If it’s not bad enough living in Siberia already, now people living in that vast Russian wasteland are getting stabbed to death during drunken boxing debates. A college professor fatally stabbed one of his friends while he, the friend and another man debated whether Mike Tyson or Russia’s own former Soviet republic Ukraine’s Klitschko brothers held pugilistic superiority.

From a NewsCore report (via FOX Sports):

Nikolai Makeyev, a teacher in the Siberian city of Tyumen, was having drinks with two other men in his apartment when the argument broke out.

“Makeyev said that Tyson would come out as winner, but his guest accused him of a lack of patriotism. The host did not like that and he fatally stabbed the victim several times in the back,” the regional investigating committee said in a statement.

The other guest, Makeyev’s friend, managed to flee to his own apartment though he also had stab wounds, and his wife called the police.

Jebus.  Well, I guess we can hardly blame the guy, because if you challenge a Russian man’s patriotism, you have to expect a violent and bloody outburst of murderous, Raskolnikov-like psychopathic tendencies. At the same time, we have previously seen examples of Russian people siding with an American boxer over a fellow Russian citizen former Soviet comrade. Too bad the murder victim will never have the opportunity to change. Sigh.

Note: unrelated to the story – which makes it so amusing – is how NewsCore wraps up their report on the incident with the following “sobering” statistic:

Alcohol abuse kills around 500,000 Russians each year.

You don’t say? Although in light of this tragic story, make that 499,999. At least for this year.

Tyson/Klitschko debate leads to stabbing [NewsCore]