'Iron' Mike Still Golden for Marketing Sport
The Commercial Appeal Memphis, TN - January 17, 2003
Mike Tyson, spewing hate and anger, saying he would smear Lennox Lewis's "pompous brains" all over the canvas.
Mike Tyson, bloodied and repentant, calling a triumphant Lewis "magnificent" and kissing the champ's mum.
Mike Tyson, giddily promoting his Feb. 22 comeback bout against Clifford Etienne at The Pyramid, explaining thus, "I'm just very happy! I'm tired of being stupid!"
Sick and twisted or warm and fuzzy? Unhinged or calculating? Heavily medicated or a truly changed man?
It's impossible to say with Tyson, impossible to know him or what his demeanor - his guise - will be when next we meet.
And yet Tyson is boxing's rock.
He's that solid. He's that bankable. In a sport that seldom connects with the sporting public in any significant way, Tyson's mere presence says, "Look!" And we look.
"I think there are two fighters in boxing - one being Mike Tyson, the other being Oscar De La Hoya - that draw people and draw the press, no matter what," said Gary Shaw, co-promoter of the Tyson- Etienne fight along with Bill Kozerski of Fight Night Inc.
In Tyson's case, it's no matter that last June 8 in Memphis he didn't just lose a fight, but seemed to have his very career handed to him in a crumpled heap.
Some of us watched and wondered: Who would pay to see Tyson fight after that beating?
The answer won't come until Feb. 22, but Shaw, who was in town Wednesday for an organizational meeting on the fight, said his guess is 12,000 to 14,000.
All these years removed from Ali, Smokin' Joe, Sugar Ray and Howard Cosell, what fighters can draw such crowds?
"Oscar and Tyson," said Shaw.
Brian Young, the site promoter for this bout, the local guy who also brought us Lewis-Tyson, is saying the crowd could rival the 15,327 who watched on June 8. He's also touting this as a would-be classic between two brawlers.
"Styles make fights," Young said. "I think it'll be 2003's fight of the year."
He may be expecting too much of the crowd, and the fight it will see, but the fact remains: Tyson is fighting and so people will watch.
"A lot of people think Mike wasn't Mike that night (against Lewis)," said Shaw, who at the time worked for Main Events, which promoted Lewis.
Maybe that's true. It was a spectacular show - the buzz, the buildup, the bell ringing on Memphis sports history - but it wasn't even a little bit of a fight.
But maybe it's not about those brutally fierce skills Tyson once had. How does he recapture them, any way, at 36?
No, more likely, it's enough that he's still Tyson. He's still the most compelling figure in the sport. Also the most notorious, the most unpredictable. He can be the crudest man alive, too. He can charm us, make us laugh.
That sort of thing sells tickets, especially when they're priced in a range that many Memphians can afford - $25 (already sold out), $60, $100 and up.
They'll come to watch Tyson, to see him try to summon something like brute greatness. Or bleed trying.
"Mike has to win this fight, obviously," Shaw said. "It's important for him to go on and fight Lennox Lewis again."
Yes, there could be a rematch. Maybe it would be in Memphis. No matter that last time Lewis didn't much break a sweat, much less have his brains smeared on the canvas, in beating Tyson.
No matter, because Tyson is still Tyson, the rock of boxing.
AI
