The notion of Mike Tyson going before the Nevada Athletic Commission invoked any number of words, and "integrity" just wasn't on the list. We looked; we checked it twice. You could think of a whole raft full of adjectives to describe the sensation of watching this recidivist thug take his act before the commission -- but please, no more summoning of the cherished integrity.

	Mike Tyson during the melee at the news conference announcing fight with Lennox Lewis.

We'll keep that where it belongs, right in He Hate Me's hip pocket.

It has no place here, is the thing. Not on Tyson's behalf, certainly, but you already knew that. If the fanged one were any more a comics-page character, he wouldn't speak; he'd simply have his comments appear in a word-balloon somewhere above his Iron head.

But it's far more important to understand that the commissioners themselves never had a shot at taking the high road, because there was no high road. There was no integrity at stake here; there were no ethics to consider any longer. Nope, this thing had devolved into a straight-up business decision -- and in that respect, at least, it was rendered a clean and straightforward determination to make.

Mike Tyson would either fight Lennox Lewis in Las Vegas or he would fight Lennox Lewis somewhere else. Not only was it that simple, but it had been that simple for a long, long time. Tyson could have gone ahead and eaten Lewis' children last week rather than put on the lounge act that he did during the Manhattan news conference, and it wouldn't have affected this process one bit.

He either fights in Nevada or somewhere else. The commissioners, thus, were positioned either to award Nevada the profits from potentially one of the most lucrative fights in boxing history or, in effect, award the profits to some other entity -- another state, another country, an Indian casino, some damn place.

The "facts," which the commission purportedly wished to ascertain during Tyson's appearance before them on Tuesday, had already been in evidence for months and years. You didn't need testimony, you only needed a nose -- the stench from Tyson and his handlers was powerful enough to stand up on its own and walk across the room.

There is no reformative aspect here. Does anyone labor under that delusion anymore? There just can't be a single element of surprise where Tyson is concerned: He is a raving lunatic and a punishing fighter who figured out long ago that there is virtually no upper limit on what the ticket-buying public will tolerate in the way of his behavior. It's all good for sales, when you get down to it.

The Nevada commission revoked Tyson's license to box there after he noshed on Evander Holyfield's ear in 1997. Here's just a thimble-full of the Tyson action since then: Admitted trying to break Francois Botha's arm during their fight; punched Orlin Norris after the bell of their fight; attacked Lou Savarese at the end of their fight; threw Christmas ornaments (and a fit) at reporters in Cuba; was told Las Vegas police believe there's enough evidence to charge him with raping a woman at his home last year; had his episode at the news conference last week.

That's stuff right out of the public record; anyone can read it. Yet Vegas attorney John Bailey, one of the Nevada commissioners, said with a straight face prior to the Tyson hearings, "We're there to regulate and protect the integrity of boxing."

Wow, you sure? John Bailey may be a responsible and well-meaning person, but the mere act of the commissioners considering Mike Tyson for licensing in Nevada effectively ended the old integrity issue. It's simply the truth: If Tyson is involved, then integrity is not in play.

Instead, the Nevada commission wrestled with bigger bears on Tuesday. At one point earlier this week, one of the commissioners barked that he would not bow down to Tyson, but of course that was never the question. The question was whether the commissioners would bow down to the MGM Grand, or the city of Las Vegas, or the state of Nevada, or any of the entities that stand to make such a tidy sum of money by allowing Mike Tyson to exhibit his circus act in their collective backyard.

And that is a complicated, multifaceted, far-more-difficult-than-it-might-appear kind of a decision. It just doesn't have anything to do with integrity, is all.

Mark Kreidler of the Sacramento Bee is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.