TURMOIL is nothing new in the life of Mike Tyson, but by Wednesday last week even Jeff Fenech had seen enough. The Australian is one of Tyson’s closest friends, and responded to his SOS by flying from Sydney at his own expense to be with the former world heavyweight champion in his final anxiety-ridden days ahead of a fight he cannot afford to lose against Clifford Etienne next weekend in Memphis.

Fenech moved into Tyson’s mansion near Sunset Park in Las Vegas. They ran together in the park every morning, and, his spirits lifted, Tyson attacked his gym work and sparring partners with a new zeal. Fenech was a three- division world champion in the 1980s, one of Tyson’s favourite fighters when he was still the baddest man on the planet, and having him round was helping them both to turn back the years.

When Fenech reached breaking point and sought an early flight back to Sydney, it was time to wonder how close Tyson might be to meltdown.

“I’ve had enough. He’s working hard, but there are people around him who are wrecking Mike’s head, and it’s paining me to see it,” Fenech said before he left Las Vegas on Thursday. “I was very emotional when I told him I was going home. I’ve been living with him for a couple of weeks, went home to Sydney for two days and came back. His daughter was with us, his niece as well, and we were all happy, like a family. But there are bad influences around him.

“Mike will win the fight. I’ll go back for him if he needs me, and I’ve told him that. The problem is that there are people who are using him as a human battering ram, running to him, ringing him up, telling him their problems, and really that should all be a managerial job. I couldn’t stand seeing my friend in pain any more, and I made a decision about it. Mike Tyson’s a fighter. That’s all he should be there to do.”

After Fenech had left it emerged that Tyson had missed three workouts during the week, prompting fears that the fight might not even take place. Trainer Freddie Roach said: “He had to take a couple of days off because his back was bothering him. It’s an ongoing thing.” His manager Shelley Finke is flying to Las Vegas to check on his fighter.

Reports suggest that Tyson will make less than the £3.5m he was expecting for meeting “the Black Rhino” (beaten once in 26 fights, but knocked down seven times during that defeat by Fres Oquendo and nine times in total). But the financial uncertainties surrounding this fight will pale into insignificance if a rematch with Lennox Lewis is jeopardised. Tyson needs the £15m payday that he is likely to get from a proposed title fight in June, especially after he was recently ordered to pay £4m to his second wife, Monica Turner, in their divorce settlement. But it is likely to come at an awful price if what happened against Lewis last June is repeated.

Roach remains a pillar of calm in the gathering storm. Like a guru, he slowly tapes Tyson’s hands and talks to him gently before they put on the sparring gloves in the Golden Gloves gym — on the days Tyson shows up — and he likes what he has seen. But Roach knows the true test of whether Tyson has exorcised the brutal beating he sustained against Lewis for eight rounds will only come in the early hours next Sunday.

“He’s been doing it in the gym, but I accept that it’s one thing him doing it there and another totally doing it in the ring. We’ll know a lot more about Mike Tyson when the bell rings,” he acknowledged.

“People are saying he needs rounds against Etienne. I don’t go along with that. He needs confidence, and there’s no better way for him to regain his confidence than to walk across the ring and go right through this guy. I believe that’s what Mike will do.

“He’s in great shape, no problems at all there. Confidence, that’s the only thing, the confidence to let his hands go and not have to worry about whether he can keep up that pace for five, six, seven rounds. He’s in shape to do that, but I don’t think he’ll have to.”

Tyson did not allay doubts over his confidence when he was interviewed by the cable network ESPN for its Friday Night Fights show.

“I’ve made a fool of myself a lot of times trying to get my life back together, my self-esteem, just everything in general back together,” he said. “Sometimes you can allow yourself to go so far, allow the current to take you so far that you can’t get back in. I’m at the stage I’m going to come in or just let the current take me.

“I don’t know. I just do my own thing. Sometimes I shut the world out. I think I have a sick illness. I think everyone hates me. I know it’s not true, but that’s just what I think. When someone loves me, I want to destroy. It’s just really weird. I want conflict with everyone.”

As ever with Tyson, his greatest conflict is the one within. Whether he can master it to reach past Etienne and grab a rematch with Lewis remains to be seen, but the signs last week were not good.