A MEMORY OF IRON MIKE TYSON IS REVIVED THIS WEEKEND

A memory from Scotland, in the year 2000, was jarred loose this past weekend. When I realized that a boxing match was being held by two elderly fighters. Their names, Mike Tyson and Roy Jones Jr. Both of whom have preserved enough of their brain cells. To realize that they could, once again, convince a gullible sports population to pay them, for a fight. Even though they are past their prime and pretty much, over the hill.

Both of them were lucky, to fight each other. And not to have picked a fight with someone that could hit back, like Bubbaloo for instance. She would have taken clubs, knives and sneaky Peruvian fighting tricks in the ring against them and really got their attention. Pound for pound, I would say she is by far the most dangerous of the three. Many’s the time where I slept with one eye open, after pulling off one of my stunts.

I cannot lie, but could not resist a peak at this spectacle. However, I did wait, though, for it to come for free, on YouTube. I watched the highlights and dozed off after a couple minutes of the most exciting moments of the “fight”. Snoop Dawg, pretty much nutted it when he commented. “It reminded me of watching two of my uncles fighting at the family weekend barbecue”. But, now comes the hook, as I was watching this I suddenly sat bolt upright. Suddenly, realizing I have a connection to Mike Tyson in my memory bank. “Geezus”, you’re gonna say, “don’t tell me you got drunk and fought him too?” Well you have a good point, partly. And that is where this memory starts.

It just so happened that during our stay in Edinburg, Scotland it was announced that Mike Tyson would be fighting a Texan named Lou Savarese. The fight to be held in Glasgow, Scotland, a few miles down the road. “Did I care to go”? “Hell yes I’ll go”. Now is where the deep part comes in, and I display some unquestionable bad judgement. I already had an invite to go to Rotterdam, that weekend, and see the UEFA World Cup Soccer Final. It was between France and Italy. I guess about the biggest event in soccer in the last few years. And happening not far from where we lived.

I, in all of my wisdom, decide that I would rather see Mike Tyson pound the crap out of a Texan. Than to go to a once in a lifetime event. That millions would have sold themselves for, to just get a ticket. Not one of my best decisions you might say. I have no argument against that! Anyway, another of our VP’s happily takes my tickets and goes to Holland in my place. I mean I was so naive when it came to soccer. That I did not realize, I could have asked him for a thousand dollars a ticket and he would still have been my buddy. So decision made, I’m now waiting patiently for the big fight. It is to be held in the Glasgow football stadium and we have ringside seating. I can’t wait! What could possibly go wrong?

Come fight day and a half dozen of us had commandeered a company van and driver. And long about noon, piled into our transport for the short ride to Glasgow. We had allowed plenty of time for a 7:00PM start, of the bouts. Plenty of time to find the arena, scout out the area and go into a pub to watch the World Cup Final that I was now missing. The place was in an uproar. Each and every person in that Pub would have given a piece of their manhood to be at that game, rather than sitting in Glasgow watching it on a small TV.

Well, the afternoon passes and so does a fair quantity of beer. We are loud and boisterous and our excitement was building to a crescendo in anticipation of the upcoming fight. About 5:00PM we start to make our way to the stadium, knowing there would be huge line-ups and a significant wait before we got to our seats. We had decided that we would finish our beer drinking and partying in our seats at ringside. After what seemed like a long time, but was probably less than an hour, we were inside and looking for our seats and for the beer servers. Then it all comes clear, there were no beer salesman, and no places to purchase beer once inside of the venue. If you wanted anything to drink, you had to have smuggled it in yourself.

No problem, we’ll just go back outside, load up and return. Oh yeah, not so fast. Once you entered the Stadium there was no getting out. It was a one way deal. Apparently, set up to keep people like us from going outside to purchase drinks and then returning and becoming hooligans. Oh great, we are now stuck in here for the long haul and already feeling the effects of stopping consumption midway into a good party.

A little dejected we now make our way to our seats. The first thing we notice on arrival at our seats was that indeed, they were at ringside with a great view of the action. We were so close it was considered the “blood spray zone”. The only problem we could see was that in this dome covered stadium, there was one round opening in the roof and it was directly over centre field and above the ring. Why anyone would build a dome and leave a hole in it, is beyond my comprehension. All the rest of the seating is completely covered and “high and dry”.

Ok, all griping aside, here we were, all settled in nicely, to watch the prelims. It is now about 7:30PM and we have lots of boxing to watch. The first match starts, and coincident with that, a light rain starts to fall right on us. We are so excited that we hardly noticed the rain and the quickly falling temperature. Amid lots of hype, a couple of speeches and some pomp and ceremony, the first two fighters are introduced. One was the flyweight champion of Italy and the other, the local champion from Scotland and of course, a crowd favorite. I have nothing against “little guys” fighting each other, but I kinda lose interest when they are so small that the boxing gloves look like pillows, attached to their chicken wing sized arms.

Well they got stuck in. They both proceeded to a place, about 5 feet away from each other and then put on a twelve round display of ballroom dancing, shadow boxing and feinting and jabbing. Now I am noticing the rain! It is getting wet and cold, I have the start of a hangover creeping on, have fallen asleep twice in a hard ringside chair and stayed with the fight for the next hour. Geezus, how many more of these to go? I now start following the program, much the same as I used to follow the one in church, quietly ticking off the boxes until it is all over. Fight after fight proceeds in the same manner.

The rain increases in density and decreases in temperature. My mood sours, and my enthusiasm wanes. I am now having a hard time staying with the course of the fights. I think somewhere in the second or third prelim, someone may have even landed a punch in anger. It was pretty exciting for about 1 second, although it didn’t come close to knocking the receiver of the punch, on his ass. Soon they bowed to each other and returned to their dance. Now at long last, the anxiously awaited feature bout of the evening.

By this time, I am seriously wet and cold, and feeling deeply sorry for myself. However, the answer to my dreams was in front of me. Into the ring steps Lou Savarese, he tentatively looks around to see if the subject of all his nightmares has yet entered. He goes to his corner looking defeated and furtively seeking a place to hide. Now I’m here to tell you, this Texan was a big boy. He had shoulders about 4 ft. across and a waist of about 2 ft. diameter. He looked like Adonis, albeit a scared shitless Adonis. Then comes Iron Mike, amid wild screaming and shrieking of the fans and accompanied by his entourage, he leaps into the ring, arms held high and bobs and weaves around the ring.

Poor old Lou now has a little look of panic in his eyes. I expect he could have used some clean undies by this time. The crowd is wild and the first row is standing on their chairs in front of me. I’m peeking up through their legs to try and follow the action. After what seemed like a long, long time, the ring was cleared of all dignitaries and hangers-on and the fight was about to start. Row one returned to their seats and I now had an unobstructed view of the ring.

DDDOOONNNGGGG goes the bell and Mikey launches himself across the ring and at Louie. There is a flurry of jabs, feints and pokes all from Mike and a flurry of cover-ups by the now flailing Lou. Mike backs up and charges in again. One two, a left and a right and then he swings a home-run at Lou Savarese’s head. It appears to just graze him, but continues on and nails the 73 year old referee right smack in the snot. Down he goes and bounces right back up to start the count of a “stiff as a board” Texan. Now curled up in the corner in a fetal position. The crowd is going crazy, the row in front of me are on their chairs, I can barely see, the rain is now coming down ferociously and I am miserable.

I then hear a dddiiiinnnggg, dddiiinnnggg and this fight is over. “hold it, wait a minute, stand that big pussy up and let’s get this fight going!” The 73 year old referee, who by far, took the best shot in this fight is holding Iron Mike’s arm in the air, and for all intents and purposes, appears to be ok. Meanwhile Lou is being loaded onto a stretcher to be hauled away into ignominy. Geezus, I am hung over, spent all day waiting for a fight that lasted a few seconds, didn’t even see the fight when it did start and am now on my way out of the stadium, headed for home cold, wet, miserable and half sick, from lack of beer with which to complete a full hangover.

On the way out, I am stopped by a BBC reporter to ask where I’m from and whether I have any comments. I grab at her mike, but she is a strong little thing. I pull it close enough to blurt out, “Geezus what a ripoff, 200 pounds and we watched a few seconds of boxing, the referee took the best punch and is still walking. Lou was grazed by the same punch and is now in major trauma recovery, am I pissed……” with that she tears the mike from my hands, caps it and says to me, “you can’t talk like that on national television”. I load up for a retort when she abruptly turns away and corrals someone more sane looking, to question further.

I am so cold I shake all of the way home. My drenched clothes are sticking to me and as I climb the stairs to our bedroom, I hear Bubbaloo snickering to herself and otherwise half stifling some snorts of glee. There she is wrapped up in her fleece comforter, wearing her flannel Pj’s and watching the replay of the fight on TV. I told her, “just do it! Just say one word, I dare you”. At this she snorts out a full belly clenching laugh that strikes deep into my soul. Like tonight’s opponent I just tuck my tale between my legs and slink away. And that my friends is my memory of Mike Tyson, stirred up by the famous fight of November 18, 2020 (20 years later), against Roy Jones Jr.