Tyson vs. Etienne, twelfth anniversary

Alright fine, 23. D:

 

Yes, Iron Mike, how obscure.

 

:tong

 

Well if your body is literally falling apart, I'd say you've pretty much reached the point of 'physically shot'.

He was junkyard-ready by the millennium's turn and deteriorated more and more exponentially with each passing year.

I consider Etienne - or the period between Lewis & Etienne - the line of demarcation between "Tyson with anything left in h2h fantasy match-ups" and "Tyson who shouldn't have even bothered pulling the boots on anymore"

 

Kind of sad what ended up happening to Etienne afterward.

He actually had taken up boxing while serving a 40-year stint for armed robbery in his teens, and over the next decade went 30-0 (mostly knockouts, I'm pretty sure, though I can't find numbers on how many of them) in the pen in unsanctioned bouts. He cleaned out not only his own Dixon Correctional Facility but the entire state of Louisiana, barnstorming other big houses, taking on and vanquishing their best, often a boy against men. He was released on good behavior with just 25% of his sentence having been served. He turned himself around, went on an impressive run in the pros, defeating Brewster, Couser, and Clay-Bey in a FOTY. His prospects cooled when Fres Oquendo stopped him (but needed to chuck the kitchen sink at him to do so) but he kept plugging away, knocking out soft touches until landing a date with Frans Botha and once again climbing off the canvas (as he bravely did not only seven times in the Oquendo loss but also in his victories over Clay-Bey and James Jones) to force a draw. This earned him the payday as Mike Tyson's 1st comeback victim after Lewis.

He actually went on a 5-0-1 (3) run over the next couple of years and positioned himself to break into the outer fringes of contention again with a showdown against emerging unbeaten Calvin Brock. Unfortunately by then Etienne, despite talking a big game about taking his career seriously, had degenerated into coke addition, resulting in his suffering back to back KO losses to Brock and Nikolai Valuev (neither of whom are punchers).

With his chances of ever amounting to anything in the HW division thus dashed, he regressed to fall back on what he knew in his youth before prizefighting - armed robbery. He was no seasoned criminal, however, as inexperienced and naive at 32 as he was at half that age. So he was caught, and is lucky not to have been killed in the process as he, in a coke-fueled panic, attempted to shoot the arresting officers, thwarted only by a life-saving fluke when his gun jammed on him.

Currently he is serving a 150 year sentence, which has been knocked down to a mere 105. Barring another reduction or a pardon from Bobby Jindal or a successor, Etienne would need to live to be 137 years old to ever again breathe the fresh air of freedom. The oldest verified human being in history lived to be 122.

Recidivism counts another coup, among many stolen from boxing's ranks. :verysad

 

...and 26th anniversary of Tyson vs. Bruno I:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9F7tQIKqFo