Iron! Mike! Tyyyyyy-sonnn

Watching his cameo on Saturday Night Live this weekend, I remembered Mike Tyson was on Oprah a few weeks ago, and I guess it was a follow-up episode to a previous appearance because they were reading all these emails where people were surprised by Tyson’s intelligence and, uh, sensitivity. Well I wasn’t. I remember back in the day, if you read an interview with him, without his weird voice and lisping, etc, you could see he had a pretty good brain. He was just half-crazy – and he still is, i’d imagine. He’s matured, though, and enough time has passed that when he reflects on his more notorious moments, because he does so with a demeanor the public at large isn’t familiar with, and because those moments have receded into the past, he might to the uninitiated seem like something of a “new man” . But as I say, he was always an observant, smart guy. And I suspect he’s still pretty crazy.

Anyway, to illustrate my point, here is a great archived Sports Illustrated portrait of the boxer as a 19 year-old young man.