Spectacles of grandeur are no new thing in the land of congressmen and senators known as Washington, D.C. However, something new might soon be the focus of the Washington media, and for a change it won’t be a presidential scandal or the unveiling of the latest plan to quell terrorism.
What could possibly overshadow the workings of the U.S. government? The late great, slightly insane Mike Tyson, of course.
The D.C. Boxing and Wrestling commission Tuesday took the first step towards granting Tyson a license to box. Is this a good thing?
On one hand, the fight against heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis is a match that most boxing fans would love to see, and Tyson is still one of the biggest names in the business with the star power to draw the top dollar.
But common sense is just one of many factors that should keep anyone from allowing this fight to take place. Tyson is much smaller than Lewis, who would be the huge favorite. Frankly, most experts do not give Tyson a legitimate chance at winning this fight.
Tyson’s past also includes a three-year prison sentence for rape, a one-year sentence for a road-rage assault and a one-year boxing suspension for biting Evander Holyfield’s ear during a fight. Nevada police are currently investigating two sexual-assault complaints against Tyson, although no charges have been filed.
Beyond those incidents, Tyson stepped way over the line earlier this year at a press conference, where he was supposed promote a Nevada fight with Lewis. Tyson crossed the stage and started a rumble that eventually led him to his opportunity to fight in Nevada.
Nevada isn’t the only place that doesn’t want this guy hanging around. Tyson’s supporters have searched the world for potential venues. California, Texas, Michigan, Georgia, England, Denmark and the Netherlands are just some of the sites that have been floated, most without success. Georgia, for example, fell out of the running the moment Gov. Roy Barnes referred to Tyson as a “sexual predator.”
In all seriousness, it is sad that this fight might actually happen. Some top boxing observers believe Tyson doesn’t even want to continue boxing, but with $20 million on the table, you can bet that those around him are very interested in seeing his career prolonged as long as possible.
Tyson has an enormous entourage, some three times the size that Ali had, and this group of hangers-on needs to be paid. They worry about their next meal ticket and serve no legitimate training purpose. But paid they will all be, whether or not it costs Tyson his last shred of dignity and pushes him over the edge of real insanity, on which he is so precariously teetering.
The man clearly has mental problems. Why else would anyone intentionally sabotage a fight that would earn him $20 million (unless he’s scared), and why else, among other outlandish things, would he talk about eating people’s children?
Logic says Tyson must be fine if the doctors and promoters and commissioning boards say he is. He takes medication to combat his mental problems. However, the medicine calms him and takes away his ear-chewing aggression, so the zookeepers take him out of his cage and off from his medication on the day of a fight in order to make sure that he has enough fight power.
It’s too bad for Tyson that money will once again prolong his boxing career and his suffering, if that is what it is — and it truly looks like suffering. Mike was at one time a great fighter; he may have even had control of his life, but it has become clear that he is no longer in control of his life. Lennox Lewis may make it painfully obvious that Tyson is no longer the fighter he once was.
Boxing is a sport that is inherently dark, a barbaric contest where one man mauls another and where contestants do still occasionally die. In this sport of darkness, the fighter, the individual, the person must make the ring shine.
Ali made the ring shine, Lewis does have his own sort of glow, but Tyson has lost any glow that he once possessed, and all that remains is malice. Malice for the other fighter, the other fighter’s families, for the referees, for reporters, for the public and, quite possibly, for himself.
Still, it is apparent that the show will go on, so get ready, D.C. Here comes Iron Mike. The clown prince of boxing is leaving the desert and heading east, like it or not.
