As Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Bluff, I Long for the Days of Mike Tyson

Excuse me for perhaps being momentarily crazy, but ask yourself a simple question: Would Mike Tyson ever do this?

I never thought I would ask myself that question, either. After the rape conviction, imprisonment, and other black eyes Tyson left outside the ring, it would seem almost unfathomable to use his legacy as a benchmark for the sport of boxing.

But as the days pass, I continue to realize the ferocity and excitement that Tyson brought to rings and living rooms everywhere.

Pay-per-view buys reached unprecedented levels, and the sporting world stopped to tune into Las Vegas for a couple hours on a Saturday night.

As Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather continue to fuss over how the pre-fight testing should work, it becomes clear how different they are from boxing’s previous feared champion.

In societal and real-world terms, that’s great news. I’m surely not endorsing the fallen images of Tyson the man.

But when it comes to pushing the sport, and pushing entertainment, nobody does it like Tyson once did. With Iron Mike, we may have gotten excessive bravado, inappropriate gestures, and explicit ramblings, but we always got entertainment. Tyson always delivered the product.

I have immense respect for what Mayweather has meant to boxing and what Pacquiao currently means to the sport. I respect both fighters as truly great athletes.

But nonetheless, the deserved praise means nothing when both fighters are too busy throwing hissy fits with one another instead of reassuring their gracious fans that the most anticipated fight in years will indeed happen.

Maybe it’s merely a change in the face of boxing and we have to grow accustomed to the new generation of the sport. Maybe boxers today are more businessmen and less brawlers. Maybe that’s a smarter way to play your cards.

But if you’re a boxing fan, it stinks. The boxing world has a very corporate feel to it if you only see the bigwigs who pay thousands of dollars to sit ringside at the premier fights.

On the surface, there’s plenty of white collars and bling.

But the root of the sport is action, violence, and survival. Boxing can’t bury that innate feeling; it must endorse it. That’s where Tyson flourished.

Pacquiao doesn’t want to take blood tests within 30 days of the fight, unless the Nevada State Athletic Commission is the institution issuing the blood tests. Mayweather wants the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to administer random blood and urine tests at any time leading up to the fight.

Both parties are accusing the other fighter of being a coward. Floyd Mayweather Sr. dropped the alleged steroids bomb on Pacquiao, a right hook that may land a lawsuit on his lap. Bob Arum, CEO of Top Rank and Pacquiao’s promoter, said Mayweather is simply afraid to fight Pacquiao.

How long the gibberish continues between the two most accomplished fighters of this decade nobody knows, but I’m fairly certain of one thing.

If somebody did so much as to disrespect Tyson’s image and reputation as the world’s best fighter, there would be a fight.

If somebody accused Tyson of using steroids, he would have taken any drug test necessary in order to get the opportunity to turn his opponent’s face into an ensemble of bloody lacerations and fractured bones.

And if any promoter suggested Tyson was weak or soft at the core, that he was afraid to fight any man, I’m pretty damn sure that Tyson would have found his way to the ring to reinforce the contrary by way of knockout.

For better or worse, that’s how Tyson was.

For the world, for the kids? I’d say it was for the worse.

For the sport and the multi-millionaires behind the productions? Tyson was pure gold.

Promoters loved him. Fans either loved him or loathed him, but nonetheless all were tantalized by this larger-than-life menace.

What boxing doesn’t realize is that, yes, it is better off without the criminal reports and the troubled fighters out of the ring, but it cannot survive without the ruggedness and edge that should drip from the limbs of men who fight for a living.

Boxing is killing itself by not adapting to the new generation of fans. You know who is adapting to the new generation of fans and is thriving? Dana White and his little mom-and-pop business called the UFC. Heard of 'em?

See, the majority of “fighting” fans are no longer middle-aged men who wear three-piece suits and smoke pipes while Ali dances around the ring.

Like anything else, that generation is in the past. The “fighting” audience has gotten younger, and those fans want exhilarating specimens who care more about proving their manhood than adhering to business technicalities.

You can fight the movement, but that’s where the audience has headed. Young men and women want action, and the UFC has found a way to bring that to its sport. That’s why it is currently crushing boxing in popularity. Boxing prides itself on sportsmanship and tradition, but even those traits are lost in the current model.

I’m not saying make a bunch of lunatics the face of boxing, but let's not act like this is golf. Political correctness should be checked at the door. These guys are fighters, plain and simple.

Tyson was surely about the money, but he never forgot who he was while in the ring (Evander Holyfield would disagree, but I digress).

The mind games Pacquiao and Mayweather are playing are a joke. Mayweather wanted Pacquiao to agree to take blood tests. Now that Pacquiao has, Mayweather’s gripe has turned to who exactly is administering the tests.

Pacquiao’s initial reasoning for not wanting to take the blood tests was that he was afraid taking blood from his body would weaken him before the fight, and that he is “afraid of needles.” Sorry, Manny, but when you have tattoos, you lose the right to play the “afraid of needles” card.

Fact is, there’s always something. We don’t even need to get into what the promoters are doing. They are all a joke. Their job is to stir up controversy, build up the hype, and they are great at it.

Look, this fight is going to take place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas in March. Why? There’s too much money at stake. Neither fighter is going to walk away from $40 million guaranteed, and the promoters aren’t going to let something as trivial as drug tests ruin their slice of the purse. It just won’t happen, and all of us see through that.

What the sport doesn’t see through is the reality that it has lost its “realness.” The raw emotion behind boxing is no longer tangible and doesn’t come through television screens like it once did with men like Tyson.

If Pacquiao and Mayweather want to enter the promoting business, they are getting a great head start. The more and more they talk, the faker and faker boxing is perceived.

Mixed martial arts is thriving because those men actually feel like fighters to the general public when they step into the octagon. Boxing is becoming more style and less content. Just shut up and fight already.

If this was Tyson’s era, Pacquiao and Mayweather would have long ago agreed to do anything it takes to get this fight off the ground and prove who the best fighter in the world is. Unfortunately it’s not.

When Tyson vanished, so did the heart and soul of boxing.

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You can reach Teddy Mitrosilis at [e-mail].