Tyson - The Legacy he leaves ..

He's a *****.

 

Yeah, not only did he bite off Holyfield's earlobe, he also liked to snap his arm in half. There are a lot of things that gave me pause. I didn't like how he interacted with the press, sometimes. I remember before one of his Vegas fights when he told a lady reporter, "I'll **** you till you love me!"

But I think he'll go down as one of the greatest heavies of all time. He'd have been at least a contender in any era. He remains to me, one of the most exciting fighters of any weight to climb into a ring.

What he is, as a man is a lot more complicated, largely due to what we don't know. We know he was convicted of ****. Does that mean he did it? I don't think so. It doesn't prove it, but he could have. Just like we don't know about Kobe Bryant, even though those charges were dropped. For all we know he's guilty and Tyson's innocent. Kobe's a nice, polite basketball player, consumer ready. Tyson's a scary guy. I saw a girl on TV last night, an actress who just made a movie with Tyson who said she was petrified throughout their scenes. But we start talking about champs that stand up as human beings and we're lucky to end up with Joe Louis.

Isn't the real question whether it should matter? We may think we love Marciano or Frazier or Ali or Sugar Ray Robinson as men, but we don't really know what they were. Tyson, say this for him, is an honest guy. I gotta say that if I had to have an honest, forthright answer on something, I'd trust Tyson over a lot. Saw a documentary on Robinson not long ago where both his wife and his son accuse him of beating the hell out of them. True? False? How would we know? Now with Tyson of course, we saw what he did to Holyfield in the ring and who could justify it? But is it enough to negate all of the great things he did in the ring? Not for me anyway.

 

^^^^

He said "I'll **** you 'til you love me, ******!" to Lennox Lewis, not a female reporter.

 

I'll remember him for brightening up a truely awful heavweight division. A lot of people look back on Witherspoon, Tubbs, Page etc with rose tinted specs but at the time the division was dead on its feet until Tyson came along.

 

No he actually said it to a guy in the crowd at the press conference that told him to "Put his mother in a straitjacket."

 

Oh is that what it was? Or was it a different time? Maybe it was one of Mike's stock lines. The incident i'm talking about was when he was at a prefight press conference, and Mike was up on the stage pointing down at someone in the crowd. Same incident or a different one?

 

There was a woman reporter interrupting someone asking a question so Mike said 'I only talk to women like you if I fornecate with you, so unless you want to...you know...I think you should be quite'

 

You're right. I remember that now. I don't know why I'm laughing, but it is kind of funny.

 

I dont think he'll be remembered well, if anything the novelty has already worn off. Its a shame because with Lewis, Holyfield and Bowe as major contenders in the nineties we could have seen another golden era in the heavyweight division, now we can only speculate how Tyson would have performed against Lewis and Holyfield if he hadnt been imprisoned.

He ruined his career himself though, he was a grown man and made some stupid mistakes that he has to be held accountable for. You look at his record now and it leaves you wondering what might have been more than anything else. I think Lewis and Holyfield will be held in higher esteem as the years pass.

 

That's a great point. A lot of fighters have been burdened with the same "issues" Tyson has, but went on to achieve or maintain greatness in spite of it. The reason Tyson's issues are made such a deal of is not because they were necessarily worse than those of other fighters, but because Tyson failed to live up to people's pre-conceived expectations of him.

 

In boxing terms.
He will be rembered as one of the most skilled heavyweights of all time. He will be rembered for domonating his division and being a two time champion/titleest. He will also be rembered for coming up short of expatitions.
Outside the ring.
He will be rembered as a very flawed indivusial, who made many mistakes.

 

Tyson is most likely going to be inccorectly perceived by most people, both as a fighter and human being. This has always been the case with him.

Let's clear something up right away. Tyson is a manic depressive with deep-rooted insecurity issues. And I also happen to believe he's an extremely sensitive guy, oddly enough.

So while a lot of fighters manage to escape from truly awful backrounds and come out as decent people, Tyson had the compounded issue of coming from a deplorable backround in his early years as well as his psychotic, self-destructive nature to deal with, which is something that is a far more complex issue.
Also, most fighters who have overcome their rough start to life have always had at least one person to guide them and help them, be it a family member or a friend or just a good samaritan that came along. For a while, Tyson had these people too, but they died and left him pretty much rudderless. He may have been the heavyweight champ, but he was still just a baby really, maybe 22 years old.

And before we start thinking that Cus was just some kindly old gent, let's not forget that he too was using Tyson, and that he cut many, many corners (at Tyson's expense) to make him a formidable heavyweight. He neglected Tyson's schooling, and he failed to punish him for bad behaviour. So while Tyson the fighter was given every opportunity to flourish under Cus' care, Tyson the person wasn't nearly so well developed. That's partly why Teddy Atlas was given the boot, because he wanted Tyson punished like all the other guys for bad behaviour but Cus wasn't having it.

Let's be honest as well; yeah a lot of fighters came from similar backrounds, but how many were literally thrust into the limelight at such an early age? Tyson was a megastar in the 80's and he carried the sport on his shoulders for at least a few years. He was the world's top-earning sportsman and his face was plastered almost everywhere. Very few fighters in history have had to deal with that sort of intense superstardom, especially at such a tender age.
I know of people who can barely cope with life living in anonymity; they have addiction problems, domestic problems and problems at work. So how can some kid deal with all that, magnified by a factor of ten thousand? Especially since the people who were keeping him grounded at the time died? Jimmy Jacobs' death also came as a total shock to Tyson; Mike wasn't even aware that Jimmy had leukemia.
With Jacobs' passing, there went the last bit of hope Tyson had to save himself from himself, and the opportunistic vultures like Robin Givens and Don King.

Sure, Tyson used and abused people, no doubt there. But on the other hand, everyone wanted something from the guy for themselves too. His early mentors at least did have ultimately his best interests at heart, but the filth that came later had only their own interests at heart.
Is Tyson to blame for a great deal of his own problems? Sure. He has a self-destructive nature and is bi-polar. He has an animal cunning and is often only a half-step away from being a neanderthal. He's used and abused with the best of them. He's got a sordid history with women.
To his credit, he's often come out and admitted as much. He openly admits to doing some really shocking things.
For all his animal-like qualities, Tyson is a very human type of person. In a sense, he is the embodiment of all our triumphs and failures as a species. I hope that doesn't sound too melodramatic.

He's trying to turn his life around by staying (supposedly anyway) off the booze and the drugs, and facing the demons that drove him to be a destructive force in the ring and outside it. Surely that's all you can really ask of someone?

I want to know why it's always Tyson that is singled out when discussing fighters who supposedly so bad? Why are animals like LaMotta, Liston and Monzon (and thousands of others) and all the horrid things they did, never really focussed on? Often the bad lives they led seem to be almost glorified, but when it comes to Tyson suddenly he was such a monster and a piece of ****.

 

He misses greatness because of a lack of longevity and his actions inside the ring . Legacy ? Its on Holyfield's head.