Iron Mike Tyson

[(sportman)]

http://msn.foxsports.com/boxing/story/5920042

[hockeystl]

Of all the casinos......the ALADDIN??? which is under construction to the Planet Hollywood. Oh my....

[(sportman)]

Really sort of amazing...

For some strange reasonI feel for him

Can't stand all the pukes that are no longer around him. (used him)

[ParanoidAndroid]

Worked with a buddy that had many ties to the boxing world. Told me of a story where some guy put a deposit down on a Ferrari in Beverly Hills, threw it on the back of a truck, drove it to Vegas to show it to Tyson. Tyson bought it on the spot for something like 50 large over invoice.

This guy made 50 large all for taking a car and making it look shiny & attractive to Tyson and driving it out there, nothing else - not even any money out of pocket. Pretty insane.

[(sportman)]

I remember when Frazier fought Ali in '71.

They were both guaranteed 2.5 mil.

Frazier had no idea how many zeros there were in a million.

[(sportman)]

I wonder what MIKE TYSON would have done to these two on that night????

[selkirk]

saw an interview with tyson on in this corner, and he came across as a man who changed. he admitted making dumb mistakes and almost to the fact that he could not understand why people were still interested in him.

sounding like he gained some knowledge from all of his mistakes in life.....

thanks
selkirk

[SwampHog]

Agreed, Mike Tyson is way smarter than he lets on. He's actually got a piercing intellect. Most just see the beast, which I'm sure was some portion of his fall from grace.

[TheVig]

Toback toe-to-toe with Tyson's tale
Documentary screening in Un Certain Regard
By ANNE THOMPSONThe time was right.
Filmmaker James Toback had been close with Mike Tyson ever since the fighter broke into boxing, even before he became a star in the ring at age 18. Finally, 23 years later, Toback is at Cannes for the first time with "Tyson," the filmmaker's second doc, which is screening in Un Certain Regard on May 16.

The writer-director knew the onetime heavyweight champ more intimately than most. Anthony Michael Hall first brought Tyson to the set of Toback's 1987 "The Pick-Up Artist." After running into Tyson in New York soon after the boxer emerged from prison, the filmmaker put him in a scene with Robert Downey in 2000's "Black and White."

Over soft drinks on the Majestic terrace in Cannes, the filmmaker says of Tyson: "It's a classic tragic story of someone who rose to unimaginable heights and destroyed himself through hubris, overreaching and recklessness. He sank to the bottom, resurrected himself and reached an even higher pitch of fame and iconic status around the world. He's an extremist personality."

The two men have spent long hours -- and many latenight phone calls -- philosophizing about life and death, about radical behavior and madness, a subject they both know something about.

"He's very intelligent, very curious, but he had not expressed it yet," Toback says. "The self is a tenuous artificial construct. It is grounded in the endlessly mysterious chemistry of that 3½-pound object called the brain, but at any moment, this social convention we make to each other to say we exist and are sane and OK is a very fragile entity which we call sanity."

Toback, who has been sober since shooting 1983's "Exposed," knew there was a lot going on behind the image of the out-of-control, raging, tattooed primitive who spent three years in an Indiana penitentiary for rape and bit off part of Evander Holyfield's ear -- not once but twice.

After Tyson emerged from prison and made his second comeback, only to plummet from grace again -- a victim of an extreme lifestyle in pursuit of money, sex and drugs -- he entered rehab.

That's when Toback pounced. The facility, figuring the talks would be cathartic, allowed the filmmaker to do a week of interviews on HD with the then-40-year-old newly sober ex-fighter. "I never thought I'd reach this age," Tyson says in the film. "It's a miracle."

Toback has been a Hollywood screenwriter-for-hire on such studio pics as Warren Beatty's "Bugsy." And as an indie filmmaker, he has kept such recent films as "The Pick-up Artist" and "Harvard Man" low-budget in order to retain as much control as possible. He explored similar identity issues in his philosophical first doc, 1988's "The Big Bang." "It was saying there is a void at the core of our consciousness," Toback says.

Toback financed "Tyson" himself. Audiences will be astonished by the polarities of grandiosity and vulnerability revealed by the fighter, who was diagnosed by then-wife Robin Givens as "manic-depressive" in a Barbara Walters interview.

"Once I'm in the ring, I'm a god, you can't beat me," Tyson tells Toback as he analyzes the way he once overwhelmed his opponents in the ring, like a hunter sizing up his prey. "I am the greatest fighter that ever lived," he still boasts.

Tyson revisits his childhood as a young drug thug and his meeting with Cus d'Amato, the trainer who would be his surrogate dad. When D'Amato died, Tyson, says, "It was like I lost my whole life and didn't know where to go from there."

Tyson became the youngest-ever heavyweight champion of the world at age 18. He flourished, despite his bad-boy, womanizing behavior, but his personality began to show its cracks after the death of his mentor. His short-lived marriage to Givens followed, tracked by tabloids. When it comes to women, Tyson states in the film, "I want to ravish them completely." He still denies the rape charge that sent him to prison.

Toback clearly had the time of his life making what he considers his best film, and is tickled that it's his first Cannes entry, albeit out of competition. (Michael Moore aside, getting a docu into the competition is a rarity.) A new print of Toback's 1978 drama "Fingers," starring Harvey Keitel and remade as the French hit "The Beat That My Heart Skipped," is also showing in the Cannes Classics series.

Tyson is the only person Toback interviews in the doc, but there is dramatic footage of his fights, from his pulse-pounding loss to Buster Douglas to the infamous 1997 ear-chewing bout with Holyfield.

"I bit him -- I wanted to inflict as much pain as possible," Tyson says. The second bite not only cost him the fight but a fine of $3 million. He regrets running through some $300 million to $400 million of amassed riches.

Toback did need help finishing the film, which is for sale at Cannes. He's taken his time editing, even enlisting women who hate boxing to test the pic, and has landed a deep-pocketed investor to get him over the finish line.

When he showed "Tyson" to Keitel, the actor told him, "I came to see a movie about Mike Tyson and ended up seeing a movie about myself."

[Uncle B]

his whole life has pretty much been on public display since he turned pro....can't really see there being a whole lot of interest in this just yet....maybe once he's dead, or, faded from memory.

[Oddessa]

Tyson fight or no, Kimbo is no freakshow

By Kevin Iole, Yahoo! Sports
May 16, 6:18 pm EDT

It’s hardly a stretch to suggest that Kimbo Slice is the Mike Tyson of the 21st century. Tyson became a cultural phenomenon in the 1980s with his intimidating visage, powerful punches and almost weekly appearances on ESPN.

Slice shares the same intimidating look and powerful punching, but his vehicle to stardom was the Internet video-sharing site, YouTube.

And while Slice struggles to be taken seriously as a mixed martial artist, calls are increasing for the pulverizing punchers of past and present to meet in a cage. Slice’s promoter, Gary Shaw, said he’s not encouraging such talk, given that Tyson is retired and hasn’t fought in three years.

But Shaw said he owes it to Slice to consider the bout if Tyson, who appears to weigh nearly 300 pounds and hasn’t had a win in more than five years, would agree to it.

“Call it a freak show or a circus or whatever you want, but it would be the most-watched pay-per-view event ever,” Shaw said.

There’s little doubt of Slice’s importance to Elite XC, the mixed martial arts promotional company that Shaw runs.

On the most important card in mixed martial arts history, it’s almost irrelevant what middleweight champion Robbie Lawler does. Or his challenger, Scott Smith. Or what all but one of the other athletes who will compete in the Elite XC show on May 31 at the Prudential Center may do.

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The success or failure of that show, and, perhaps with it, the company, will depend upon the performance of Slice. He is in the main event of the live first MMA show to be broadcast on network television for a reason.

He’s there, fighting James Thompson, because of the 2,065,443 views the nine-minute video, “The Best of Kimbo Slice,” got on YouTube.

He’s there because of the 2,163,315 who went to the site to watch his bare knuckles street fight with a guy known only as Adryan.

He’s there because of the 2,313,241 who saw him lose his only one of these types of bouts to a Boston policeman, Sean Gannon.

If only those people who have watched Slice’s backyard fights on the Internet tune in to watch him tear apart Thompson on CBS on May 31, it will go a long way toward stabilizing Elite XC and establishing it as a viable alternative to the UFC.

Elite XC has been bleeding money and conceded in a recent filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission that it has lost in excess of $27 million in little more than a year. It may not, it admits in the filing, have the money to make it through the year.

Slice, whose real name is Kevin Ferguson, is the one person who can reverse that. If he brings the more than 10 million sets of eyeballs who viewed his street fights on YouTube to CBS, it could change the landscape on the MMA scene.

Both Slice and Elite XC are in awkward positions, though. He’s an extraordinarily powerful puncher, but he is only in the infancy of his days as a mixed martial artist. It takes years to become a competent and well-rounded mixed martial artist and Slice still has much work to do.

That’s why he’s been fed a series of tomato cans since turning professional. In his first bout with Elite XC, he fought Bo Cantrell, who was so intimidated he was tapping, it seemed, when Slice gave him a dirty look. He was then matched with early UFC brawling legend Tank Abbott, who had won exactly one fight in 10 years and had been routinely knocked out early.

Most matchmakers have the luxury of developing their quality prospects slowly and exposing them to a variety of styles. But Slice was a headliner from his first day in MMA, which changes the way he has to be matched.

“There is an ‘it’ factor that some guys have and some don’t, and Kimbo has it,” promoter Gary Shaw said. “Oscar De La Hoya has it. He is still a superstar, even though he doesn’t have superstar skills any more. Tyson has it. When Tyson walks into an arena, the place still erupts. I’ve been to a high-class steakhouse with Kimbo and I’ve seen it.

People, not just the young kids, all stand up and say, ‘Kimbo! Hey, there’s Kimbo!’

“You could take most of the best fighters in the world and have them walk into a place like that and the maître d would say, ‘OK, we’ll have a table for you in 40 minutes.’ Kimbo is a superstar right now, and he’s only going to get bigger.”

The problem is that Slice is being treated like a curiosity more than a developing athlete. Shaw spent much of the last few days answering questions about whether he’d pair Slice with Tyson and Eric “Butterbean” Esch, a 400-pounder whose shtick was being billed as “The King of the Four-Rounders,” rather than about whether he’d pair him with a competent and trained MMA fighter.

Tyson has never trained in MMA, hasn’t boxed since June 22, 2005, and hasn’t won a fight in more than five years. He looks like he weighs close to 300 pounds and only recently got out of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center.

Asking a promoter if he’d want his fighter to face Tyson is like asking a 20-something male if he’d like to date Scarlett Johansson. Well, duh!

A fight with Tyson would mean huge money, but it would be more carnival act than serious competition.

And Elite XC needs to steer Slice away from the carnival act side of the business and convince a skeptical public that he’s a real fighter.

His highly regarded trainer, former UFC heavyweight champion Bas Rutten, believes that he is. Rutten said he hopes Thompson can push Slice in the May 31 bout so he can gauge where he is.

But Rutten said he believes Slice could be ready for top 10-type fighters as soon as perhaps two or three more bouts.

“We’re building a fighter here, and we’re building a fighter who is going to be very formidable before not too long,” Rutten said. “He’s worked extremely hard. He was a hard puncher when I first saw him, but he’s improved his striking greatly. His footwork, his reach and his torque are all greatly improved.

“He’s working on his submissions. That’s the area he’s most green, but he’s learning. People said I was just a striker, but more than half of my wins were by submission. It can be learned. He’s already very good with his takedown defenses and his escapes and reversals are surprisingly good.”

There are critics, to be sure. UFC president Dana White bemoaned the fact that Slice will headline on CBS during a conference call on Thursday. White said he wanted to make certain that when MMA first appeared on network television, it was with fighters who upheld the sport’s image and traditions.

He said his worst fears are being imagined as Elite XC parades Slice out front and center.

“To have CBS, a big network like that, move forward with a guy like Kimbo Slice headlining it, there’s no secret that’s what I tried to stay away from,” White said. “Kimbo Slice isn’t a mixed martial artist. This guy was fighting in your backyard three months ago and now he’s going to be headlining on CBS. Personally, I think it sucks.”

Slice eschews the notion he doesn’t belong in the national spotlight. He’s been cast in some corners as a hoodlum, but shrugs off the portrayals as inaccurate.

He is, he insists, serious about becoming a complete MMA fighter and not just a guy who can capitalize on a gangster image.

“I don’t live a thug life,” Slice told the Ventura County Star. “We go to church on Sundays … spend family time together. I don’t portray a thug image.”

And he shouldn’t be portrayed as a sideshow fighter, which is how fights with men such as Tyson and Butterbean, would cast him.

He’ll have a short shelf life if that’s how he’s matched. The hard-core fans will always be captivated, but the general public who, as Rutten says, have no idea who Fedor Emelianenko is, will soon move to other things.

But if Rutten is correct and Slice can become one of the world’s elite heavyweights, he’ll not only save Elite XC, but he also can play a pivotal role in legitimizing MMA to the masses.

Matchmaking for Slice is critical.

“We don’t want him to be treated like a circus act, because he’s not,” Rutten said. “He’s a legitimate fighter who is working extremely hard – I mean as hard as anyone I’ve ever seen – and who is getting better so quickly. Kimbo is a nice, respectful person to everyone he meets and he’s taking the sport super seriously. He deserves that same kind of respect in return.”

[Uncle B]

can't be any worse than this shit:



YouTube - inoki vs ali

[(sportman)]

YouTube - Hot lady shares self defense tip

[(sportman)]

YouTube - Leann Tweeden works out her thighs

[Uncle B]

Originally Posted by (sportman)

YouTube - Leann Tweeden works out her thighs

Now, that there could be PPV worthy.

[Uncle B]

Mike Tyson documentary wins standing ovation at Cannes Film Festival

A brutally frank, no-holds barred documentary about the life of former world heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson won standing ovations from critics and audiences at the Cannes film festival last night.

Made by director James Toback, Tyson tracks the boxer's career from his days as a teenage thief and drug dealer in Brooklyn to undisputed champion, and his dramatic fall from grace to incarceration for rape.

Mixing archive footage with a serious of revealing interviews with Tyson, and only Tyson, the documentary reveals that the boxer has lost more than $300m in the last few decades and sees the boxer admit he once sought to conquer and possess the women in his life.

Dressed in an elegant dark grey suit with a white pocket handkerchief, an "intimidated" Tyson mounted the stage ahead of the screening at the world's biggest cinema showcase, flanked by director James Toback.

"I've never experienced anything like this in my whole career," Tyson said as he basked in lengthy applause from the packed house.

"I'm an athlete and this is totally out of my field here - it's kind of intimidating."

The retired fighter, who has put on weight in recent years and now has a Maori tattoo around his left eye, flew to the French Riviera from his suburban Las Vegas home with a sizeable entourage for the premiere of Tyson.

The picture combines more than 30 hours of interviews with highlights of his boxing career.

"Jim, he just elicited all this stuff out of me, I don't know how he did it," a visibly moved Tyson said, onstage once again after the screening, as Toback fought back tears.

Toback said he believed he had succeeded in presenting Tyson as a "complex and iconic and noble human being".

He met a teen Tyson in 1985 while directing The Pick-up Artist in New York and cast him in two movies, Black and White in 1999 and When Will I Be Loved in 2004.

Toback interviewed Tyson last year while the ex-champ was in a California rehabilitation clinic for drug and alcohol addiction

The picture takes Tyson, who turns 42 next month, from his humble beginnings on the mean streets of Brooklyn to his phenomenal rise as a boxing champion, through his epic fall marked by addiction, humiliation in the ring and a rape conviction.

Told entirely from Tyson's point of view, the portrayal allows the gentle giant with the high-pitched voice and a lisp to take the long view of his rocky past and extraordinary career.

He describes his start in boxing as a reaction to vicious bullying when he was a chubby child. "It was kill or be killed," he explains.

Locked up in juvenile detention at the age of 12, he began sparring and was eventually taken on by legendary trainer Cus D'Amato, whom Tyson describes as a father figure who built up his battered self-esteem.

Once his body was steeled by countless hours of training, D'Amato taught him the tricks - tactical and psychological - necessary to bring an opponent to his knees.

"I knew all the skulduggery," Tyson says. "Most of these guys lost the fight before it even started."

Tyson, who went 50-6 with 44 knockouts, became the youngest heavyweight champion in history in 1986 at age 20 and was the undisputed champion from 1987 until 1990, winning his first 37 fights with ferocious force.

"Once I get in the ring, I'm a god," he says.

The now-vulnerable Tyson reflects upon his mistakes, including an unhappy marriage and bitter divorce from actress Robin Givens.

"We were just kids," a milder Tyson now says.

Tyson lost his crowns to Buster Douglas in Tokyo in 1990 and the flaring temper returns when he recounts his three-year stint in prison after his 1992 conviction for raping an 18-year-old beauty pageant contestant.

"I may have taken advantage of women before but not of that woman," he insists. "That still bothers me today."

Tyson reclaimed the heavyweight throne but lost to Evander Holyfield in 1996 and bit Holyfield's ears twice in a 1997 rematch, adding banishment to his ridicule.

One final chance to recapture the crown in 2002 resulted in an eighth-round knockout at the hands of Britain's Lennox Lewis.

Tyson filed for bankruptcy in 2003 after squandering an estimated 400 million dollars and retired after losses to Britain's Danny Williams in 2004 and American Kevin McBride in 2005.

"I just didn't have it in me anymore," the father of six says. "I lost the desire to be a champion."

The documentary is screening in the festival's Un Certain Regard sidebar section and is to be released later this year.

[(sportman)]

I'll buy to watch

[Uncle B]

Originally Posted by (sportman)

I'll buy to watch

i'll nab the torrent when it comes out..

[drunkguy]

Originally Posted by Uncle B

i'll nab the torrent when it comes out..

yea, i'll be waiting