From the safe remove of their television screens, America loved to hate (or perversely love) Tyson, whom they perceived as a scary black man. He brought in the celebrities and high rollers, filling casinos and pumping pay-per-view buys with a charisma unmatched by any heavyweight since Muhammad Ali. Boxing was in a long decline, but every one of Tyson's fights became a major event. It was a role he embraced%E2%80%94one that proved very lucrative. Pundits likened inner cities to war zones and chose incarcerating a generation of African-American men as a final solution.Īs a child of this blighted landscape, Tyson became the boogeyman of white-flight nightmare. In 1988, boxing was the only major combat sport (UFC 1 was five years away) and American cities were trapped in a cycle of violence%E2%80%94a disaster propelled by social neglect and drug wars. Today, the world in which he took center stage seems impossibly distant.
It's been a quarter-century since Mike Tyson demolished Michael Spinks in 91 seconds to become the youngest lineal heavyweight champion in boxing history.
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