And if anything could wash away the years, bite the ir- off of irrelevance, it would be the opening deern deern, deern deern, deern deern, deern deern of “Niggaz in Paris.” The track soon looped in on a comparative verse from Jay-Z. But he wouldn’t be fighting, just proffering a behind-the- scenes, no-holds-barred version of his story- the truth, undisputed.

In the crowd were those who had seen Tyson fight 25 years ago, or 15 years ago (what a long decade that was) and then there were the younger generation, fans like me, infatuated or dispassionately interested by this specimen, both the casualty and a triggerman, of American sports celebrity. The extent of this evolution shown in the light of the screen, which featured his trademarked (this isn’t a figure of speech, ask the producers of The Hangover II) facial tattoo, looking like a decorative ninja knife mounted above some drug dealer’s flat screen.Īs the crowd filled up the Adrienne Arsht Center, it was a clear reminder that more than any other sporting event, boxing still could suspend differences of race and class and gender, leaving us what we are, Americans, those in search of something to look at. Yet it was in the 1990s when a series of controversies calcified to create a type of death mask of noble public figure.

In the 1980s, Tyson was seen as both an animal and as a machine-the tenaciousness with which he trained, combined with the savage clockwork of his fights, produced a truly liminal man. “The people of this society that believe I’m trash and scum, I’ll be trash, and I’ll be scum.

“Fitzgerald said that there were no second acts in American lives.”

Exciting times author