Mike Tyson vs. Tyson Fury: The Mischievous Betting Line

Jimmy Vaccaro is up to his old mischief. Yesterday (May 7) Vaccaro posted odds on a fight between Mike Tyson and Tyson Fury. He made the Gypsy King a 13/1 favorite. The take-back on Iron Mike was +1000 (10/1).

Vaccaro has been known to put up propositions on off-beat events simply as an antidote to boredom, including events unlikely to happen. Vaccaro and his colleagues in the bookmaking fraternity have been bored to death lately, a restlessness that loosened up just a little bit late yesterday when the National Football League announced the 2020 schedule.

Jimmy Vaccaro acquired a measure of fame when he posted odds on the famous fight in Japan between Mike Tyson and Buster Douglas, becoming the only bookmaker in the universe to perform this exercise and then take wagers on the fight. The odds nicked back and forth, but stood at 42/1 for a considerable period of time and that became, for all practical purposes, the official price by virtue of being the most widely quoted.

Vaccaro was then at the Mirage, the place with the faux volcano outside the front entrance. He now hangs his hat at the South Point, a far less opulent property far up the Strip, but a property with a sports book that does a booming business, or did before the sports world went dark. The affable Vaccaro doesn’t run the book — that honor goes to his longtime friend Chris Andrews – but he is the face of the book and is free to make mischief; it’s good PR.

The impetus for concocting odds on a Tyson vs. Fury fight came from the video that Mike Tyson recently posted showing him hitting the mitts with prominent MMA trainer Rafael Cordeiro. “He looked in amazing shape and his intensity had fans speechless,” gushed British writer Reubyn Coutinho of the video which has been viewed by upwards of 9 million people.

Tyson hinted at a possible comeback on Instagram and Coach Cordeiro fanned the flames when he talked about the session with ESPN’s Ariel Helwani. “I thought I was going to die over there…,” he said. “I saw a guy with the same speed, same power as the guys who are 21, 22 years old.” Australian boxing legend Jeff Fenech, who trained Tyson for Tyson’s final pro fight, threw more fuel on the fire with this observation: “I guarantee that if Mike trained for six weeks, he’d knock (Deontay) Wilder out in a minute.”

Tyson’s career didn’t end well. He lost three of his last four fights, failing to last the distance with Lennox Lewis and Danny Williams and then quitting on his stool after six sloppy frames with journeyman Kevin McBride. Tyson’s best blow in that fight was a head butt that opened a cut over McBride’s left eye. It cost him two points, not that it mattered.

“A tomato can,” is how Tyson described McBride before a punch was thrown. “I’m going to gut you like a fish,” he said at their final press conference. After the bout, he sang a different tune. “I don’t have it any more,” he conceded. “You’re smart too late and old too soon.”

Kevin McBride would go on to fight 10 more times, losing eight. (And Danny Williams, still active at age 46, has lost 18 of last 28).

Mike Tyson turns 54 at the end of next month. It’s preposterous to think he could defeat Tyson Fury. “Taller fighters have long given him trouble,” noted New York Times correspondent Clifton Brown following his loss to McBride who at six-foot-six had a 7-inch height advantage.

Told that the odds that he eventually settled on were crazy, Vaccaro reminded this reporter that an oddsmaker has to anticipate how the betting public will react. He thought that some people would jump on Mike Tyson regardless of the price. As a frame of reference, the fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor comes to mind.

The South Point took two high-six-figure bets on Mayweather from the Maloof brothers, the former owners of the NBA’s Sacramento Kings, and yet there was such a flood of small bets on McGregor that the house turned a tidy profit nonetheless, a development that confirmed this reporter’s suspicion that a good-sized segment of the MMA fan base is comprised of slack-jawed cretins.

Almost 15 years have elapsed since Tyson’s dismal farewell fight and yet the aura that he had in his prime hasn’t faded away. The proof was in the pudding on Feb. 22 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas when he stood side-by-side in the center of the ring with Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield before the start of the Fury-Wilder fight. As each was introduced, the cheers were loudest for Tyson, notwithstanding the fact that both Lewis and Holyfield had defeated him, Holyfield twice.

On that night, Mike Tyson summoned the ghosts of John L. Sullivan and Jack Dempsey.

Sullivan and his conqueror Jim Corbett appeared at many functions together following their historic fight in 1892. Corbett’s appearance would be met with polite applause. John L would receive a rousing reception. Dempsey and Gene Tunney appeared together less frequently after they retired, but the pattern was the same. Tunney defeated Dempsey, actually twice, but yet Dempsey always remained the people’s champion.

For the record, Mike Tyson has never hinted that he would like to fight Tyson Fury, either in an exhibition for charity or in a genuine prizefight. An exhibition with Tyson Fury’s eccentric 55-year-old father John Fury, however, isn’t out of the question. The elder Fury, who compiled an 8-4-1 record in a pro career that ended in 1995, has expressed an interest in meeting up with the man after whom he named his son.

By the way, if you’re thinking of heading off to the South Point and jumping on the Tyson vs. Fury proposition, hold your horses. The fight has scant chance of ever happening, which means that you will be tying up your money without drawing any interest on it. A Nevada sports book is a remnant of an earlier age in the sense that the plastic in your wallet is no good. Wagers at the counter must be in cash or casino chips.

For the moment, fantasy fights are all we have. There are some delicious matchups on the drawing board and hopefully they will happen in the very near future.

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