ESPN Classic: The Downfall of Iron Mike

I’ve highlighted the availability of some classic archive footage on SKY channel 442 before so I wont keep you too long. Just a brief note to remind British readers – both of you – that the excellent ESPN Classic channel is showcasing Mike Tyson at 6.30pm GMT tonight. Experts will try to establish the factors behind his protracted demise from the most fearsome fighter of the eighties to a tabloid curiosity by the nineties.

Should make for interesting, though well documented, viewing. Tomorrow the debate on Tyson’s standing as a heavyweight of note goes further, the usual panel attempt to compare the prime Mike Tyson with Muhammad Ali to establish who was the greatest, a debate roughly equivalent to comparing ham and soil as preferred sandwich fillings.

Elsewhere on the channel, but at less opportune times for the working man, legendary fight writer Bert Sugar contemplates the greatest ten heavyweights of all time. Always a difficult brief. Presumably, footage of Dempsey, Marciano, Louis, Johnson, Jeffries and other ‘Black and White’ fighters will be used to ascertain their credentials alongside modern day equivalents. That show is part of a series.

The ESPN website provides a charmingly presented schedule to refer to. Click Here