Fight From An Angry Place
My mom always used to tell me, when I was a little boy, that the person who was the most angry always won a fight. It didn't matter if you were biggest, or smallest (in my case a warning, as I was usually the biggest). She believed that the angry intensity led to victories on the field of battle.
Boxing is decidedly a field of battle, and historically Mike Tyson is one of the true Gladiators of the sport...but just not lately.
The Warrior He Was
Tyson has always been old school. He fought with a historical perspective, and kept his eyes on past champions, copying their poses, copying their mannerisms in the ring, and dedicating himself to his sport. Tyson never wore socks in the early part of his career. He wore plain black trunks and no socks - to keep it simple, angry and level. Tyson is a man off of the mean streets of New York, and so his approach to fighting is tinged with a certain NY, poor and vicious street ethos.
It is rumored that Tyson (before the millions and the private jets) used to go back to his old neighborhood, and get into rumbly kinds of fights, just to stay sharp, just to keep the focus, just so he wouldn't forget something. He was looking for his edge then, his anger.
Lookin to Spar in all the wrong places...
Genius Saxophonist Charlie Parker would sometimes go into the alley way behind a jazz club he was playing in and roll in the garbage for inspiration, to feel the grit, the anger and the passion that led his fingers to fly and glide...and that is the power of Tyson going back to the street for a little dark inspiration, a little bitter pill, so he would remember the uglifruit of his youth. The truth is probably that he would not be caught dead back there, but if his opponents thought he was that mean, that tough and fearsome, then the very marketing idea of him possibly going back there was brilliant strategy. When Tyson beat Michael Spinks for the Title in under 1 round, Spinks was terrified.
There was a story in Sports Illustrated that month, right before the fight, and it talked about him going back to the streets, to the shelled out, burned out streets and looking for the demons that drove him...Spinks was scared when he went into the ring with Tyson, he was terrified. Watch a film of that fight and you can see it in his eyes. Tyson was a ''wrecking machine'', isn't that what Burgess told Rock about Clubber? ''You can't beat him, he's a wrecking machine.'' Well I think that Spinks thought that back on that gloomy night. Anybody else pay $50 bucks for pay per view and have a party that was to last for a fight that went less than two minutes? It was easy to hate iron Mike.
Is you is, or is you ain't my champion?
Tyson was the youngest man to ever win a boxing crown in 1986. He was twenty at the time, undefeated and a horrific puncher. He was strong, not deeply literate and passionate about winning, about finding himself and asserting his role as alpha male in the boxing world, he did that in style. Part of the anger was not being able to represent the US in the 1984 Olympic games...the anger grew and grew. There is no question that Mike was the angrier man then.
But after so many victories he began to lose the edge, and perhaps that is the problem with becoming a millionaire boxer. Maybe it is tougher to find the inspiration when you have limo drivers and an endless supply of whatever it is that your imagination can come up with. He let Don King begin to influence his life more heavily and he got into a lot of controversial relationship shenanigans with Robin Givens. Mike began to lose his edge, and then he lost his belts.
Bloated Elvis Phase
Tyson lost to Buster Douglas in Tokyo in 1990. Then he got into serious trouble and landed in jail for a crime that remains controversial to this day. Did he try to take out his anger in the bedroom? Was he still looking for that edge, that inspiration...I think he was, that losing in Japan was terrifying to Tyson. Douglas was not a better fighter than Mike, but on that night, he was the angrier man.
Tyson went to prison, and got back in shape, found a little bit of his spark again, and came out ready to go. Tyson ended up winning back the title, but then losing to Evander Hollyfield in an Ali-Fraizeresque battle. Tyson had not gone into a fight that lasted so long...the warrior lost to another warrior, a smarter, more patient warrior.
Then in the rematch Tyson bit off Holyfield's ear, and embarrassed an entire industry. He keeps trying to find the intimidation again, trying to find the anger.
Can he Come Back?
I think that Mike is going to have to somehow look inside and find a different kind of fire. The anger of his youth is gone, and so is a lot of the luster of his twenties. He won't scare anyone with his street thug attitude; he won't intimidate them by making them think they might lose a lobe in another event that came to be known as Pay-Per-Chew. He might find the heart though somewhere inside.
The key is going to be to torture his body, to discipline his mind and to look into the abyss of pain, and then feed it back out to the world. Ali tortured himself in the latter part of his career...he was a notorious trainer, and he stayed away from women to further fuel the fire. If you aren't getting your rocks off, then another kind of anger can build. Mike is going to have to change his tact, as so many of us do in our later lives. He has found out that he is not indestructible, he is not the black superman, and he is a boxer, one with tremendous punching power, and a lot of tradition, some good - some not so.
If Iron Mike can find the iron he will live his will, he will shine and make us all hate him again. Strangely though, part of what we boxing fans love about such comebacks is that we stop hating you if you pull yourself up, if you can adjust and repair. If Tyson can find a deeper place of inspiration, and can re-make himself into a different kind of champion, he may find himself in a role he is quite unaccustomed to...he may find himself beloved.
