The Rise of Mike Tyson, Heavyweight by McNeil William F

Author:McNeil, William F.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Published: 2014-09-08T16:00:00+00:00

Cus’s voice was raspy during the talk, causing him to clear his throat frequently. It was the first symptom of the insidious illness that would take his life less than two months later. Cus’s final battle with death was another vivid reminder that boxing was, after all, only a sport and not a microcosm of life. But Cus believed he had done his job well. He believed he had prepared Mike Tyson for every eventuality, including his impending death. Cus had put Mike Tyson on the track to the championship, and he believed that Mike had developed the necessary independence to continue on his own after his adopted father was gone.18

Real life, and its associated tragedies, were being painfully experienced on September 19 by countless thousands of people a continent away in Mexico City, where a devastating earthquake wreaked death and destruction over 20 percent of the mountain metropolis. Earth tremors measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale struck the Mexican capital early Thursday morning, flattening entire neighborhoods and destroying large sections of the business district. Fortunately the quake struck before the workday began, minimizing the number of casualties but, even so, estimates of the dead were put at a staggering 20,000!

Back in Catskill, New York, the Mexican tragedy was just an item in the newspaper, a catastrophe that seemed almost unreal, certainly incomprehensible to a young man whose whole life was concentrated in a 324-square-foot padded enclosure surrounded by ropes. As Tyson’s regimen continued, the heavyweight championship was changing hands. On September 21, Michael Spinks, an inflated light heavyweight, took the title away from an over-the-hill Larry Holmes. It was a dull, 15-round affair. Spinks wouldn’t fight, and Holmes was too tired to fight. When Mike saw the debacle, he told the Daily Mail, “I’ll fight him right now. That fight disgraced the heavyweights. Spinks is only a light heavyweight. It’s unbelievable. He should give me a title shot right now.” Cus was a little more cautious. “Tyson has five more fights scheduled and then we’ll see.” With visions of heavyweight championship belts dancing in his head, Mike Tyson took a new oath of dedication to his profession. “I want respect. That’s what it’s all about, to get the respect of everybody. No more girls. No more night life. I’m gonna show everybody.”

Once again, however, Tyson’s career was slowed by a lack of qualified adversaries. A scheduled bout in the Felt Forum was called off when the opponent took a powder after concluding that the $700 payday wasn’t worth the pain and suffering he would experience in the ring. Subsequently, Tyson’s next fight was moved to Atlantic City where the larger $1,500 purse would entice more opponents out of the woodwork. After several frustrating weeks, an opponent and a date were finalized. Mike’s adversary was to be Donnie Long, who had replaced Tony Anthony, who had replaced Dion Simpson. And the merry-go-round continued. It was impossible to tell Tyson’s many prospective opponents without a scorecard. It was easy to keep track of his sparring partners.

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