I watched your career from the very beginning. I think I have seen every one of your fights. I followed the story of your personal life as well. How could I not, we are about the same age, we are Generation X. You were on the news all of the time. You were in all the newspapers and magazines. I am a serious boxing fan, and your life is known by people who have never watched the sport of boxing. There was a time when you were the biggest thing in the entire world. The planet knows who you are, and how few people can say that?

I watched Cus D’Amato take you out of public school and turn you into the youngest heavyweight champion in the history of the sport. You were ferocious, you were unbeatable. Mike, you were unstoppable back then. There was a time when it could accurately be said that you were the baddest man on the planet. I watched you become champion, I watched you defend your title, and I even remember your street fight with Mitch Green. How you ran away from the scene thinking Mitch was dead, only to find out the next day he was still alive.

Your life had been incredible to follow. Your mental health journey was and is unique and scary at times. I remember paying good money for a pay-per-view fight only to have the fight end in 91 seconds. I watched even before the pay-per-view days when you knocked Marvis Frazier out in 30 seconds on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. There was nothing like Mike Tyson, nothing before, and nothing after. You truly are one of a kind.

I recently watched you on the Bill Maher show Club Random, where you told the story of what it was like living and sleeping in bed with two Bengal Tigers. I suggest anyone who has not seen that interview to watch it as soon as you can. I read a story recently that you offered a zookeeper 10,000 dollars to let you in the cage to fight a Silverback Gorilla that was bulling the other gorillas. The zookeeper said no because he wanted to hold on to his license and zoo. Having Mike Tyson killed by a silverback gorilla would have been big trouble for the guy. Maybe, big trouble for the gorilla for all I know. That would have been something else.

Mike, I have been there as your fan through it all. Your many legal problems, prison, marriages, and divorces; I have witnessed it all from afar. I watched you slap around that annoying turd on an airplane recently. No legal problems there, people love you now, protect you now, and the cops let that go. See that is the difference, if I bloody up some punk on an airplane, I will go to jail. I am not Mike Tyson.

Your life has been a wild roller coaster and most interesting to follow. I bring all of this up because as a fan I do not want to see you box anymore. You are a national treasure, and I do not want you to get hurt or do some irreversible damage to your health. I was hoping that the health scare on the airplane recently might have been a warning to you that you need to take it easy, but you went into the ring with Paul anyway.

I do not want you to get in the ring with twenty-year-olds or anyone else for that matter. I know it is supposed to be exhibition matches, but even that could go bad. I want to see you in more movies and author some books. People would be amazed to see what a boxing historian you are, drafting a book about the old fights would be great. I would buy that; I love reading about the old days. Enjoy your family, take care of your health, and give us decades more of your fascinating life. Just stay away from cages at the zoo and YouTubers in the boxing ring. You mean more to America than all that nonsense.

C. Rich

CRich@AmericaSpeaksInk.com

C. Rich

C. Rich is the voice behind America Speaks Ink, home to the America First Movement. As an author, poet, freelance ghostwriter, and blogger, C. Rich brings a “baked-in” perspective shaped by growing up on the streets and beaches of South Florida in the 1970s-1980s and brings a quintessential Generation-X point of view.

Rich’s writing journey began in 2008 with coverage of the Casey Anthony trial and has since evolved into a wide-ranging exploration of politics, culture, and the issues that define our times. Follow C. Rich’s writing odyssey here at America Speaks Ink and on Amazon with a four-book series on Donald Trump called “Trump Era: The MAGA Files” and many other books and subjects C. Rich is known to cover.

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