Iron Mike Tyson Completely Corroded

At 38 years old, Mike Tyson has come to the end of a boxing career that at one time night have been greater than Ali's. The man who took him out in the fourth round, justly unknown British heavyweight Danny Williams, will go down as an answer to a Trivial Pursuit question, but showed no real great ability. He could take a punch, but he is no boxer. Against Iron Mike Tyson, he didn't need to be one.

A long time ago, a good 20 years, HBO put together a heavyweight unification tournament designed to create a single, uncontested champ. Tyson, who was still a kid, took on a fighter named Pinklon Thomas in what was a truly astonishing display of power and speed. That night, he could have beaten Ali at his peak in five rounds with a knock out.

But boxing is not just pounding on another person. That happens every night outside of bars the world over, and no one pays millions to the guys throwing the punches. The physical conditioning of boxers is second to none in the athletic world, but the mental and psychological condition is where Mr. Tyson came up short.

Part of the problem was Mr. Tyson's rather Dickensian upbringing. The one man who could have saved him, Cus d'Amato, died before he got to see Iron Mike as champion of the world. That was the closest thing Mr. Tyson ever had to a real friend. When the fame and the money came, the champ was a man in physique only. He had too much growing up to do, and he never really did it.

The critics of the sport say that boxing is simply barbaric. Two grown men (and now women) beating each other with their fists isn't particularly civilized. Yet in the discipline of the sport, the months of training for a 15-round shot at glory, only a disciplined, and therefore possibly civilized, man can flourish. Mr. Tyson was too much of a barbarian to succeed as he could have. Like Terry Malloy in "On the Waterfront," Mr. Tyson will spend the remaining years of his life regretting what might have been.


© Copyright 2004 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.


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