Mike Tyson arrested at LAX

BY LEO STANDORA DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

At least he didn’t bite his ear off.

A pushy paparazzo took a shot he wished he hadn’t Wednesday – a fist to the face from Mike Tyson that put him on his back.

Police said the ex-heavyweight champ once known as “Iron Mike” and the photographer tangled at the United Airlines ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport.

A source said Tyson, who bit the top of Evander Holyfield’s ear off during a 1997 title bout, told investigators the photographer hit him in an apparent attempt to provoke him for a dramatic shot.

The 43-year-old Brooklyn-born boxer responded by dropping the guy with one punch.

The photographer was taken to a hospital with a cut to his forehead, suffered when he hit the deck, authorities said.

Both men said they wanted to file battery charges against the other.

Cops arrested both of them.

Tyson’s spokeswoman, Tammy Brook, said her boss was traveling with his wife and 10-month-old child when he was attacked and just acted in self-defense to protect his family.

Los Angeles Police Department Sgt. Jim Holcomb said Tyson was expected to “be booked, and if he qualifies he’ll be released . . . on his own recognizance. The same thing will go with the other individual as soon as he gets out of the hospital.”

The incident comes amid a difficult year for Tyson, who suffered personal tragedy in May when his 4-year-old daughter died after accidentally strangling herself with a loose cord on a treadmill.

Over the years, Tyson has had trouble with the law a number of times, most notably his 1992 conviction for raping Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant, at a pageant in Indianapolis.

He served three years of a six-year prison sentence and was released in 1995. He has always denied raping her.

In 1988, as his boxing career soared, he married actress Robin Givens.

The pair fought publicly and Givens claimed he physically hurt her.

Eventually, they divorced.