Come Out Swinging

By Vic Ziegel Playboy June 1995 For three years, Mike Tyson stayed in the same Indiana zip code, behind the same walls, while we followed the bouncing heavyweight crown from the man with the heart problem to the man who wanted to put a kitchen in his bedroom to the...

Dancing With The Devil

By Charles P. Pierce The National Sports Daily August 9, 1990 It’s a fact of life in this great land that very few clerics commit capital crimes and that very few choirboys punch people senseless for sport. If you choose to bring the law to the people who commit the...

The Park Avenue Desperado

By Robert Friedman Inside Sports June, 1980 I. 80 DAYS IN THE LIFE OF BOB ARUM  From his fourteenth-floor, comer suite on Park Avenue and 57th Street, Bob Arum, the man many consider the most powerful boxing promoter in the world today, has a commanding view of...

Seven Scenes From The Life of A Quiet Champ

By Pete Dexter Inside Sports June, 1980 “I don’t ever want to fight Ali. Ali’s a legend, I’m hoping he retires. It would be a lot of money [for an Ali fight], but money isn’t everything. When Ali dies, people going to remember him being more than a fighter…”  ...

The Impression

By Pete Dexter Inside Sports December 1980 When I heard Ali had agreed to fight Holmes, the first thought I had was that Ali would be killed. The punch was five years gone, his hand speed had been mediocre over his last half dozen fights, and he’d been getting hit by...

“Make Way For Brother Mike!”

By Richard Hoffer From A Savage Business 1998 At this time of year, at this time of morning, it was still dark. A small crescent moon hung in the Indiana sky and, beneath it, four helicopters balanced, as if some fantastic throbbing mobile had been constructed for the...