MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- The ultimate dismantling of MikeTyson was satisfying in only the way watching a man get what is coming to him can be.

	Mike Tyson was gracious in defeat, but he was soundly beaten.

At the same time, it was dissatisfying, because it reminded all of us who have followed him since he was a puzzling, promising, electrifying teenager that there was a time when his story seemed destined to have a much different ending.

Ultimately, it was heartbreaking, because in the final seconds of his life as an important heavyweight, Mike Tyson's eyes held the same kind of dread that he had put into the eyes of Michael Spinks so many years ago.

And still, he was trying to get up and rush back into the fists of Lennox Lewis, who had left him in a heap twice in the eighth round, the second time with a sweeping right hand as destructive as anything Tyson had ever landed.

As referee Eddie Cotton completed the 10-count at 2:25 of the eighth round, there was Tyson, his nose streaming blood, both eyes cut and swollen, his face as lumped and unrecognizable as a gargoyle's, laboriously trying to climb up from his knees.

The wildly anticipated "greatest fight of all time'' turned out to be much less than that.

In fact, after a competitive first round, it turned out to be a mismatch, a good big man methodically working over a washed-up little man.

And yet, in defeat, Tyson may have finally attained the kind of status he always seemed to crave -- the folk hero, the gallant loser, the man who -- to borrow his own phrase -- "took his beating like a man.''

This was Lennox Lewis' night, but the story is all about Mike Tyson, who is likely to gain more respect in his most convincing defeat than he ever was able to muster up in any of his 49 victories.

Once again, Lewis was forced to toil in the shadow of an opponent. He was magnificent in victory, but Tyson was even more memorable in defeat.

"Honey, I just forgot to duck,'' said Jack Dempsey, a Tyson idol, to his wife after his 1926 beating by Gene Tunney.

It endeared him to a generation of boxing fans who had despised him for his brutality while never being able to stay away from his fights.

"He's a magnificent, prolific fighter,''Tyson said after his beating by Lewis. "I'm just happy someone gave me a chance.''

It is doubtful Tyson's farewell speech -- he said, incidentally, that he would like a rematch, as misguided and masochistic a post-fight statement as a fighter has ever made -- will bring him the same kind of affection Dempsey's brought him.

But Tyson should be remembered for the way he conducted himself over the worst 23-plus of his professional life.

A lot of the credit he will receive stems from the fact that for most of his career, Tyson has acted like your average rabid dog. We have come to expect monstrous acts from a man who has seemed more like a monster.

Saturday night in Memphis, Tyson looked pitifully small and human.

From the second round on, Tyson was a flame extinguished. An idle threat. A leashed bulldog.

He had won the first round on all cards by outhustling a sluggish Lewis, but once Lewis began working his long and cruel jab, Tyson could never manage to gain that one foot of distance he needed for his punches to reach their target.

By the second round, Tyson was lunging with his punches. He was catching Lewis' right uppercut full under the chin. His punches were falling short or curling in desperation over Lewis' shoulders.

At the end of the third, Tyson went back to his corner with a cut at the corner of his right eye. In the fourth, a Lewis 1-2 buckled Tyson's knees. Lewis leaned on the back of his neck with both forearms and suddenly, Tyson was down and the crowd was on its feet.

But referee Eddie Cotton, who seemed to be trying to help even things up for Tyson all night, ruled it a push and deducted a point from Lewis.

It didn't matter.

By the fifth round, Lewis-Tyson had turned into Ali-Holmes, a sickening parody of "superfight'' that was turning into a slaughter. Tyson's nose appeared to have been broken, and in the sixth, another cut split open his left eyelid.

In the seventh, Tyson took three of Lewis' best right hands flush to the head. He was not punching back. He seemed to bewaiting for someone, anyone -- the corner or the referee -- to deliver him from his agony.

But the man who had given no mercy for the past 17 years really couldn't expect to receive any against Lewis.

He winced as his cornermen applied pressure to his wounds before the eighth and looked as if he might not get up off the stool. But when the bell rang, he climbed heavily to his feet and walked forward, like a grunt heading into machine gun fire.

And finally, he tried something new, a hard right to the body, a punch he had neglected throughout the fight. Three times, Tyson ripped it into Lewis' side.

The fourth time, Lewis' right uppercut got there first. As Tyson froze, a left hook and a straight right to the head buckled Tyson's knees. Cotton ruled a knockdown and counted to eight. Tyson tottered forward and ran into a sweeping right that distorted his face on impact, like old flash photographs of the Rocky Marciano right that ended the title reign ofJersey Joe Walcott.

This time, there was hardly need for a count and no reason for Tyson to try to rise. But try he did.

And after it was mercifully over, Tyson theTerrible had been more than humanized. He had been humbled.

He made his way to Lewis' corner, through the line of security guards who had been hired to keep the fighters apart, to hug his conqueror and whisper in his ear. Lewis would say later that Tyson had "apologized'' to him, and asked for a rematch.

Tyson gave an animated, upbeat interview to Jim Gray. He kissed Lewis' mother, Violet.

Then he left the ring virtually unnoticed. He returned to his dressing room, where a doctor stitched both his eyes.

Then he made his way out of the Pyramid and to a waiting car. Most fighters who have taken the kind of beating Tyson did leave the arena in an ambulance. Tyson opted for the sleek, silver Rolls Royce limousine that had brought him in.

He was never what he should have been, and often a lot less than he and his followers believed him to be. But in defeat, Mike Tyson was something he had never been in victory.

Brave, sportsmanlike, and in a way, even noble.

Wally Matthews is a veteran boxing writer who has covered the Sweet Science for two decades.