10.05.05 – By Tim Foley: Soon after watching the greatest fight of all-time, a furious rage began to build inside of me. I saw a commercial advertising Mike Tyson’s upcoming fight against Kevin McBride on Showtime. Watching this commercial made me want to lose it. Mike Tyson….that little S.O.B..
Let me give you a little history about myself before I have the haters jumping down my throat saying I’m a complete idiot for dogging out Tyson that way. I have every Tyson fight on film. Every. Single. One. There is nobody who can appreciate what he did to carry the post-Muhammad Ali torch more than I can. But when it comes down to shameful antics that are borderline psychotic, Tyson takes the cake.
He has done everything from biting a man’s ear off, saying he’s “impregnable”, saying he “broke [his] back” to saying he’d rape Desirae Washington if he ever had the chance. How low can one man go??? He admits wanting to commit crimes…if this isn’t a cry for help, I don’t know what is.
I have asked many fight fans that have gone astray why they have chosen to do so. The consensus is always, “The Bite Fight.” Mike Tyson and his antics caused former fight fans to skip over the greatest fight in history to watch an NBA playoff game instead.
Knowing that I am not one of the fight fans who strayed, but one who’s faith in the sport grows with every passing Jose Luis Castillo fight, I can honestly say that Mike Tyson is the one and ONLY thing that keeps the permanent black eye remaining on this sweet science. He is the abusive boyfriend women can’t get rid of. You want to hate him and you know he’s not good for you, but you can’t let him go. That’s Mike Tyson.
I am hoping and praying that Kevin McBride will beat this man to a bloody pulp and damage his ego so badly that he will never get back into the squared circle ever again. Of course, this is just a pipe dream due to the fact Mike Tyson is fighting a bum to try to make the public perceive him as having a shot at still becoming a champion. I know Kevin McBride doesn’t have a chance in Hades of beating ‘the baddest man on the planet.’ It’s nice to dream though.
But I know that someday, he will have to step into the ring with a legitimate contender again. Mike Tyson is not the man he was 18 years ago. Hell, he’s not even the man he was 4 years ago. He’s a shell of a fighter who is hanging on for the money generated by a name. Let’s face it, Mike Tyson sells tickets and hall of famers like Jose Luis Castillo don’t.
He’ll have to fight that contender someday. That contender will instantly become a number one challenger after beating a name, but not a fighter (i.e. Danny Williams). Hopefully this yet unnamed contender can put away the wasted career that was Mike Tyson permanently. If he doesn’t do it, I pray that a state commission will do the deed for him. We all know that he can’t fight in Vegas, Atlantic City, or NYC anymore, but can we please make it where the ONLY place he can fight from now on is prison?
I bring this up for one reason, and one reason only. We need to applaud the heroic efforts that Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo put forth on Saturday night. But it could have been so much sweeter to see highlights on ESPN’s SportsCenter or having it as a headline on ANY newspaper’s sports section. Unfortunately, Mike Tyson has beat down this sport so much, it is taking much longer to get up from the count. We’re still at 9 though…not counted out yet! Like Corrales-Castillo…surprises await.