Word: tyson
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...least 300 journalists tried to stay warm under a crescent moon as they waited outside the Indiana Youth Center in Plainfield. They came from as far away as Brazil and Germany to watch prisoner No. 922335 emerge after three years of incarceration for rape. The prisoner was Mike Tyson, once the No. 1 heavyweight in the world and a fighter some thought could be the best there ever was. Although everyone there knew he would get out at around 6 a.m., they were eager for a sign that Tyson either was back in the fold of promoter Don King...
These two coming-out parties had more in common than just time and place and the first names of the celebrants. Jordan and Tyson carry with them a charisma that can't be explained simply by their abilities. Ruth, Tilden, Palmer, Jim Brown, Ali: those would be their tablemates...
...champs are very different, of course. Jordan belongs on a pedestal, and Tyson belonged behind bars. But they're not as simple as good guy and bad guy. We tend to overlook Jordan's foibles, e.g. his gambling habits, just as we forget that Tyson was once capable of compassion and erudition. There is little doubt that basketball and boxing can use them, but as a society we may need them even more, as hero and antihero, Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader, Air and Iron...
Actually, the guru is wrong. Sport is a parquet floor, with crossing patterns of excellence and exploitation. Tyson's story is perhaps the best example of that. When legendary boxing maestro Cus D'Amato discovered Tyson in an upstate New York reformatory, he was a bad kid from Brooklyn. D'Amato didn't exactly turn him into a saint, but he did channel Tyson's aggression into boxing. D'Amato died in 1985, but Tyson continued to improve as a fighter and as a human being. After he knocked out Pinklon Thomas in their 1987 championship fight, Tyson went over...
...that was then. In 1988 Tyson's life spun out of control. There was the marriage to Robin Givens, the death of Jacobs, a pact with King, a car crash, the firing of Rooney. By the time Tyson fought 42-to-1 underdog Buster Douglas in February of 1990, he was out of shape, and Douglas KO'd him in the 10th round...