Blogs > Cliopatria > Mike Tyson

Aug 2, 2004

Mike Tyson




I am young, and Tom is younger, so we are not lucky enough to have our main memories of heavyweight boxing go back to the glory days of the 1970s. I have seen every one of those great fights, thanks largely to ESPN Classic, and I lament not growing up in an era that offered Ali and Frazier and Foreman and Spinks and I suspect at least two or three other guys who would rip through this era’s heavyweights like a fat guy through a burrito. Those were the days.

But like my late and sorely missed grandfather telling me about trudging through eight feet of snow barefoot just to get to go to school when he was young, I will undoubtedly tell my kids and grandkids about Mike Tyson. These days, if you want to talk about how almost otherwise undescribably hot a girl is you might invoke Liv Tyler or Cherlize Theron or, to throw a bone to my younger readers, Lindsay Lohan. Five years ago, though, those names would have been different. Five years hence, I guarantee they will not be the same names either (men are pigs; we like new blood. I apologize to our woman readers). But one metaphor has been the same for the last two decades. If guys want to invoke someone who is a bad man, if they want to talk about one dude they would not want to face in a dark alley, if they want to place bets that will never be cashed in on who we would be willing to spend two minutes in a ring with for a million dollars, that name has been the same: Mike Tyson.

In a sense that invocation is foolish. I remember February 10, 1990 as well as just about any in my life (hint: I am a pathetic loser with no sense of perspective). That was the night when James “Buster” Douglas knocked out Iron Mike Tyson for the heavyweight championship of the world. I remember it, as do most guys my age, because it was like the day I discovered that there was no Santa Claus. Because to that point, I had never seen a more devastating puncher in my life. Mike Tyson destroyed people. He took big, cocky, strong, fast young men, and he knocked them out with the sort of lightning-fast, savage efficiency that had no equal.

You have to remember that in the 1980s, boxing was actually dominated by the little guys – and in boxing, anyone who is not a heavyweight is a little guy. Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran, and Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns were the glamour boys of boxing in the 1980s, and they generally defined the decade by fighting with one another in various and sundry permutations. Many of those fights were classics (Hagler-Hearns still represents the three most savage rounds I have ever seen, and the way Leonard toyed with Duran in their rematch embodied the sweet science, never mind the Leonard-Hearns and Leonard-Haglar fights). The heavyweight division, if not a farce (that seems cruel to say about any generation of athletes) was certainly a dim shadow of what it had been throughout the 70s, when you had the Thrilla in Manilla and the Rumble in the Jungle and when every heavyweight fight, telecast on the networks and featuring Howard Cosell (sign of a true Important Sporting Moment) must have seemed like sporting ambrosia (hell, the two best Rocky movies were products of the 70s – art imitating life). Put it this way – one of the marquee heavyweight fights of the 1980s in the heavyweight division was the championship fight between Larry Holmes, who had caught Ali toward the end of his career when The Greatest should have retired, and Gerry Cooney. This is not a good sign.

Then along came Mike Tyson. Oh, even then we knew that this guy was the ultimate example of the gladiator -- a bad man who had knocked out old ladies for their grocery money and who you could not even fathom being near your girlfriend, Mom, or sister, but who was undoubtedly riveting. But Tyson was no Ali. He was not even a Foreman. If he had a parallel it was Sonny Liston, too bad for words, prison sentences in his past only making him more ruthless, more devastating, more indomitable. But of course being young, none of us, those young men my age, ever would have drawn the logical comparison, had we drawn the comparison at all: Liston was a bully, a punk. He preyed on those weaker than him because he thought they were all weaker. That is, until Cassius Clay came along, the Louisville Lip, and proved that there was in fact someone badder. (And if you have ever seen the tapes of the way Ali played with Floyd Patterson a wile later, holding him up just to beat him down, snarling “What is my name?!” after Patterson had so foolishly insisted on calling him “Cassius” even after the fateful name change, if you know the way Ali humiliated the great former champion, then you know what bad was, at least once.)

But there are some, like me, who revere the heavyweights of the 1970s, and yet who still, in the time capsules of our mind, know that there was never, ever, anyone like the Mike Tyson of the 1980s. The youngest heavyweight champion in history (and let’s face it, for all of the De la Hoyas and Gattis and Camachos, there is one division in boxing that takes the spoils, leaving the rest with scraps) Tyson was simply Hell’s wrath personified. His punches were not only the most powerful that anyone had ever seen, they were also lightning quick. His fights were like something out of a cartoon – 91 seconds is the one I best remember, in the summer of 1988, when he obliterated Michael Spinks. But 1st round knockouts ceased to be shocking anymore. Tyson’s fury took on a gracefulness that seems inexplicable now, in an era where even the consensus heavyweight champion, at one point big, rugged Lennox Lewis, seemed like a cipher.

And then came that February night. I was a freshman in college. It was the beginning of the era when big fights were no longer on basic cable, so in my dorm (we called them “entries” at Williams) we were stuck with the post-round commentary on ESPN. It did not take long, and suddenly, the world changed. Columbus Ohio’s own Buster Douglas (and my roommate was from Columbus, and thus insufferable in the way that that only someone who roots for different home teams from you can be) had knocked out Iron Mike. It seemed impossible. But it had happened. Mike Tyson had lost, and though we did not know it at the time, so had his aura of invincibility.

Seriously – it happened just like that. One minute Mike Tyson was the scariest and most dangerous man on the planet. The next he was involved in a massive and bizarre and truly disturbing rape trial (unlike OJ, it is worth noting that no one ever really doubted that he did it. And we all knew Desiree Washington's name – compare that to Kobe today.) After that it is like a blur – the Holyfield fiascos (I cannot possibly come up with a clever ear biting joke, though I will note that Holyfield was head-butting him throughout that fateful fight, as was his style, and I feel very strongly about this) and the Lennox Lewis nightmare, by which point Tyson’s career was already gone due to the same happy pills that, while ruining him as a boxer (I also feel strongly about this) also probably made him safer within society.

And so this brings us to what happened a couple of nights ago. It is hard to encapsulate the fall of Mike Tyson because even as he plummeted he showed us what he was capable of – the knockout of Francois Botha, himself a ferocious puncher, a few years back reminded us of what Tyson could do, of the power and menace and pure hate that those fists of his represented, always his key to success in the ghetto and the ring, his key to $20 from an old woman’s purse as sure as they were his key to $15,000,000. And even today, after his loss in a fourth round knockout to, well, I cannot even bring myself to say the name, better not to sunder the memory of this awful, tragic, vexing, compelling, evil man any further, but Tom and I were talking and we agreed. In the first round he tore a ligament in his knee. He still won the first three rounds and was winning the fourth. He could have won. He would have won. And with just one or two wins, with that punching ability, with even a hint of that ferocity . . . But the same bully who had revealed himself to be human, to be tamable, to be weak, in 1990, showed up once that knee popped and his balance and ferocity failed him. In 1988 such a fight would not have gone four rounds. The tenacious fury of those fists would have done in two minutes what Tyson will never do again. He will never be twenty years old, the baddest man on the planet. He will never be the most feared, the most frightening, the most intimidating. He will no longer evoke fear or loathing. Mike Tyson is much less. For now, saddest of all, he evokes pity.

NOTE: Edited at 4:45 CST on Monday, August 2 for a couple of facts -- the name of the rape victim (Thanks to Greg Robinson) and the precise nature of how the Tyson-Douglas fight was and was not telecast that night (Thanks to Tom).



comments powered by Disqus

More Comments:


Derek Charles Catsam - 8/2/2004

Van --
Good point. I'm not ready to address the Nomar thing publicly. I have not even posted a Sox Diary on ephblog.com since before the trade deadline because not only did we trade Nomar, we also lost two in a row subsequently, looking just as bad as we have for much of the last two months in the process. It'll happen soon enough. Give me time to grieve and heal and reconcile!
By the way, this month on Sunday nights, ESPN Classic is showing the Rocky movies. last night (and again this afternoon) they ran Rocky (I), not only one of my favorite sports moviies of all time, but one of my favorite movies period. It should be noted that had Rocky gone to a neutral corner when he knocks Apollo creed down in the first round, he'd have likely won the heavyweight championship, sonce a good 4-5 seconds pass while the ref is trying to get Rocky to a corner. Next weekend is Rocky II.
dc


Van L. Hayhow - 8/2/2004

Excuse me. The Sox just traded Nomar and you're posting on Tyson?


Derek Charles Catsam - 8/2/2004

It may well have been on HBO -- we did not have it in the dorms, and just about everyone at Williams lived in dorms, so no one on campus was watching the fight to my knowledge. I also think Greg is right -- it was Desiree Washington.
As for Jonathan's point, I thought it was pretty clear what I thought of tyson as a person. But surely it is understandable to wonder what might be with Tyson were he to get his life in order and not have to rey on a drug regimsant that has hardly kept him from straying as is the last few years. Of course most people assert that Cus D'Amato's passing was the biggest factor that led to Tyson's demise.
And oh -- there was absolutely a long count that saved Douglas in the 8th round in Tokyo. Not making excuses -- when that happens you still have to fight after it, but Douglas did get an extra count or two, and in both fights Holyfield was thrashing his head around with intent.
dc


Tom Bruscino - 8/2/2004

nice work Derek. A couple of points:

When talking about the devastation of Tyson, we should always mention the video game Mike Tyson's Punchout. Somehow that game was able to capture so much of his ferocity and speed, it was wicked facing Tyson in that last fight. You would actually be exhausted just from trying to dodge those uppercuts until he got a little tired. Lots of people played that game, and lots of people won that game, but I don't know that it ever got easy to beat Tyson, and that was the way it should have been.

One of my favorite comedy bits was from the later eighties when Damon Wayans used to talk about how he would never get in the ring for Tyson, no matter how much money they offered. If he did fight Tyson the ring announcer would introduce him, "In this corner, standing in a puddle of his own piss, with a snot-bubble in his nose, Daaaamon Waayyaaanns!" Just supporting Derek's point.

One other thing, I am nearly positive the Douglas fight was not on pay per view. I remember watching it in my family room in Colorado with my cousin Brian, and I'm pretty sure it was on HBO because they didn't think it would be a big enough draw on PPV (we also have to remember that up to that fight some people were worrying that Tyson's domination would ruin the heavyweight division). I could be wrong, but I'd be really surprised if my folks paid for the pay per view so just me and my cousin could watch the fight. Maybe your dorm just didn't have HBO.

In any case, I remember very vividly watching the fight and the total, total, shock of Tyson being knocked out. Right up to the end you just knew he would unleash a shot that would knock out Douglas (and if the ref hadn't of screwed up the count, he actually did). He was Mike Tyson, it was inconceivable that he would lose. Even when it happened we kept watching and waiting for someone to come on and announce that there had been some sort of mistake. No doubt the most shocking sporting upset of my lifetime.


Greg Robinson - 8/2/2004

Derek, nice post. Though I've grown accustomed to watching Tyson embarrass and humiliate himself over the past few years, seeing the highlights from Friday's fight was painful. To see a once great fighter cower in the corner with his hands over his head and a 'begging for mercy' look in his eyes and to know he did it, really, just to collect some cash to get out of debt, is almost as hard as it was to watch Buster Douglas beat him back in 1990. You describe it well, and for sports fans it is a JFK moment...one in which you will always remember where you were. I was in art class as a senior in high school the morning after and a friend brought the tape in. No one had seen it and none of us knew the outcome. We were all huge Tyson fans, some of us having even started an unofficial sort of boxing club on campus becasue of the rising popularity of boxing due to Tyson's unprecedented rise to greatness. Watching him fall was as shocking to see as it was to hear Magic Johnson tell the world he had contracted the AIDS virus. It completely changed our perspective of that athlete and rocked our youthful faith in the world. My friends and I all brought up that fateful day in 1990 after seeing the highlight's from this last fight. It's as fresh in our minds as ever. I even remember who I was sitting next to as I watched Buster beat down Tyson. Tyson had not only the skill to be a great boxer, but obviously the power and most importantly I think, the rage. His background and his demeanor certainly added to his ferocity and his mystique.

By the way, wasn't the rape victim's name Desiree Washington?

Great post.


Stephen Tootle - 8/2/2004

I'm with you, Mr. Dresner.


Jonathan Dresner - 8/1/2004

I do not follow boxing, except in the sense that I read the sports section, and really only care in the sense that I care about the rise of other 'extreme' sports (for boxing surely fits the mold, except for the fact that it involves hurting another person, which most X-athletes would disavow) as a sign that we are an ennervated and insensitive society (and I think the switch from the much more skill-based '70s to the power-based Tyson era is another sign of that). But a question, and a thought.

'happy pills': Anti-depressants? And if they were successful in making him as you say, safe for society, does the apparent effect on his boxing success say anything about the nature of the sport? Well, it does to me, anyway.

'pity': I don't think so. Power fades. Wise warriors do not rely on pure power, or find their greatest strength in rage. Reasonable people still have plenty of reason to fear a man with the strength and temper of Tyson. There are even many boxers who still could not beat him, and if he weren't so tied up with the idea of being 'the best' (not to mention millions of dollars in debt) he could still have what they call a career in that world.

Sad, perhaps, in the sense that our distorted sense of priorities and values that made him a hero and millionaire in the first place is sad. But I'll save my pity for others.