Tyson conviction nothing to celebrate

Everyone I talked to had the same reaction.

Did you hear about Mike Tyson being convicted of rape?

“Yeah. Good enough for him. Serves the bum right.”

As the hours passed and the number of people I heard offering opinions ranging from “I hope he gets 60 years,” to “I hope he runs up against some guy in prison who really is tougher than he is” increased, I began to find the reactions more intriguing than either the trial or the verdict.

Why this feeling of vindictiveness among people who know Tyson only from their TV screens?

Then it dawned on me. It’s because Tyson committed the most unpardonable of sins in America. He blew the money.

Yes, rape is a terrible crime. And I’m sure most people take some level of satisfaction in knowing our legal system succeeded in convicting a rapist and will put him away. But such victories for the system, when they don’t pertain to us directly, don’t produce the kind of cheering Tyson’s downfall has produced.

No, there has to be another element besides legal justice to explain the almost celebratory atmosphere around the country’s coffee counters and breakfast tables Tuesday.

Unlike those closest to Tyson who will scream racism, I don’t believe his color is why much of America seems pleased by the guilty verdict. I think it boils down to resentment.

I think people blame Tyson for first making himself a multi-millionaire by entertaining us with his fists, then not taking advantage of all we believe money brings to become a “better person” out of the ring. Instead of living the American dream, Tyson became the American nightmare. He dashed the notion that big money solves all our problems. He blew a chance few people get. And we are infuriated.

How ridiculous. What did we expect, that boxing, and all that goes with it, would reform Mike Tyson?

Remember, Tyson first surfaced back before the 1984 Olympics as a thick-necked, amoral teenager with a big punch who freely admitted he used to mug little old ladies for pocket money back on the mean streets of the Brownsville section of New York City. His boxing prowess was discovered in a reform school and, somehow, he wound up under the direction of veteran boxing trainer Cus D’Amato.

This is where Tyson’s story was supposed to get “heartwarming,” according to the media.

D’Amato was supposedly rescuing this street-tough and violent young man by putting him in a ring. D’Amato was going to mold him into a heavyweight champion and use the discipline of boxing to teach Tyson how to walk the straight and narrow. At least, that was boxing’s line.

That the various parasitic promoters moved in to make a zillion bucks off this stumpy thug with the shark’s stare got lost in the violin music.

Sports fans know the rest of the story. D’Amato died. Tyson, managed by D’Amato’s people, was good enough to become the youngest ever heavyweight champion at age 19. Tyson got rich, dumped D’Amato’s people, and took up with Don King, widely considered the most amoral promoter in boxing. Tyson got richer. He lost the title. He planned to win it back.

Funny thing, though. Boxing never did teach Tyson to walk the straight and narrow outside the ring.

Incidents followed incidents. Tyson allegedly beating actress wife Robin Givens. Tyson cracking up his car. Tyson assaulting a parking attendant at a New York club. Now, Tyson convicted at age 25 of raping an 18-year-old beauty queen.

There’s no way blame can be shifted from Tyson. I’m not about to chalk him up as a “victim of society.” He made his choices. He can live with them. But there’s an element of hypocrisy in celebrating his downfall that we would do well to recognize.

It strikes me a lot of the people who are cheering Tyson’s conviction are the same people who cheered him through all those violent bludgeonings he administered in the ring. We were the ones willing to shell out $20, $50, or $100 to watch Tyson perform his brand of violence. We were the ones who made him rich.

We are the ones that support a sport that reinforces violence, a largely unregulated sport that clearly has no interest in assessing or developing the character of its participants.

What, then, is there to celebrate when one of boxing’s “stars” comes crashing down?