Last week my local area newspaper’s headline news was infamous boxer Mike Tyson is coming to my home town to give a £400 a head after dinner talk. I must admit my initial feelings on reading the article where ones of revulsion and ‘so what’s the big deal?’ Mr Tyson or Malik Abdul Aziz as he is now known (after Islamic conversion) has been jailed twice, once in 1995 for the rape of Desiree Washington and then jailed later in 1999 for assaulting people after a car accident.
I’m not denying Tyson may have been a great boxer in his prime but since 1990 and his defeat by James ‘Buster’ Douglas his career was on a downward spiral and instead of being a role model athlete he became notorious for being the bad boy of sport.
I asked myself is this the best sort of person we can attract to our town and why do a lot of boxers careers go into decline?
It seems to me boxing is really quite a sad sport these days, ok we could argue, such as in the case of Tyson it took him off the mean streets of New York and gave him direction. Boxers seemingly have brief periods of career glory before falling into steady decline if they don’t get out soon enough, if the constant brain cell killing beatings don’t get them, then the high living eventually does, I could go on to name loads of boxers that fell from the limelight. What about the poor boxers that never come to anything though, that get pummelled around the ring? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not totally anti-boxing, I just think it’s a little bit barbaric in the 21st century but I’m guilty of watching it in bars etc like anyone else.
I’m sure in this day and age we can channel aggression in youngsters more positively and save them from becoming possible future Tyson’s.
In conclusion my vehemence really isn’t aimed squarely at Tyson or boxing, a lot of us make mistakes in our lives and I’m sure he’s been manipulated a fair bit in his time, my anger is at my local newspaper for making such a big deal of his visit.
Oh and I forgot to mention, if the meal isn’t suitable he may skip the after dinner speech and bite some ears off !!!
I’m not denying Tyson may have been a great boxer in his prime but since 1990 and his defeat by James ‘Buster’ Douglas his career was on a downward spiral and instead of being a role model athlete he became notorious for being the bad boy of sport.
I asked myself is this the best sort of person we can attract to our town and why do a lot of boxers careers go into decline?
It seems to me boxing is really quite a sad sport these days, ok we could argue, such as in the case of Tyson it took him off the mean streets of New York and gave him direction. Boxers seemingly have brief periods of career glory before falling into steady decline if they don’t get out soon enough, if the constant brain cell killing beatings don’t get them, then the high living eventually does, I could go on to name loads of boxers that fell from the limelight. What about the poor boxers that never come to anything though, that get pummelled around the ring? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not totally anti-boxing, I just think it’s a little bit barbaric in the 21st century but I’m guilty of watching it in bars etc like anyone else.
I’m sure in this day and age we can channel aggression in youngsters more positively and save them from becoming possible future Tyson’s.
In conclusion my vehemence really isn’t aimed squarely at Tyson or boxing, a lot of us make mistakes in our lives and I’m sure he’s been manipulated a fair bit in his time, my anger is at my local newspaper for making such a big deal of his visit.
Oh and I forgot to mention, if the meal isn’t suitable he may skip the after dinner speech and bite some ears off !!!
2 comments:
When I worked in Woolworths as a Saturday Girl I served Frank Bruno - he was buying Easter eggs for the girls.
Frank Bruno despite his share of personal troubles is still a nice fella, though sticking to one of my points - he's doing the odd tv appearence and is probably still doing theatre and pantomime.
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