The backstory for this one goes all the way back to June 28, 1997, when Evander Holyfield met Mike Tyson in a pro boxing ring in Las Vegas to contest the WBA Heavyweight Championship. And it culminated in Tyson’s disqualification after a bizarre event that’s still talked about today…
Evander Holyfield’s injured Ear (left) and Mike Tyson’s injured gummies (right).
Wikipedia provides this condensed summary of the action: “Tyson and Holyfield fought seven months earlier in Las Vegas. Tyson was making his first defense of the WBA championship he had won from Bruce Seldon in a first-round knockout. Holyfield, despite being a former champion, was a significant underdog entering the match as he had been rather lackluster in several fights since he returned to fighting in 1995 after a brief retirement. However, Holyfield surprised Tyson by controlling the contest and knocked him down in the sixth round. [Referee Mitch] Halpern stopped the fight in the eleventh round, giving Holyfield an upset victory.”
Why stop the fight?
Many of you out there will already know the answer to that one. A frustrated Tyson, evidently furious at the thought of losing another title fight to Holyfield, resorted to desperation tactics in the 11th, biting off a piece of Holyfield’s ear lobe! No wonder Tyson was disqualified.
But the incident became a legend and spawned a whole raft of tasteless jokes, a number of them referring sarcastically to ‘Tyson’s chicken’. You’d think it would be hard to get more gross and disgusting than those jokes, but apparently it’s wasn’t hard at all for Tyson himself,. His cannabis edibles company, Tyson 2.0, has announced the launch of a new cannabis-infused earlobe-shaped gummy candy.
You read right: The guy who bit off his opponent’s earlobe back in 1997 is celebrating the 25th anniversary of the event with a weed-doped chewy! What’s worse, they’re called ‘Mike Bites’, and they feature a tell-tale missing bit. If that’s not disgusting, I don’t know what is.
My take
First, Mike Tyson says he has mellowed, and I’ll take that assertion at face value. (See photo, top of page. Credit: Roberto Cavalli)
Second, I want to make it clear that I’m writing this post in the same spirit as I would a warning about a lettuce Listeria recall. In no way am I recommending the product.
I can’t help but wonder what kind of ‘consumer’ would be enticed to try Mike Bites. I don’t know anybody, nor have I ever met anybody (I don’t think) who would want to. But I imagine some folks – perhaps boxing fans who like a nice soft stone – will probably buy the product. It’s a novelty item at best. An abomination at worst.
Random observation: Tyson 2.0 has previously offered chocolate cannabis confections but nothing as theme-heavy-handed as Mike Bites.
One last comment: I couldn’t find any report of what Mike Bites taste like. But they are brown in colour. The same colour as another nasty substance produced by the back end of a horse.
~ Maggie J.