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 Mr. Predictable (8/28/03) --“Mike Tyson, the other day, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. This marks the first time Mr. Tyson has made it to Chapter 11 in anything.”(Drum pound, cymbal crash) That certainly was one of the better jokes I have heard in a late night monologue in some time. If you have ever seen Tyson speak, move, or exist, you can tell that we just aren’t dealing with a smart a man here. Alright, to be fair, we are dealing with a total dunce. But hey, he’s a dunce with educated fists. (Insert obvious education level joke here) As anyone who has read or learned anything of Tyson over they years, it was not hard to imagine a scenario in which a man of his inferior intellect could possibly run into trouble. As your trained financial advisor, the Leonardite offers two possible “risk scenarios” for your finances and ways to remedy them. A) Don King is in charge of your finances. Why this may be a risk: This is Don King we are talking about here. He’s more than likely going to take 70% of the fight cut and claim it under some provisions that Mike can’t even spell (such as “Wage” and “Interest”). By the time old Iron Mike receives his check, he’s forced to subsist on an inhumane $10 million or so. Oh wait, I forgot! Don King never gets convicted in his annual courtroom retreats. Consider this risk scenario benign. And while you’re at it, help O.J. find the real killer. B) You take your money and buy lots of extravagant things. As a college student, extravagance to me is super-sizing my Crispy Curls at Hardee’s. When you’re Mike Tyson, who has ¼ the education but ten times the size, extravagance means vehicles. The man who, like “billions of others” (His statistic, not mine) has a tattoo on his face, also has quite the selection of transportation. To give you an example of Mike’s overindulgence, Sports Illustrated reported in their Scorecard section a year or so ago, that a new magazine (the name of which escapes me) was profiling celebrities and their exotic automobiles. Tyson, who wanted a cover spot, was reportedly turned down. No big deal, he special ordered two, new, six-figure automobiles just so he could make the cover of this publication. And what an investment, too, since I don’t even know (or care) what the name of this magazine was. Yes, Mike Tyson has gone bankrupt. I’d like to say that I am stunned, but I would also like to say that C.C. Sabathia is slender. As much I keep repeating it, it’s not going to come true. This got the wheels turning in my head to see if I could think of any other sports-related issues that were so blatantly predictable that they might rival the Dynamite Kid’s trip to the poor farm. Today, I present to you five such possibilities and you can be the judge as to which was the most predictable. 1) The original and only true Dream Team goes undefeated to claim the 1992 Gold Medal in Basketball This wasn’t even close. This was like me lining up against my ten year-old sister and playing one-on-one (It should be noted that I don’t even HAVE a sister.) From the second this team was assembled, everyone knew they were going to dominate; it was just a matter of watching them step out onto the floor and see how they would do it. I can remember being an eight year-old kid, watching the first Olympics that I could comprehend, and seeing them walk out against Angola. I had no idea who or what Angola was, but I knew they were going to get creamed. The world was there to watch this exhibition and everybody knew that they were well on their way to gold from the outset. 2) The Tampa Bay Devil Rays find themselves in financial despair just five years into their existence. Let’s see, why not put a team in Tampa? Okay, I can go with that. The weather is great. Actually, it’s fabulous. The fan base is knowledgeable. They see enough baseball in the spring; sure, I expect that they would be. So let’s bring it all into one and have them play in a ten-year-old DOME! Uh……….right. Not only that, the product has always been inferior. The fans there, while baseball savvy, don’t have any inclination to latch onto a single team, and the ballpark is just atrocious. Name me a Devil Ray………………….time’s up. Name me five Devil Rays from ANY point in team history……………………..time’s up. Joe Schmo, not to mention casual baseball fans, will probably have a hard time answering either of those questions. The Devil Rays have been a worthless, pathetic excuse for a franchise, and it’s no wonder at all that they are having trouble making ends meet. 3) The WNBA Folds You could see this one coming from the day it started. For anybody to think………wait, hold on a second……………..you mean the WNBA hasn’t folded YET? Really? No way, you must be lying. They’re still playing games? Wow, the NBA must have been pretty filthy if it was willing to take a bath like this. 4) Gary Anderson misses a chip shot field goal in the 1998 NFC Championship I can already hear certain friends and family cringing as they read this one. But looking back, how predictable was this? Nobody in the world goes an entire season without missing ANY kick without blowing the biggest one of the year. All he had to do was miss a field goal in week 1 and it would have been averted. Heck, he could’ve gone Doug Brien on the Purple and missed two PAT’s in one game. But oh no, Mr. Perfect (Not Curt Hennig) had to go and set an NFL record. All it was was an evil setup to shatter the dreams of the many loyal Vikings fans. Yep, it was perfectly obvious that this was to happen. The best scenario for him to make it and send the Vikings to the Super Bowl, but instead, nothing but sheer heartache ensued. We should’ve seen it coming a mile away. (Not that I was THAT bitter, I’m a Bears fan. Therefore, it’s not possible for me to become more bitter) 5) Some guy shatters his ankle while trying out for Spike TV’s Slamball Now anyone and everyone had to see this coming. When these guys are flying up in the air off of trampolines, while playing full contact basketball, you have to think that you may not pay the closest attention to where you land. And when you land on one of the covered bars of the trampoline, one can imagine where your limbs can become quite mangled. Apparently this was the case for some unfortunate guy who tried out for the “hip” and “rad” extreme game. I’m now officially starting the “Napoleon McCallum-Quality Knee Injury” pool, so if you have a guess as to when that is going to occur, bring your money and your predictions. It’s only a matter of time. Those are my five most predictable sports moments other than Tyson’s bankruptcy. The funny thing is that bankruptcy is the only thing that’s EVER been predictable regarding Mike Tyson. Yes, it was painfully obvious. Maybe more obvious than anything else in recent sports history……………except number three. The Leonardite |
Dedicated to The Stick