Mike Tyson: Las Vegas Freak Show
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Sean Hackbarth | Friday, September 1, 2006 |
My how a sports great has fallen:
Some crowded around the ring with cell phone cameras in hand. Others sat at a bar not 20 feet away drinking beer. Still others ignored it all and smoked cigarettes and played slot machines.
Mike Tyson used to put on displays. On this day, he was just on display.
Down the street, tourists watched lions and dolphins between breaks at the slot machines. In the Aladdin hotel, they didn’t need to move from their seats at the bar to see another curiosity in a makeshift ring.
The former baddest man on the planet has been reduced to this — just another freak show on the Las Vegas Strip.
The signs said he was in training, and that was enough to lure a few hundred people to the makeshift ring set up just outside the casino’s buffet restaurant. Training for what was a question better left unanswered.
Tyson once made $35 million for one fight and more than $300 million in his career before blowing it all. Now he’s a casino sideshow, trying to make a few bucks the only way he knows how in a sport he no longer can stand.
Exhibition bouts might be in Tyson’s future. It’s like Rocky with the never-ending sequels. What pro wrestler will Tyson take on?
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