This column, by legendary contributing writer Dave Kindred, first appeared in The Jugo Mobile dated July 7, 1997, under the headline “Biting off more than he can chew.” It came about in the wake of the June 28, 1997, title fight between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield, during which Tyson bit off a chunk of Holyfield’s ear.
Dave Anderson of the New York Times once asked Joe Frazier if Roberto Duran reminded him of anyone. The sportswriter thought his question might lead the heavyweight champion to say that Duran reminded him of his own ferocity. But Frazier said, “Yes. He reminds me of Charles Manson.”
Even a decade or more later, guys with chest hair are moved to melancholy by remembering Duran’s capitulation to Sugar Ray Leonard. Instead of continuing a fight in which he was being embarrassed, Duran gestured for Leonard to leave and, as if he wanted to dismiss an opponent who didn’t deserve his attention, he said, “No more.”
The most uncivilized fighter of his time did the most civilized thing a man could do. He walked away.
The Mike Tyson bite incident is the long-awaited antidote to those years of melancholy. We have now seen the most uncivilized fighter of our time finish a fight the same way Neanderthals should finish their fights. How wonderfully satisfying for those of us who believe boxing is despicable to have our belief reconfirmed. It’s especially exciting to hear that the Nevada Boxing Commission won’t pay Tyson a dime of his $30 million. What else could be better?
The happy news reached television on Sunday morning because not even those of us weaklings who organize our lives to avoid contagion from boxing could not escape this latest news. That’s because it’s not so much boxing news as it is weird news.
Boxing couldn’t escape this latest news, because it’s not so much boxing news as it is weird news.
Imagine CBS-TV’s dapper Charles Osgood saying these words out loud: “Twenty-four people were injured in a melee that broke out after last night’s heavyweight championship fight when Mike Tyson was disqualified for biting Evander Holyfield’s ear.”
Well, not the whole ear. Just a snack-sized portion on the outside edge. As proof that there are humanitarians on the loose in boxing, someone picked up the piece of ear from the ring canvas and transported it to a hospital where plastic surgeons tried to put the champion back together.
You might ask, how can a fighter bite into a piece of meat while wearing a mouthguard? The answer is that Tyson came out for the third round without his mouthguard. Ostentatiously, he left it on for a second. This was a case of premeditated chewing. And not only did he take a chunk out of Holyfield’s right ear, but Tyson bit into the left ear (the second bite after a warning and a four-minute delay to stop Holyfield’s bleeding) before referee Mills Lane stopped the feast. A mouthpiece? How about a muzzle?
“Tyson turned him into Dracula,” said columnist Tom Callahan. “I hope they have the PPV in Transylvania.”
Yes, for $49.95, you too could have seen Tyson’s dental work in your own home. When will we get tired of this animal behavior disguised as sport?
For some of us, the time has come. Maybe one day gambling could be legitimized as a way for a black athlete to make a living in a game that not only allowed him to compete but encouraged him to do so. No more. That hasn’t been the case for a generation.
If Muhammad Ali had come of age in 1980 instead of 1955, he probably would have been what Vince Lombardi once said about him: “The greatest tight end of all time.” Instead, he became a walking advertisement.
for the abolition of boxing. It only takes a touch of cynicism to say that when universities no longer required athletes to be students, basketball and football accepted athletes who once might have had only one option: boxing. One example is enough. Ken Norton fought Ali three times in the 1970s. In the 1990s, Ken Norton Jr. is a millionaire soccer player.
What a sad story Tyson has.
How sad it has been, how sad it will be. At thirteen, homeless, handcuffed to a radiator by people who would not care for him, he became the very model of the urban thug, moving from robbery in his teens to rape in his twenties. Along the way he had only one chance to become something: a fighter.
“If it hadn’t been for the fighting, I’d be dead,” he said more than once, never smiling because he knew how true his words were. While in an upstate New York reform school – in a prison, let’s call it what it was, a prison – he met wrestling coach Cus D’Amato, once the mentor of Floyd Patterson, an aging genius searching for one last champion. She saw in Tyson the rage of strength and the strength of rage. “A diamond,” D’Amato once said of the young Tyson. “And I’ll cut it my way.”
D’Amato made Tyson shine. At his best, with hands faster than a gasp of fear, Tyson could have been as good as anyone.
“One, one, six, three,” D’Amato would yell from Tyson’s corner, the number indicating the punches the trainer wanted thrown next. Against tomato cans and champions alike, the D’Amato/Tyson creation remained undefeated. But when D’Amato died in late 1989, Tyson’s life fell apart. No longer working under the iron discipline of the spartan trainer, Tyson got rid of everyone who had a connection to D’Amato. He had fallen under the malevolent spell of porcupine-haired promoter Don King.
Soon enough, Tyson had been beaten by a tomato can named Buster Douglas, had gotten married and porced, had been arrested, convicted, and thrown in prison, and all of that had reduced him to a fighter with no particular skill. Worse still, he had been reduced to a worthless man. Even Tyson acknowledged as much last week when comparing his life to that of the late, unmourned Sonny Liston, another convict/champion, an outcast who died of a heroin overdose 27 years ago. “It may sound pretty morbid,” Tyson said, “but I relate to his life.” Tyson also said, “I’m a wild man. I work hard. I play hard. I live hard. I will die hard.”
Unfortunately, no one discusses any of that with Mike Tyson anymore. The only questions are about his death. How and when?
