Tyson and Holyfield to meet again?

By Pitt News Staff

February isn’t exactly known as one of the more exciting months for professional sports. … February isn’t exactly known as one of the more exciting months for professional sports.

It’s the month of the Super Bowl, but after that there’s the middle of the NBA and NHL seasons, and NASCAR apparently starts a new season, as does the Arena Football League. To some that might be the bee’s knees, but to others – myself included – that saying just doesn’t hold true. I was looking forward to March. There’s the NCAA Tournament, the NIT Tournament and spring training (everyone loves mesh jerseys and intra-squad games!). On Feb. 28 the real last day of February, I read something that made me hope the month would never end.

The Guardian, a newspaper in the United Kingdom, reported that Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield are in talks for a third match between the two.

Holyfield, 45, defeated Tyson, 41, in both 1996 and 1997, the latter victory coming thanks to Tyson taking part of Holyfield to go – or biting off a piece of his ear, if you prefer.

What can I do to help this take place?

This could be the fight of my generation, narrowly edging out, well, either one of the first two I guess.

I’ve never ordered anything from Pay-Per-View, but if that’s where the fight is, that’s where I’ll be. No price could keep me from witnessing this fight. None.

I can’t speak for my fellow fight fans, but I’m serious.

There are always so many questions one can have regarding Tyson. Is his style still impetuous? Is his defense still impregnable? Whose kids does he want to eat now?

Well, hopefully we can find out soon.

He’s the pinnacle, the golden standard of insane and easily the most entertaining athlete of my lifetime. There is no comeback I’ll ever be as excited about as a time when Mike Tyson announces a comeback.

And to come back fighting Holyfield? The fight can’t happen soon enough.

Holyfield told the Guardian that if not for his mother, he probably would’ve ended up like Tyson.

“She lavished attention on me and that gave me security,” Holyfield said. “Mike never had that, so I feel compassion for him.”

It’s a nice sentiment, but is fighting someone based on feelings of compassion a good idea? Tyson isn’t just any ordinary man either. He has a face tattoo.

If he forgets about that when he’s not looking at Tyson, all Holyfield has to do is look in a mirror at his earrings. Oh, wait, that’s right, he’s missing parts of his earlobes. That’ll teach him to headbutt I suppose.

Who knows what would happen if these two ever fought again. Maybe Tyson, mid bout, would rip off one of his boxing gloves and take Holyfield’s nose, refusing to give it back no matter how much Holyfield pleads.

Maybe it would actually be a good, closely contested fight. Or maybe it would be more painful for the viewers than the participants.

It would be two men older than 40 fighting, and while that might be all fun and cool in the stands of a Little League game, this is professional boxing. Forty certainly isn’t old, but it is in the terms of most professional sports, including boxing.

Perhaps this could start a trend, or better yet, a league of older-than-40 boxers. It works for the Senior PGA Championship.

Well, I can’t say for sure if it works because I don’t follow it, but they have it, and that’s the main point.

A “senior” boxing league would be tremendously entertaining.

Hopefully older boxers would join, and by older I mean boxers well into their 60s.

The clear favorite for commissioner is Don King, if only to come up with rhyming titles for all the big events.

I don’t want to do his job for him, but may I suggest Breaking Bones in Nursing Homes and Getting Licks in Geriatrics as two of the bigger fights?

There wouldn’t be any gaudy title belts for champions. Those don’t seem like someone would be able to actually wear them out after winning one, thus defeating the purpose of making the title an article of clothing.

No, this league will award its champions with gold-plated suspenders.

Every headlining bout would start at 4:30 p.m., labeled as the Early Bird Special, with the minor bouts following that one.

And the loser of each match has to allow his grandkids, or kids if that’s all he has, a long, boring story told by the victor about his life.

So not only is my need to be entertained dependent on a possible Tyson-Holyfield III, but the entire fate of an older boxing league is on the line. This needs to happen for all of us.

Where else can we watch A Bloody Sensation with the Greatest Generation?