Once Again, Boxing Gives Us What We Deserve

“You know me,” Mike Tyson said. “I’m a blood man.”

There was blood in the ring. Blood on the canvas. Blood on the ropes. It was left there by Joe Hipp, an American Indian. Hipp gushed for 10 rounds against Bruce Seldon, a titled champion, in the bout just before the one the world awaited.

Not a drop of it belonged to Peter McNeeley.

“He’s a very likable person,” Tyson said.

Tyson gave thanks to Allah that neither he nor McNeeley were hurt in their brief encounter here Saturday night in the House of Oz, not a prayer that promoters are likely to chorus, nor any of the paying customers.

Boxing without misery is dancing in underwear.

Don King, the oft-indicted ringmaster of the evening, was moved to shout to a room full of cynics, “This is not a ripoff!” but could not come up with a better word for it.

It was a great casino fight, over early so the gamblers could get back to the tables. They love those minute-and-a-half interludes from the real world. Tyson has always been a casino favorite in that regard.

“I’ve beat people with bigger reputations quicker,” Tyson said.

Nevertheless, McNeeley was what everyone had said he was, a pushover. Tyson’s right-hand uppercut that put McNeeley down for the second time pushed him right over. McNeeley stood and wobbled, and then his manager, Vinnie Vecchione, rushed into the ring to collect his money.

“I remember Jimmy Garcia and Gerald McClellan,” Vecchione would say, recalling fighters made comatose by boxing.

He may also have remembered Bonnie and Clyde, Willie Sutton and Murph the Surf. This was theft, not necessarily a bad thing. Robbery is the only reliable way to beat Las Vegas, after all.

“I’m always ready to fight on,” McNeeley said, “but the people around me, the people who love me who are on the other side of the looking glass, can tell better.”

Vecchione will have to explain to a commission how much he loves McNeeley before they will release his cut of the purse, a meager sum compared to what Tyson and King and the rest will make. His was a small scam compared to King’s and Pay-Per-View’s and Showtime’s and MGM Grand’s, all the cynical overlords of Tyson’s return.

I don’t begrudge Vecchione and McNeeley going back to Palookaville with their pennies. They never had to fight, just attract attention, and that they did.

The most honest question asked of Tyson after the fight was who, after four years of not fighting, Tyson’s first opponent will be. Tyson did not answer, and all his worshipers groaned.

At this point, Vecchione and McNeeley made their exit, proving even after concocting their own public humiliation, they were still not immune to insult.

That is also us on the other side of McNeeley’s looking glass, and we deserve everything boxing does to us. No matter how despicable it gets, we keep coming back.

We will be back for Tyson’s next fight. Hey, maybe one of us will be his next opponent. We couldn’t do any worse than McNeeley.

When Tyson made his way to the ring, we stood and cheered as if Tyson were Mother Teresa, who would not have done any worse than McNeeley, either.

Our voice sounded like love.

“It told me not to listen to what’s written about me,” Tyson said. “According to all the articles, I’d think everyone hated me. I see it is different.”

Outside the casino, exploiting the same circus, demonstrators marched and hoped to be noticed.

“Amazing that O.J. Simpson and Mike Tyson are the two most famous men on the planet,” marveled Anne Golonka, of the National Organization for Women.

While Tyson was failing to brutalize McNeeley inside, the women chanted, “Rape is not a sport.”

Neither, by the way, is boxing.