Earlier today, we found out that Mike Tyson wants to get in the ring with far smaller women so he can beat the crap out of them for “fun” and “charity.”
Hold onto your hats, people: now we find out that Hollywood Madam Heidi Fleiss wants to offer him up as one of the “studs” on her proposed Nevada “stud farm.” From Salon:
If we were making a list of people most likely to strike a blow for women’s sexual equality, Mike Tyson, convicted rapist, and Heidi Fleiss, convicted tax evader (a consequence of her time as the “Hollywood Madam”), probably wouldn’t rank too high. But as the Los Angeles Times’ Las Vegas Blog, Movable Buffet, reported yesterday, Tyson is apparently in talks with Fleiss to be one of the first hired for her groundbreaking “stud farm,” which, if approved, would be the first Nevada brothel to sell the sexual services of men instead of women.
Fleiss tells blogger Richard Abowitz she thinks Tyson “definitely would” be one of her employees, and that the former champ told her “it’s every man’s dream to please every woman no matter how old, how young, how fat, how pretty, how ugly, it’s every man’s dream to please every woman and especially get paid for it … Hell yeah, I’ll be your number one stud.” That’s funny. I sort of thought it was the dream of most old, young, fat, pretty and ugly women to avoid sleeping with convicted rapists.
Groundbreaking? Marketing a rapist as attractive to the ladies? Calling a black man a stud? Whatever, Heidi.
I…can’t even get into all of the cultural subtext here.
For most, that’s true. But for others, the attraction to celebrities is too strong (golfing with OJ, marrying Menendez, etc.). I’m sure Scott Peterson gets love letters in jail, too.
Jesus fuck. He’s channeling Andy Kaufman now?
…uh, that was wrt beating up women in the ring. I have no response at all to the “stud farm” business.
maybe some people just deserve each other. i dunno.
and yes, i’ve no doubt at all that Scott Peterson gets plenty of love letters.
How nice to learn that Heidi has gone legit.
Her recruitment skills might need a little work, though. I seem to recall Tyson saying once that he likes women to scream in pain when he has sex with them. If he still has that attitude, Heidi might want to institute a “no refunds” policy.
The only reason Tyson isn’t going to make Heidi a lot of money is his voice. If Ted Bundy can get fan mail, Mike Tyson can get clients as a manwhore.
You know Dennis, Tyson’s voice was an image that came to my mind, him humping like a man mad and calling out in his best little boy lisp. I’d get up and demand a refund.
But then, I’d never paid to screw a man and never would, much less a sick man. I once had a man offer me his services in exchange for a ride across town when I was a cabbie. I dropped him off down the block when his four dollars in quarters ran out.
I was a big boxing fan when Tyson was coming up, and I am now. Tyson is a piece of raping, woman-beating shit that deserves to die. I only really have one tool at my disposal to hurt him: my ability to analyze boxing. So, here it goes:
Tyson pissed away all his talent, and always lacked character, such that despite the promise of his early years, his legacy in the heavyweight division will suffer in the eyes of history.
The early Tyson had a particular style that made the best of his short, stocky physical package. He was a slow starter, working the body in the early rounds, using a peekaboo defense (reminiscent of the late Floyd Patterson) to move in on opponents with greater reach (which was everyone). His great hand speed and very compact punching allowed him to land lighting combinations, doing damage on an accumulation of blows. Typically, after bodywork eroded an opponent’s guard, he would move upstairs with short hooks and uppercuts to finish.
At the time, however, the heavyweight division was essentially bankrupt. Tyson turned pro in 1985, and by late 1986 he was fighting for a belt. Coming up, Tyson was undefeated and knocked out a lot of bad opponents. His combination of good power, great defensive movement, relentless pressure and fast hands made him tough to beat, but the talented fighters in the division were mostly either too small (Spinks, a LHW) or too old (Larry Holmes, who was great in the late 1970s and washed up in 1988 when Tyson beat him).
Drunk on his own success and having lost Cus D’Amato as the rudder in his life, Tyson stopped doing what worked. He began to expect, and to look for, early knockouts. To get them, he increasingly forwent defensive movement and body punches, and loaded up for power at the expense of accuracy and combinations. There was not a fighter worth a damn in the division with the exception of Razor Ruddock, whom Tyson would fight twice.
But first, there was the wake-up call. The undefeated Tyson went into the ring against Buster Douglas undertrained and arrogant, but without the movement that had immunized him against the jabs of long-armed opponents in the past. He was humiliated. Douglas, a club fighter of no importance, exposed the complete erosion of his skills. But he also exposed something much more serious: a total failure of character. Mike Tyson, when he was losing a fight, had no ability to adjust or overcome. He knew how to beat inferior opposition, but he had no mechanism to defeat adversity. He did not overcome, he did not adapt; he was merely the sum of his parts.
After Douglas, he fought Ruddock. He was lucky to get a seventh round stoppage (from famous early-stopper Richard Steele), and the second fight went the distance.
He was convicted of rape and went to prison, emerging older, and on the same downward trajectory that saw him flailing to regain his form in 1991. After 1995, he fought losers: minimally adequate journeymen. The movement was gone, and so was the accuracy.
He fought Buster Mathis Jr. It was embarrassing. Mathis, a blubbery and underpowered fighter, relied on the slick defense he had learned as the son of another prizefighter to elude a wild and frustrated Tyson for two and a half rounds, until a typically overcommitted Tyson swing landed flush and flattened him. This was his tune-up fight: he looked like hell and won with a big punch.
He paid Lennox Lewis not to fight him. He fought Bruce Seldon, in a fight that may have been fixed (Seldon laid down after a love-tap). Since Ruddock, he had not fought anyone worth a damn, and still had not looked very good.
In 1996, he fought Holyfield, the greatest fighter in the brief history of the Cruiserweight division, and a smallish heavyweight known for an iron chin and boundless heart. Holyfield was a championship-caliber fighter. Against him, Tyson needed the skills he had forsaken. Instead, he was the lazy, arrogant slugger he had become. When he did not have the fight well in hand after a few rounds, Tyson needed a Plan B. He had none. He kept doing the same thing, and getting hit, until he went down. (That moment is very precious to me.)
Eight months later, Tyson tried again. Again, he was not in control of the fight after three rounds. Again, in his mind, he quit. This time, instead of waiting for the inevitable, be bit off a piece of Holyfield’s ear. He was disqualified, from the fight, from boxing in Nevada, and from consideration among the decent people of the earth.
Against slick, small Francois Botha, Tyson lost the first four rounds. He adjusted nothing, but he did try to break Botha’s arms in a clinch. He kept winging haymakers, and got a break when one landed and knocked out Botha. This was Tyson now — a one-dimensional slugger with no defense, no accuracy, and no game. He just swung as hard as he could and hoped for a knockout. This worked only against mediocre opposition, which Tyson courted ceaslessly.
The only other real championship quality heavyweight Tyson fought was Lennox Lewis. Lewis (who I admire for his flexibility and think is underrated) destroyed him. Tyson was beaten from inception. He gave up in the third round and simply waited for his legs to give out as Lewis picked him apart. It happened in Eight.
In between, there were fouls and controversies, but nothing to re-establish Tyson as a talented fighter. He was and is a circus act.
Great fighters generally overcome and adapt. Ali, over the hill and outgunned, worked out a win over Foreman, who was the scariest fighter is an era of great heavyweights. Joe Louis, every single time he faced a fighter twice, did better the second time (including the first-round devastation of Schmelling, the only fighter to beat him in his prime, and famously the first time a sportscaster referred to an African-American as “the American.”) Tyson never adapted; if what we was doing didn’t work, he did it more desperately, and his repertoire actually shank as he grew old.
Great fighters generally slay dragons. Dempsey disassembled the giant Jess Willard, 6’6″ tall, and demolished Carpentier. Louis beat Baer and Schmelling. Ali beat Liston twice, Frazier two out of three, and Foreman after Foreman made short work of Frazier. Who did Tyson beat? A bunch of guys who were placeholders in the division, a puffed-up light heavy, a great heavyweight way past his prime, and a guy who coulda been somebody named Ruddock. The real quality fighters he fought anywhere near their prime — Holyfield, Lewis — beat him. And not by a little, either.
Great fighters generally define an era. Louis held the title the longest, and at one point so cleaned out the division that his opponents were called the “bum of the month club.” Marciano, who like Tyson came along in a weak era, can at least claim the only undefeated career of any heavyweight champ. Ali was the most significant fighter in the division at least from 1963 to 1976. Tyson’s “era” began in 1986 and effectively ended in 1990. Everything after Douglas was a sad denoument; once his aura of invincibility was lost, he was never the same.
Great fighters generally do not lose to crappy opposition in their prime, or look terrible against weak opponents. Some lose to lesser opponents on the way up, some lose when they fight long after their prime. Ali lost to Frazier in his prime – after a long layoff due to political dissidence; and Frazier was a great fighter. And Ali avenged the loss. But Tyson lost to Buster Fucking Douglas – at his physical peak, twenty four years old. And he looked like hell against Mathis and Botha.
So there it is: a great physical specimen without much in the way of a brain or heart. An interim champion who dominated only in a terribly weak era. He lost to a schmuck, and he lost to the best fighters he faced, and he was unimpressive except against unimpressive opposition. Broke, deeply in debt, crazy, ridiculed and a convicted felon, even the faded glory of his ring accomplishments will escape him as boxing historians put him in perspective.
Heidi Fleiss might well have been able to make a few bucks selling John Bobbitt as a stud, if she’s nabbed him right after the penis-hacking incident, purely from the contingent for whom any kind of celebrity is a draw.
Other than that, I can’t imagine why anyone would pay to sleep with Tyson.
You missed the even better Tyson news at pandagon:
http://pandagon.net/2006/10/18/michael-steeles-bad-unreal-campaign-strategy/
Former Heavyweight Champion Mike Tyson proudly displays a shirt bearing the name of his brother-in-law Michael Steele, who is running for the Senate in Maryland, following his news conference in Cleveland, Ohio, October 16, 2006.
[...] ws about Mike Tyson department, part I: Heidi Fleiss thinks sex with a convicted rapist is just the thing to start selling [...]
Oh, for fuck’s sake. And I LIKE the idea of the brothel for women–I think it’s high fucking time our agency is acknowledged. But considering hiring a fuckwit like Tyson tells me that our agency doesn’t mean shit. Did Fleiss work under the commonly accepted myth of female sexuality for so long that she just plain lost touch with reality?
I find this hard to believe (no pun intended). Women have been paying for sex just as long as men. Get real…
Not at licensed brothels in Nevada.
In principle, I don’t have a problem with this idea, either. I do wonder, though, how much patronage such an establishment would get from women. Our local dominatrix who has a weekly sex column mentioned that the male sex workers she knew (and she knew quite a few) primarily served male clients. As she put it, women didn’t pay for sex because “women don’t live in a world of sexual scarcity.”
Obviously, this is just anecdotal evidence, and there is definitely more to the story, but she encapsulates my skepticism pretty succinctly.
Exactly, the point I was clumsily making through anecdote. The whole scenario makes no sense. Women prostitute because historically its one of the few ways women can make a good buck for their independent survival (i speak of this culture/society only). Men hold the economic power and also have the social advantage of alienating women who make themselves available for purposeful sex outside of procreation/marriage.
Some small number of women may pay for sexual services, but nothing on the scale of men.
I’d have no doubt that Heidi Fleiss is first-rate nutcase.
very good Tyson history thomas, thanks.
Mike Tyson, Male Gigolo?
Apparently hiting women for fun and profit isn’t enough for Mike Tyson. Great move for someone known for rape and domestic abuse, by the way. He’d also like to be a manwhore:
If we were making a list of people most likely to strike a …
I do wonder, though, how much patronage such an establishment would get from women.
I dunno, I thought I was just being paranoid, but the first time I heard about this I thought that it would be a great place for a rapist to get a job. I mean, I wouldn’t trust the cops to take the complaint of a woman who was raped at Heidi Fleiss’s Stud Farm for Women seriously. So I would imagine that even a lot of women who are tempted by the convenience would be put off by the safety issues, even without Mike “I like to hear them scream in pain, I like to see them bleed” Tyson in the picture.