Mike Tyson, even at 58 years old, continues to shape boxing - ESPN

Having covered Mike Tyson since his most famously unsanctioned bout — a predawn TKO of Mitch «Blood» Green at an after-hours clothing boutique in Harlem, New York, on Aug. 23, 1988 — and having spent the past three-plus years anatomizing his ascent as a biographer, I've been getting a lot of calls, all posing the same basic question:

«Is this thing real?»

It's real enough, what a spokesperson from the Texas Commission of Licensing and Regulation assures me is «a professional, sanctioned bout» with Jake Paul, live from AT&T Stadium, Friday on Netflix. Still, the cynicism comes as no surprise. It's boxing, after all, where «real» fights can be effectively scripted (and often are) in the matchmaking. Also, it's Tyson, for whom state-run boxing bureaucracies have always been compliant. In this case, Texas signed off on the Tyson-Paul request for 14-ounce gloves (instead of the heavyweight standard 10-ounces) and eight two-minute rounds (instead of the standard three minutes across 10 or 12 rounds for men).

What's more, don't expect the state to enforce its prohibition of marijuana against Tyson — who, of course, swore he quit weed in preparation for this bout — with the same zeal it did against, say, Keyshawn Davis, a rising star who forfeited a win after testing positive last year in Rosenberg, Texas.

But all that misses the point. Actually, it misses them both. First, Tyson's is the greatest comeback I've ever seen, and likely ever will. By the time the city editor dispatched me uptown, Tyson was already in the throes of his first public crack up. In itself, that's not unusual. Most fighters seem as though they're born to be destroyed. They tend to get used up: physically, neurologically, spiritually and of course,