June 10, 2002
I have to admit it makes me a little sad to see Mike Tyson's complete destruction at the hands of Lennox Lewis. It's not that I feel any great love for Iron Mike — far from it, in fact — but rather that the young Tyson was simply the most incredible embodiment of power that I have even seen, a force of nature that I couldn't imagine being slowed, forget about stopped. I watched a number of those 1985-1990 fights, including the classic blink-and-you-missed-it 91-second demolition of the previously unbeaten Michael Spinks, and it was always worth forking over for the pay-per-view just to watch him in action. I don't claim to be a huge boxing fan or expert, but at his peak it was almost impossible to imagine anybody beating him.
The story of his long and pathetic downfall has been told often, and while it's been many years since he's been anything more to me than a psychotic sideshow (though, I imagine, that's partly an act), it was still a bit shocking to me to watch the clips of the Lewis fight and see just how little of that early fighter was left and realize just how long ago those years were.
[It didn't fit in with the above, but my favorite gambling story takes place the night when Tyson lost to Buster Douglas. I happened to be at the Meadowlands Racetrack with a few friends that night, and they were showing the fight on one of the monitors. The Douglas KO happened between races (you have to understand just how unexpected this was), as a crowded roomful of grizzled trackrats watched on in shock. Anyway, as the count reaches ten about 500 of these men turn to their companions and scream, as one, "I knew it! I wuz gonna bet on him!" before turning back to their Racing Forms to pick out their next loser.]
The story of his long and pathetic downfall has been told often, and while it's been many years since he's been anything more to me than a psychotic sideshow (though, I imagine, that's partly an act), it was still a bit shocking to me to watch the clips of the Lewis fight and see just how little of that early fighter was left and realize just how long ago those years were.
[It didn't fit in with the above, but my favorite gambling story takes place the night when Tyson lost to Buster Douglas. I happened to be at the Meadowlands Racetrack with a few friends that night, and they were showing the fight on one of the monitors. The Douglas KO happened between races (you have to understand just how unexpected this was), as a crowded roomful of grizzled trackrats watched on in shock. Anyway, as the count reaches ten about 500 of these men turn to their companions and scream, as one, "I knew it! I wuz gonna bet on him!" before turning back to their Racing Forms to pick out their next loser.]
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