Endings and Epilogues

When I was a kid, I grew up watching boxing with my dad.

I was a nerdy little kid, pudgy and unathletic, with thick glasses and a love for Dungeons and Dragons. I doubt he understood me, really, and we clashed most of the time.

But I was ambitiously enthusiastic about boxing. In the 80s and early 90s, boxing meant Mike Tyson on fuzzy over-the-air broadcasts at the dinner table. In actuality, I didn't know much about the sport -- my father would shout and pound his fist on the table, excited at things I could barely see, and I'd pretend to get it - but I was a kid, and what I really wanted was to see Mike knock his opponent out, fast and hard, and to be there with my dad when it happened.

I also remember seeing Tyson fight Kevin McBride, fighting dirty, then not rising off the stool in the 6th round. He was beaten, and he knew it, and so did I. He acknowledged it.

Sometimes we just lose, and it isn't some noble moment - it's humiliating.

But Tyson - troubled, troubling, dangerous, angry - seemed to have found peace in the years after. I would argue that Mike Tyson Mysteries - Iron Mike's absurdist animated series - was amazing, unexpected, delightful. It meant that Tyson's entire frame was shifted, and a second act was to be had, self-aware and perhaps better than the first.

Last Friday night was not that.

Enough has been said by others about the fight itself. But perhaps, though one cannot rewrite the ending, it's possible to choose what the epilogue will be.