[Previous entry: "Joe Mesi: Questions and Concerns"] [Main Index] [Next entry: "Rahman vs. Ruiz"]
12/11/2003 Archived Entry: ""
Tyson Invades MCG Press Conference
By Todd Hodgson
Despite the competitiveness of Joe Mesi-Monte Barrett and the explosive result of Vitali Klistchko-Kirk Johnson, the main attraction of Saturday night's events was a Mike Tyson appearance at the post-fight press conference. A few minutes into the dull Klitschko-Johnson portion of the presser, a disruption erupted toward the back of the hall. Everyone assumed it was Shannon Briggs and his henchmen, who had interrupted the conference a couple of times already to try to goad Joe Mesi into a fight, but it was Tyson making his way toward the main press area, surrounded by reporters, photographers, and hangers-on.
The press' attention immediately shifted from Klitschko and Johnson to a somewhat shy Tyson, who politely asked reporters to pay attention to the fighters. The only people who weren't acknowledging Tyson were Dino Duva, who kept urging reporters to ask questions "only for the boxers up here, please," and Mike Katz, who kept getting sat upon by overzealous photographers and reporters trying to get in Tyson's face. "Get off of me! Damn you people!" Katz squealed.
Vitali Klitschko handled the situation well and twice asked Tyson for a fight: "I see Mike Tyson is here; maybe you want to fight me?"
"Only if your promoter buys me a Ferrari," joked Tyson.
A reporter followed up a few minutes later, "Well, will you fight him, Mike?"
"I don't know," Tyson said.
As for last night's participants, Mesi whined about a cut he'd sustained in camp three weeks ago—and offered the classic "I don't want to make excuses, but here are my excuses" line—and Barrett groveled for a rematch with Mesi. Klitschko said he'd prefer to fight Lennox Lewis, but that he'd easily find motivation to fight Corrie Sanders for the WBC strap, should Lewis retire. "It would be an interesting fight—as we know, [Sanders] beat my brother, Wladimir."
When asked about his embarrassing weight, Kirk Johnson inexplicably compared himself to light-heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr.: "We all saw how drained Roy looked because of cutting weight. I didn't want the same thing to happen to me."
Johnson continued, "Obviously my conditioning wasn't even a factor in this fight."
The undercard was uneventful. Teddy Atlas provided the only drama, launching into a between-rounds brow-beating of his light-heavyweight prospect Elvir Muriqi (28-1; 17 KOs), who eeked out a majority-decision win over Thomas Reid (30-12-1; 12). There were no knockdowns in any of the undercard fights, and Muriqi-Reid was the only competitive bout.
The NYC blizzard destroyed walk-up ticket sales, but 10,823 people still attended. (About 12,000 tickets were sold.) It looked as though most of the fans were from Ukraine (flag-waving pasty white people) or Buffalo (mullet-wearing pasty white people).
