I gotta admit I do miss Mike Tyson. This guy kept boxing afloat and was dominant in his prime. Iron Mike had some great quotes and probably is the craziest athlete of all time
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/si_blogs/scorecard/daily_list/2008/02/five-characters-who-are-missed.htmlFive characters who are missed
Go ahead, admit it. You're going to miss Bobby Knight.
By John Rolfe, SI.com
It's going to be awful quiet now that Bobby Knight has resigned after almost 42 beet-faced, chair-throwing, ref-baiting, player-choking years as a head coach. Love him or hate him, you couldn't ignore him. Even if you deplored his borderline nuthouse intensity, things certainly won't be quite the same without him around. Here are five more certifiable characters who left a void when they left the spotlight:
1. Mike Tyson: Yeah, he still emerges from time to time, but since his formal retirement from the ring in 2005, he's been little more than a small-time carnival sideshow act. In his days as a relevant fighter, he had the big top to himself with his acts or threats of cannibalism, psychotic rants, divorce from Robin Givens, battles with Don King and stretch in the pokey for rape. It wasn't pretty, to be sure, and it earned Tyson ESPN’s title of Most Outrageous Character in modern sports history, but it was hard to look away. Boxing, while better off without him, isn't as compelling.
2. Dennis Rodman: Like Tyson, he's occasionally seen on commercials, in nightclubs, at the scene of a motorcycle spill, and making the odd comeback attempt. But in his heyday as a wedding-dress-wearing, cameraman-kicking nutjob with a different color hairdo every night, he was a headline-grabbing spectacle. Nothing quite like him now in the NBA.
3. Howard Cosell: If you recall the early days of Monday Night Football, you know Cosell was the definition of nasal, opinionated broadcasting bombast that brought out the masochism in viewers who just had to tune in if only to infuriate themselves. In Woody Allen’s classic comedy Sleeper, there's a scene in which Allen wakes up 200 years in the future and is asked by authorities to explain an old clip of Dracula-lookalike Cosell. "We can't figure out what this is," they say. "We think it was a form of horrible punishment for people who committed crimes."
"Yes, that's exactly what it was," Allen replies.
4. Bob Probert: The NHL is always queasy about over-the-top goons, and few have ever been as wild-eyed or feared as the longtime enforcer for the Red Wings and Blackhawks. Probert's brushes with the law for drug possession (he served time) and DUI only added to his menace. According to legend, he told a Chicago cop, "Just arrest me for the usual" after crashing his motorcycle in 1994. Current NHL enforcers look like choirboys by comparison.
5. George Steinbrenner: He mellowed in his later years and has faded from sight, leaving son Hank to do his best Boss impersonation. But no one will ever top George's almost daily firings of managers and coaches, his stream of fines and suspensions, his disastrous feud with Dave Winfield, or his declaration that, "I'll never have a heart attack. I give them." The Bronx isn't quite the same Zoo without him.
That's our five. Who else do you think has been, or will be, missed -- for better or worse?