. The point is, boxing is not a hand-kisser's run through the boises of France, it's a brutish slugfest. No place for sissies.

Prediction: After listening to Golota's bumbling excuse in his dressing room after the fight, we can rule out his jumping into the broadcast booth after his retirement. His babbling, unsteady explanation for losing to Mike Tyson at The Palace Friday night before a crowd 16,000 and millions more watching on Showtime pay-per-view was comparable to Exxon's disastrous handing of the Exxon Valdez oil tanker spill in Alaska in 1989.

Let's be realistic. Take in consideration, Rocky's savage brawl with Ezzard Charles on the night of June 17, 1954. With blood streaming from a gash over his left eye, Rocky refused to quit, and staged a roaring finish to edge out a decision over Charles. In their rematch three months later, with his nose gashed to the bone, Rocky refused to quit again. He knocked out Charles in the eighth. Remember that December 10, 1958 night at the Forum in Montreal, when Archie Moore, floored three times in the first round came on to knock out Yvon Durelle ? That was courage as heavy as a mastodon tusk.

Carmen Basilio's courage and determination made his fight with Ray Robinson close when he battled on with a closed left eye in his losing effort on March 26, 1958. But you must remember, these were the days when fighters took their lickings in stride. Taking the easy way out never occurred to guys like Gene Fulmer, Paul Pender, or Emile Griffith. They would have rather walked the plank than to surrender in their corner. They went after their opponents with surgical precision. Golota is not in character with men of skill and courage. He will not respond to a knockdown by rising from the rosin canvas to absorb punishment like Jess Willard or Joe Frazier did. He quits when it gets dangerous. Boxing fans hate fighters who quit as much as umpires and motorcycle cops.

Andrew Golota would have been no great threat to Marciano, or Joe Louis. He probably would have climbed out of the ring and ran for his life at the sight of Jack Dempsey. Plead with his trainer to call the cops. He probably can't even spell courage, let alone understand guys like Joe Frazier or Jerry Quarry. There was no such thing as quitting among men like these. Surrender without a fight? Jesse Jackson would attend a KKK meeting before that would happen.

Maybe Golota was driven goofy by Tyson's psyched-out strategy that the fight would last as long "as in takes to kill somebody." That's nothing to say to a guy as spineless as spaghetti. Those words kept Joseph Valachi awake at nights. Made Carmine (The Snake) Persico switch from the Gallo gang to Profaci faster than a windshield wiper. Maybe the fear of Tyson killing him rushed through Golota's head like the gushing Yosemite Falls after a spring thaw. You picture Golota, the day after the fight, reading the obituary notices to cheer himself up.

Mockery of courage in the ring is mockery of human decency and, thankfully, it is uncommon in the sport I love so much. No matter what you say about Mike Tyson, and granted, he is "dinosauric," few men have better understood that courage is the lifeblood of professional boxing. Without a display of courage, the sport of boxing would be like a submarine on the bottom, 500 feet down, unable to surface. Tyson has never lacked courage. Being in the ring with him is like living in a pressure cooker with a stuck safety valve. You can rattle off the names of opponents who froze at the sight of him standing in the opposite corner. Michael Spinks comes to mind.

Most sportswriters instinctively nod in agreement: Golota never wanted to fight Tyson in the first place. They made him do it. It's called greed. Money. Bucks. Simoleons. People worship at its alter. Odgen Nash wrote a poem about it. Jack Benny said if he couldn't take it with him, he'd be back for it. Women marry old fogies who get tired dialing long distance, for money. More people have been murdered over money than any other reason imaginable. For no other reason than money, Golota's people sent him into the mouth of a volcano. Golota's wife, Mariola, tried to talk him out of it. You visualize Mariola ordering him a tombstone that reads: See! The message here is one shouldn't expect things of themselves that are beyond their capabilities. If you can't run with the big dogs stay on the porch.

In the first place, Andrew Golota has no business being in the fight game. He was created for the benefit of doctors and psychiatrists. His life is a bed of neuroses. He entered the ring against Tyson like a cheerleader in a morgue. Look, conventional wisdom says that boxing is a brutal, competitive business. Just as baseball is meant for guys called Sultan of Swat, or Gashouse Gang, boxing is meant for guys named Rocky, Manassa Mauler, Brown Bomber. On October 20th Golota was a dead ringer for a serial killer approaching the electric chair. You took one look at him and you didn't need a calendar to predict what round it would end in. The difference between a serial killer's predicament and Golota's was that sometimes the serial killer will get a last-minute stay. There's always an Alan Dershowitz ready to take up his cause. But for Golota, there probably will be no more chances. No more appeals for leniency. No rehab. No hope. Just a life akin to that of O.J. Simpson trying to live down his past. Ira Einhorn in hiding. Pull in the welcome mat. Here he comes, turn out the lights and pull the blinds. "Don't call us - we'll call you." As welcome as Hitler in a Jewish tabernacle.

With his head on the chopping block, you picture Golota slipping out of town under the cover of darkness with his $3million cache without anyone noticing. Canada is a haven for criminals. Mexico. France or Italy welcomes all of America's misfits. Golota has many choices. It is his patriotic duty. American fight fans have no respect for a fighter who fights as if he is double-parked. And keeps the motor running. In today's hotly competitive boxing market there is only room for men of courage. One reason I like the sport is, I see it as a last stand of individual bravado and hardihood. Fighters like Lennox Lewis and Auturo Gatti spawn it. Warriors like Fernando Vargas, Felix Trinidad and Sugar Shane Mosley are what we conceive pugilists to be. Golota will never be confused with Walcott's or Lesnevich's or Patterson's who never misbehaved in the ring and gave it all they had because of their love of the sport. American fight fans resent being made suckers of. Paying $1,000 for a ringside seat, or $39.00 pay-per-view for eight minutes of humbuggery is the ultimate insult. Like a pie in the face. Gotcha! You doofus. Want more? Take that!

The trouble with Andrew Golota is that you can't tell by looking at him that he is what Bobby Czyz called, "a coward." He's built like Arnold Schwarzenegger and gives his opponents a look Billy the Kid might have given the sheriff as he enters the ring. But underneath he is beset by stomach cramps. Butterflies. But no one knows it because he doesn't look as appreciably different from when he isn't scared.

We have no idea how Daniel felt in the lion's den. Or how Abe "Kid Twist" Reles, felt going out the window before he could testify against Mafia leader Meyer Lansky. Golota probably felt this way that Friday night. And he will be forever branded a coward and criticized for it.

He left the ring hanging his head like a guy who is a suspect in a child molestation or had just spilled soup on his date. Irate fans booed, spit on him, and sardonically splattered him with suds and popcorn. He's lucky they didn't throw daggers. The only thing more demoralizing than Golota's performance was the rap music of the Hot Boys as Tyson entered amid cheers and jeers. You wanted Roseanne Barr back up there singing The National Anthem. The true heavyweight champion of the world, Lennox Lewis, said it best when he called the Mike Tyson-Andrew Golota fight at The Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan, "a circus." Showtime boxing analyst Bobby Czyz echoed that "Golota has no guts or mental ability." Later, Golota apologized to all his fans. "Boxing is a very, difficult sport," he mumbled. No one ever said boxing was a shave and a haircut. Checkers in the park. Golota made a serious mistake by becoming a fighter. He lacks the old gusto. He is as out of place in this sport as Heidi Fleiss in a nunnery. He should take up the violin. Rocketscientist is out. Don't even mention auto racing. Too risky. Find a way to drive fast past people driving fast. Screeech! Wham! Bam! Whack! The sky's raining Golota body parts for 5 minutes.

Instead of returning to his home town of Chicago amid a ticker tape parade, Golota went straight to the hospital. His promoter, Don Tremblay said, "He is in intensive care under observation for a concussion." Tearfully, Mariola said that Andrew was admitted to Resurrection Medical Center where they ran Cat scans and an MRI. Consider this; Kendra Lenhart took more punishment from unbeaten Laila Ali, in losing an eight-round decision on the undercard, and she never for a moment considered quitting. Maybe women are designed to take more punishment than men. Why else would God have chosen them to have babies and suffer the agonies of menstrual cycles. Golota's problem is a little thornier. He wears a wrist compass into the ring so he can tell whether he's coming or going.

Golota's trainer, Al Certo pleaded with his fighter to continue fighting at the start of the third round. Certo even tried to insert Golota's mouthpiece but the big goof spit it out. Certo screamed, "What are you doing, you've got to get out there." But Certo had as much of a chance of winning this argument with Golota as Billy Martin with an umpire.

"I guess he can't stand the pressure," said Certo. "He shouldn't fight anymore. Who would plug in ( pay-per-view) to watch him?" According to Certo, Golota wanted to quit after the first round, but he sent him back in. Golota made a decent second round. Then he told Referee Frank Garza, "I quit."

"He was mad at me because I wanted him to fight," said Certo. "He kept saying, 'I don't want to fight anymore. I don't want to fight anymore."

Gary Shaw of Main Events, which promotes Golota, echoed, "He has to determine whether he wants to be a fighter again. He wants to rethink his career. He doesn't know if he wants to go forward." If Golota does continue will Certo be in his corner?

"I would have to think about that," he said. "How can you go with a quitter?"

With Tyson (48-3, 42 knockouts) at 5-feet-11, and 235 pounds, and Golota (32-4, 29 knockouts) at 6-6-, 250, with a chin of granite, promoters and Showtime billed the encounter as "Anything Goes." "It's going to be a hell of a fight for as long as it lasts," predicated Certo. He lied.

The frightful forecasts weren't so frightful after all. All that fury that was supposed to be unleashed at the clang of the bell was unleashed after the fight. Furious fans bombarded Golota with beer and Crackerjacks. Boxing enthusiasts will not tolerate a quitter. Get clobbered until you can't see. Get covered with blood. Gashed. Get disqualified. But don't walk away from your duty to give the fans what they pay their hard-earned money for. Don't surrender the Alamo. The captain is supposed to go down with his ship. If you are getting paid $3million stand and fight like a man. There is no room in boxing for cream puffs. A fighter has to be part pugilist and part Man o' War. Like football players boxers have to not mind being hit. Jake LaMotta is the finest example of that.

Anybody out there remember Golota's 1977 fight with Lennox Lewis? Golota was knocked down twice and stopped in 95 seconds. He collapsed in his dressing room and wheeled out of the Convention Center on a stretcher and taken by ambulance to the nearby Atlantic City Medical Center. Even then he looked like a man who was overwhelmed by the moment. "I noticed in the beginning he was tentative with his punches," said Lewis.

Golota had an answer for his poor showing: "There was so much pressure, I was nervous. It was an accident. I told Lou Duva, 'I am sorry. You spent too much time with me.'" Duva answered, "You got hit cold. I'm surprised you got up." Or did he say, "I'm surprised you showed up?"

Tyson spent a little more time with him - eight minutes. You can cook rice that fast.

It wasn't the first time this bulging-muscled fighter retreated in the face of danger. He quit for no apparent reason against Michael Grant after dominating him for nine rounds. Play it again, Sam. In a world where serial killers get more respect than a fighter who cries "No mas," there is a rumor that says Tyson will not fight again. With a multimillion-dollar purse to be had, and Tyson owing back taxes and other out-of-the-ring bills, that is highly improbable. Lennox Lewis says, "They'll talk him into it. If Mike Tyson fights again, I hope he waits for me. I have something to feed him." It would be a bigger score than the Boston Bank robbery. ******

A Bit About Bill Kelly