Mike Tyson Speech Analysis

Mike Tyson is well known throughout the United States as a professional boxer and according to the large majority’s opinion, an excellent boxer at that. However, in one iconic fight of his career, Tyson performed an action that was scrutinized and perceived as unacceptable by the public. Thus, Tyson came forward and spoke in a situation that could be interpreted as apologia rhetoric. Apologia is any form of rhetoric in which the rhetor attempts to repair their image. Although apologia sounds very similar to the literary term, apology, meaning an acknowledgment of regret for having said or done something wrong, it does not have to always appear in this form. In fact, apologia rhetoric can incorporate a wide range of different strategies to repair …show more content…
This strategy is utilized when a rhetor describes and brings to the public’s attention any factors or evidence that makes their action seem more acceptable. Tyson performed this strategy by claiming many athletes react aggressively. He was not the first and he would not be the last. In his speech, he claims “I reacted and did what many athletes have done” (Tyson 1997) making an effort to justify his action. He is making the allegation that many athletes react aggressively, so why should he be judged so harshly. This statement is similar to saying “oh everyone does it so why is it so bad I did?”, evidence of Tyson aiming to make his action seem in a sense acceptable. Tyson goes further to minimize his action when he gave examples of similar situations when he stated, “you have seen it in basketball with fist fights on the floor, baseball with riots on the field, and even spitting in the face of an official” (Tyson, 1997). Through providing examples, Tyson wants the audience to relate and understand that other athletes snap on occasion and react unjustly. Thus, due to the fact that other athletes react violently, his reaction should not be considered so unacceptable and should be perceived as a small …show more content…
He simply claimed that other athletes react and retaliate in a similar way to him. However, it is not as though Tyson used the strategy of differentiation, in which a rhetor compares a similar but worse action to justify their action. All the examples Tyson discussed were undesired but acceptable reactions from athletes while his was atrocious to the audience and had never been seen before. He simply compared his action to similar actions in his opinion, such as fist fights on the court during a basketball game. However, comparing his retaliation to a fist fight did minimal to justify his action due to the severity of his violence. Therefore, he compared his action to similar ones but his was still perceived as worse due to the damage he inflicted. Furthermore, he was unsuccessful minimizing the problem, due to the fact he chose to make the claim that all athletes react violently, however, he did not have any examples of athlete reactions with similar violence to his, thus, this strategy did minimal to repair his