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Tyson's desperate fight
"I'll rip his heart out and feed it to him."
----Mike Tyson's comments directed at heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis
We can say many things about Mike Tyson but no one will ever question his ferocity or his primitive lust for inflicting physical damage. No one will ever question his intentions in the ring. He will be recognized as a figure of mayhem. A bad apple spewing poison.
Most have already etched a permanent image of Tyson as a frightening, anti-social, beast/man with neither the intelligence nor the restraint to control his violent ragings. He is the last man you would want to collide fenders with on a lazy Sunday afternoon drive.
And while his sometimes barbaric behaviour shocks us, we must remember that Mike Tyson is from a unique world. He's like a pit bull that's been breed to tear apart whatever stands in his way. As a child in the blood-dipped Brownsville streets, he was practically raised by neighbourhood theives and stick-up artists. His young life (before he was rescued by Cus D'Amato) consisted of scattered stays in group homes and juvenile detention centres. So, it was even before he started boxing at the age of 12, that his apple began to rot. All his young life he was programmed for violence. Programmed to be a fighter. And the fighter, as opposed to the boxer, taps into the most primitive of instincts.
We must remember that many of the characteristics that Tyson possesses, the ones that often disgust us, are the very ones that not only saw him become the youngest, most feared heavyweight of all time, but they are the ones that will assure his survival in the brutal ballet of blood. They are the very violent, predatory characteristics that we deplore, yet flock to witness. The very wild, uninhibited displays of rage that frighten, but thrill us, raising the hair on our arms in excited repulsion. They are the cold stares, the fury, the lust for blood.
Make no mistake about it, Mike Tyson is driven by fear. That is why he remains a dangerous pugilist, even as his skills decline. Mike Tyson's home is a boxing ring. It is where he can express himself with doom colored brush strokes. His identity is so inter-weaved with violence that he knows no other way. As a fighter Mike Tyson became somebody. His self esteem or lack of it, is determined in the ring. That is why Mike Tyson doesn't just want to box you....he wants to kill you.
When you step into the ring with Mike Tyson you threaten not only his physical well being, but you threaten the very fibre of his being. He stares across the ring at you with the cold, empty eyes of a great white, and he sees the man who wants to take all he has away from him. And he will do anything to prevent such a loss. Not only loss on the judges scorecards, but loss of face. Loss of respect. And Tyson's idea of respect is as twisted as his means of acquiring it. That is why he bit off a chunk of Evander Holyfield's ear and spit it out like cherry pit. He was losing the fight, but he would not lose the fight for survival. His fabricated image was at stake. He was desperate and when a man is desperate he operates on the most basic of levels.
A fight with Mike Tyson no longer becomes a boxing match. It is a fight for survival. For Tyson---survival of indentity. Because once he is no longer the "bad ass", or the "killer", once he becomes another ordinary boring journeyman who catches a beating every three months, then Mike Tyson is nothing. And there is nothing more frightening than the thought of being nothing.
Desperation. It oozes out of Mike Tyson's pores. It presents itself in a way that most of us can't understand. It materialises with total lack of regard for rules, of the ring, or society. Rules mean nothing when everything is at stake.
When you resemble a cornered rabid animal, you don't think about reprecusions. Fear takes over. And Mike Tyson is not afraid of being beaten up, he is not afraid of pain, he is afraid of being a no one. Right now he may not be liked, or admired, but he definitely has an identity. And we all perpetuate the myth. The more we say, "He's a thug, he's an animal, he's a killer," the more Tyson will say, "Yeah, I'm a thug, I'm an animal, I'm a killer, and I'm gonna be the best at it that I can."
And as long as he sees his name in the headlines, as long as people are shocked and talking about him, Mike Tyson has a chance to watch the ripples and know that somehow, in some sad way, he still matters.
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