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Only the most expendable men are boxers. All of the fighters who ever died -- nearly 500 since 1918, when the Ring book started to keep tabs -- haven't the political constituency of a solitary suburban child who falls off a trampoline. Observers who draw near enough to fights and fighters to think that they see something of value, something pure and honest, are sure to mention the desperate background and paradoxical gentleness, which even Tyson has in some supply. "I guess it's pretty cool," he says, to be the natural heir to John L. Sullivan, to hold an office of such immense stature and myth, to be able to drum a knuckle on the countertop and lick any man in the house. "If you say so."
Beyond the power and slam, the appeal of boxing may just be its simplicity. It is so basic and bare. In a square ring or vicious circle, stripped to the waist and bone, punchers and boxers counteract. Tyson is already the first, and potentially the second, so the eternal matchup of gore and guile doesn't just occupy him outwardly, it swirls inside him as well. Modern moviemakers are good at capturing the choreography of fights -- they understand the Apache dance. But in their Dolby deafness they overdo the supersonic bashing and skip one of the crucial attractions: the missing. Making a man miss is the art. Fundamentally, boxers are elusive. They vanish one moment, reappear the next, rolling around the ring like the smoke in the light.
If the allure of boxing is hazy, the awe of the champion is clear. Regional vainglories like the World Cup or the World Series only aspire to the global importance of the heavyweight champion. Sullivan, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis and Ali truly possessed the world -- countries that couldn't have picked Jimmy Carter out of a lineup recognized Ali at a distance -- to the extent that, in a recurring delusion, the world had trouble picturing boxing beyond him. When Dempsey went, he was taking boxing with him. If Louis surrendered, the game would be up. Without Ali, it was dead. Wiser heads, usually balanced like towels on the shoulders of old trainers, always smiled and said, "Someone will come along." Tyson's place in the line is undetermined, but he is certainly the one who came along.
In what is now a two-barge industry, Spinks will also have something to say about lineage. The fight is in Atlantic City instead of Las Vegas, which might be called the aging champion of fight towns if the challenger were not so decrepit. Atlantic City forces its smiles through neon casinos that, like gold crowns, only emphasize the surrounding decay. Similarly, Tyson is the younger party involved, but it hardly seems so. The boardwalk age guessers would be lucky to pick his century. He is 21.