Category: Mike Tyson

Money. Lewis, Usyk and Jeremy Bates

Article first published at BigFightWeekend.com.

Usually, it comes down to money. That is the ‘why’ of every fighter’s inability to retire at the zenith of their respective careers, with their personal peaks, however modest, conquered. Pugs and champions in their thirties and forties have always scrambled to resist the slope that waits beyond that crescendo since first they donned gloves.  

Lennox Lewis spoke to Sky Sports this week about his hope that Oleksander Usyk would follow his own rare example and depart the sport at the very top.  

“When a guy retires, it’s really down to him. He’s got to feel that push that he wants to retire.” Adding, “I would say to him to retire at your own time but retire on top. Like I did.” 

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There are no more miracles. Ali and Holmes 45 years on

Ali and Holmes. The sad decline of Ali exposed to the world.

Article first published at BigFightWeekend.com

October 2nd 1980. The Last Hurrah.  

45 years ago, Larry Holmes beat up his hero. A fight which sickened those watching on who loved his hero too. Muhammad Ali had reached into his deep reserves of magic and found there were no more miracles to summon. Aged 38, Ali’s feet were now slow, his energy sapped by a decade of grueling encounters with Frazier, Foreman and Norton, weight drained by misuse of Thyroid pills and the first creep of neurological demise becoming ever more evident. Ali was no longer the quicksilver punisher of the 1960s, the lion-tamer of the early 1970s or even the stubborn old warhorse of 77 and 78.  

That he would fight again a year later against Trevor Berbick ghastly evidence that those who loiter in a champion’s orbit are rarely there for love.

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Itauma and the drain of comparison

Article first appeared at BigFightWeekend.com

As an ever larger cohort of fight fans are exposed to the prodigious talents of heavyweight Moses Itauma, the degree of comfort they feel with the media comparing him to the once imperious Mike Tyson will largely be governed by the plasticity of their thinking. Or put more simply, their age. 

It isn’t a mirror Itauma sought, but promotionally his career has been benchmarked against Tyson as the narrative that he could become champion at a similar age hung heavy in early press releases. Or would have if people still wrote them. 

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Come in 37, your time is up – Whyte and Itauma at a familiar crossroads

Article first appeared at BigFightWeekend.com

Every match made in a boxing career is, essentially, a crossroads fight.  

Terminology widely applied to bouts between fighters on an upward trajectory and an opponent trying to arrest decline or prove it to be a false narrative. Crossroads fights tend to have something at stake for both parties subject to the grasp the veteran has on the remnants of his ambition and the potential that pulses beneath the novice’s bravado. The advantages of youth versus the assurance of battle hardiness. 

Moses Itauma, aged 20, versus Dillian Whyte, 37 years young, possesses all the elements required to earn the crossroads moniker and is the latest in a long line of prospects facing off against an established name.

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Itauma. Speed bumps

Article first appeared at BigFightWeekend.com

In a division populated with fighters born in the late 1980s, Moses Itauma is an anomaly. A heavyweight aged just 20 and blessed with hand speed largely unrivalled in the current landscape.  

Already a contender by virtue of knockout victories over the always available Marius Wach and Kiwi Dempsey McKean, albeit the latter made famous for once being proposed as a Tyson Fury opponent and having an echo of a former great audible in his first name.  

Informed scrutiny would diminish both. Nevertheless, it remains a valid pair of victories for a novice professional given the decisiveness of the finishes and the risk they were intended to present. It was easy. It was eye-catching. Memorable. 

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On the shoulders of giants. Moses Itauma

Article first appeared at BigFightWeekend.com

A biblical name. Laden with promotional opportunity. A southpaw with dynamite in both hands, Moses Itauma could be the next special heavyweight.   

It is a familiar path, a familiar sales pitch. Young, powerful, fast. Crashing through the professional losers, the part-timers and then the vaguely known, to the peripheral, the stout, the sturdy and the once were. Busyness is the business. Accumulating highlight reel knockouts, interviews and brand recognition. 

Building a heavyweight from a youthful prospect to contender to challenger to champion is usually done from this tattered but trusted blueprint. Evolved, such as it is, for these times of reduced activity and our deficit of attention, it remains rooted in a century or more of match making. 

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Battle for the Ages. Usyk and Dubois meet again

Article first appeared at AndysBetClub  

Saturday, Wembley Stadium. A fight for the undisputed Heavyweight title. Is there a more tantalising prospect in sport? 

On the night, the brilliant Ukrainian Oleksander Usyk, 23-0 (14ko) will seek to confirm his status as the King of the division and the master of his generation by defying the hard-charging Brit, Daniel Dubois, 22-2 (21ko). 

An intriguing battle of styles is promised; the guile and precision of Usyk versus the brawn and aggression of the revitalised Dubois.  

At 38-years-old, Usyk can no longer be regarded as being in his physical prime. However, his efficient style and life-long dedication to the sport coupled with faultless technical prowess are extending his currency and his reign. 

For Dubois, once troubled by inertia, nerves and an apparent lack of certainty in how best to deploy his obvious gifts, he has now matured into an exciting, aggressive puncher – trading shots with opponents with the confidence of a man suddenly aware of his own power. 

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Fury and Five historic Heavyweight title rematches

Article first appeared at BigFightWeekend.com

Tyson Fury’s attempt to recapture the heavyweight crown from Oleksander Usyk on Saturday is the latest in a series of rematches that have illuminated the legend of the title the two will contest. 

He isn’t the first to seek redemption through a rematch but if he is successful, he will join an exclusive band of fighters.  

Applying metrics to determine the best of more than a century of heavyweight title rematches is a complex endeavour. Is it the entertainment value of the fight? The historic significance? Or the quality of the two fighters? An amalgam of all? 

In short, conjuring a top five is a merely opinion and the following selections could be largely interchanged and there were many worthy contenders not included too: 

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Billam-Smith loses title to Ramirez, remains undefeated as a Gentleman

As images emerged of Chris Billam-Smith in the days that followed his courageous display versus the talented Mexican Gilberto ‘Zurdo’ Ramirez; left eye closed shut, the signature white tape clinging to the stitches on his brow and a bandaged hand with broken digits, it was hard to suppress growing admiration for his performance – despite the clear defeat he suffered. The pictures served as another reminder of the damage accrued in punishing, distance fights both in the conspicuity of the short term but also stored deeper for those days beyond the lights when retirement and middle age come to collect on the debt of punches taken.

Billam-Smith, like illustrious predecessors Cooper, Farr and a legion of others, won new fans and deepened the respect with which he is held via his toughness between the ropes as well as his conduct and demeanour in defeat. The Bournemouth favourite is a throwback to fighters who punched for pay long before most of Saturday’s paltry crowd in Saudi Arabia were born.

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Rusty Iron Mike faces Problem Child Jake Paul

Article first appeared at AndysBetClub.com

At the AT&T Stadium, Arlington, Texas on Saturday night, heavyweight legend Iron Mike Tyson will box Jake Paul in a fully sanctioned contest to determine who the bigger fool is; the 58-year-old Tyson clambering back between the ropes, the 27-year-old You Tube star Paul daring to tangle with even a decrepit husk of the once impervious former champion or we the viewing public simply for tuning in.

For those willing to indulge this circus as the boxing match it proports to be, finding value, form and the advantage one may hold over the other – in the way conventional fights are analysed and previewed – is further complicated by the unknowns of Tyson’s inevitable decline and Paul’s peculiar path to this bout.

Bookmakers are in consensus that Jake Paul is the favourite – widely available at around 4/9 for the OUTRIGHT WIN, with Mike Tyson therefore available as a 2/1 underdog.

This conclusion is broadly drawn on one single metric. Youth.

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Meek and Destroy. Dubois finds his inner badass

“By an act of will, a man refuses to think of the reasons for fear, and so concentrates entirely on winning the battle.”

Richard Nixon, American politician, 1913-1994,

It has become a forgotten truth that fighters don’t always lose when they lose. Learning lessons in defeat can prove more valuable than the apparent affirmation of victory; punishing the lazy, or the arrogant and affording perspective to those willing to listen to the truths defeats present, losing can be a gift.

A fighter beaten can still return stronger and better for the setback. In the past fighters accepted this and as a result, at least in part, they fought more often because the worry of defeat wasn’t as troublesome as it has become in era when being unbeaten was the preeminent narrative.

Daniel Dubois became a refreshing example of the value of fighting tough opponents and the catharsis of defeat. Against the cocky Croatian Filip Hrgovic on Saturday, in the midst of the latest lurid carnival of lost integrity from Saudi Arabia, he fully delivered on his physical gifts, years of hard work and the humility required to learn from defeat once considered a crippling weakness.

Conversely, Hrgovic finally paid the price for a relaxed outlook which this week appears to have mutated into hubris.

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Chisora. Doomed to a banquet of consequences

It is almost twenty years since Evander Holyfield lost by Unanimous Decision to Larry Donald at New York’s Madison Square Garden for the vacant NABA Heavyweight title. A result and performance which left the wilting 42-year-old former Heavyweight Champion as a peripheral figure in the title picture and, to use the cinematic boxing vernacular, ‘all washed up.’

The announcement of Derek Chisora’s proposed fight with Joe Joyce on July 27th, two heavyweights of advancing years with little prospect of recapturing youth or relevance looks like a fight too far for Chisora. It brought to mind the New York State Athletic Commission’s (NYSAC) attempt to discourage Evander Holyfield from boxing on following his loss to perennial contender Larry Donald.

Frank Warren, the promoter of July’s London card, naturally feels entirely different about the match up: “Two top London heavies fighting it out for a place back at the top table promises to deliver a cracking scrap. The winner is right back in business, with no real place to go for the loser.”

At this stage, with concerns for how much of Chisora remains, Joyce could prove to be the most dangerous opponent he could face.

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Thurman, the man no more.

The news Keith Thurman will not be boxing the surging Tim Tszyu for the Australian’s WBO belt and the vacant WBC Junior Middleweight title this weekend due to a bicep injury caused barely a ripple of surprise to those who have followed the Florida man’s catalogue of sabbaticals in recent years. It is cruel luck perhaps, but nevertheless an entirely predictable development for a 35-year-old fighter once of incredible gift, seeking to push his body through the rigours of training camp for only the second time in two years and the third in five.

Thurman’s career, if this marks the end of his significance, is increasingly defined by what he has been unable to do as that which once came naturally to him.

Evidence of declension, from the vitality of his twenties to the dwindling returns of his thirties, was writ large on his face long before he withdrew from the Tszyu fight. There was age in his eyes. The luster of youth lost from his skin.

The elongated Sebastian Fundora, also from Florida, and aged 26, steps forward in Thurman’s stead.

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Old man Wilder will ‘find’ Parker, eventually

Eventually, boxing always returns to the big men. Heavyweights transcend the traditional boundaries of boxing in ways Middleweights and Welters never can. Enthralling the masses; from trailblazer Jack Johnson, to Jack Dempsey, from Joe Louis to Mike Tyson and of course the greatest of them all, Muhammad Ali too.

On Saturday, the boxing circus will pitch tents in the sand and insanity of Saudi Arabia as the nation continues its sponsorship of sporting events to distract from the sadism and impossible affluence of its ruling class.

All eyes will be on a pair of heavyweight attractions sitting proudly on top of the deep and intriguing Day of Reckoning bill. American Deontay Wilder faces New Zealand’s Joseph Parker in a battle of former belt holders that functions as a qualifier to box the winner of Anthony Joshua and Otto Wallin.

There is much at stake here.

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Dubois can expose the Miller myth

Twice suspended for failed PED tests, Jarell Miller has still received an invitation back to the big time with a match versus Daniel Dubois

Article first appeared on Gambling.com

Dubois to win by decision 15/8 with BETVICTOR

On Saturday in Riyhad, Saudi Arabia, amidst the huge Day or Reckoning card, Daniel Dubois arrives at a crossroads in his boxing career. Triumph, and some of the lustre lost in defeat to Joe Joyce and Oleksander Usyk will be restored, defeat, and the suggestion Dubois lacks the ability and resolve to succeed at world-level will be confirmed.

Now aged 26, Dubois, 19-2 (18ko), was long-marketed by Hall of Fame promoter Frank Warren as the future of the division. The heir to the throne variously occupied by Fury, Joshua and Usyk.

The defeat to Joyce back in 2020, a knockout loss in which Dubois suffered a broken orbital bone around his eye and opted to kneel and take the 10-count when ahead on the cards, curbed excitement about his prospects. Warren too, seemed discouraged. It posed the question; is Dubois willing to risk, in the way the greats often must, to land the prize?

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Myth, mirth and miracles. Fury finished or unfocused?

Article first published at BigFightWeekend.com

Muhammad Ali turned 36 a few weeks before his loss to novice professional Leon Spinks. A man with as many gaps in his smile as fights on his ledger. Tired and compromised, Ali was a poorly coordinated confection of numb defiance and flickering memory by the early Spring of 1978. The shuffle, the rope-a-dope all danced and lumbered into view. No more than crowd-pleasing catchphrases from what had once been masterful soliloquies.

Spinks’ victory, following a paltry 7 wins and a draw from a little over 12 months as a professional by way of preparation, remains one of heavyweight boxing’s greatest upsets.

On Saturday, another ageing champion faced a novice. And surprise visited boxing once again.

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Eubank, nostalgia and the glow of the past

Article first appeared at BigFightWeekend.com

To each their own. Every generation venerates a new clutch of heroes. My grandfather was born in the era of Jack Dempsey, marvelled at Joe Louis and was a contemporary of fellow Doncastrian Bruce Woodcock, who could fight a bit. His voice whispered through the pages of the books I inherited on his passing in 1984 too, Ali was the best of them all the collection suggested. He was gone before Iron Mike tore through the late 80s and before the seeds of love for the sport he planted blossomed into interest.

For children of the 70s like me, it was all about Tyson; inescapable, unique, intoxicating. But he was also out of reach. Seen through the prism of highlights and delayed screenings. Domestically, it was Nigel Benn and Chris Eubank, with a fleeting dose of McGuigan, and a sprinkling of Big Frank.

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Veteran Wilder punches toward future greatness

The bigger they come, the harder they fall.
Bob Fitzsimmons, 1862-1917

It is the nature of the meandering river of life that the vistas and postcards of the past can seem more lustrous than our current view. That which has passed becomes richer for the embellishment our memory imposes and the present dulls as our optimism dissipates with grey hair and midlife. Applied to boxing, it exaggerates our heroes and denigrates their successors.

This manifests as “Tommy levels Floyd”, “nobody beats peak Iron Mike”, or for older observers, “nobody punched like the Brown Bomber”. Ask Eddie Murphy. These opinions root deeply, becoming fixed in the landscape of our outlook. It closes us to the brilliance of now. The genius around us. Things new can still be great and may one day, if we are spared long enough, be the fixations of our future. Best to embrace the enjoyment they provide as if still young ourselves, than diminish them in the kangaroo court of our rose-filtered nostalgia.

Saturday’s knockout win, accumulated with a single right hand that travelled around 18 inches, continued to confirm that future history will smile on Deontay Wilder in much the same way it romantacises those bygone gladiators.

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Joyce’s chin, otherworldly, is an asset and a deterrent

The weekend reluctantly succumbs to a grumbling Monday, children scramble onto back seats and the drizzle of late September sneers at those too lazy to cut the lawn the day before. In the ensuing silence, thoughts, ideas compete, ebbing and flowing for those of us wrestling with obligation, the should dos afforded by time and solitude.

Boxing lurches in to frame among the unwashed breakfast pots, the dogs that need exercise and the bill that needs paying. It isn’t always this way. Golovkin and Canelo III came and went leaving little fat to chew on by the Monday, despite the generational greatness of the pairing. A tired episode in a great rivalry. The money laden, but inferior, Godfather III if you will. Years too late.

Into the wash of their encounter stepped Shakur Stevenson, the next, next Pretty Boy. He has predecessors as would be successor to Floyd and his Uber-wealth. 25 years old and 22 ounces over the limit. He won. Cemented his status. But missing weight brought more headlines than the fight. The nature of the modern mediums. Words, failure, toxicity create more wake than quality, preparation, success.

And so it fell to the heavyweights in Manchester, England. The two nice guys called Joe, Joyce and Parker, met in a crossroads bout. Was this the top of Joyce’s arc or could he continue his climb versus Parker, a man who had soared with Joshua and Ruiz already? Expectations had been modest. Joyce, huge, lumbering but effective. Parker, stout, sharper and seasoned.

Both excelled. And their bruising encounter revealed a new player at the top of the division.

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Beyond reasonable doubt. Usyk chases confirmation, Joshua redemption

Article first published at Bookmakers.com

“Doubt … is an illness that comes from knowledge and leads to madness.” ― Gustave Flaubert 

Saturday’s heavyweight rematch between Anthony Joshua and Oleksander Usyk, a bout awash with possibilities and drenched in the oily wealth of its hosts, will anoint Tyson Fury’s successor following the Gyspy King’s insistence he has now retired. Other shiny and glib garlands will be draped about the victor of course but in the old money of boxing, either Joshua or Usyk will become, the man. 

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Whyte goes all in for Fury chance

The higher I go, the crookeder it becomes.

Michael Corleone, Godfather III (1990)

Dillian Whyte is a good heavyweight. He isn’t Earnie Shavers, or Ray Mercer. He is, as the Acorn and Merciless were, a good heavyweight in an era that belongs to others. Whyte has compiled a resume that stands comparison with most of his own contemporaries. And a few of his predecessors too. His era isn’t the golden one of Shavers and his thunderous right hand but it has the potential to rival or surpass many of the decades that preceded the glorious 1970s. Besides, no fighter chooses his or her own time.

However history will remember Fury, Joshua and Wilder’s era, their collective defeats and the emergence of Usyk is unlikely to remove any of their names from above the door of the decade they’ve cohabited but Whyte has been a perennial presence. The demise of his showdown with Otto Wallin, a credible if unexciting fixture, became ever more predictable following Joshua’s decision to opt in on the contracted Usyk rematch and the WBC mandating a victorious Fury negotiate with the winner of Whyte and Wallin.

The risk to reward ratio of the Wallin fight changed. Dramatically.

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And the band played on. Boxing’s voyage to the abyss

Rogers Morton, a prominent figure in American politics in the 1970s, once said, while serving as Campaign Manager for Gerald Ford’s ailing push for the White House and pressed on how he intended to salvage lost momentum; “I’m not going to re-arrange the furniture on the deck of the Titanic.” A quote that would outlive the Statesman, both in political influence and life, he would succumb to cancer in 1979, and one that became synonymous with actions deemed superficial and redundant in the face of impending disaster.

As a 58-year-old Evander Holyfield clambered back down the ring steps in Florida this weekend, a state which withdrew his license to box 17 years ago on the grounds of his diminished ability, it is easy to clamour for boxing to do something, to intervene. Thousands added their voices to the cause in the days before the ‘fight’, screened by Triller (no, me neither) and commentated on by former president and the doyenne of delusion, Donald Trump. They urged ‘boxing’ to change course, to come to its senses.

Gratefully, it took but a few seconds for Holyfield to be separated from his, if he wasn’t detached from them, or at least reality, when he arrived.

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Povetkin, a nomad from another decade, rides again

Alexander Povetkin

Welterweights, lightweights, feathers, they’re all better technically, quicker, busier. But it’s impossible not to be drawn by the old dreadnoughts, the big bruisers, the heavyweights. This weekend fight fans can indulge the oldest of their pugilistic persuasions, as Russian veteran Alexander Povetkin offers Dillian Whyte a second opportunity to add his rusting hull to his resume.

Both men will hope to parlay a victory into a world title shot, the first for Whyte, the 27th for Povetkin. I exaggerate of course but there is a feeling of the perennial about the heavy-handed 41 year old. Briefly, he excited those searching in the detritus of the 1990s for a successor to the thrown abdicated by Iron Mike. For a moment or two it was a hefty clubber from New Zealand with a Don King do and then it was Povetkin.

Neither fulfilled the destructive promise of their youth. Tua grew ripe on the vine waiting for his mandated shot at Lennox and Povetkin, having first turned down a shot at Wladimir under the tutelage of Teddy Atlas, then slowed, thickened, like an over cooked borscht, and by the time he decided to say yes he wasn’t the threat he would have been when fresher and quicker.

If he beats Whyte again, he may get one more shot. And with his power, some natural, some acquired, one shot could be enough.

That’s the heavyweight appeal.

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Undisputed Heavyweight Championship clash close to becoming reality

Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder exchange blows

By Hector T. Morgan

Fantasy fights have long been a source of debate among boxing fans. Cross generational contests divide followers; Ali and Tyson, Mayweather and Leonard, the idea never ages, the passions evoked never cool. In the modern era, a time of fewer fights between the sport’s great and good, boxing fans are often left with only the fantasy debate to decide who is the best between two fighters who co-exist. Politics, money, broadcast platforms, sanctioning bodies, fear, they all play their role in keeping the best prize fighters apart.

The news Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, the best two heavyweights active today, are on the brink of signing to box each other this summer is, therefore, a subject of both excitement and cynicism among those same boxing fans. Excitement about the contest, the all too uncommon clarity it will provide for the heavyweight division duels with the enduring suspicion that fate or politics will intervene once more.

It is a tantalising fight, but dare we believe?

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Ali v Frazier, 50 years on, still casts a shadow long enough to eclipse Fury v Joshua

Ali is down. Fight of the Century

I don’t think Clay will want one.

Joe Frazier answers the question of a rematch following his seminal victory over Ali in 1971.

I was born in the summer of 1973. Bawling my way in as a humbled United States left Vietnam, a few weeks before Nixon’s impeachment began and Great Britain joined the EEC it left acrimoniously in January. I arrived broadly equidistant between Muhammad Ali’s back to back encounters with Kenny Norton. I like to refer to Kenny as Kenny, I don’t really know why. Perhaps I hope it implies friendship. On that basis, Mr. Norton would probably be more appropriate, but I digress.

Kenny was of course the strapping enigma the Champ could never quite resolve, in those two fights or in their trilogy bout in ’76. By the time my interest in boxing was stirred, first by the emotive sight of Barry McGuigan walking through the mist and hot breath of Loftus Road to face Pedroza in ’85, and then the amalgam of Tyson, Balboa and Herol, Muhammad Ali was no longer an active fighter.

There he remained. Still waters. Frozen in time and placed out of sight by retirement, remembered only by the words and pictures contained on my, by then, late grandfather’s book case.

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Benn, Bruno and Nicky Booth, and the lost boys of 2001

Back in 2001, British boxing had meandered into a strange, uncharted hinterland. An odyssey of greed and short-termism in the preceding five years reducing it to a role in the margins, a sporting outcast. Neglected, eroded and far removed from the roaring crowds of the preceding decades. The resurgence of stadium fights had faded to black, dissolving in to the night like the thousands who shuffled, stumbled and strode from the crumbling castles of Wembley and Loftus Road.

Images still lingered in the collective memory. Plumes of warm breath and cigarette smoke drifting on the midnight breeze, the last slurred rendition of ‘Bruno, Bruno’ absorbed by the rattle of taxis and tube trains beneath. In the crowd’s wake, plastic glasses and torn betting slips, the debris of a night, were swept from the aisles. The headaches and penitence of a thousand tomorrows still to unfold for the departing revellers and the fighters they came to see.

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Revisited: Quirino Garcia, the elephant and the castle.

We have no time to stand and stare. And stare as long as sheep or cows. No time to see, when woods we pass, Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

W.H. Davies, poet, ‘Leisure’

Parking had been difficult, as was finding the venue itself, and as a result, I was late for the show. It was long since dark and the city still intimidated me despite my tailored attempt to project self-assurance and belonging. I broke into a jog between the pools of street light on my way to the Elephant and Castle Leisure Centre, London. It was late March, 2002. A cool night, I missed the entrance. Twice. No fluorescent signs, no limousines. Just a door, in the shadows, almost turning away from the glare of potential passers by negotiating crossings, blurting horns and the choke of car fumes.

Boxing inhabited a different world twenty years ago. One of Leisure Centres and bootlegged world titles. Smaller. Seedier. And virtually unrecognisable from the gigantic events we now enjoy.

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Boxing embraces the ‘two headed snake’ of nostalgia and celebrity

“‘Remember when’, is the lowest form of conversation”

Anthony Soprano (James Gandolfini), The Sopranos Season 6

The news Felix Sturm, once a credible middleweight, will fight again this month, aged 41 and a full four years after his final bout, albeit successfully for a title at the time, comes as no great surprise. Just another unnecessary swansong from a chorus line of by-gone prizefighters who can’t quite let go.

It is a timeless fable for grizzled pugs. From Jack Johnson to Sugar Ray, Tommy Farr to Smokin’ Joe, fighters have always returned, financially or emotionally motivated far beyond the reach of their prime. And for those that don’t, the comeback is never far from their mind, or the lips of an inquisitor. Whether champion or chump, intact or broken, there is always one more fight. As another old heavyweight out of Philadelphia, himself no stranger to punching for pay in his fifties, lamented to his confidant, Paulie; “There is still some stuff in the basement.”

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Knowing when to quit (featuring Iron Mike and Daniel Dubois)

I don’t need permission

Make my own decisions

Robert Barisford Brown, (1969- ), My Prerogative

There was an unerring symbiosis between Saturday night’s principle contests. The old and the new, the real and the forged, the premature and the belated. A pair of bookends to boxing’s top shelf of literature.

In London, unbeaten heavyweights Joe Joyce and Daniel Dubois duked it out to an 8 second TikTok loop of crowd noise for a prize as old as the gloved sport they excel in. While across the pond, Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jnr., two fighters who predate Jurassic Park, tried to dig up the remnants of their glorious past against an LP of greatest hits for a belt even the WBC couldn’t produce in time.

Continue reading “Knowing when to quit (featuring Iron Mike and Daniel Dubois)” →
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But it’s Mike F****** Tyson

Take it from me,

It’s hip to be square

Huey Lewis, Songwriter, 1967-

I’ll have to whisper. So come a little closer. Now, look, this thing Saturday. Yer know, the fight. No, not that one. The other one. Yeh. That one. Well, I know all the hipsters have had their say and I know it’s all a bit silly, but, well, how can I put this?

I’m a little bit excited.

I know it’s wrong. I know I’m meant to rise above it. Look down on it. Reject it. Yeh, yeh, 54, I know. I know. But it’s Tyson.

Mike ******* Tyson.

Don’t tell me you’re not watching it.

Continue reading “But it’s Mike F****** Tyson” →
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