Mike Tyson sat in almost magnificent silence, refusing to engage in the bombast and bluster of the final press conference before he fights Jake Paul in a charade of a contest on Friday night in Arlington, Texas. As I stared at his familiar tattooed face I remembered what he had told me on a sweltering afternoon in the summer of 1991.
We sat then in a stinking Las Vegas gym and Tyson tapped me on the hand in reminder of a bleak truth. “Look what happens to fighters,” he said, “even the best of them. Joe Louis ended up a doorman at Caesars Palace. He was in a wheelchair at the end. Sonny Liston died in this town, a drunk and a junkie with no money. Even Ali, look at Ali. I love Ali but when they introduce him at my fights I look away. Sure, they cheer him, but where’s his beauty now, his speed, his talent? It’s gone … it’s gone.”
