By Norm Frauenheim
In case you haven’t heard or seen, Mike Tyson is coming back. That’s news, of course. But it’s strange to call his plans a comeback. When did he ever leave? He’s always in the public imagination. In deed. In name. In words. And now in video.
Video of Tyson in the gym went viral during a time when a real virus has kept so many at home with nothing much to do other than fantasize. Yeah, It’s Mike all right, waking up the past with echoes of his crazy power.
It’s fun to watch. It’s even fun to wonder.
Still, I’m not sure Tyson can still fight at 53 years old. Precedent and caution say no. But Tyson is nothing if not unprecedented.
Above all, the power in his ability to fascinate and entertain remains undiminished. Forgettable he’ll never be. At one level, it’s astonishing how much attention he can still generate. The internet is on fire with talk of him fighting Evander Holyfield.
Forget that it’s supposed to be a four-rounder for charity. Headlines, driven by runaway imaginations, frame it as the third fight in a rivalry with more imagined sequels than just another trilogy.
The hunt for the last piece of Holyfield’s ear from the 1997 Bite Fight might already be underway. In perhaps an apocryphal story, it was found on the canvas by maintenance, placed on a cocktail napkin and then lost in a cab during a wild ride from the MGM Grand to a Las Vegas emergency room after Tyson bit it off in the third round. Maybe, the National Geographic Channel can find it preserved in gold at a pawn store or buried in liquid nitrogen in a cryonics coffin beneath the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign.
It’s a story that will never go away. Then again, neither will Tyson. In a twist on an old line, you just can’t make him up. His craziness is a jagged collection of contradictions, yet genuinely compelling.
To this day, I’ll always remember him from a moment a couple of decades ago when he was living and training at the old Central Boxing Gym in downtown Phoenix. It was July. In the Arizona desert, only hell is hotter and not by much. Tyson was in the gym. The doors were wide open. A few box fans provided the only AC. Tyson was happy. I was sweating.
Turns out, it was a day when Tyson just wanted to talk. There were pigeons and food and philosophy and history and music. He talked and talked some more. Finally, I told him I had to leave. He follows me out of the gym and to my truck. I open the truck’s door and put my right foot inside the cab. Suddenly, I feel a hand as heavy as an anvil land on my left elbow.
Whoa.
Remember, Mike wanted to talk.
So, I listened.
I’ll never forget the power, running from his hand through my arm, like a force of nature. With one yank, he could have ripped my arm from my shoulder. I stood there, right foot in the truck and left foot on the street, planted by that one hand.
He was frightening.
He was fascinating.
He was everything then that he is today.
Even on video, that compelling mix is evident. People watch, still watch, in part because Tyson’s extremes can’t be faked. Genuine is an increasingly rare commodity in our fake-news world. In Tyson, it’s still there, abundant as it is vulnerable
Truth is, I’d rather Tyson not fight at all. There’s too much risk for him and the 57-year old Holyfield. I’m not convinced either will ever answer another opening bell anyway. Mind and name recognition might withstand the cumulative damage from blows over more than half a century. But the body will not.
Injuries in training are a real risk, perhaps one that will be enough to cancel plans to fight again. We don’t need to see a Tyson comeback. He’s not going anywhere anyway.
