Amy's Robot

The strange and terrifying world of Mike Tyson

As a diversion from your own wretched life this Friday afternoon, we bring you a USA Today profile of Mike Tyson, a tortured soul. Tyson has been through a lot in his time, and I've always admired his ability to continue to produce new headlines, each one more bizarre than the last, ("Mike Tyson thrown in solitary confinement after being denied psychiatric medication", "Tyson says he wants to rape victim and her mother", "Iron Mike hits rock bottom, admits homelessness", and "Mike Tyson sings Volare in Sanremo") for two decades now.

But these days, Tyson is a shell of a man. On June 11 he will go back in the ring against Kevin McBride, but he has nothing but regret for how his life has turned out. Here are a few quotes from the epic USA Today piece:

"I'll never be happy. I believe I'll die alone. I would want it that way. I've been a loner all my life with my secrets and my pain. I'm really lost, but I'm trying to find myself. I'm really a sad, pathetic case. My whole life has been a waste — I've been a failure."

"I just want to escape. I'm really embarrassed with myself and my life. I want to be a missionary. I think I could do that while keeping my dignity without letting people know they chased me out of the country. I want to get this part of my life over as soon as possible. In this country, nothing good is going to come of me. I'm so stigmatized, there is no way I can elevate myself."

Mike apparently is still wrestling with some paranoia issues: "People are trying to force me to redeem (myself) — certain women, certain mentors," he says. "Nobody's going to change me. I'm going to fight that. You can't change me; you can't tame me. When you say that, I'm going to bite you even harder. I'm more ferocious, more complicated. I'm not going to let anybody win a popularity contest off my conduct."

And slips a few times on the demonic banana peel of reality: "They would give (the late) Jeffrey Dahmer a second chance before they gave me another one. If you saw a (police) lineup and saw Tyson and Dahmer and they asked, 'Who killed and ate those people?' you would pick me and not Jeffrey."

If there's one thing this article proves (if the Che Guevara and Mao Zedong tattoos haven't given it away already) it's that Tyson is definitely your go-to guy for crazy. It's sad, in a way. Who could have predicted that today he would be the one raising pigeons, while Evander Holyfield rose to a new level of fame and critical admiration on Dancing With the Stars?

categories: Celebrities, Crime, Sports
posted by amy at 1:24 PM | #