Oh, No, Mike Tyson's Back! What Ever Will We Do!

You know, now that Mike Tyson has announced that he's going to be doing a travelling roadshow of "fights," we know that we're supposed to get all huffy about it, say things like "When's this guy gonna learn?" and "What has happened to boxing?" or even the old standby "Why doesn't he move on with his life?"

But we'd be lying, and probably anyone who drops those same bland platitudes is lying too. The series of fights, inventively titled "Mike Tyson's World Tour," will hit cities across the country, starting in the fight mecca of Youngstown, Ohio. They will be short violent bursts of tragic human drama, and it will be, like everything Tyson does, sad and compulsively watchable. What else is Tyson supposed to do anymore? Let the man get punched and meltdown in public already. It's all he can do. He ain't hurting nobody.

Don't get us wrong: The "tour" still has a freak show feel to it, not just from Tyson, but also from fellow tourer Paul Spadafora, who just got out of prison for shooting his fiancee. But this notion that someone is supposed to be bad for watching Mike Tyson reeks of elitism. Yes: By watching this spectacle, we convince ourselves that we are somehow separate from the violence, the pain, the lack of decency, the human tragedy of what's actually happening right in front of our eyes, and simply take amusement and entertainment, rooting for one gladiator to slaughter the other gladiator. This shouldn't be that difficult to do: We pretty much do it every Sunday.

Mike Tyson Takes Another Bite [Fortress Of Pillows]