After the mess with Orlin Norris in October 1999, Mike Tyson traveled abroad for his next two bouts. On January 29, 2000, Tyson met Julius Francis in Manchester, England and easily disposed of him in two rounds. In his post-fight interview with Showtime’s Jim Gray, Tyson went into a bizarre rant claiming he was the best ever, and that he wanted to eat Lennox Lewis’s children. It further proved to me that the guy had a screw loose, and it showed every time he opened his mouth.
Five months later ‘Maniac’ Mike moved over to Glasgow, Scotland to easily knock out a petrified Lou Savarese in one round. Savarese’s performance was so pathetic, you wondered why he even agreed to the fight. This crap proved nothing to me, except no one in their right mind thought a now 34-year old Tyson would ever be world champ again.
On October 20, 2000, Tyson took on Andrew Golota at the Palace in Auburn Hills, Michigan. Showtime wanted like $50 to see the pay-per-view card live, but I would rather eat a bag of dirt than pay for this sideshow. Golota was certifiably insane, and I knew the chances of him lasting more than 3 rounds were a million to one. When I watched the free replay on Showtime the following week, it proved me correct. After being floored in the opening round by a tremendous Tyson right hand, Golota got up, but told his cornermen to stop the fight in between rounds. They ignored him and forced him out for the second round instead. After performing fairly well in that round, Golota returned to his corner, refused to let his cornermen put his mouthpiece back in to fight the third round, and quit. It was a pathetic display of pure cowardice, and proved to me that Golota was the biggest idiot to ever lace up a pair of gloves. In his interview in the locker room, he said he quit because Tyson had head-butted him, and never admitted defeat. Fortunately for the boxing public, he would never appear in a major bout again.
Tyson’s 2nd round TKO win was later changed to a no-contest because he tested positive for marijuana after the bout. The supposed ‘Iron-Mike’ Tyson was now just a joke to me, and I knew when the faded phenom eventually got the fight with Lennox Lewis he was seeking, he would wind up knocked out and flat on his back- where he belonged.
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