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Mike Tyson wasn’t born just to box, no, Mike Tyson was born to punch, crush and knock out, to throw wild punches, devilish chin hooks, punches to the torso, blows like electric shocks, like punctures to the head, blows that came back stained with blood, with an indomitable style, as if trying to open the chest of his rival to rip out his heart, or as if it wanted – and it did – to bite off a piece of his ear, or as if he wanted to send it to the canvas with a single impact. That’s how visceral he was, with that murderous look he gave while punching, punching and knocking down …
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How tiny the ring looked when Tyson came in with his heavy body, about 100 kg, and stepped as if to open holes. He stood eager for destruction, and he moved agile, as if he were light, and did not rest until he brought down his poor rival, which sometimes did not take much time. This is how he became a legend, this is how he became one of the most feared and fierce heavyweights in history. Thus, believing himself to be the worst man in the world – as he called himself – he won 50 of the 56 fights he had, and 44 by knockout. And so, with a body perhaps cracked by time, he returns to be the fearsome Tyson again.
Today he is 54 years old. The look has not changed, it is the same defiant look that seems to also attack and hit. His face is sometimes hidden under a frayed, sparse, gray beard, as if with it he wants to go unnoticed, but he can’t, because it’s him, it’s Tyson with his tribal tattoo that surrounds his left eye and gives him away. And it is that he does not want to hide; on the contrary, with his voice of thunder he shouts to the world that he is back, that he is not an impostor, and that to check it he will go back into the ring to hit and take down, like before, like always.
He will do it this Saturday in Los Angeles, against Roy Jones Jr., another 51-year-old former American champion, rapper and actor. A heavyweight that will put his heavyweight before the fists of Tyson, who has already said that this will not be an exhibition, as advertised. “I am going to fight and I hope he comes to fight,” he said. And Jones replied: “Whoever fights in an exhibition plan is dead in the first round.” So it won’t be a boxing grandparents fight.
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Mike Tyson, former American boxer.
The man, the beast
Behind that unchanging gaze, and those fists that don’t loosen, survives the story of a controversial boxer, a boxer made in the street, a gloved beast who came to the throne with two World Boxing Council world titles (1986 and 1996), with the record of being the youngest world champion in history, at 20 years and 4 months. And with a devastating style, like when he debuted and knocked down Puerto Rican Héctor Mercedes in just one minute and 47 seconds, or like when he made a rival cry while hitting him, Tyrell Biggs, he said.
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For something ESPN considered him the best puncher in the history of heavyweights. And that is why his opponents, even those who beat him, feared him, or respected him. “He was a monster. The kind you see in nightmares and you want to wake up and say, ‘I’m glad it’s a dream.’ I didn’t want to hang out with Tyson, ”said another fierce legend, American George Foreman.
Tyson had his ways of winning before he won, when he dynamited the atmosphere with his threats. It was as if he was capitalizing on the ex-con boxer role that he became. “I’m a bully by nature,” he said. “I want to kill!” He roared. And it wasn’t a wagon. In 1997 he starred in one of the most reprehensible scenes in sport when he faced Evander Holyfield, who had snatched the belt from him in 1996. Tyson was hungry for revenge and thirsty for blood. In the fight, in those embraces of exhausted boxers, he reacted like a steppe wolf, bringing out the worst of his inner anger, and with one bite he ripped off a piece of his rival’s ear. “I wanted to kill him, bite him. I was furious ”, said. He was disqualified and the ear piece appeared later, like a trophy.
Mike Tyson and the postcard of his bite of Holyfield. .
But his scandalous triumphs pierced the ring. Outside, Tyson was Tyson. No masks. He represented the perfect boxing antihero. He built that image of the tough guy that nobody wanted to find in the ring and even less in a dark alley. He was the guy who went to jail like someone who goes to work. In fact, your court record may be broader than your track record. At just 12 years old, he had already been arrested several dozen times, 38! and he had gone to the correctional facility for theft or street fights that he starred in in the New York suburbs.
When he was already a legend, he spent several stages in prison, one of them for rape. He spent three years behind bars. There he changed many habits. He converted to Islam, claiming to be sorry for his actions. He started reading authors like Hemingway, Tolstoy and Marx. He confessed that only once did he hit another prisoner and it was because he treated him as a “rapist”. In addition, he said that he had an overdose of sex. The world champion had privileges.
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His life as a boxer was one of luxury and extravagance (he had a Bengal tiger as a pet); of violence mixed with cocaine and marijuana (paranoid, he beat seven prostitutes believing they were going to steal him); of marriages (three) and divorces (two), affairs and courtships, and of all that, seven children. A life between stardom and depression (he had suicidal ideas).
With a amassed fortune (income of 28.6 million dollars in 1990, being the highest paid athlete in the world) and then total bankruptcy (today his income is reported by his successful company of cannabis for medicinal use). And a life with cheating: in the anti-doping tests he used urine from his wife or children, using an artificial penis where he had fake urine … Tyson ascended the Olympus of boxing with his fists and fell suddenly, in his irreversible personal decline and sporty. His last official fight ended on the floor, when a certain McBride sent him to the canvas in the sixth episode. It was the end, like a legend swallowed up by the ring.
The return
10, 9, 8 … The countdown is now in Mike Tyson’s head. Because the time has come for his long-awaited return, 15 years after hanging up the gloves. 7, 6, 5 … He counts and knows that it will be an exhibition match, although he already said he does not believe in the exhibition. Just in case, the organization takes its precautions: There will be no judges, no winner, no loser at the Dignity Health Sports Arena in Los Angeles. There will be eight rounds of two minutes each and the instruction to the referee is clear, stop the fight if it gets out of control, if the punishment of one is very fierce. They do not want a scandal, they do not want a knockout, and less if it is Mike Tyson who is in the ring, so his body is now only the reflection of his legend, of his decline.
In his head the countdown should follow: 4, 3, 2 … His iron heart must already be leaping in his chest, and his blood must already be bubbling with anxiety, and the muscles tightly contracted, and the veins sprouting, and the brown skin mutating into an incredible man’s green, and the murderous gaze fixing on its victim, and the champion’s fists, worn but light, ready for the attack, to hit, hit and knock down, as before, as always … .
Fight data
TYson vs. Roy Jones Jr.
Exhibition fight.
Time: 9 pm
TV: ESPN 2
Campus: Staples Center, Los Angeles.
Profits: Press versions report that Tyson will receive in this fight around 10 million dollars and that Jones will win three million dollars.
Rules: they will be eight rounds of two minutes each.
PABLO ROMERO
Editor of EL TIEMPO
Twitter:@PabloRomeroET
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