Low life
Loser takes all
Jeffrey Bernard
Iam beginning to think that the first man to beat Mike Tyson will be Mike Tyson himself. To have been mugging old ladies and whoever at the age of 12 shows Promise of a certain kind. A heavyweight Champion of the world shouldn't whack People in bars either and the fact that he did so at 4 a.m. is significant. He might as Well go the whole hog and get Alex Hurricane' Higgins to become his mana- ger- And Higgins jumped out of a window last week. What happens to these people? Higgins arrived in this country years ago as a teenager possessing no more than a Cue and a ten-shilling note. Now he is a mess and has lost the prize possession friends. The media explain behaviour like Tyson's and Higgins's with a silly word, `pressure'. To hell with a man who can't take success. There is no need to flip the lid at a taste of it, never mind become self-important. I get the feeling that Tyson may land up in a mental hospital one day and Higgins in the gutter. But people on a self-destruct course have a weird fascina- tion for me. I keep thinking about Peter Langan's horrifying end, and I have a photograph of Eva Johansen on the wall who went out with a bottle of Remy Martin and a cigarette in bed.
But to go back to Tyson, it is odd to think that 90 per cent of fighters were and are so kind and charming. What very nasty eyes he has, and don't tell me that you can't judge a man by his face because you can tell a hell of a lot. There is a whole story in the eyes and the mouth. Having said that, fighters are generally okay. I wonder if Frank Bruno might not be a little too nice for his own safety. Mind you, Henry Cooper is a delightful man, I can assure you, but he could hit like a hammer. Whatever happens to Bruno in Las Vegas he is made for ever. He will be a television personality like the cab driver who won Mastermind and cleaned up by opening supermarkets and speaking at Rotary Club dinners. Know what I mean?
Tyson and his wife put me in mind of Samson and Delilah. As the fight draws nearer opinion is shifting towards Bruno causing an upset. I bet with money and not my heart unless the stakes are peanuts — a horse the other day called All Jeff plodded in a weary fifth. But mad as it may seem to you I would pay the price they are asking for a ringside seat if I could afford it. Although I find boxing slightly obscene in my middle age it was an obsession with me from the time Tommy Farr gave me a pair of boxing gloves when I was at prep school. My mother talked him into giving them to me. The age at which Tyson took up mugging people is a very impressionable one.
Although those days were without nos- talgia or sentiment the 'good old days' of boxing, the men behind the scenes were, just as they are today, a bunch of scoun- drels, and that's too good a word for them. One of the nastiest men in England today is a boxing promoter. He looks like a `Waiter, this spoon's filthy.' Warren Street second-hand car dealer and that is to flatter what he exudes. What will interest me is to see how the loser of this fight is going to react and to listen to what the excuses are going to be. It is odd that Jack Dempsey was extremely unpopular when he was champion of the world. After Gene Tunney took him apart he became America's darling and every boy's hero with just one remark. At a party in his hotel after the fight his wife asked him, `What happened, Jack?' He simply said, 'I guess I forgot to duck.' Bruno could say that, Tyson couldn't.
When Tyson hit a photographer the other day and threw his camera across a room I remarked to Norman and our circle at the bar that I thought he was taking a very negative view of things. Well, I though it was quite funny, anyway. Then some twit said the fight should billed as being between Alcock and Brown. Any- way, Bruno will be very fit but even so I think he will have to do the business very early. Whatever the outcome I am sure he will end with dear 'Enery Cooper as another Lloyds underwriter. May the bet- ter gentleman win.
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