The New York Times’ Richard Sandomir writes that Mike Tyson owes him nearly $600. By similiar logic, I should be sending an invoice to Vince McMahon for at least 4 times that much, but I am afraid to think what kind of a compromise he’ll propose (and I really don’t trust Joey Abs to wash my car).
By my calculation, Mike Tyson owes me $586. Not a lot of money, but maybe more than he can afford, given that he’s in bankruptcy and most of the $5 million he “earned” last Saturday in his sit-down loss to Kevin McBride will go to creditors.
Still, I am his newest creditor, and I shall chase him for my cash as Javert hunted Valjean. Tyson owes me for all the pay-per-view bouts that he was not properly trained for, didn’t have the heart for or fought dirty in.
He owes me for the 15-year deception that he was still ferocious, still feral and still capable at any time of a devastating knockout.
I want the return of all the pay-per-view money I’ve given to Time Warner Cable for the past 15 years, except for the $50 I dropped when he bit of a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear in 1997. That was worth the price.
You might respond, “Sucker. Sucker. Sucker. Sucker. Sucker. You got what you deserved.” True enough. So did many others out there; in fact, from 225,000 to 275,000 other suckers besides myself paid to see Tyson-McBride, according to Showtime, which produced and distributed the bout.
Perhaps it would be best to join together as a class of aggrieved creditors and file a petition with the United States Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan.
Or, more aggressively, we should unite to sue Tyson in federal court.
Don’t think that’s so crazy. Customers filed a class-action suit in State Supreme Court in New York after Tyson was disqualified for gnawing Holyfield’s ear; they contended they were entitled to a “legitimate heavyweight title fight.”
Ultimately, the court’s appellate division rejected the claim, saying the plaintiffs “received what they paid for, namely ‘the right to view whatever event transpired.’ ”
But the court did not have the evidence that came to light Saturday night after Tyson quit on his stool rather than face McBride in the seventh round.
“I wish the public could get their money back,” he told Showtime’s Jim Gray.
He told Gray that he “didn’t have it anymore,” that he lacked the heart to continue boxing and that he was fighting only to “take care of my bills.”
He barely warmed up in the dressing room beforehand to conserve his energy.
“I’m not an animal anymore,” he told Gray.
Couldn’t he have mentioned that a few months ago?