We don’t condone violence here at Celebrity Slam. We’re fans of getting hurt with words, not fists, and the truth is that there are few situations that disappear where resorting to physical confrontation is the right thing to do.
However, we’re also tasked with tackling the weird and wild things that celebrities do. Sometimes – not often, but sometimes – these things veer into the realm of the physical, leaving us with little choice but to discuss them in this space.
So yeah, we’re actually going to talk about Mike Tyson punching this guy.
If you have any interest in watching the video then surely you have already seen it, but if you are unaware of it and would prefer us to describe the incident to you, we are happy to do so.
It all went downhill last week, when Tyson was on a JetBlue flight from San Francisco. It was a late flight to Miami – 10:30 p.m. According to witnesses, Tyson – who was in town promoting the cannabis business at the San Francisco 4/20 celebration – was initially very generous with fellow passengers, posing for selfies and generally speaking. Nice.
However, that was not enough for Melvin George Townsend III.
Apparently, Tysond had a disturbing presence – even after being told several times to stop by Tyson – the former champ was enough and started throwing punches, leading to blood in the man’s eye. Tyson and Townsend were both taken off the plane and interrogated by the SFPD.
Soon, a video of the beating went viral. It’s clearly a bad look for Tyson regardless, but when witness reports started pouring in, a somewhat understandable picture started to come into focus.
Specifically, Townsend – who has been described as very drunk – appears to have spent a lot of time doing his best to be a nuisance to Tyson, despite the former boxer’s efforts to defuse the situation. After repeated requests that Townsend stop, the man decided to push things further and threw a bottle of water at Tyson. That, according to witnesses, was the last straw.
So far, no charges have been brought in the incident.
See, as we said above, using your fist to settle disputes is not good. And for someone like Mike Tyson, resorting to violence is a particularly unacceptable brand, given both his past career and his history.
Having said that, one has to wonder what kind of heavyweight stalker would decide that pushing his luck by being a MIKE TYSON holeshot on a plane was the right thing to do? Seriously – in what world would you say to yourself “Hey, this is the ex-world heavyweight champ sitting in front of me, I think I’d be annoying and dumped on him. This will make people think I’m cool!”
Reader, he didn’t make people think he was cool.
Now, even though there are no charges yet, Townsend has hired a lawyer, so I guess we can all guess where this is going. The guy will definitely try to get paid. What if this was the plan all along? Well, it’s hard to say an idiot like this is that forward-thinking, but he also has a long history of stealing other people’s things, so he probably thought he’d make his way to payday.
As for Iron Mike – come on, man. This can’t be the first time some idiot has tried to get you to swing. And yes, it’s annoying that this guy was working on your business while you were trying to fly safely, but in the end, you’re the rich guy here. You are the one who will pay the fine regardless of the provocation. We all have our limits, but for being who you are, well…you have to be a little more tolerant of that kind of bullshit. This is not fair, but it is a fact.
Again, it wasn’t appropriate for Tyson to punch this guy. Unfortunately, the unfortunate truth is that he will pay dearly for this moment of weakness. One would imagine he would put a real hole in his checkbook – probably much larger than the one he left on that idiot’s face.
