Mike Tyson has always been fascinating to me. I loved watching him fight when he was "The Baddest Man on the Planet". He was unbeatable. As unbeatable as he was in the ring though, that's how beatable he was out of it. I wish a professional could watch the documentary and assess his IQ. If an IQ of X is mentally retarded, I truly believe he is X + 2. I don't think he's evil, I just think he's so easily manipulated that he doesn't even know who he is sometimes.
The thing I took away from watching this is just how fast he was when he was young. There is a 3-4 minute piece of him shadow boxing when he's probably 18 or so and I backed up the DVR to watch it twice. He was moving so fast I couldn't even see his hands. It was boxing gold. I was in awe. It must have been a god damn nightmare for other boxers to see him coming at you, gloves together, bent forward, head bobbing sideways, lats like a cobra...... that's how I'll always remember Iron Mike. I saw the end of the greatest heavyweight era of all time with Ali, Frazier, Foreman, Norton and Shavers. I think at their primes, Tyson wins. Foreman's size may have been too much, but I see Mike killing his body. I don't know, I don't know much about boxing and haven't watched much since Buster Douglas took Mike's lunch money - but he was a monster in the ring, a ferocious monster.
3 comments:
I used to love the no-bullshit quality about Tyson, how he'd just walk into the ring without a robe or entourage.
I watched the Buster Douglas fight in a bar in Cleveland. At the time, you could say I was live-blogging it; in actuality I was writing notes on the fight in my journal, and scoring the fight myself. I was pretty stunned when Iron Mike hit the deck.
Too bad his life became such a side show.
if cus d'amato lived another 15 years mike would have been fine.
I was always amazed at how Tyson could destroy guys that were much larger than he was. Once Douglas stood up to the bully the Tyson mystique was gone. Mike could never show heart and get off the canvas and win...something Ali and Holmes could do. He was a beast in the ring in his heyday. Out of the ring he is a sad case and tortured soul...reminds me very much of Elvis and Michael Jackson.
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