Mike Tyson May Never Fight Lennox Lewis

Just the other day Mike Tyson got into yet another public display of his violent temper when he hurled some Christmas decorations at a couple of reporters who had the temerity to photograph him while he was on vacation in communist Cuba. Sporting a new tattoo across his belly of Che Guevera, a communist guerrilla fighter who helped Castro enslave Cuba, this tattoo was a fitting mate to his other tattoo of Mao Tse Tong (or Mao Zedong), the mass murderer of almost 60 million Chinese. [No serious student of 20th century history should now doubt the vicious, bullying nature of communism, not just as it was practiced by individual mass murderers such as Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot, but at its philosophic core. If you need an eye opener please read the Black Book of Communism by Stephane Courtois, et al., from Harvard University Press.

That such a street bully would embrace other brutes such as Castro, Mao and Che is no surprise as Tyson likes to portray himself as misunderstood and persecuted, just as communist leaders and insurgents have painted themselves for years. The similarities don't end there, as the communist leaders and insurgents pretend a love for the common people against the monied classes, all the while living lavishly while their "comrades" terrorize the citizenry. Tyson fits in well with these folks who are all, at heart, cowardly street bullies who have ascended to certain "thrones." In the case of the dictators and their henchmen, the thrones of nations; in the case of Tyson, the throne of heavyweight champion and public figure.

Of course, Tyson is the most overrated champion of all time. The two men who defeated him, Buster Douglas (a journeymen at best) in Tyson's prime, and an over-the-hill Evander Holyfield during Tyson's first comeback reign after his rape conviction, should let us understand that when Tyson faces someone who actually fights back, he folds -- just as the Soviet Union folded in its face-off with the United States.

Tyson has made a career of looking ferocious against second-rate or terrified fighters, but avoiding fighters who can actually fight. Take a gander at the following names of fighters who were and are top contenders during Tyson's career and recognize that they all have one thing in common -- Tyson avoided them: Riddick Bowe, George Foreman, Lennox Lewis, Tommy Morrison, David Tua, and Ray Mercer with whom Tyson had a date but cancelled it for fear he would lose before raking in the big bucks in a Lewis fight (and loss).

Tyson has feasted on the likes of various nobodies who usually come into the ring waiting to go out of the ring in a hurry. Or, if the fighters attempt to fight, they just haven't the skills to do much damage. Indeed, Tyson's latest fight was against somebody who resembled and fought like the Pillsbury Dough Boy rather than a professional fighter -- and it took Tyson six rounds to do him in.

Tyson knows he is going to lose to Lewis and the rumor mill is now on full alert that Tyson seems anxious to avoid Lewis and is looking to fight John Ruiz, a journeyman fighter who has spent the better part of a year and a half "fighting" poor old Evander Holyfield and achieving a piece of the "disputed" heavyweight championship. Recall how Tyson claimed he would "eat Lewis's children." The press erroneously took this to be a metaphor that Tyson was using to say that he'd beat the living hell out of Lewis. However, I took it literally. Tyson, after all, did munch on the ears of Evander Holyfield and his various barroom and parking lot brawls with regular folks (such as parking lot attendants, beauty contestants, etc.) situates him perfectly to devour any offspring of Lewis but to be done in by Lewis himself.

Knowing this, Tyson seems to be getting himself into the kind of situations that might delay or derail the proposed April fight with Lewis, the real champion and a fighter that Tyson has avoided for years. Several weeks ago, Tyson is alleged to have gotten into a fight at a nightclub in Brooklyn. Now, this Cuba thing. If Tyson can't get a fight with Ruiz, thus avoiding Lewis, he just might get into a fight with "you," get himself arrested, and avoid fighting altogether.

Then again, I wouldn't be surprised to find that a job awaits him in oppressed Cuba (a country whose native fighters have to flee in order for them to fight professionally), as a cigar cutter for Castro, a bird of the same feather.

Just don't be surprised when you read that Iron Mike Tyson and Lennox Lewis just won't be a fight you're likely to see.