Former boxer Mike Tyson wants to make a comeback — and who can blame him? So do I. So do you. So does the retail industry, going to school, having fun, being a grandparent, having a job and going to the corner shop without standing outside in a mask looking like a socially awkward scooter thief.
In Tyson’s case, it seems unlikely that the comeback talk amounts to a serious plan.
Tyson is 53 years old. No matter how good he looks hitting the pads — this is a man with a kind of magic in his hands — the prospect of anyone that age absorbing heavyweight punches is pretty grim.
Photo: Reuters
However, the Tyson comeback baloney is also in its own way a perfect lockdown story, an ideal confection of nostalgia and viral oddity — with an eerie synchronicity for anyone who, like me, has spent their confinement watching every single one of Tyson’s professional fights in series, like a mid-1980s soap opera.
At least, I’ve tried to watch the whole thing — but failed.
However, even this seems to speak to that fantasy comeback talk, as I have not made it past the cold white heat of early Mike: Those 21 months that took him from dowdy halls in upstate New York to the Las Vegas Hilton, the total destruction of Trevor Berbick and enthronement as the youngest heavyweight champion of all time.
Has there ever been a run like this in sports?
From March 1985 to November 1986, Tyson fought 28 unbeaten fights, winning 26 by knockout, boxing only 52 completed rounds — and producing a sequence of such clarity, such gathering greatness, that it is still startling to watch.
This is the first thing about young Tyson: his physical beauty.
From the start, he looks almost like an embarrassment of human splendor — not only slabbed and ripped, with a back like a sand-smoothed granite cliff face, but toned and balanced and gleaming with potential energy.
The first fight is Hector Mercedes at the Plaza Convention Center in Albany, New York. The two men face up. Tyson throws 16 punches in 10 seconds. Mercedes falls like a Victorian chimney stack — Tyson rushes over and apologizes.
Next up is Trent Singleton in the same ring, same kit, same gloomy lighting. Tyson throws two punches — we see that famous left hook for the first time, which is more than Singleton did.
Tyson was not fighting cardboard cutouts. The guys were older and more experienced, standard obstacles for a teenage prospect, but they just happened to have stepped in front of a talent that is literally impossible to resist, fall guys in one of sport’s most brutal and apparently unforeseen sequence of mismatches.
There are some wonderful highlights. Tyson is thrown in the deep end with Michael Jack Johnson at the Atlantis Hotel, a man with a ragged scowl and a run of knockouts, but Tyson walks through him like he is a bead curtain.
Next comes a bigger step up against Donny Long, the “master of disaster,” who is battered through the ropes twice in 30 seconds.
Tyson takes on Trevor Berbick at the Vegas Hilton on November 1986. Berbick, the WBC world champion, is an ordained minister who calls himself the Soldier of the Cross.
Making the mistake of going toe to toe with the 20-year-old Tyson, Berbick hits the canvas, leaps up like a madman, but ends up skittering across the ring on elastic legs, the most knocked-out man in the history of being knocked out.
That was it for Tyson’s run — things began to fall apart. The Buster Douglas defeat came three years later. Six years after Hector Mercedes, Tyson was arrested for rape, convicted and gone.
There is not much left to say about this. Tyson has always been a deeply flawed human, and there will always be pain in that, mainly for those on the other end.
There is another kind of sadness in the glory of young Tyson, who was, or should have been a role model, a hardworking kid from a tough background, a student of his art under Cus D’Amato, funny, smart and courteous, obsessed only with angles and skills and ring craft.
Think of that Tyson now and there is even a doomed kind of glory in that crazy talk of a comeback — in the sight of this aged fighter still hitting a bag, still wanting more, wanting even now to go back.
US national team star Folarin Balogun was among the scorers as AS Monaco on Friday won 3-1 at Paris Saint-Germain, dealing a blow to the side from the French capital before they face Chelsea in a crunch UEFA Champions League round-of-16 tie. Maghnes Akliouche gave Monaco a first-half lead at the Parc des Princes, and Aleksandr Golovin doubled their advantage early in the second half of the French Ligue 1 clash. Bradley Barcola pulled one back for the reigning European champions, but Balogun struck shortly after with a fifth goal in his last five games as Monaco claimed a precious
Teenage star Lamine Yamal’s superbly-taken goal on Saturday earned Barcelona a 1-0 win at Athletic Bilbao in Spanish La Liga. The champions restored their four-point lead over second-placed Real Madrid, who had on Friday temporarily closed the gap by beating Celta Vigo. Atletico Madrid tightened their grip on third with an entertaining 3-2 win over Real Sociedad. Yamal, 18, curled into the top corner after 68 minutes to split the sides at Athletic’s San Mames stadium. “We’re already seeing what Lamine can do — he puts it right in the top corner, and there’s nothing the keeper can do,” Barca
West Ham United on Monday advanced to the FA Cup quarter-finals with a 5-3 penalty shoot-out win against Brentford, who paid the price for Dango Ouattara’s spot-kick blunder. Nuno Espirito Santo’s side twice blew the lead as Jarrod Bowen’s double was canceled out by an Igor Thiago brace to force extra-time in the 2-2 draw at the London Stadium, but in the shoot-out, Brentford winger Ouattara attempted a chipped Panenka penalty, but his woeful effort was straight at West Ham goalkeeper Alphonse Areola. It was an awful mistake by the Burkina Faso international and West Ham took full advantage. Bowen, Valentin Castellanos, Callum
CHANCE TO QUALIFY: Both teams now have three points from two games, and Taiwan sit ahead of Vietnam and behind Japan, who last night beat India 11-0 Taiwan yesterday defeated Vietnam 1-0 to move into second place in Group C at the AFC Women’s Asian Cup with one match remaining. Su Yu-hsuan scored the decisive goal in the 26th minute after Taiwan midfielder Saki Matsunaga’s shot hit the crossbar, leaving Su to nod the rebound into an empty net for the team which won the last of their three Asian Cup titles in 1981. It was a deserved victory for Taiwan, 2-0 losers to Japan on Wednesday, who created several chances to extend their lead. Vietnam, the 2022 quarter-finalist, beat India in their opener, but struggled to
RSS