Reinvented Mike Tyson enjoying role reversal, but ‘Baddest Man on Planet’ disappeared long ago
IRVING, Texas — Bruce “Shu Shu” Carrington was 3 years old when Mike Tyson delivered his epic post-fight speech after his 38-second demolition of Lou Savarese in June 2000.
Carrington could still recite it, word for unforgettable word, while he sat several feet from Tyson on a dais Wednesday night at Toyota Music Factory. It was Carrington’s Tyson imitation following one of his recent fights broadcast by ESPN that caught the former heavyweight champion’s attention and led to Carrington securing a spot on the Tyson-Jake Paul undercard Friday night at AT&T Stadium in nearby Arlington.
Like Paul, the charismatic Carrington is 31 years younger than Tyson. The undefeated featherweight contender is from the same Brownsville section of Brooklyn as Tyson and, as a professional boxer, more aware than casual onlookers of Tyson’s accomplishments in the ring.
Carrington is nevertheless representative of a younger generation intrigued by this reinvented Tyson — owner of a hugely successful cannabis business, host of a wildly popular podcast, scene-stealer in “The Hangover” and applauded star of a one-man show. The self-deprecating Tyson displayed his comedic chops Wednesday when, after Carrington mimicked his absurdly contradictory combination of successive sentences — “I wanna eat his children. Praise be to Allah.” — he quickly quipped, “That was very eloquent, but that day I was off my meds.”
Laughter erupted during their news conference once the 58-year-old Tyson delivered that line.
Yes, the 27-year-old Paul is a blown-up cruiserweight with just 11 professional fights and one amateur match on his résumé. He also lost a split decision to British rival Tommy Fury, who is more known as Tyson Fury’s younger half-brother than anything he has done in a boxing ring.
Paul’s disadvantages notwithstanding, he is three decades younger than Tyson and has exhibited power in viciously knocking out former UFC welterweight champion Tyron Woodley, retired NBA point guard Nate Robinson and nondescript cruiserweights Andre August and Ryan Bourland. Those violent conclusions to four of Paul’s fights have understandably made some people fearful for Tyson’s health because he is pushing 60 and almost 20 years removed from his last professional fight.
Concessions were therefore made to account for Tyson’s advanced age. They’ll fight eight two-minute rounds, customary for women’s boxing, and will wear 14-ounce gloves, which have more padding than the traditional 10 usually used in the heavyweight division.
Tyson (50-6, 44 KOs, 2 NC) provided more cause for concern when he suffered a medical emergency on a flight from Miami to Los Angeles in May, reportedly due to an ulcer. Their fight was postponed almost four months from its original date of July 20 soon thereafter.
“Everything starts with health and safety,” Nakisa Bidarian, co-founder of Paul’s MVP Promotions, told Uncrowned. “Going into this, we made sure we had the proper health and medical examinations done to give us comfort that Mike was able to fight in an exhibition or a professional bout. We weren’t sure which way we were going to go with it. Once we got that clearance and, let’s be honest, Mike Tyson decided more than anyone else, that he wanted it to be a professional fight.
“Jake was agreeable to it and we presented it to the [Texas] commission, with modifications to traditional men’s boxing, in terms of the minutes of rounds. But the number of rounds are very common for all forms of boxing. And once we set that, health was still the No. 1 priority. So, when he had an ulcer flare up, we postponed the event by [four] months to make sure that he had plenty of time to heal and felt like he was in tip-top physical condition.”
To be clear, none of the sane among us would want to be grazed, let alone punched flush, by even this older, slower Tyson. When he hits mitts in short clips posted to the internet or during public workouts, you can see remnants of the terroristic Tyson who became boxing’s youngest heavyweight champion by knocking out Trevor Berbick in November 1986 and tore through a division full of fearful former champions and contenders until James “Buster” Douglas destroyed his aura of invincibility that stunning night almost 35 years ago in Tokyo.
What those young and old either don’t know or forgot is that “The Baddest Man on the Planet” disappeared, for all intents and purposes, when rival Evander Holyfield knocked him out in the 11th round of their first fight in November 1996. By then, a disinterested, deeply troubled Tyson halfheartedly had to fight to recoup the millions he couldn’t earn during a 3½-year incarceration on a rape conviction.
His career came to a rather embarrassing end when he quit on his stool against gigantic Irish underdog Kevin McBride after the sixth round in June 2005. McBride was the type of unimposing opponent Tyson would’ve demolished during his heyday. Instead, a listless Tyson had a point deducted during the sixth round for an intentional head-butt, a sure sign that he wanted out of not only that difficult fight, but his crumbling career.
Ten months earlier, British underdog Danny Williams withstood Tyson’s early onslaught and knocked him out in the fourth round of what was supposed to be a tune-up fight. Two years before Williams whipped him, Tyson took an absolute beating for a desperately needed payday against Lennox Lewis, who favors Tyson to beat Paul.
That unsuccessful stretch for Tyson began almost five years after his most infamous moment in the ring — his emotional meltdown during his rematch with Holyfield in June 1997. Yet here we are, 27½ years after Tyson bit off part of Holyfield’s ear, and there are millions unrealistically anticipating a brief reminder of Tyson’s glory days, as if we don’t have longstanding, overwhelming evidence that seemingly no good could come of this somewhat pathetic spectacle.
Tyson, for his part, was at his menacing best during their weigh-in Thursday night. He wore his trademark scowl on his tattooed face, tugged on his genitalia while standing on the scale and slapped Paul to the side of his face before they were separated.
Paul promptly took a cue from his older brother, boxer-turned-WWE star Logan Paul, in assessing Tyson’s transgression with Uncrowned’s Ariel Helwani, who conducted the post weigh-in interviews.
“I didn’t even feel it,” Paul said of the slap, before he began yelling at Helwani. “He’s angry. He’s a angry little elf. Mike Tyson, I thought that was a cute slap, buddy. But tomorrow, you’re getting knocked the f*** out! I’m f***ing him up, Ariel! I’m f***ing him up! He hits like a b****! It’s personal now! It’s personal now! He must die!”
This is the type of boorish behavior that has enabled Tyson to enjoy a role reversal throughout the buildup toward this maligned main event, which will headline a four-fight show Friday on Netflix (8 p.m. ET).
The polarizing Paul has his legion of young fans who want him to knock Tyson silly in a manner, however misguided their theory might be, that will finally legitimize him as a professional boxer. There are millions more, naturally, who want Tyson to accomplish something none of Paul’s opponents could do — silence the brash influencer by knocking him out.
That’s the identical reason so many of Tyson’s hopeful haters tuned in during the 1980s and '90s, to watch an underdog batter an obvious bully who needed to be humbled. It is a switch from antagonist to protagonist that Al Bernstein never envisioned for Tyson, whom he covered as a broadcaster for ESPN early in Tyson’s career.
“Here he is in a situation that we would’ve never ever expected him to be in,” said Bernstein, a former Showtime analyst who also called three of Paul’s pay-per-view fights. “And Jake Paul is good at playing the heel. He is doing it to perfection. And here’s Mike Tyson being rooted on as a 58-year-old by a good portion of the fans that will tune in. It’s pretty remarkable.”
Stephen Espinoza, Bernstein’s former boss as president of sports and event programming for Showtime, will sit ringside for this unforeseen Tyson fight. Espinoza produced three Paul pay-per-view events while with Showtime and served as Tyson’s entertainment attorney for 12 years.
Espinoza advised Tyson during the time he was cast in “The Hangover” and amid his well-documented bankruptcy proceedings. Though involved in Tyson’s post-boxing evolution, even Espinoza is amazed by the public’s ceaseless fascination with his former client.
“It’s hard to come up with another name that has maintained this level of notoriety and recognizability on a global basis for such a long time,” Espinoza told Uncrowned. “They are few and far between. I think he achieved mythical status and became the most famous man on Earth during his peak. And then, I think through a series calculated decisions, he has used that and spread it into other areas. That introduced him to a whole new audience, one that was probably not as familiar with him as a professional boxer. … While he has used his previous incarnation as a springboard, his subsequent reinventions are completely independent of where he was before. There’s lots of people out there who find him intriguing, but they are only vaguely familiar with what he accomplished as a boxer.”
Many of those very familiar with what Tyson accomplished as a boxer believe, even at 58, he is capable of at least providing a brief glimpse of “The Baddest Man on the Planet” when he opposes Paul, enough to shut up the trash-talking influencer once and for all. Why, with so much overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is anyone’s guess.
