Mike Tyson, aging with grace and dignity

Although Tyson figures to attract fans and viewers to the exhibitions, he can't figure out why.

"I think I'm useless to society," he told the assembled crowd. "I don't think I'm worthy of the people who come out to see me, but they do."

so did this steele fellow help tyson pay some bills in exchange for the endorsement?

http://www.baltimoresun.com/media/photo/2006-10/25942338.jpg

"only in america! only in america."

“[He] called me a ‘rapist’ and a ‘recluse.’ I’m not a recluse.”

On Lennox Lewis

"Lennox Lewis, I'm coming for you man. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious. I want your heart. I want to eat his children. Praise be to Allah!"

"My main objective is to be professional but to kill him."

"I want to rip out his heart and feed it to him [Lennox Lewis]. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children."

On Evander Holyfield

"You got nothing coming, man. I'm going to enjoy this fight."

After biting Holyfield he said, "This is my career. I have children to raise. I have to retaliate. He butted me. Look at me. My kids will be scared of me."

"I felt Holyfield was using his head illegally. I told the referee I wasn't getting any help, so I went back to the streets. I cannot defend it, but it happened."

On Razor Ruddock

"You're sweet. I'm going to make sure you kiss me good with those big lips. I'm gonna make you my girlfriend."

On Tyrell Biggs

Tyson on Tyrell Biggs' complaining to him about low blows "Low blows? Low blows? Huh! Motherf**ker you're fittin' to die!"

"He was screaming like my wife."

"I could have knocked him out in the third round but I wanted to do it slowly, so he would remember this night for a long time."

On His Wife

"I paid a worker at New York's zoo to re-open it just for me and Robin. When we got to the gorilla cage there was 1 big silverback gorilla there just bullying all the other gorillas. They were so powerful but their eyes were like an innocent infant. I offered the attendant $10,000 to open the cage and let smash that silverback's snotbox! He declined."

"Anyone with a grain of sense would know that if I punched my wife I would rip her head off. It's all lies. I have never laid a finger on her."

On His Childhood

"One morning I woke up and found my favorite pigeon, Julius, had died I was devastated and was gonna use his crate as my stickball bat to honor him. I left the crate on my stoop and went in to get something and I returned to see the sanitation man put the crate into the crusher. I rushed him and caught him flush on the temple with a titanic right hand he was out cold, convulsing on the floor like a infantile retard."

On Fans

To a question on whether he feels support from the common fan: "I don't feel love from them because there's no love. They don't know me as an individual; they know me for what I actually do. Because they pay to see me smash anybody. If they're white they pay, [it's] because the only thing they have respect for is my ability as an athlete. But if I was in court and I had to use them to testify against me on my character, they wouldn't testify positively against me and they would think I'm a cad..."

"There are nine million people who see me in the ring and hate my guts. Most of them are white. That's okay. Just spell my name right."

"I think the average person thinks I'm a f**king nut and I deserve whatever happens to me. That's what I believe."

"When you see me smash somebody's skull, you enjoy it."

On His Time in Prison

"You have to understand, Frank Bruno would not have been champion if I had not been in prison. Oliver McCall would not have been champion if I had not been in prison. A lot of these guys would not have been champion. Michael Moorer would not have been champion. Those guys would not have been champion if I had been around. They would have had no legacy. None of those guys would have had a legacy."

"I would have been in shape. I would have been active. Holyfield, those guys wouldn't have been champion when I was around, but I went away for four or five years inactive and that made them competitive for a time."

"But you really have to look at the science of the situation. You guys come here to talk and report but you don't actually look at the facts of what this business is all about. The best thing that happened to those guys and they should stand on their mother's shoulders and kiss my ass because I went to prison or they would not be existing right now. They'd be a flash in the pan and would have made some money and opened up a restaurant or bar somewhere where they live at."

On Boxing

"I try to catch him right on the tip of the nose, because I try to push the bone into the brain."

"Everyone in boxing probably makes out well except for the fighter. He's the only one that's on Skid Row most of the time; he's the only one that everybody just leaves when he loses his mind. He sometimes goes insane, he sometimes goes on the bottle, because it's a highly intensive pressure sport that allows people to just lose it [their self-control]."

"How dare these boxers challenge me with their primitive skills? It makes me angry. They're just as good as dead."

"My power is discombobulatingly devastating I could feel is muscle tissues collapse under my force. It's ludicrous these mortals even attempt to enter my realm."

Tyson: "It's interesting that you put me in the league with those illustrious fighters [Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Jack Johnson], but I've proved since my career I've surpassed them as far my popularity. I'm the biggest fighter in the history of the sport. If you don't believe it, check the cash register."

"Without discipline, no matter how good you are, you are nothing! One day, and I might not be around; you're going to meet a tough guy who takes your best shot. He'll keep coming because he's tough. Don't get discouraged. That's when the discipline comes in."

"I just want them to keep bringing guys on and I'm going to strip them of their health. I bring pain, a lot of pain."

On His Family

"No one gives a f**k about me. No one cares if my children starve, if they're on welfare. I have to support my children. I need more money."

Mike, on his mother who died in 1982: "I never saw my mother happy with me and proud of me for doing something: She only knew me as being a wild kid running the streets, coming home with new clothes that she knew I didn't pay for. I never got a chance to talk to her or know about her. Professionally, it has no effect, but it's crushing emotionally and personally."

On the Media

“I want to throw down your kid and stomp on his testicles, and then you will know what it is like to experience waking up everyday as me. And only then will you feel my pain.”

[To a female reporter] "It's no doubt I am going to win this fight and I feel confident about winning this fight. I normally don't do interviews with women unless I fornicate with them. So you shouldn't talk anymore... Unless you want to, you know."

"People [are] going to say what they say. It has to be for a reason. It's just for a reason. I know sometimes I say things; I offend people. I ask this lady a lewd question because I'm in a lot of pain too. I have some pain I'm gonna have for the rest of my life. And Lewis, I'm trying to give some of that pain to ya'll."

"You gentlemen have no idea what it's like to be myself, no idea what it's like. I'm not interested in being humiliated anymore."

"Sometimes you guys have no pride, so no matter what I say, you guys ... it doesn't affect you because you don't care about nothing but money. So every now and then I kick your f**king ass and stomp on you and put some kind of pain and inflict some of the pain on you because you deserve to feel the pain that I feel."

"If I take this camera and put it in your face for 20 years, I don't know what you might be. You might be a homosexual if I put that camera on you since you were 13 years old. I've been on that camera since I was 13 years old."

On Religion

"All praise is to Allah, I'll fight any man, any animal, if Jesus were here I'd fight him too."

"I feel like sometimes that I was born, that I'm not meant for this society because everyone here is a f**king hypocrite. Everybody says they believe in God but they don't do God's work. Everybody counteracts what God is really about. If Jesus was here, do you think Jesus would show me any love? Do you think Jesus would love me? I'm a Muslim, but do you think Jesus would love me ... I think Jesus would have a drink with me and discuss ... why you acting like that? Now, he would be cool. He would talk to me. No Christian ever did that and said in the name of Jesus even ... They'd throw me in jail and write bad articles about me and then go to church on Sunday and say Jesus is a wonderful man and he's coming back to save us. But they don't understand that when he comes back, that these crazy greedy capitalistic men are gonna kill him again."

Stacey McKinley: "He sees a guy beggin' in the street and he gives him a hundred dollars. I'll say, 'Man, y'know the guy's just gonna spend it on crack!' But he says, 'I leave it to Allah to judge him.'"

"I'm a man. I lived it and I'm not afraid to die but when I die I'm going to paradise and I'm not worried."

On Himself

"The one thing I know, everyone respects the true person and everyone's not true with themselves. All of these people who are heroes, these guys who have been lily white and clean all their lives, if they went through what I went through, they would commit suicide. They don't have the heart that I have. I've lived places they can't defecate in."

"I'm not Mother Teresa. But I'm also not Charles Manson!"

"Fear is your best friend or your worst enemy. It's like fire. If you can control it, it can cook for you; it can heat your house. If you can't control it, it will burn everything around you and destroy you. If you can control your fear, it makes you more alert, like a deer coming across the lawn."

"I'm just like you. I enjoy the forbidden fruits in life, too. I think it's un-American not to go out with a woman, not to be with a beautiful woman, not to get my dick sucked ... It's just what I said before, everybody in this country is a big f**king liar. [The media] tells people ... that this person did this and this person did that and then we find out that were just human and we find out that Michael Jordan cheats on his wife just like everybody else and that we all cheat on our f**king wife in one way or another either emotionally, physically or sexually or one way."

"There's no one perfect. We're always gonna do that. Jimmy Swaggart is lascivious, Mike Tyson is lascivious -- but we're not criminally, at least I'm not, criminally lascivious. You know what I mean. I may like to fornicate more than other people -- it's just who I am. I sacrifice so much of my life, can I at least get laid? I mean, I been robbed of my most of my money, can I at least get [oral sex] without the people wanting to harass me and wanting to throw me in jail?"

"At times, I come across as crude or crass, that irritates you when I come across like a Neanderthal or a babbling idiot at times. But I like to be that person. I like to show you all that person because that's who you come to see."

"I'm the most irresponsible person in the world. The reason I'm like that is because, at 21, you all gave me $50 or $100 million, and I didn't know what to do. I'm from the ghetto. I don't know how to act. One day I'm in a dope house robbing somebody. The next thing I know, 'You're the heavyweight champion of the world.' ... Who am I? What am I? I don't even know who I am. I'm just a dumb child. I'm being abused. I'm being robbed by lawyers. I think I have more money than I do. I'm just a dumb pugnacious fool. I'm just a fool who thinks I'm someone. And you tell me I should be responsible?"

On His Mental Health

"I don't know if I'm mentally sick, but I have... episodes sometimes. I'm a depressant kind of dude. I have episodes, and I'm human. But no one cares about my health as a human because sometimes I'm in my episodes when I'm at work."

"Well, [contemplating suicide] goes through everyone's mind, I'm sure. And if it doesn't I really must be crazy. Everyone thinks about that because sometimes, you know what I mean, it's just tough being a ni**er and it's tough being a bad ni**er."

I don't react to a tragic happening any more. I took so many bad things as a kid and some people think I don't care about anything. It's just too hard for me to get emotional. I can't cry no more."

"I'm on the Zoloft [an antidepressant] to keep from killing y'all."

On America

"I'm just a dark guy from a den of iniquity. A dark shadowy figure from the bowels of iniquity. I wish I could be Mike who gets an endorsement deal. But you can't make a lie and a truth go together. This country wasn't built on moral fiber. This country was built on rape, slavery, murder, degradation and affiliation with crime."

Miscellaneous Quotes

"I really dig Hannibal. Hannibal had real guts. He rode elephants into Cartilage."

"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."

"I like the British bikes. I like British people. They're real mellow."

"I can sell out Madison Square Garden masturbating."

"I have some pain I'm gonna have for the rest of my life. So every now and then I kick your f**king ass."

"I just want to conquer people and their souls."

http://i40.tinypic.com/nc76x.jpg

"I really dig Hannibal. Hannibal had real guts. He rode elephants into Cartilage."

"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."

"I really dig Hannibal. Hannibal had real guts. He rode elephants into Cartilage."

"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."

"I really dig Hannibal. Hannibal had real guts. He rode elephants into Cartilage."

"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."

"I really dig Hannibal. Hannibal had real guts. He rode elephants into Cartilage."

"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."

ftw

man there is no way I can sit here with a straight face and say a lot of Tyson's malapropisms aren't hilarious but I still think ppl suck for overclowning a guy who for a really brief period really was all that as a fighter and whose awkwardness is at least partially attributable to having grown up under circumstances even the most smacked-around of us wince at

dude was a wife-beater. fuck him.

i think he's the axl rose of boxing (and both guys fascinate me)

axl rose is the axl rose of boxing. at least if yr vince neil bob guccione jr.

*or

or stephanie seymour or erin everly

or tommy hilfiger

or the swedish security guard he bit in the leg

or buckethead, relegated to an actual chicken coop

I've got nothing on tyson anyway, b/c he stole so many hours from me in 6th grade when I was trying to knock out his impossible ass Nintendo-style. He owes me.

dude was a wife-beater. fuck him.

so was my stepfather, and I have a lot of hate for him, but I suspect my nearness to that kind of figure lets me in on the ugly secret that "a wifebeater" isn't some guy who just doesn't get it/is a two-dimensional asshole/etc - he's somebody who got good & ruined before he got out of childhood, which is tragic. in Tyson's case extreme poverty & hellish upbringing = he didn't really have a chance

How is Tyson financially? How fucked? It's gotta be worth comparing him to Diego Maradona, who was the only other global sports superstar/GOAT-of-all-time-in-his-sport contender that the 80s produced. Both outstanding unorthodox talents who combining the anti-establishment streak with a massive vein of self-destruction. Don't they both have communists tattooed on them as well?

completely, utterly fucked - broke, by many accounts. last I heard he was living in a rented house in Phoenix.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1032821/

^^^has anyone seen this?

http://nomas-nyc.com/uploaded_images/tyson10-790992.jpg

He's a truly tragic figure. Such power and natural ability, and so many negative influences in a horrible train wreck of a person.

Kind of like a Ferrari with a blind-folded drunk behind the wheel.

i had HBO back when they were showing his classic era fights, up to the Buster Douglas fight which i vividly remember, but goddamn he was a real life force of fucking nature back then, a fighter you'd never forget.

yeah and iaw j0hn, mike is probably a bad person in a lot of ways, but i also am pretty sure i can't imagine the type of circumstance in which he grew up.

yeah and iaw j0hn, mike is probably a bad person in a lot of ways, but i also am pretty sure i can't imagine the type of circumstance in which he grew up.

Regardless of the specifics, it was BAD. And he was this genetic freak who would just wreck people, even before he was taught how to do it well.

I'm very curious to see what happens once Don King dies. I think a WHOLE lot of shit is going surface about that man that we know nothing about yet, and a lot will have to do with Tyson. His demise was brought on by the division between him and his discipline. Prior to splitting with Kevin Rooney, he was just an utter badass. I still remember him coming down the aisle in all black. Sick.

<3 mike

I just saw the Tyson/Douglas fight for the first time and had it in my head that it was fat blob Douglas landing a lucky punch but it turned out to be one of the best post-Ali heavyweight fights I've seen.

Yeah, but can you imagine if it had been an in-shape Tyson? I don't think Douglas would have fared nearly as well. Tyson was overweight and out of shape, and terribly undisciplined in that fight.

Its really a shame that we never got to see Tyson v. Holyfield with both in their prime. That would have been an amazing fight. Or it could have just gone down like Tyson-Spinks did. Hoo.

Mike Tyson vs. Sonny Liston: FITE!

Tyson would have kicked Liston's ASS. Liston, as big and powerful as he was, was never the tactician that Tyson in his prime was. True, he was better than Douglas, and probably would have utilzed the same tactics that Douglas did in beating Tyson, but man...when you look at the asskicking Tyson laid down on Spinks - Spinks' ONLY loss - you have to believe that Tyson would have just taken the relatively undisciplined Liston to school.

my recollection was that tyson was already starting to slip well before the douglass fight, under rooney he really had great technique as well as brute force, unfortunately he has so much brute force he thought he could ride that, beating dudes w/o even trying.

And when you look at the heavyweight division at that time - post Spinks/Holmes, pre-Holyfield/Lewis - he was largely correct. Tyson could have kept up a modicum of training and coasted to a 45-0 record.

I'm saying that Tyson-in-prime, which is the only way to ever have these hypothetical arguments, would have beaten Liston.

And these arguments are entirely different than other weight classes - lights and middles tend to age a lot better, and their skills develop and sustain for longer than heavyweights. Big dudes treating each other like meat punching bags doesn't go very far.

He looks more like King Hippo now, amirite

HE NEEDS TO LAY OFF THE FEEDBAG AND HIT THE SPEEDBAG

Indeed. He's a little above his old fighting weight.

I didn't get to sleep last night until about 4 because I accidentally started reading hypothetical "who would win" threads on boxing message boards. I kinda wish I'd become pathetically knowledgeable about boxing as a kid rather than music, although admittedly people's decisions on who would have won these dream bouts revolves around:

1) What skin colour were they
2) Completely intangible concepts of "psychology"
3) Were they famous
4) ACTUALLY A BOXER FROM TODAY WOULD ALWAYS BEAT A BOXER FROM THE PAST BECAUSE OF TRAINING METHODS

What was the training method of the 1910s.

(I assume the diet was something like lard and Postum.)

ACTUALLY A BOXER FROM TODAY WOULD ALWAYS BEAT A BOXER FROM THE PAST BECAUSE OF TRAINING METHODS

I'm not ENTIRELY convinced of this.

Also, I think you have to allow for some adjustment for the times. Like, Sonny Liston in TODAY'S boxing terms.

I dunno. They're all just hypos and are really only worth shits and giggles at the pub.

And Jack Johnson would have been a badass regardless of when he fought. Motherfucker was HUGE and fast.

When I was trying to rebut jOhnD late last night, all I could end up with is "Teddy should have killed him when he had the chance." and "I'm glad I wasn't held accountable for all the things I did."

As for training methods back then and now, once you are over 200 pounds or so, ability to give and take hard blows to the head becomes more important than the other trainable skills. IMO

Fat Mike could have lost to Klitchko last week just as effectively as fat Rachman did. (and earned even more money) And I think prime Mike wouldn't have been able to hit prime Evander in the head with anymore consequences than anyone else did.

And I think prime Mike wouldn't have been able to hit prime Evander in the head with anymore consequences than anyone else did.

Kind of like saying you and I and Klitschko could all pummel a bronzed cinder block with equal effect.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony/tyson/

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/3/34/Chakotay.jpg

http://www.popcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/tyson-tattoo.jpg

http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Labyrinth/7683/fight3.jpg

over/under on how many times I will see that movie: 15

http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/4884

"It's like a Greek tragedy. The only problem is that I'm the subject," Mike Tyson reputedly told James Toback when he first saw this film. There is a classical structure to the narrative: a kid from mean streets, with few prospects, a life of criminality already under way, is talent-spotted by a grizzled boxing trainer; he becomes the youngest world champion ever; then it all disintegrates into hedonism, profligacy and violence.

EVER SO SLIGHT non-sequitur here from 'classical' a la aeschylus to 'classical' a la david bordwell.

bit odd, also, seeing a soi-disant marxist explaining m-ty's rise and fall trajectory in exclusively psychoanalytic terms: 'the compulsion to repeat.'

but then he flips the script and so the 'unusually sensitive' tyson REALLY became a tragic rapist because of EVIL RONALD REAGAN HATE HATE KILL KILL. whereas ali was a hero because -- of nixon? nooo, that would be too logical.

Elsewhere, the words elude him, or he evades them. Yet, exactly as psychoanalysis taught us to expect, the ellipses, the sentences that lead nowhere and the 'wrong' choice of word tell us even more than the moments of transparent lucidity.

lol 1980s critical theory.

I liked his mention of rap.

But seriously, I want to see this film.

i don't know many irl rap fans who think welcome to the terrordome is epochal.

many crossed out any

i think it got a strong notice in LM.

hahaha.

though yeah it probably did. the far left's defence of hip-hop or other things which aren't very nice is that they show without flinching the true brutalized face of capitalism. i think the idea comes from that fathead adorno's 'negative dialectics' (?).

yea ive been on a toback kick lately - want 2 see this

tyson's around a lot & talked abt in the toback doc 'the outsider' lotta interesting shit

xp What? No, it doesn't come from a book, it comes from a desire to prove the other guy wrong and see him humiliated and hear the lamentations of the women. Some believe that this can be accomplished with a lot of patience, passivity, and book reading.

i don't know many irl rap fans who think welcome to the terrordome is epochal.

― FREE DOM AND ETHAN (special guest stars mark bronson), Thursday, April 2, 2009 8:31 AM (39 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

"welcome to the the terrordome" is pretty well-renown as the bomb squad's busiest moment, but also chuck's main lyrical response to all the professor griff stuff going on. it's epochal, but for different reasons than "tried by 12" or "i used to love h.e.r." or whatever

watched 6 hour espn classic tyson retrospective w/most of his fights in full over the last few weeks then saw tyson doc last nite - worked well together as the doc was v thin on actual boxing - tho it did offer some insight on the psychological aspects that was pretty sweet - mike of course was brilliant charismatic emotional deluded honest and fucked up insane as ever - a true ascendant heavyweight champ and his attendant scene is so the most glamorous time in sports - its sad thats gone forever - affecting film, recommended

lol saw him and the filmmaker on charlie rose the other nite too - mike is waaaay too real for that venue - charlie rose on his nuts all day

btw holyfield is a headbutting lil bitch - forgot he did that shit in BOTH their fights

i watched the ear bite live LOL - how the slowmo ear tip spiting was left out of the doc i dont know - unconscionable oversight

Movie is good and engaging. Basically just a 90-minute candid interview, interspersed with TV footage. Tyson is more articulate and reflective than you might expect, but also still clearly grappling with the aftermath of his fame and hence contradictory at times. Key moment, I think, is when you see him still getting choked up at Cus D'Amato's death, 20 years later, both in appreciation at what D'Amato did for him and with regret that he couldn't have been around longer, to keep him steady during the wild years.

watched this last night! it is funny - there are times where he's brilliantly articulate and other times that he makes no sense or seems kind of like a moron.

it's weird, i remember the ear-biting event as much more dramatic than it seemed watching it years later. maybe it was different camera angles/footage?

i watched the ear bite live LOL - how the slowmo ear tip spiting was left out of the doc i dont know - unconscionable oversight

maybe it was different camera angles/footage?

probably rights holder on the angle with the slomo spitting wanted too much to license footage for Toback lo-budge doco

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8068048.stm

Sympathies to the dude.

this is awful really

seriously fucked up

sad sad sad.

maaan

This is absolutely terrible. Say what you want about the guy, but he has had to endure some serious hardships in his life. And I can't imagine anything worse than a death of a child. Very sad.

Christ, he's only 42. I don't know why I thought he was older than that.

Cuz he was 19 when he first started destroying guys in the ring.

Man, this is sad.

oh man this is terrible

sometimes i think that mike tyson is the most tragic figure in all the world. i mean, not ~really~ but still

I read about this the other day and really hoped that she'd be ok. I didn't realize that she died. Oh man. :-(

what a nightmare

read this in the paper earlier today ;_;

TMZ has learned Mike Tyson has been arrested at LAX airport for battery after a bloody confrontation with a paparazzo outside the United terminal. We're told Tyson punched the pap in the face and there is blood everywhere.

We're told Tyson was at a ticket counter at the United Airlines terminal when the incident occurred. The photographer got punched in the face, hit the ground, got up and began walking, leaving a trail of blood. An LAPD spokesperson said the photographer suffered a minor laceration to the forehead.

Someone at the scene tells TMZ ... the photographer got very close to Tyson before the boxer struck him. Our guy on the scene says there's blood on the ground and Mike was taken away in a squad car. We're told an ambulance was dispatched at 4:39 PM to LAX -- we're told the paparazzo was transported to a local hospital.

Cops say Tyson and the photographer performed citizen's arrests on each other and both are expected to be booked on misdemeanor battery charges.

If Tyson is prosecuted, given that he's a former boxing champ, the charge could end up being assault with a deadly weapon.

UPDATE: Tyson's rep says he was traveling with his 10-month old daughter when he was attacked by an overly aggressive paparazzi -- adding the boxer acted in self-defense to protect his child.

Story developing...

One thing that's nice about not being Mike Tyson is that if you freak out and punch someone, the chances of leaving a pool of blood on the floor are much lower.

this is hilarious

LAPD should give Tyson a medal for this imo

he should become the governator's official regulator of paparazzi

okay, no medal, but no charges

http://allhiphop.com/stories/news/archive/2009/12/31/22081338.aspx

Mike Tyson Not Charged In Paparazzi Scuffle
Friday, January 01, 2010 12:33 AM | 46 comments
By Houston Williams

The city attorney's office has opted not to charge former boxing champion Mike Tyson has with any crime in a November scuffle at Los Angeles International Airport.

Representatives for Tyson told AllHipHop.com in a statement that the decision was a positive step forward for the pugilist and other celebrities as well.

​"The city attorney's office made the right decision, given the harassing conduct of the paparazzi who persisted in his aggressive pursuit of Mr. Tyson, even after being ordered by airport security personnel to leave him alone," said Shawn Chapman Holley, Esq., an attorney for Tyson. "The City Attorney's decision today is a small victory for those who continue to be harassed, annoyed and even stalked by the paparazzi."

On Nov. 11, Tony Echeverria, a photographer, apparently hit Mike Tyson in an effort to provoke him into doing something newsworthy. Echeverria claims Tyson punched him in the face and then took his film.

Both were arrested as a result. Tyson was booked and release, but Echeverria went to the hospital for his injuries.

One spokesperson for the city attorney's office said there simply wasn't enough in the case to charge either man.

“We took a look at the evidence and concluded that there was insufficient evidence that either party was at fault beyond a reasonable doubt,” said Frank Mateljan, spokesman for the city attorney's office. “It didn’t rise to the level of filing a charge.”

they're showing Tyson-Douglas on espn classic right now - Buster Douglas didn't end up doing anything memorable later but he is just magnificent in this on. right after he gets on five good ones in round 10, Tyson throws this uppercut from inside that, had it connected, would have sent Buster's head into orbit, but Buster's so fully in the zone that he steps back and comes right back in. Tyson is famously not himself anymore but you can't take anything away from Douglas in this fight imo

round 9, my bad

Tyson wasn't really himself that fight tho either (a couple of good punches aside.)

that's what I meant by "any more" - at this point he's undertrained & his corner is full of people who are really working against him, I don't think the Tyson of two years earlier would have had any trouble with his timing like he does here. but he still connects way more than I'd remembered, and Douglas takes the punches - they may not be perfectly-placed 19-year-old Tyson bombs but they're big hard shots and Douglas is like no, no, I came to win this, my mom is dead and I dedicated this fight to her - it's a beautiful fight

watching this on youtube, great fight

Didn't see this fight until recently and had always assumed it was a lucky one punch affair that ended in the second round or something. When I finally saw it I was amazed how good it was.

just watched a comp youtube of early tyson ko's...my god. what a monster.

there's not enough money in the world to entice me to stand in a ring w/ a young mike tyson

http://i.imgur.com/YgOOq.jpg

this picture is just killing me, so poignant. hope you're doing okay, big mike.

http://i.imgur.com/eKssy.png

not a single mention of the hangovers here? i figure those movies mean he's not broke any more. also, he's pretty damn funny in them.

https://twitter.com/holyfield/status/240197360653852672/photo/1

wth is up w/his broadway show; it sounds like stand up comedy but then I guess he just complains about women? The brad pitt anecdote he shared on espn was pretty good, tho,

the truth is Fame dealt a KO to Iron Mike

i was just watching this the other day... insane:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FgS3kCv79I

I am seriously holding out for an Iron Mike biopic that, in 15-20 years, will put Raging Bull to shame.

poor old, balding white men forced to fight a 19-year-old mike tyson

motivational speaker!

UNLEASH THE SPIRIT OF THE CHAMPION WITHIN YOU

http://www.nomas-nyc.com/sweats/78-tyson-givens-ss.html

wow that no mas thing sucks, fuck those guys for that

otm times a million

Wow.

"What is wrong with people?" part 2744309685780398567937725428

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXpYxFMTmco

Tyson's first evening as a promoter was last night, as I mentioned on rolling boxing, and it was a good card: great matchups, really fun fights, shitty decision on the headline fight. Mike had actually said in his interview before the fight that he was hoping the judges wouldn't wreck the night because it takes three qualities to make a good fight: good promoter/good fighters well-matched/good officiating. He was OTM and the decision sucked, but the other thing was his admission that he'd been lying about his sobriety and his always-get-realer-than-the-interviewer-expected working-the-steps style of being interviewed, which was just...it's really raw, and in light of the great card he put together, his clear desire to not be a fuck-up and his difficulty in not being a fuck-up, really moving to me. More here, including 2013's most moving comment on a news story:

Thank you Mike I wish I could stop Drinking......
- Al M@t@ , Corona CA, United States, 25/8/2013 00:27

as fucked up as some of the shit he's done is no doubt or excuses, but if you have ever cared about this dude and hoped he could get his shit together I don't see how this does not affect you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIDI1DxUXtE

looks like an interesting read

that video was really moving on a basic human level

never heard of that Coue book before. funny how that turns up in Boardwalk Empire.

I was this useless, Thorazined-out nigga who was diagnosed as retarded, and this old white guy gets ahold of me and gives me an ego. Cus was such a deep guy. No one ever made me more conscious of being a black man. He was so cold, hard, giving it to me like a bitter black man would. “They think they’re better than you, Mike,” he’d say. If he saw somebody with a Fiat or a Rolls-Royce, he’d look at me and say, “You could get that. That’s not the hardest thing in the world to do, getting wealthy. You’re so superior to those people. They can never do what you are capable of doing. You got it in you.”

...

A lot of people assume that Muhammad Ali was my favorite boxer. But I have to say it was Roberto Duran. I always looked at Ali as being handsome and articulate. And I was short and ugly and I had a speech impediment. When I saw Duran fight, he was just a street guy. He’d say stuff to his opponents like, “Suck my fucking dick, you motherfucker. Next time you’re going to the fucking morgue.” After he beat Sugar Ray Leonard in that first fight, he went over to where Wilfred Benitez was sitting and he said, “Fuck you. You don’t have the heart or the balls to fight me.”

yea mike talks abt his love for duran in that recent 30 for 30

check out the being: mike tyson series on fox sports 1; ive watched a few out of order hes p candid its cool

mikes kindof amazing now, hes pushed his ego down so far hes like blankly zen

or at least hes good @ putting that out there for the cameras

fx sports 1 has some hot young trim desk reporters, major breakthrough in sports journalism imo

mike will take absolutely any business opportunity fyi

https://twitter.com/MikeTyson/status/397112656391200768

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ALL THE OUTCASTS –

EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER BEEN MESMERIZED,

MARGINALIZED, TRANQUILIZED, BEATEN DOWN,

AND GOTTEN THE WRONG END OF THE STICK.

AND INCAPABLE OF RECEIVING LOVE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIDjMCxNHSg

ah shit wrong video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWeD5KXx5WI

what's the best book about tyson?

so is anyone gonna watch this

not me, but lots of people find car wrecks fascinating. or may be the better comparison is pro wrestling.

If there was any chance of it being a real fight and Paul dying in the ring, sure. Tyson's not going to take a dive but they're not going to let him murder Paul either so it's going the distance and watching would be a complete waste of time.

Might be the rare fight where it's the audience that ends up with brain damage.

Mike Tyson definitely forgot he was talking to a kid while answering that question 😭pic.twitter.com/WDHvtoVnnj

— Happy Punch (@HappyPunch) November 14, 2024

omg lol

Mike Tyson… OTM?

im gonna watch this because what if he lands one

the one guy is just a YouTube person right? I know he must have trained and that MT must be old but why would anyone willingly do this? Assume a lot of money is the answer but good luck YouTube dude.

Mike Tyson's last win was in 2003 when Jake Paul was in kindergarten.

I have no interest in watching this, but I might have to listen to more Mike Tyson interviews

We're dust! *nods along*

Jake Paul is def a guy who's ass you wanna see get kicked

What was the thing he did in Japan?

Something bad at the suicide forest.

Yeah, he filmed a dead body for his channel. Hope Mike kicks his ass. Also, yes, depressing MT otm.

I think that was his brother but Jake is also trash

but they're not going to let him murder Paul either

as someone who knows zero about boxing - how do they stop this? If Tyson is just pummeling him sure you can stop that. But theoretically just one or two hard punches to the head should be enough, right?

if there's one boxer who is known for playing nice, it's Mike Tyson

What was the thing he did in Japan?

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Friday, November 15, 2024 1:01 PM (six minutes ago)

he got knocked down, knocked out, and lost for the first time vs. Buster Douglas, whose mom who had just died. Tokyo Dome, 1990.

xpost Hey, you're overlooking him and Holyfield settling their differences and collaborating on ear-shaped gummies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p90ZaqSKz2E

https://i.imgur.com/wjLZv4R.png

xp - the biggest fix is that they're fighting with 14 ounce gloves instead of 10 ounce. Extra padding makes it harder for one clean shot to take Paul's head off and harder for Tyson to swarm him with speed* which would be the most likely way for Tyson to fuck him up

*however much he still has left, training videos still look insane but who knows

yeah I've heard a lot of chatter about how Tyson's still "got it" to some extent but I wonder how much of that is just from people trying to hype this up

i'm like 90% sure this will be boring but there's a small chance something insane happens so I might put it in the background

Unfortunately we'll have this on where I work tonight. But we close at 10 CST so maybe the undercard will still be going on?

Vegas has Paul at -200 favorite so I'm expecting Tyson will clock in and then take a dive early to collect the $20M.

...but then again I had irrational hope for Harris about a week and a half ago.

Unbelievable that gambling commissions are letting people bet on this

https://www.joe.co.uk/sport/mike-tyson-vs-jake-paul-follow-all-the-action-in-our-live-blog-464688?fbclid=IwY2xjawGknThleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHYcPmt9dE2Fw52XCK8ekfDqqolPWzU8vQhNj2IYVryWuWbiABsZpqeieKg_aem_2QpQqElDuhjzZ0wgax3Jig

xp - the biggest fix is that they're fighting with 14 ounce gloves instead of 10 ounce. Extra padding makes it harder for one clean shot to take Paul's head off and harder for Tyson to swarm him with speed* which would be the most likely way for Tyson to fuck him up

ohhhh interesting. i'm still holding out a little hope but given how this year is going ...

That Tyson and Holyfield fight was such a huge hype and then to have it end in total WTF when he bit the ear. I remember watching that at a huge keg party in Broad Ripple.

Definitely one of the crazier sporting events of the 90s.

Incredibly grim and dangerous for Tyson to be in this fight, unless it’s a planned jab and clinch fest. Jake Paul is obviously a basic/shit boxer but he has been legit training as a boxer for years now, and I’d be amazed if he wasn’t loaded with PEDs. I don’t think his technique is really good enough to not just swing like fuck and at 58 I’d be amazed if Tyson’s reflexes are still good enough to avoid getting hit at all.

dear god pls let mike tyson bite jake paul's ear off 🙏

— derek guy (@dieworkwear) November 15, 2024

Why TF does the Facebook algorithm think I care about this fight

I'm sure the algorithm thinks all men between the ages of 14 and 75 are into it.

crisp otm. incredibly dangerous for a man of Tyson's age to get in the ring with anybody at all.

tyson has said many times he wants to die in the ring so what the hell why protect him from himself

ROSIE PEREZ AT RING SIDE!

https://www.oscars.org/sites/oscars/files/1822_071189.jpg

DALLAS COWBOY CHEERLEADERS IN THE HOUSE

DANCING TO AC/DC

As someone who was alive in the 90s, I'm kinda astonished to see so much goodwill and support for Tyson here and on social media. I guess people really hate this Jake Paul guy

Really underscores what an asshole dipshit he is.

Ya Tyson is hard to root for but Jake Paul is completely unlikeable

let em destroy each other

wow, lennox lewis looks awesome.

evander looks nice too.

AZTEC DANCERS AND DRUMMERS

MISFITS TATTOO

Tyson's rehabilitation reminds me of Kobe's, except it's more understandable with Tyson.

A rapist and wife-beater? Tell me more.

Legit can't believe it was 38 years ago (!) that I first saw him fight. Wide World of Sports!

So it seems like the Netflix feed is completely hosed.

NFL on Netflix is going to be a disaster

yeah, glitch city.

amazon has the same problem when they do thursday night football. its a sucky place to watch sports.

aging with grace and dignity (in a thong)

Wasn’t this an entire ass plot line on an episode of Siliicon Valley? Iirc their streaming service couldn’t handle a UFC fight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IGvzb-KCpY

i felt bad when evander's microphone was out when he was trying to speak. later, i did not care that jerry jones's microphone was out when he was trying to speak.

oh god they got Mauro Ranallo on commentary

Ranallo, Rosie Perez and punch drunk Roy Jones Jr. this is the worst commentary team I've ever heard

was expecting this to be a disaster but I didn't think it was gonna be on Netflix's end

okay I admit I am kind of intrigued by this. for one it really is like a real life Rocky movie. for two Mike Tyson in his prime was the most insanely powerful dude on the planet if he can still kinda do it after 30 years that's pretty cool. otoh him getting knocked out in 20 seconds would be hilarious

also I think Jake Paul has a good character going, a guy who everyone wants to see get his ass kicked but never does

Mike Tyson in his prime was the most insanely powerful dude on the planet if he can still kinda do it after 30 years that's pretty cool

otm x2

alright seeing Tyson actually come out its really starting to hit me how weird this is

after that intro I want Paul to die in the ring, come back and die again

He looks like he’s either scared shitless or like he’s gonna lunch Jake’s head clean off his shoulders

like imagine Michael Jordan coming out of retirement to play Dillon Brooks 1v1 for $10 million

Jake is a coward and I hope his head falls off

this is even sadder than expected

Like if you win against a dude who is this old and cooked how proud can you be

if you're going to take more PEDs than the entire 1999 Tour De France field and fight a senior citizen how are you not going full berserker?

yeah doesn't really feel good to watch this

Yeah even if jake wins its like great job, you beat up a grandpa

Paul is such a pathetic loser

could be argued that Paul has carried him for the last six rounds instead of knocking him out but jesus christ how many more of these freak show fights are out there for this MAGA dipshit

is Butterbean still alive? Maybe fight one of the Gracies under UFC 1 rules?

27 year old man fighting a 58 year old senior citizen. Is this not a joke to you guys? how are you watching this. Jake Paul is nothing but a coward, he never has and never will be a real fighter. just a "boxer" who wants fun easy fights

— Brandon (@wowitsbrando) November 16, 2024

watching a sad fight in, like, 20 second increments is even sadder.

if netflix does this buffering thing to football fans its gonna get ugly. because they are ugly.

that was depressing but we'll always have Tyson introducing a 14-year old interviewer to the ideas of Arthur Schopenhauer

whole thing felt dystopian including of course the fact that the stream kept crashing

worst Black Mirror ever.

not sure if the Pauls and their ilk are uniquely horrifying, if I'm just old or a combo. I don't know who the Jake Paul was of my generation - Jackass? Jackass was so much less evil.

The Jerky Boys!

you know every rich tech bro training with their private judo instructor thinks they can be an MMA champion. its an epidemic of rich wannabe tough guys. and they are all on drugs.

tragic that Elon chickened out on fighting Zuck

xpost Brian Bosworth?

Gerry Cooney is still around. If Jake Paul dares!

the roots of a champion:

"As an actor, he played Dirk Mann on the Disney Channel series Bizaardvark (2016–2018)."

Glad I missed these 8 rounds of elder abuse

Got a brief adrenaline rush from convincing myself that Tyson was rope-a-doping Paul before breaking him in two, but really I missed the bigger dystopic-as-shit picture that I was one of dozen or so watching this on a laptop perched on the bar at my local.

Lol @ this being top of the sports pages.

the delightful youtuber Napoleon Blownapart has a great video on freak show fights, with special emphasis on why jake paul is trash:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJdNirkCDKY

Perhaps the mods should think about changing the title of this thread.

You need not feel bad about watching what ended up being a depressing match between Jake Paul and Mike Tyson. After all, people were simply watching with the collective hope in the small chance they’d get to see a YouTuber executed. And that’s beautiful

— Lolo (@LolOverruled) November 16, 2024

resding this thread and love that I don't yet know the outcome lol kiu

Gerry Cooney is still around. If Jake Paul dares!

i heard cooney interviewed earlier yesterday before the fight.. he thought mike would win on the logic that he, cooney, at 68 “still hits as hard as i did in my prime”;

ppl get deluded and say what they want to happen rather than what is likely to happen

i want eugenia cooney to punch a hole thru jake paul's chest

Hopefully Jake uses the unearned confidence from the Rocky Balboa remake to fight a real boxer and die in the ring

Strength suffers less as you age than reflexes and stamina, so Tyson probably still has some juice behind his punches when he sets his feet, but in every other regard he may as well be a slow, white stiff who sleepwalks into punches and is dead on his feet after two rounds.

Relatable

that barrios/ramos fight was good. they are good fighters.