Mike Tyson cut a sad figure as he sat on his stool at the end of his defeat to Danny Williams. The former world champion was knocked out in the fourth round by the British journeyman after 17 months on the sidelines.
The defeat, intended as the first of seven fights to pay off Tyson's reported $22m debts, was just the latest episode in the long-running soap opera of his life.
And with his top-level boxing career - and ability to earn big purses - seemingly in ruins, Tyson is rumoured to be considering an offer to join Japan's lucrative K1 all-in fighting sport.
To many, seeing boxing's youngest-ever heavyweight champion of the world reduced to taking on martial arts specialists for cash to pay off debts would be a tragic end to Tyson's turbulent sporting career. The word "turbulent" doesn't really do Tyson's life justice: divorce, lawsuits galore, prison, drug abuse, religious conversion, street brawls, car crashes, road rage, ear-biting, bankruptcy - all have played their part in his journey.
But in many ways Tyson's is a familiar boxing story.
The sad tale of the fighter who doesn't know when to stop is so ingrained in the sport's tradition, it is almost a clich�.
Few boxers have bowed out gracefully at the top before their skills begin to wane and they are getting beaten - and hurt - by fighters that would have been swatted aside in their prime. But then graceful was never really Tyson's style.
In his heyday, Tyson was a force of nature. His brute strength and incredible punching power laid waste to his first 37 opponents, invariably with a first or second-round knockout.
 Tyson had little left to give against Williams |
His 38th professional fight and first pro defeat - against James "Buster" Douglas in 1990 - saw it all begin to unravel for Tyson. Within two years of the loss against Douglas, Tyson was serving a six-year sentence for rape - a charge he denies to this day.
On his release, Tyson regained the WBA and WBC versions of his formerly unified title, but was never able to touch the heights he had hit before his incarceration.
A classic encounter with Evander Holyfield ended in defeat in 1996 before the 1997 re-match saw Tyson lose the plot in spectacular fashion.
Biting off part of Holyfield's ear once it became obvious his boxing was unlikely to trouble the champion, Tyson was demonised around the world.
Tyson has stumbled on ever since, seemingly trapped in ever decreasing circles of court appearances, debts and simply not being able to make a living doing anything else.
His fight against Lennox Lewis revealed him as a spent force at the highest level. And outings against the likes of Clifford Etienne, Brian Nielsen and Lou Savarese merely confirmed Tyson's ability to still deliver a knockout blow to vastly inferior opponents.
It's part of boxing folklore that the punch is the last of a fighter's skills to go with the passing of time, but with Williams able to survive the best that Tyson could offer in a vicious first three rounds, it appears that even that part of his armoury is gone.
His plight in losing to Williams pushed the man who was once the most feared fighter on the planet in the unlikely role of someone deserving of sympathy.
And that is surely the saddest part of the story.
MMIX
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