Remember when Tyson got knocked out by Buster Douglas in Tokyo? I didn't see the fight (didn't have pay-per-view... that was the other cool thing about the early fights, they were all on HBO, dammit)

Anyway, there was a photograph of him, the Unbeatable, Undefeated Unified Heavyweight Champion, fumbling around on the ground trying to shove his mouthpiece back in.

Wow, I thought, this is as low as he can get!

Little did I know...

Tyson is the only fighter I've seen that literally terrified his opponents. Not with all the sideshow antics of his later days, but just... fear. I think he gave up a reach advantage in every single title fight and still scared the crap out of people. I don't think we're going to see that kind of mystique around a fighter again for a long time.

Anyway, outside of Tyson, Roy Jones Jr, Pernell Whittaker and Michael Nunn (remember him?) all had moments of greatness. Sugar Ray Leonard fought too infrequently by the time I was old enough to watch--they were kind of like "boutique fights," especially when he was reduced to beating the crap out of that pansy Donny Lalonde (the Great Canadian Hope) and smacking an 80 year old Roberto Duran around again.

From watching old films, George Foreman in his prime was absolutely ferocious. If he had half of Ali's brains back then he could have been champion for years. And though people sort of laugh about it now, Larry Holmes was a mean old bastard in the early 1980s as well.

I hate being a fogey about it but it's pretty clear that boxing has gone into the shitter in the last ten years. All there is is Mike Tyson's face tattoo, Don King's hair and Bert Sugar's awful hat and eternally unlit cigar.