Mike Tyson – Pain In The Bud

He’s more popular than any human, practically ubiquitous around town, and so well-known he’s been nicknamed “mayor.”

He’s also a cat.

Wanderin’ Joe, as he’s known to locals in Clintonville, Ohio, is often spotted padding along a ravine, poking his head into homes and shops of his choosing, and hanging out in the local elementary school.

He’s the school’s unofficial mascot, loved by students and staff, and is even included in annual yearbook photos. (Previously we wrote about Ziggy, another family cat who accompanies his family’s kids to school daily and took it upon himself to pose for a yearbook photo. Who knew some cats love going to school?)

The people of Clintonville love little Joe so much that they decided to throw a festival in his honor. It’s not tied in to another event or celebrated in conjunction with a holiday. It’s an event exclusively in celebration of one very special four-legged ambassador of local good will.

Wanderin’ Joe poses for an admirer. While Joe’s got a grumpy look, his many fans say he’s friendly, gentle and curious. Credit: Christina More via Wanderin’ Joe/Facebook

Nick Fancher, Joe’s human, said the little guy’s wanderlust began when the family began taking him on walks. At first Joe would pad along behind his human family, but then “he would run ahead of us and then let us catch up.”

“He’s precocious,” Fancher told WOSU, the local public radio station. “Like, I swear he was an explorer in another lifetime.”

Joe’s adventures are legion. Per WOSU, he’s been “adopted half a dozen times” by well-meaning people who mistook him for a stray, crashed weddings and memorial services, and did a six-month stint as a barn cat when yet another person mistook him for a stray and brought him home.

Fancher said he’s well aware Joe could be harmed, but worries his orange tabby buddy wouldn’t be happy if he was restricted to the indoors.

The Ohio man did not have a hand in promoting his pal. The festival, a Facebook page devoted to Joe sightings, and tributes like a charcoal portrait of Joe, were all the efforts of random admirers in Clintonville, a town of some 30,000 residents about eight miles north of Columbus.

Joe exploring his neighborhood. Credit: Wanderin’ Joe/Facebook

At Joe Fest, some locals brought their own cats along, traded stories of the legendary Wanderin’ Joe over food and drink, and paid tribute to the feline himself, who graciously permitted his admirers to scratch his head and feed him snacks.

“It’s a little hard to wrap one’s head around it. It appeals to my sense of the absurd and the wonderful,” Patti Liszkay, who lives in the neighborhood, told the station. “It’s just sort of a bipartisan get together in honor of a cat. I mean, it’s gentle. It’s nice.”

Credit: Joseph Forcina via Wanderin’ Joe/Facebook

Meanwhile in an attempt to avoid hard feelings, and knowing it has long been one of Buddy’s dreams to have a festival in his honor, I had this printed out and stuck it on the fridge:

He’s defeated men more than twice his age, hammered opponents 70 pounds lighter than him into submission, and made his mark as a six-time winner of the Billy Blanks Tae Bo Championship.

Now Jake Paul, the Youtuber-turned-boxer, will step in the ring with Buddy the Cat, a gray tabby from New York.

Despite the 190 pound weight advantage and Paul’s 76-inch reach vs Buddy’s 4.5-inch reach, Paul’s manager, Nakisa Bidarian, said the 6 foot 1 Paul and the 11-inch Buddy were evenly matched.

“Buddy the Cat is probably Jake’s most vicious opponent yet,” Bidarian told reporters. “Jake is taking this fight seriously, as seriously as he took the fight with Nate [Robinson],” a 41-year-old, 5 foot 9 former NBA player who had no boxing experience before stepping in the ring with Paul.

An early poster promoting the fight, which has since been postponed to New Year’s Eve.

Asked by another reporter what Paul and his team make of critics blasting him for “making a mockery of the sport” by fighting a succession of cans, geriatric opponents and people without boxing training, Bidarian waved a hand in dismissal.

“Buddy’s a cat, isn’t he? Tigers are cats, too. We’ve all seen how dangerous tigers can be, so obviously Jake is taking a huge risk here by fighting an animal who is, in essence, a slightly smaller version of a tiger.”

As for Buddy, the massive differences in height, weight, reach, species and training haven’t deterred him. The 11-pound southpaw feline promised to “tear into Paul like a bag of Temptations” and “chew him up and spit him out like diet kibble.”

“You see this wand toy?” Buddy told reporters, throwing punches at a colorful felt parrot that dangled from the end of a stick. “That’s what I’m gonna do to Jake’s face. And if it’s legal to attack his feet, I’m gonna do that too. I’m awesome at attacking feet.”

Longtime boxing promoter Don King called the bout “a magnificatious spectacle of pugulisticary skillsmanship.”

Paul vs Buddy is set for Dec. 31 at Madison Square Garden, only six weeks after Paul is scheduled to duke it out with retired super featherweight Geronta “Tank” Davis. Despite Davis giving up more than 70 pounds and eight inches in height, Bidarian insisted the bout will be “about as evenly matched as possible.”

While most traditional boxing fans and critics dismissed the Paul vs Buddy fight as another gimmick, legendary boxing promoter Don King hailed it as “a monumentilacious rejuvenalizationary occasion” for the sport.

“Jason Paul is a heraldific resplendinizer of pugilistic entertainmentized sportulations,” King gushed, “while Buddy is the most splendiferously sanguinarius felid fighter to ever set paw in the ring. I can’t think of a better match-up between two pugnaciously bellicoserized combatulants anywhere. This is gonna be epic!”