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Tyson

“Everybody's got plans...until they get hit.”

On June 27, 1988, Michael Spinks, 1976 Olympian Gold medalist and former heavyweight world champion stood in his corner of the ring waiting for the bell to ring. As he phantom punched the air, there was little doubt that he would go down as one of the greatest pugilists in the history of the sport, having never lost in 31 straight fights to that point, beating the likes of Larry Holmes and Gerry Cooney along the way, winning belts in two weight classes, and being part of the only pair of brothers to ever win the heavyweight championship. (His brother, Leon, beat Muhammad Ali for the title a few years earlier.) Ninety-one seconds later, he lay crumpled on the canvas, the most dangerous man in the world, “Iron Mike” Tyson looming menacingly over the top of him. Several sportswriters reported that he seemed scared to death as he went out to the middle of the squared circle to face this 20-year old force of nature. In one of the most hyped fights to that date, the entire nation seemed to be on the edge of their seats to find out who would win, Spinks crumbled after a handful of body shots. Not since Sonny Liston’s knees buckled from a phantom punch delivered by a young Cassius Clay, had a heavyweight fighter given such a pathetic performance. What no one in the outraged crowd realized is that the sport they loved, the sweet science, had been knocked out with him.

In the mid-1980s boxing appeared as strong as ever. Names like Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran, Ray “Boom, Boom” Mancini, Thomas “The Hitman” Hearns, Evander Holyfield, Hector “Macho” Camacho, and Julio Chavez still stand among the greatest to ever put on a pair of gloves. The biggest name of all during that time was Mike Tyson, a man who,l experts were claiming could perhaps be the greatest heavyweight ever, with serious talk about him retaining the belt for at least a decade-and-a-half. He was the Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan of his sport. Today the average American cannot even name the heavyweight champion, let alone even one fighter. A sport that dominated the headlines of newspapers and American psyches for over a century has all but vanished. Jack Johnson, Sugar Ray Robinson, Muhammad Ali, Leonard, Henry Armstrong, Archie Moore, Joe Louis, Willie Pep, Kid Gavilan, Rocky Marciano, George Foreman, Jack Dempsey, Jake LaMotta, Joe Frazier, Floyd Patterson, and John L. Sullivan became legends. What happened in the squared circle often spoke to the larger culture. Jack Johnson set off race riots when he defeated Jim Jeffries and white America sought to destroy him. A down and out America during the Great Depression identified with the washed up James J. Braddock as he found he had a little more gas in the tank and amazingly captured the heavyweight title. Joe Louis proved American muscle was greater than the Aryan/Nazi superiority, by destroying Max Schmeling. During the early days of television, every immigrant group had their champion. If he could make it, become the champ, they could too. Unlike their home countries, a person could make it here because of the level playing field if they just worked hard enough, just like their heroes in the ring. In the late 1960s and early 70s, Muhammad Ali came to represent everything that terrified mainstream white society with his arrogance, embracing of militant Islam, and refusal to participate in the draft because “no VietCong Ever Called Me Nigger.” Less than a decade later he became the recognized human being on the planet and a hero to many of those who cursed his name a few decades earlier. Now all that is over.

Boxing is on life support. What happened? Boxing’s early success in this country was due to its simplicity to understand. While involving a great deal of skill and sophistication, whether a person was two or one hundred and two, spoke English or not, was as simple as Forrest Gump, one could understand just enough of what was happening in the ring to make it enjoyable. Unlike football, basketball, or baseball where the sport is a mystery until the rules are explained to you, with boxing, whether you understand the rules or not, or the strategies each of the combatants are employing, none of this gets in the way of enjoying the match. The sport also fit the rough and tumble image Americans had of themselves, the naked aggression, the muscularity, the strength and cunning of it. The Teddy Roosevelt, two-fisted masculinity of these modern gladiators reflected the frontier gunslinger, pull yourself up by your bootstraps mythos that we still hold to our breasts to this day. The bulky and cumbersome technology of cameras and early cinema also lent itself to the sport. Unlike other sports where the heavy, hard to move, equipment used in filming made it almost impossible to keep up with the action. Filming the Sweet Science simply involved pointing the camera at the ring and the pugilists never left the frame. It is hard to believe, but at one point boxing was second only to baseball in popularity and could be found on television four to five nights a week.

So, what killed boxing? Like comic books, sports or any other form of entertainment, the only way something continues to maintain its popularity is by getting the next generation of youngsters interested in its product and avoiding any major scandal that might make parents try to shield their children from it. The first cracks in boxing’s popularity came with the economic success of the Eisenhower years. While we like to think of ourselves as a melting pot, we are more of a chunky soup and nothing is more enjoyable for Americans than watching someone from their ethnic group beat the snot out of someone from another ethnic group. There are easier ways to make money than being punched in the nose and most suburban kids are not going to put out the sweat and tears it takes to be great. Still, boys watched television with their dads. Then in 1962 the unthinkable happened, the nation watched welterweight champion Kid Paret beaten to death in the middle of the ring by challenger Emile Griffith. It would take years for the sport to return to the television and then it reclaimed nowhere near the popularity it once had. Still, the major death blow to the sport is what many saw as its salvation, pay per view. Pay per view works wonderfully, continues as a wonderful money-maker, as long as free samples are being given out on network or cable television. (It is why MMA is so popular right now.)

Still, if a personality comes around that can uplift the sport, its popularity will continue. Boxing got Mike Tyson, “The Baddest Man on the Planet.” Born to a broken home in Brownsville, Brooklyn, New York, he appeared to be going nowhere, getting in constant trouble throughout his youth. Arrested 38 times by the time he was 13 years old, he finally wound up at the Tryon School for Boys, where his talent in boxing was noticed, and from there he was introduced to legendary trainer Cus D’Amato who took him in as almost a foster son. From there it was a rocket ride to the top. At first he looked unstoppable. With nobody appearing to have a fraction of his talent, once he was heavyweight champion he ran through challengers so fast that some called his fights the ‘bum of the month” club. With his marriage to actress Robin Givens very publicly on the ropes after a very public 20/20 interview, one of these bums, two years into his reign, a 42-to-1 underdog named Buster Douglas, stopped him. It appeared only a matter of time until he got his belt back and then he got himself in trouble again when he was accused of raping Miss Black Rhode Island, Desiree Washington, in an Indianapolis hotel room and he went to prison for three years. Once released, he began a comeback and even recaptured a portion of his title. Yet, his skills were nowhere near the level they were before the layoff, and he was knocked out by the quicker, Evander Holyfield. In their rematch, Tyson seemed to be reduced to a primitive state, biting a piece of Holyfield’s ear off and spitting it across the mat, thus getting disqualified. At 35, in 2002, he got another crack at the title against Lennox Lewis, but he was too old and broken down to be much of a threat to the younger champion. A year later, the man who was supposed to be the savior of boxing declared bankruptcy after running through over $300 million he had made over the course of his career. With his insane interviews and his controversial past in and out of the ring, the Tiger Woods of boxing had become a sideshow freak to the public by the time he finally retired.

This is a loving documentary of Iron Mike, and given French attitudes, is very kind towards him, almost controversially so. There is bound to someday be a better documentary of this larger than life personality just because of all the possibilities that he represented when he was just starting out and the train wreck he became. Everyone, even Iron Mike Tyson, has a plan until they get hit.

Verdict: Okay