TYSON IN DENMARK
“Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it…”
NOT an unusual quote for a reporter to leave a Mike Tyson fight week with.
Ordinarily the line would have been the prelude to Tyson’s latest dark meanderings, but this time it was followed by the sound of 26 thousand Danes cheerily whistling along.
Decked out in a very off-brand powder blue hoody, Tyson waited in the bowels of the Parken Stadium as Brian Nielsen strode to the ring to the strains of Monty Python’s Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.
“All my life I just loved that music. I think everybody believed in my fighting heart and that was great for me,” Nielsen growled down the phone from Spain where he spends his life arranging golfing holidays. “I love that memory. I remember all the people singing along as I walked. It was a great thing. What a great time. I would do it again tomorrow.”
Welcome to Copenhagen and a very different Mike Tyson fight week.
How much Tyson knew about Denmark is anybody’s guess. Maybe he remembered the scratchy images of Battling Nelson he once projected onto Cus D’Amato’s walls during those long hours spent studying film, but if he was expecting the third and final leg of his European tour to be as riotous as his visits to Britain he was in for a surprise.
There were no protesters camped outside International Arrivals or MPs desperately trying to score political points by decrying his visit.
