In the third round of the decade’s most anticipated heavyweight fight, Mike Tyson—desperate, infuriated, and realizing he was going to lose—leaned into Evander Holyfield during a clinch and bit off a chunk of Holyfield’s right ear. Holyfield hopped around in anguish as blood poured down his neck, the remnants of his detached cartilage still lying on the canvas. The action was not clouded in mystery: Millions of people, including fight referee Mills Lane, had plainly seen Holyfield’s ear mutilated by Tyson’s teeth. But the attempt to gnaw an opponent’s flesh was so outside what could reasonably
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