Tyson’s Place in History: Has-Been

They took away Mike Tyson’s license to box, which was the same as taking away his license to be somebody. To get hit worse than Tyson was by the Nevada State Athletic Commission, he would have had to fix his fight with Evander Holyfield.

Tyson has fixed himself instead, in history and memory, as a has-been.

Tyson is through now, whatever happens in a year, when he is eligible to apply for reinstatement as a boxer. He gets time from boxing now, the way he got time for raping Desiree Washington.

Most of the promise he once had, the chance to be one of the great heavyweights, was left in a prison cell in Indiana. The rest of that goes with the judgment.

Tyson the boxer is falling apart fast, in front of everybody’s eyes, the way the man fell apart in the third round against Holyfield. Forget the money he has lost. The thing he could least afford was more time.

They took away his license, took away $3 million of his $30 million purse. They could have suspended him for three years. Instead they told him to come back in a year, talk to them then.

Finally, the commission, by acclamation, called Tyson “a discredit to boxing.” The words, the self-righteousness of that, made you laugh. You want to be a discredit to boxing, you have to get in line.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission just decided Tyson went too far in a ring, the way an Indiana jury decided Tyson went too far in a hotel room. This time Tyson is marked lousy by the lousiest sport we have.

Tyson “remains a gentleman today and retains his dignity today,” Tyson’s lawyer Oscar Goodman said.

In that moment, Goodman didn’t sound like a lawyer at all, he sounded as if auditioning for a place in Tyson’s entourage, for a spot in the chorus always telling Tyson that he’s still the champ, that it was the head butts that made him bite Holyfield, that it was head butts that made him lose the first fight with Holyfield, that he is still the baddest man on the planet.

He hasn’t been the baddest man on the planet in this decade.

First he caught a beating from Holyfield in November. This time it was a boxing commission. Nobody seems to be afraid of him anymore.

Once, before a fight with Tyrell Biggs, Tyson said, “Everybody’s got a plan till he gets hit.” It was true of Biggs in Atlantic City, it is true of Tyson today.

He never had a plan after he got hit. He never really had a plan when the other guy wouldn’t fall down. Now he gets set down for a year, and maybe more, if he doesn’t finally learn some manners.

There will always be another payday for him, another score. You’re never used up in boxing. George Foreman never goes away and Sugar Ray Leonard never goes away and neither does Roberto Duran.

Sing no sad songs for Mike Tyson today. He did this to himself. He quit that fight by twice biting Holyfield as surely as if he had taken a dive, said “no mas” and taken a walk.