Tiger Woods != Mike Tyson and Other Crazy Thoughts

Branded as an information junkie who reads too much stuff, I take pride in digesting too much information sometimes. It leads to a diversity of perspectives showing up in my Google Reader - even those I often find myself sighing while reading.

So, Mike Lupica's based in New York. And when busy not taping The Sports Reporters, he's writing about sports. With The Barclays in the NYC monsterplex this week, it's his beat to opine on all things golf Tiger Woods Tiger Woods, if he's in contention.

The basic tenets of Lupica's column after Woods' first round lead-tying 65 are no different than most things said about Tiger this season. The who-knew-oh-wait-we-do-now theme, trying to redeem his life, etc. I'm on board. That is, until Lupica said, "Maybe Woods can even go back to being the baddest man on the planet, golf division, reclaim that title in a way Mike Tyson never did after his stunning fall from grace."

It's really hard for me to say how much I disagree with that comparison. Apt? No. Kinda close? Not really in the ballpark for me.

Willing to grant a pass on that one-time swingandamiss, the rest of the piece is just fine. Tiger's gotta find the old him, but there's doubts. Putter's failing him. 

And then the Tyson meme comes back.

"The old Tiger knew, the way he knew the putts would fall, the way he knew his opponents would. So did Tyson. Until the only one falling was him."

Tiger Woods is not Mike Tyson. For one, Tiger was not in any movie, much less the hilarious The Hangover. On a more serious level, the comparison between Woods and Tyson is almost insulting.

The two of them have similarities, yes. They were each the first and only people to hold all of the major titles in their sport at once - Tiger with all four majors, Iron Mike with all three heavyweight belts. They each have/had wildly successful video game franchises. Opponents fear/ed them to the point that it created a huge psychological advantage. That's kind of where the similarities end.

Woods has been consistently great since 1997. With the notable exceptions of this year and 2004, Woods has dominated the PGA Tour when healthy. Tyson was dominant from 1985 - his debut at age 18 - until 1990 when he lost at the hands of Buster Douglass. Tyson returned some five years later after the series of events that make the Woods comparison inappropriate.

In 1990, Mike Tyson was arrested and convicted on charges of raping Desiree Washington in an Indiana hotel room. He was sentenced to ten years in prison and served five of them.

Following his initial comeback lumper fights, Tyson was defeated soundly by Evander Holyfield. In their rematch, Tyson bit off part of Holyfield's ear during competition. 

Tyson then assaulted two motorists in 1998 and sentenced to 200 hours of community service.

Tyson's career meandered through largely meaningless fights until a 2002 loss to Lennox Lewis pretty much ended his relevance in the sport.

Two criminal convictions and an in-ring crime are much different than Tiger Woods' rap sheet, which is a $167 traffic ticket from the Florida Highway Patrol. Tiger Woods is not a criminal. Mike Tyson is.

What Tiger Woods did during his six years of marriage is disgusting. The plethora of extramarital affairs caused Woods to live a double life that certainly hurt his relationship with Elin prior to Thanksgiving night, and obviously did afterward. While the counts are numerous, the charge is singular: infidelity. It is a moral and civil crime, as Woods' lighter wallet would indicate, but it is not on the same scale as forced intercourse with a woman.

In short, Mike Tyson is a criminal sociopath. Tiger is a cheating scoundrel. Both bad, but parallel to one another? Hardly.

Tiger had more control of his divorce proceedings that Tyson has at any point in his life - including the 23 structured hours per day in prison.

It's hard for me to evaluate if Lupica's reach of a comparison is the same, less or worse than Bill Simmons' greatly misguided comparison of Woods' self-inflicted plight to Muhammad Ali's political stand and its far-reaching social and personal impact. Still, maybe it's time to put pencils down on the section of the SAT where someone tries to fill in the part of the analogy that goes: Tiger Woods:________.