Iron Mike
I have the day off of work today. It's raining and other than cleaning there's not a whole lot to do. I've been to the bank and run all my errands.So with boredom pretty much finding me today I turned on the TV and flipped to good ole ESPN.
Much to my delight they are replaying fights from Mike Tyson's early years. At first I wasn't sure who it was that was fighting. The graphics were horrible and the fight had not yet started. The commentator is describing the first boxer as a laid off cole miner from the Virginia hills. He's 6' 4" and weighs in at 230. He has won 154 amatuer fights and after a three year layoff in the cole mines he's returned to boxing and started a professional career. His name is John Alderson. He's 29 years old and he's undefeated so far in his brief professional boxing career and so is his challenger. He comes into the fight with a perfect, yet thin, four and 0 record.
The camera then pans over to the opponent's corner to reveal a shorter muscular man walking furiously from rope to rope. The 19 year old kid from the streets of Catskill, New York has not even the faintest scent of doubt in his mind...his name not yet "Iton" but is absolutely Mike Tyson. Also at 4-0 for his professional career Tyson is obviously giving up height and reach, yet the crowd cheers for him as the announcer calls out his now legendary name.
The bell rings. Within 15 seconds Alderson's nose is is bleeding red like a crushed tomatoe. After a minute Tyson has had Alderson on the ropes twice and has landed several full strength swings and narrowly missed on a half dozen others. It is obvious Alderson won't last much longer.
The bell rings and ESPN goes to a commercial break. As most channel surfers do I begin surfing through other stations.
Five minutes later, I'm back to ESPN...
Not only was I right that Alderson would not last much longer, but in those short five minutes Tyson had jumped from a mere 4-0 record all the way to 11-0...that's right folks...six wins in less than 5 minutes. Tyson is now fighting another man. Again giving height, weight, and reach advantages Tyson continued to redefine what at the time was called Heavy Weight Boxing. Houston's Eddie Richardson who would also succumb to Tyson in the first round. Alderson was lucky...he made it to the second.
I looked up some info on Tyson. Mostly because I grew up following Tyson's career. He is the great fighter of my lifetime. Yes, Ali, Leonard, and Camacho have all been around, but they were one (or more) generations older than mine. Tyson was the fighter of the eighties and nineties. I looked thru some of his records and found some very interesting statistics that maybe have been overshadowed by his ruthless self implosion over the last 15 years.
In his first year as a professional fighter (1985) Tyson fought 15 fights. He would need only 21 rounds to dismantle 15 opponents. Thats a ridiculous average of 1.4 rounds per opponent. The longest match lasted only four rounds. The lucky opponent was Don Halpern. Based on a standard google search for that name only reveals that the highlight of his career was that four round match with Tyson.
Tyson's heavyweight career ended at an official at 50-6 with 44 wins by knockout. He fought an amazing 35 fights in the first four years of his controversial career without a single loss.
Despite the staggering numbers Tyson's career will always live in the shadows of his incidents in and out of the ring. However, when I was watching the early match this afternoon I saw the most grueling and devastating boxer I've ever seen fight. Tyson was so compact and it seemed like he could throw knockout punches litterally while standing straight up on his feet. His arm were like cannons delivering heavy artillery to the head and body of a hardhat wearing, lunch pale carrying cole miner. Tyson had no fear. He immediately claimed the middle of the ring. His opponenet obivously did not know (or I should say could not know) how to counter this "Iron" man standing before him.
In 1986 Mike Tyson stood, much the same as he does today, at 5'11" and what could only have been a feather over 200 pounds and destroyed all of those that came to challenge him.
Sources: Tyson's record. Tyson's Background.
Much to my delight they are replaying fights from Mike Tyson's early years. At first I wasn't sure who it was that was fighting. The graphics were horrible and the fight had not yet started. The commentator is describing the first boxer as a laid off cole miner from the Virginia hills. He's 6' 4" and weighs in at 230. He has won 154 amatuer fights and after a three year layoff in the cole mines he's returned to boxing and started a professional career. His name is John Alderson. He's 29 years old and he's undefeated so far in his brief professional boxing career and so is his challenger. He comes into the fight with a perfect, yet thin, four and 0 record.
The camera then pans over to the opponent's corner to reveal a shorter muscular man walking furiously from rope to rope. The 19 year old kid from the streets of Catskill, New York has not even the faintest scent of doubt in his mind...his name not yet "Iton" but is absolutely Mike Tyson. Also at 4-0 for his professional career Tyson is obviously giving up height and reach, yet the crowd cheers for him as the announcer calls out his now legendary name.
The bell rings. Within 15 seconds Alderson's nose is is bleeding red like a crushed tomatoe. After a minute Tyson has had Alderson on the ropes twice and has landed several full strength swings and narrowly missed on a half dozen others. It is obvious Alderson won't last much longer.
The bell rings and ESPN goes to a commercial break. As most channel surfers do I begin surfing through other stations.
Five minutes later, I'm back to ESPN...
Not only was I right that Alderson would not last much longer, but in those short five minutes Tyson had jumped from a mere 4-0 record all the way to 11-0...that's right folks...six wins in less than 5 minutes. Tyson is now fighting another man. Again giving height, weight, and reach advantages Tyson continued to redefine what at the time was called Heavy Weight Boxing. Houston's Eddie Richardson who would also succumb to Tyson in the first round. Alderson was lucky...he made it to the second.
I looked up some info on Tyson. Mostly because I grew up following Tyson's career. He is the great fighter of my lifetime. Yes, Ali, Leonard, and Camacho have all been around, but they were one (or more) generations older than mine. Tyson was the fighter of the eighties and nineties. I looked thru some of his records and found some very interesting statistics that maybe have been overshadowed by his ruthless self implosion over the last 15 years.
In his first year as a professional fighter (1985) Tyson fought 15 fights. He would need only 21 rounds to dismantle 15 opponents. Thats a ridiculous average of 1.4 rounds per opponent. The longest match lasted only four rounds. The lucky opponent was Don Halpern. Based on a standard google search for that name only reveals that the highlight of his career was that four round match with Tyson.
Tyson's heavyweight career ended at an official at 50-6 with 44 wins by knockout. He fought an amazing 35 fights in the first four years of his controversial career without a single loss.
Despite the staggering numbers Tyson's career will always live in the shadows of his incidents in and out of the ring. However, when I was watching the early match this afternoon I saw the most grueling and devastating boxer I've ever seen fight. Tyson was so compact and it seemed like he could throw knockout punches litterally while standing straight up on his feet. His arm were like cannons delivering heavy artillery to the head and body of a hardhat wearing, lunch pale carrying cole miner. Tyson had no fear. He immediately claimed the middle of the ring. His opponenet obivously did not know (or I should say could not know) how to counter this "Iron" man standing before him.
In 1986 Mike Tyson stood, much the same as he does today, at 5'11" and what could only have been a feather over 200 pounds and destroyed all of those that came to challenge him.
Sources: Tyson's record. Tyson's Background.
posted by Jeremy @ 2:09 PM
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