Mike Tyson, whose reign as the globe’s most feared heavyweight was followed by an epic fall from grace, was named on Tuesday for induction into the International Boxing Hall of Fame and Museum.
Tyson headlines a list that also includes Mexican three-divison champion Julio Cesar Chavez and Russian-born Australian Kostya Tszyu, a junior welterweight champion.
Mexican trainer Ignacio “Nacho” Beristain, referee Joe Cortez and screenwriter and actor Sylvester Stallone were also honored.
Inductees were voted on by members of the Boxing Writers Association of America and a panel of international boxing historians.
Posthumous honorees to be enshrined in ceremonies on June 12 next year include bantamweight Memphis Pal Moore, light heavyweight champion Jack Root and middleweight Dave Shade in the old-timer category, British heavyweight John Gully in the pioneer category, promoter A.F. Bettinson and broadcaster Harry Carpenter.
Tyson’s rise to fame, and subsequent fall to infamy, has become the stuff of legend rivaling any cinema ring drama penned by the likes of Stallone.
He rose from the mean streets of Brooklyn, exploding on the boxing scene in the mid-1980s and becoming the youngest heavyweight champion in history in 1986 at the age of 20.
Considered unbeatable for the rest of the decade, Tyson’s career went off the rails when he suffered a shock upset to James “Buster” Douglas in 1990.
In 1992, Tyson was convicted of raping a beauty queen at a pageant in Indianapolis, Indiana. He served three years of a six-year sentence and was released in 1995 — and has always denied raping the woman.
“Iron Mike” reclaimed the heavyweight throne, but lost to Evander Holyfield in 1996 and notoriously bit Holyfield’s ears twice in a 1997 rematch, adding banishment to his ridicule.
He has battled substance abuse, been jailed for assault and his last opportunity to recapture the heavyweight crown in 2002 resulted in an eighth-round knockout at the hands of Britain’s Lennox Lewis.
Tyson filed for bankruptcy in 2003 and retired after losses to Britain’s Danny Williams in 2004 and American Kevin McBride in 2005.
While Tyson’s tumultuous personal life and sometimes outrageous behavior overshadowed the later stages of his career, he occupies a unique place in ring history, according to filmmaker James Toback.
“There are certain people in various fields, they just become the representative, iconic figure of that profession,” said Toback, whose documentary on the fighter premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008. “To me as a boxer, as a fighter, it’s Mike Tyson.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier