Comeback Train Stops in Las Vegas : Boxing: Most eyes will be on Mike Tyson, but some will watch George Foreman, fighting a ranked foe for a change.

LAS VEGAS —  One former heavyweight champion will launch a comeback and another will continue his tonight in an odd-couple boxing doubleheader at Caesars Palace.

Mike Tyson, 23, in his first appearance since being knocked out by Buster Douglas in Tokyo four months ago, seeks to right his career against an old amateur foe, Henry Tillman.

George Foreman, 41 and 21-0 in his 39-month-old comeback, meets by far his toughest opponent tonight in Brazilian Adilson Rodrigues in the first of the co-features at 7.

The former champions are heavy favorites. But Tyson will be under close inspection tonight by boxing followers, who will be looking for signs that his brutal beating in Tokyo might have in some way diminished the once-feared champion.

Foreman has been spoon-fed a parade of stiffs, no-talents and washed-up opponents since 1987, when he announced that his 10-year retirement was over. But critics who have sneered at the quality of Foreman’s opponents will finally be paying attention tonight, because Foreman, for the first time since his championship days, will fight a legitimate top-10 heavyweight. Rodrigues was ranked as high as second by the World Boxing Council before his knockout loss to Evander Holyfield last summer.

Tyson’s unranked opponent, Tillman, kept him off the 1984 U.S. Olympic team by beating him twice that summer. Tillman, one-time Los Angeles Fremont High football player, won a gold medal in Los Angeles, but has been a disappointment as a pro. He is 20-4, but 3-0 since hiring a new manager, Henry Grooms, in 1989. Tyson is 37-1.

Foreman, heavyweight champion from January of 1973 to October of 1974, is 66-2 and about 35 pounds heavier than in his championship days. He is slow, a clubbing style of puncher, but still immensely strong. He had suspect stamina even in his prime, when he was widely considered a three-round fighter.

Angelo Dundee, trainer of Rodrigues (36-3), has no doubt instructed his man to force Foreman to use his aging legs in the early rounds and bring his comeback to a halt in the late rounds.

Foreman has easily been the media favorite this week. Some even suggest his future in this town is on its stages, not its boxing rings. Here’s a sampler of Foreman’s wit and wisdom:

--”My strategy? I’m going to try to hit Rodrigues before he can duck.”

--”Stop calling people old! Old is about 102. Nolan Ryan is not old. Neither am I.”

--”Some of you guys wrote that I was fighting guys who were just off the respirator. That’s a lie. All of ‘em have been at least eight days off the respirator. Actually, I tried to fight the top guys and they wouldn’t fight me. I offered to pay Carl Williams myself for a fight, and he wouldn’t take it.”

--”All sports stories in newspapers come out of New York and Philadelphia. New York and Philadelphia guys write ‘em, and the rest of the papers around the country just pick ‘em up. And boxing writers are really football writers who occasionally venture into boxing, and they don’t know beans from sweet potatoes about boxing.”

--”Mike Tyson needs to open up to the fans more. If a guy will spend $400 to watch me box, I want to go down there and dance with him, let him take my picture. I don’t see any leadership (in Tyson’s camp). He’s like a great ship with no captain. If he doesn’t get a leader in his life, he’ll be another Titanic.”