A make-or-break weekend

The Huskies play UCLA in a game that will (likely) determine whether Washington is eligible for a bowl bid.

The Seahawks play at San Francisco in a game that will (likely) determine whether Seattle’s playoff chances are anything more than mathematical for the final month and a half of the season.

And the most singularly menacing sports figure from my childhood is participating in a boxing match that has the potential to inflict generational humiliation in what is just another piece of evidence that the world has turned entirely upside down.

First, here’s some stuff I said this week:

🎤 Hear me, Hear me 🎤 

Next, we’ve got a really significant NFL game.

⚖️ Tipping point ⚖️ 

Three weeks ago, the Seahawks were coming off a victory in Atlanta and sitting alone in first place in the NFC West. Two losses later, they’re at the bottom of the division and heading down to Santa Clara to play a 49ers team they’ve lost their last six games to.

Can the Seahawks make the playoffs if they lose this game? Sure.

Will they? No.

The Seahawks are the one team in the division currently caught in a tailspin. Not only have they lost five of their past six games, but only one of those defeats was a single-possession game.

Maybe the return of Abe Lucas will stabilize what has been a debiltatingly bad offensive line. Perhaps the changes at linebacker will shore up a defense that has continued to be trampled.

But if Seattle loses Sunday, the Seahawks will be two games behind not just the 49ers, but also the Cardinals who are riding a four-game win streak into their bye this week.

Playoff predictions 📉 

I asked if the Seahawks would make the playoffs, you answered in overwhelmingly negative fashion. Here are the results from Wednesday’s poll:

While the result of overwhelmingly negative, the comments were not. A number of you have taken this season in stride.

🥊 Hit him where it hurts 🥊 

I got up early on Feb. 12, 1990. I’m talking 5:30 a.m.

This was not unusual. It was a Sunday and I had a paper route, delivering the Herald & News in the little timber town where I grew up.

On Monday through Friday, it was an afternoon gig, but on Sundays I had to be finished with my route by 7:30 a.m. at which point I would watch “The Sports Reporters” on ESPN.

On this particular morning, I was especially anxious to finish my route and watch that show, and that’s because Mike Tyson had just lost the heavyweight championship of the world. This was nothing short of shocking. Not only had Tyson been undefeated, but his opponent – Buster Douglas – was considered so lackluster that the fight was available on regular old HBO as opposed to closed-circuit television.

I didn’t have HBO. My friend, Steve, did, but I don’t think he watched the fight, either. I didn’t know Tyson had lost until I got up that morning to deliver the newspapers and saw the result teased atop the front page.

I’m bringing this up today because Mike Tyson is “fighting” tonight against something called Jake Paul. It will be the last of four bouts that will be televised on Netflix. The card starts at 5 p.m. Pacific, and it is one more piece of evidence that the world has been turned upside down. 

I would not call myself a fan of Tyson. I know too much about his history not to have serious reservations about his current incarnation as a weed-smoking street philosopher who makes funny cameos. I do, however, hope that he pummels Paul into obscurity.

This is unlikely to happen, however.

Tyson is 58 years old. He previously had to postpone this bout due to an ulcer he was suffering from. There are also instances in the not-so-distant past in which he’s been seen in a wheelchair or using a cane. He’s said he’s had issues with his sciatic nerve.

He probably shouldn’t be boxing in any capacity. He certainly should not be in a professional bout let alone against someone less than half his age.

It is sad for any number of reasons from the contemporary state of boxing to Tyson’s need for my money to our collective appetite for spectacle.

Tyson is one of the seminal sports figures in my life. I’m old enough that I remember not only his meteoric rise through the heavyweight ranks, his run of devastating KOs, but I remember the way he was characterized back then.

A reformed menace. A juvenile delinquent who had been taken in by Cus d’Amato, a charitable sage who had taught Tyson to harness his fury and train it onto his opponent.

D’Amato died in 1985. Before Tyson became heavyweight champion. Before he lost to Buster Douglas. Before he was convicted of rape and imprisoned. Before he lost to Evander Holyfield the first time and before he bit off a chunk of Holyfield’s ear as he was in the midst of being beaten in their second bout.

Tyson’s fury had gone back to being unrestrained. He was dangerous and unpredictable. He threatened to eat Lennox Lewis’s children, but by then he was bordering on pathetic.

Tyson’s last professional fight was June 2005 against somebody named Kevin McBride. Tyson quit in that fight. He didn’t answer the bell for the seventh round, and afterward said, “I do not have the guts to be in the sport anymore.”

Over the past 15 years, Tyson has seen his public image remade from an unrepentant deviant into someone who can be considered almost charming. He appeared in “The Hangover.” He has a podcast in which he smokes copious amounts of pot and interviews people.

Now he’s going to fight Paul in what is being billed as an honest-to-goodness professional boxing match. The rounds will be shorter, 2 minutes instead of 3. There will be eight rounds as opposed to 10 or 12. The gloves will be heavier, 14 ounces instead of the 10 that are standard for heavyweights.

I read a story saying most people were betting on Tyson, which I find insane for two reasons:

1. I do not know how you could be confident that this fight does not have a pre-ordained outcome. I predict this fight will last all eight rounds with Paul being named the winner based on the judge’s scorecards, and I say that not based on my assessment of their respective skills, but because that’s what I think they’ve agreed to.

2. If this were a true bout, I feel fairly certain Paul would crush Tyson.

Say what you want about Paul, but he takes fighting seriously.

Is he a good boxer? Well depends on the standard you’re using.

He’s very good when you consider how little experience he had as a teenager. He was 20 when he had his first exhibition bout, 23 when he turned pro.

At the age of 27, he’s good enough to beat anyone who doesn’t box for a living.

His professional record is 10-1, but that’s misleading because it includes a fight against a pro basketball player and several mixed-martial arts fighters, and while those guys are certainly, they’re not boxers. They’ve generally been smaller than him, too.

The one time Paul was matched up against someone of similar size and skill set, he lost. That was against Tommy Fury, who is related to a championship fighter — his older brother is Tyson Fury. Tommy had an amateur boxing career, but is best known for his time on reality television. He won a decision against Paul.

The idea that Paul gets to punch a 58-year-old Tyson feels particularly galling to me. Tyson was my generation’s boogeyman. The single most terrifying fighter. The baddest man on the planet.

People will tell you that Bo Jackson is the best video-game athlete of all-time, but this is untrue. It was Tyson on NES’s Punch Out! He’d knock you down with a single punch. You had to watch diligently to see his body flash, dodging out of the way immediately lest you get crushed.

Now he’s going to get beat up by a YouTuber from Gen Z, and the saddest thing of all, I’m probably going to watch some of it.