Who has the most ungraceful exit in sports?

Mike Tyson

It doesn’t get any better than ear-biting, facial tattoos and public statements of wanting to duke it out with women. That was the behavior of Mike Tyson during his exit dance out of the boxing world.

It was more disgraceful than anything else. For “Iron” Mike, ungraceful was just the beginning.

For a time in the late 1980s, Tyson had it all. Pound for pound, he was the best fighter on the planet. He still remains the youngest man ever to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles.

No one could stop him. Anyone got in his way, they paid the price.

But then in 1990, an undefeated Tyson met James “Buster” Douglas.

No one before that fateful night in Tokyo gave Douglas a chance, of course.

Tyson was such a huge favorite that only one Las Vegas casino even held odds on the fight.

But somehow, some way, Douglas got the best of Tyson, knocking him out in the 10th round and dazing him so much that Tyson tried to put in his mouthpiece sideways.

It was one of the most shocking moments in sports history, one that changed the boxing world forever.

Tyson was never the same either.

After going to prison two years later for sexual assault, he did attempt a series of comebacks, but it was all for naught when he chomped off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear in their 1997 rematch.

That was it really. Not much room for forgiveness when you take a bite out of someone’s ear.

Tyson, who had earned more than $300 million in his career, declared bankruptcy in 2003 and eventually retired from competitive boxing in 2005 after getting knocked out by two cream puffs.

Talk about an ungraceful exit.

Twitter and athletes

All this talk of restriction and oversight is driving me bonkers.
The more I earn the more the government takes away.
Everyone looks at me in shame when I drive my gas-guzzling SUV to the corner bar, and then lectures me saying I should buy a more energy efficient, world-saving clown car that gets 50 miles to the gallon and has the head room built for Danny DeVito.
Soon the oversight police will be telling me what doctor to go to, what treatments I’m entitled to, and what line to stand in when the flu bug comes around--by the way a line so long I’ll probably be dead by the time I reach the front anyway. Healthcare DMW style. Brilliant.
Now there’s this ridiculous debate about restricting athletes’ use of Twitter.
I can’t take it anymore. Everyone it seems has a say in my life, everyone except me of course.
This is America isn’t it? You know, land of the free, home of the brave. I do have the right to say what I want, where I want and when I want, right?
Maybe not for long.
The Chargers recently fined Antonio Cromartie $2,500 for using Twitter to criticize the team’s chow line. The Chargers didn’t get the joke obviously.
But what the Chargers fail to see in all this is that fans hunger for insight into these players, insight that cliché-laden press conferences and formulaic media reports just can’t provide.
Social media is how people are communicating these days. It’s a forum where players are mano-a-mano with their fans----online anyway.
When Stewart Cink, a big Twitter user with more than 675,000 followers, won the British Open, he posted a picture of himself pouring Guiness into the Claret Jug. Now that’s insight.
Stuff like that shouldn’t be restricted.