The Rise and Fall of Kid Dynamite

Last weekend, ESPN Classic aired (several times) an episode of Ringside which took a six-hour look at the rise of Michael Gerard Tyson, aka Iron Mike, Kid Dynamite, The Accused, Prisoner Number 922335, etc. I TiVoed it and managed to watch all six hours in bits and pieces this week, finishing it up this morning before work. I'm not the most fervent of boxing fanatics, by any means, but you didn't have to be in the 1980's to be instinctively drawn to the awesome power and fearsome menace of Mike Tyson.

The kid seemed unstoppable, and to watch him prey on helpless victims in the ring was a one-to-one parallel to witness gladiatorial combat. You'd see some undefeated but unproven boxer enter the ring with Tyson, and each opponent was a different storyline towards the inevitable knockout. You'd see the foolhardy aggressors, coming right at him and lunging into a knockout uppercut; you'd see the frightened defenders, trying in vain just to make it through a few rounds by dodging and weaving until a Tyson flurry left them defenseless; and you'd see the big white stiffs, taking punches no man has a right to, bleeding profusely, and eventually succumbing. They came in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and they pretty much all left on a gurney.

Watching Tyson fight was, much like I'd imagine watching gladiators fight to the death, a guilty pleasure. There was a tension because you just knew he was going to bludgeon the other guy, you just didn't know when. You sit waiting, sometimes for rounds at a time . . . and sometimes for 45 seconds. And then it would happen, and the other boxer would fall over, and that's when the guilt sets in. Because man, it's just not ethical putting a mortal man in the ring with that monster. Guys' eyes would be rolled up in their head, or noses would be visibly busted, or blood would be gushing, or lumps would swelling to grotesque proportions. They'd be disoriented to the point where corner men would have to tell them they'd lost the fight. Referees would have to TKO them with that sad hug, saving them from life-threatening injury because the man's brains have been so pounded, he's become the person least responsible for his own personal safety at that moment. It's all so pathetic, and that's when you get the flash of how grisly, barbaric, and seemingly archaic the caveman sport of boxing is. For anywhere between 39 seconds and 12 rounds, it could be a display of athleticism, discipline, strength, stamina, conditioning, and craft; for a few moments after a Tyson fight was over, it was just a bully brutally and mercilessly picking on some poor sap.

Classic interspersed a paneled discussion between airing the Tyson bouts, one which featured resident ESPN boxing guy Brian Kenny, pugilism journalist Bert Sugar, former Tyson trainer and current analyst Teddy Atlas, and, in some parts, Larry Holmes. They provide great commentary (most notably the former three; I just remember Holmes blaming his KO by Tyson solely on his hand getting caught in the ropes -- Larry, you were old and got thumped) on the history behind the quick ascension of the phenomenon of Mike Tyson, and they set the stage for his downfall.

The story of Tyson is the stuff of cinema -- even better than the usual film plots, actually. As time has worn on, the natural progression of how folks feel about Mike Tyson has been from rooting for this amazing kid to make it to the top to rooting against him once he was there (and his outside-the-ring issues became more apparent) to rooting for him to come back in a return to glory to mocking him like the irrelevant sideshow geek he's become, and pitying him -- not for his failures, because not everyone reaches the mountaintop he climbed, but for the failures of others in his formative years to create anything less than a time bomb in Everlast shorts.

Anyway, the show culminated with the Buster Douglas fight. The commentators set the stage with discussions about how Tyson was on autopilot about that time -- and how he'd gotten rid of the key players in his corner who had any ties to Cus D'Amato's legacy and replaced them with Don King's suck-ups and his own parasites. His conditioning had become suspect, and he'd truly never been tested. But nobody nowhere nohow saw James "Buster" Douglas as the man to take him down. In fact, few to none of the major sports media even sent people to cover the Tokyo bout. And it's amazing to hear the announcers talk early on about how Douglas probably just wanted to make it through the first round.

And then it happened. Douglas fought the perfect fight, and Tyson was unbelievably unimpressive. This fight alone was worth sitting through the long show, and you end up almost as stunned as the frenzied announcers -- who had thought they were in for another dog of a match whose only redeeming quality was netting them a free trip to Japan, but found out they were able to be ringside for one of the greatest upsets in modern sport. The fight also separates itself from trite boxing cinema. Rocky always fell behind early and rallied late, but the better tale was Douglas, in command from the first round but appearing to falter and fade, only to rally with an energy the boxer never displayed before or since. The backstory, the Cinderella story -- it's all there.

If they happen to re-air this edition of the Ringside on Tyson, it's worth checking out -- even if, like me, boxing is only an occasional guilty pleasure. Mike Tyson's heyday -- the five years upon which these six hours focus -- is still the intense can't-look-away draw it was back then.