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.
Novak Djokovic on Sunday described his shock third-round elimination from the Internazionali BNL d’Italia by Alejandro Tabilo as “concerning,” two days after he was hit on the head by a bottle, which he said has caused nausea and dizzy spells. Djokovic’s bid for a record-extending 41st Masters 1000 title was ended in just more than an hour by Chilean Tabilo, who is ranked 32nd in the world and claimed his first win over a top-10 opponent, 6-2, 6-3. The 24-time Grand Slam winner said that his subdued performance on a court where he has won six titles might have been due to
Caitlin Clark on Thursday walked into her new home arena with No. 22 shirts and jerseys peppered from floor to ceiling. She left as a first-time WNBA winner. A late-arriving, but louder-than-usual crowd roared during her official introduction to Fever fans and again when Clark made her first basket, a layup with 7 minutes left in the first quarter. The cheers grew when she completed a three-point play a few minutes later and hit a crescendo when she finally made a long three-pointer from the edge of the fieldhouse logo late in the third quarter. Clark successfully navigated the city’s most anticipated rookie
Andre de Grasse, the reigning Olympic champion in the men’s 200m, and many other top-class international athletes are to showcase their talent in Taipei at the Taiwan Athletics Open early next month, according to the event’s official Web site. The Canadian sprinter, who clocked 19.62 seconds to top the podium in Tokyo in 2021, is to compete at the Taipei Stadium after the two-day event was upgraded to a leg of the World Athletics Continental Tour. The elevated status of the Taiwan Athletics Open means participants can earn more ranking points, making it possible for the Chinese Taipei Athletics Association (CTAA), the
TO REAL MADRID? Kylian Mbappe informed PSG privately in February of his intention to depart when his contract expires, but this was the first time he acknowledged it publicly French soccer player Kylian Mbappe on Friday confirmed that he is to leave French champions Paris Saint-Germain at the end of the season, with Real Madrid widely expected to be his next destination. The announcement brings an end to a prolific association with his hometown team, which began when he signed from AS Monaco in 2017 in a deal worth 180 million euros (US$194 million). “I wanted to announce to you all that it’s my last year at Paris Saint-Germain. I will not extend and the adventure will come to an end in a few weeks,” Mbappe, 25, said in a video