Potent Quotables

s heinous of an individual as Mike Tyson truly is, all aspects of his checkered career in the limelight--the rape charge, the abominable misogyny, Evander Holyfield's gnawed ear--make him absolutely and inexplicably impossible not to watch. Ever since 1986, when he first claimed the heavyweight championship of the world, Tyson has put sports fans into a perverse hypnotic haze with a public image that combines part fantastic human specimen with part circus sideshow.

Now, after receiving a thorough beating from Lennox Lewis Saturday, it appears as if his days of high-level boxing have finally ended, and with that, his days of concocting infamous quotations have probably concluded as well. Reflecting upon his career, we at Recess have ranked Iron Mike's top-five most vile, wicked and utterly captivating comments:

1. "I can sell out Madison Square Garden masturbating."

2. "Anyone with a grain of sense would know that if I punched my wife, I would rip her head off."

3. "I wish that you guys had children so I could kick them in the f--kin' head or stomp on their testicles so you could feel my pain because that's the pain I have waking up every day."

4. "A lot of young women don't know what they're getting themselves into. A lot of them think it's fun, a game.... But they truly don't know what they're into when they lock themselves into a room and engage in sex with a man who knows how to handle a woman."

5. "My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable. I want your heart. I wanna eat his children. Praise be to Allah."