Tyson ponders what to do next
From street punk in the projects to world heavyweight champion, Mike Tyson's life has revolved around violence.
That is why it was bizarre to see Tyson's boxing career come to an end so peacefully, as he sat quietly on a stool in his corner while journeyman Kevin McBride paraded around the ring.
Tyson, 38, disgraced himself with his performance on Saturday at the MCI Center but he appeared unmoved. He just sat there, towel draped over his shoulder. No scowls, no emotion.
'When he sat on that stool, he exhaled,' said Rock Newman, former manager for champion Riddick Bowe. 'The weight of the world was lifted off his shoulders.
'I'd be surprised if he ever leaves that serenity. He'd have to live up to those expectations again.'
Tyson retired immediately after the McBride debacle. Boxing writer Bert Sugar said the unheralded Irishman had little to do with Tyson quitting after the sixth round.
'Mike Tyson was beaten by Mike Tyson,' said Sugar, recently inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. 'There's nothing left inside. He's a classic 'Would have, could have, should have'.'
Michael Gerard Tyson has been trying to live up to lofty expectations ever since he put on a pair of boxing gloves as a youth in the Brooklyn, New York, slum of Brownsville.
Famed trainer Cus D'Amato saw a troubled boy -- arrested at age 12 for purse snatching -- in a reform school and became a father figure to him. He figured boxing would keep Tyson's life from spiralling out of control.
D'Amato, who had managed Floyd Patterson to the top decades earlier, died before Tyson's ascent through the ranks. Tyson lost his confidant, his stability and his way.
He did not, however, lose his powerful punch. Though D'Amato died shortly after his protege's 1985 professional debut, Tyson won his first 19 fights by knockout.
None of those lasted more than six rounds. In fact, 12 of those fights ended in the first round.
By the age of 20, Tyson became the youngest champion of all time when he pummelled Trevor Berbick during a second-round knockout.
Tyson won his first 37 fights but his out-of-the-ring life had become golden fodder for the tabloids. Street brawls, drug use and accusations of wife-beating provided just some of the headlines.
'The demons,' said Sugar. 'He couldn't escape the demons. He'd become a lounge act. He was the Michael Jackson of boxing.'
The pinnacle of his career occurred in 1988 when he knocked out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds. He was aptly dubbed 'The Baddest Man on the Planet'.
Tyson now says his career ended in 1990 when he lost to 42-1 underdog Buster Douglas. Two years later in 1992 he was convicted of raping a beauty pageant contestant and sent to prison for three years.
Although he ultimately regained the WBC and WBA heavyweight titles, the demons still lurked. He lost to Evander Holyfield and, during their rematch in 1997, he bit Holyfield's ear and was disqualified.
Tyson fought for the title once more but was whipped soundly by Lennox Lewis in 2002. Since then, saddled by broken marriages, an empty wallet and a lot of indifference, Tyson has fought a bunch of no-names in an effort to resurrect a boxing career on life-support.
What can he do now? He wants to become a missionary outside of the United States because he feels 'stigmatised' as a street thug.
Tyson (50-6, with 44 knockouts) does not appear to be the same person who bit Lewis in the thigh during a scuffle at a news conference and told him he wanted to 'eat his children'.
He seems different from the man who beat up two people in Maryland after his car was hit. He is quieter. During the pre-fight hoopla against McBride journalists heard few of the usual fiery Tyson sound bites.
Tyson was philosophical, introspective and, at times, charming. He talked about his love for raising pigeons. The profane womaniser appears to be gone. But with Mike Tyson you never know.
'He's an international icon,' said Newman. 'I talked to a high-powered media executive who believes he is marketable on the lecture circuit.'
While boxers often stay in the ring too long -- Muhammad Ali, Sugar Ray Leonard and Joe Louis come to mind -- Tyson's epilogue has lasted 15 years.
Sugar is writing a book and lists Tyson as the 100th best boxer of all time. 'He should have been much, much higher,' he said. 'Sad.' He believes Tyson, who remains deeply in debt despite earnings hundreds of millions of dollars in the ring, could fight again in Europe, where he is immensely popular.
'He'd draw eyeballs for all the wrong reasons,' Sugar said. 'But then, he's been doing that for quite a while now.'
— Reuters
Wimbledon championships factbox
Factbox on the Wimbledon tennis championships ahead of the 2005 edition which starts next Monday:
1868: The ‘All England Croquet Club’ founded in Wimbledon, south-west London.
1877: Renamed ‘The All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club’ after tennis was introduced in 1875. A field of 22 enter the first Lawn Tennis Championship at the club. Gentlemen’s singles is the only discipline held. The inaugural final is won by Spencer Gore in front of a crowd of around 200.
1884: Wimbledon is opened up to women for the first time, Maud Watson emerges the victor from a field of 13. Men’s doubles is also added.
1887: Charlotte Dod wins the singles event at the age of 15 years 285 days, a record that still stands as the youngest singles champion.
1889: William Renshaw wins the title for a seventh time.
1905: American May Sutton wins the women’s singles, the first non-British player to win a title.
1907: Australian Norman Brookes become the first overseas player to be men’s singles champion, he is also the first left-hander to win.
1908: Wimbledon hosts tennis at the London Olympic Games.
1909: Britain’s Arthur Gore becomes the oldest Wimbledon men’s singles champion at 41 years 182 days.
1913: Mixed doubles added.
1922: Tournament moves to its current Church Road site to meet increased spectator numbers. Applications for tickets are so high that club adopts a policy to award tickets by ballot, a system used ever since. Challenge round abolished, the holder now has to play from the opening round.
1927: Players are seeded for the first time.
1933: Bunny Austin becomes the first man to wear a pair of shorts on court at Wimbledon.
1940: World War Two means no play over the next six years. In October, five bombs hit Centre Court.
1949: Gertrude ‘Gussie’ Moran makes worldwide front-page headlines after she is accused by the club of ‘bringing vulgarity and sin into tennis’ by playing in a short, lace trimmed skirt.
1967: The ‘Open’ era begins after the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) vote to admit players of all categories into Wimbledon and other tournaments in Britain following a row over the inclusion of professional players.
1968: Rod Laver and Billie Jean King become the first Wimbledon open champions. Total prize money is 26,150 pounds.
1973: Tournament hit by a boycott of 81 players after Yugoslav Nikki Pilic is suspended by tennis officials for failing to play a Davis Cup match.
1975: First time players can rest on chairs during a change of ends.
1977: 100th edition of the championships. Virginia Wade wins the women’s singles title, the last British player to win a singles title.
1980: Cyclops, an electronic line-calling device, is used at Wimbledon for the first time. Sweden’s Bjorn Borg becomes the first man to win the singles for a fifth successive time. Tennis is played on the middle Sunday of Wimbledon for the first time following a week of bad weather.
1985: Boris Becker becomes the youngest male singles champion (17 years 227 days), the first German to win the men’s title and the first unseeded player to become champion.
1988: The last time a wooden racket is used by a player at Wimbledon.
1990: Martina Navratilova wins the women’s singles title for the ninth time.
2000: Pete Sampras equals Renshaw’s record of seven Wimbledon men’s singles titles.
2001: Goran Ivanisevic of Croatia becomes the first wild card in history to win the men’s singles title.
2005: Men’s singles winner will receive 630,000 pounds ($1,165,800), while the women’s winner gets 600,000 pounds ($1,110,300). In 1968, the year of the first open championships, the prize money was 2,000 pounds and 750 pounds, respectively.
— Reuters
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