Today is Mike Tyson's 50th birthday. That makes me feel old. Because I remember 21-year-old Mike knocking people out before I could get comfortable. I absolutely adored Mike, like millions of others and it hurt when he fell.
The calm before the storm, the eye of the storm, the perfect storm, any of these could describe Mike Tyson in the 80's. Sadly, the destruction after also fits the bill Mike. "Iron Mike" was hip-hop's first world champion. He came from nothing, had the world in the palm of his hands, and sadly, lost it all.
The fight was usually over before it started with Mike in the early days. The ring walk took a round off of the fight from the gate. He walked to the ring wearing black trunks, black boots and a white towel that was flipped off as he stepped through the ropes. The sight of him across the ring from his opponent took off another round. At 5’11, muscles bulging from everywhere, pacing like a caged lion, never a smile, and never any eye-contact.
If he was a lion caged, the bell unleashed him and that’s usually where the fight ended more times than often. Tyson won 19 of his first 22 fights by knockout, 13 in the first round and many of them were highlight material, with his opponents going down cartoonlike, bodies discombobulated by his fury.
The origin of that fury is the same thing that undid Mike Tyson. Brownsville (Brooklyn), New York demolished his childhood which was filled with hunger and ridicule because of the family finances, his speech impediment and high-pitched voice. Its been reported that he was arrested nearly 40 times by the time he became a teenager and was passed around juvenile facilities all across New York until he came to the attention of Cus D’Amato.
D’Amato was a very successful trainer who trained greats like Floyd Patterson and Jose Torres and who would become the father that Young Mike had needed his entire life. Cus taught Mike how to box and shielded him from the world that ate at him daily. Tyson was bred to be a champion.
On November 22, 1986 he became just that, he defeated Trevor Berbick by TKO to become the youngest Heavyweight champion ever at age 20. Cus D’Amato had died a year earlier and Mike was sitting on top of the world without the man who guided him there and was slowly connecting with the man who would oversee much of his downfall, Don King. A battle ensued with his manager at the time Bill Cayton and King, but Mike just kept knocking people out! He went on to unify the championship belts, knock out Larry Holmes and demolish Michael Spinks in 91 seconds!
A funny thing happened to the shy man who was picked on, his celebrity grew with each knockout and he was caught up in the whirlwind of celebrity. He had a very high-profile, rocky marriage to Robin Givens that was highlighted (or low lighted) by an appearance on a Barbara Walters special where she called him a monster, saying their marriage was a “living hell”, claimed he was manic-depressive and abused her regularly. They would stay married for only a year and divorce on Valentine’s Day.
He fired long time trainer Kevin Rooney, who was credited for melding Tyson’s power with the skills that made him so formidable in his early days. It was no coincidence, that he became a headhunter and was more vulnerable to his opponents after Rooney’s dismissal.
But we didn’t care about that, Mike was our champion! He wore fur coats, appeared in rap videos, had a Nintendo game named after him, had a gold tooth. He crashed Rolls-Royce’s, left them on the side of the road and bought others. Mike Tyson was the 80’s, he was excess, he was hood, he was fresh! Mike Tyson was it! I lived and died with Mike Tyson fights, the anticipation of his fights was out of control. Pay-Per-View costs were climbing to $59.99 to see his fights and they were ending early, and it didn’t matter that’s what you wanted to see.
As the decade ended, we also got to see what happens when you fall from grace, when it all comes apart. Beginning with D’Amato’s death, then Rooney’s firing, Don King’s influence, the marriage to Robin Givens, Mike Tyson was falling apart of the seams right before our eyes. Some of the things that have happened with Tyson over the years border on the surreal, then you realize that it’s Mike Tyson and it all begins to make sense. There was the hilarity that followed the late-night fight with Mitch “Blood” Green that had green with his face contorted from a Tyson right calling him a “sissy”. The unraveling caused by Evander Holyfield that led to a meltdown and biting off a piece of the champ’s right ear in their second fight, after Holyfield stopped him in the 11th round of their first fight. There have been numerous claims of suppressed sexual assaults. Lennox Lewis completely dismantled him in their long-awaited bout. The facial tattoo.
There were two events, one inside of the ring, another out, which totally changed the course of Mike Tyson’s life. First, he stepped into the ring with a game James “Buster” Douglass after a training camp that found him doing far more partying that training. What happened was a moment that crushed my 11 year old heart, Mike Tyson was knocked out! “The Baddest Man on the Planet” had been beaten. Mike Tyson not only lost, I lost, everyone who loved him lost. We lived vicariously through Mike. His wins were ours and neither of us had tasted defeat until we tasted Buster Douglas’ right hand.
What was next? What would we do? I mean, if Mike Tyson could lose, how could we move on? Mike Tyson was the hip-hop generation’s Muhammad Ali and we felt the pain Mike felt when he lost and yearned to bounce back with him. He had a couple of bounce back fights and then signed to fight Evander Holyfield, but in July 1991 he was hit a rape charge of a beauty contestant. This would be the punch that Mike Tyson never got up from.
He was convicted and sentenced to serve six years in prison, but was released after three. He returned to the ring, but he had become a sideshow and now the anticipation was to see a train wreck. Which is exactly what we got, the comeback fight against Peter McNeely, the Holyfield fights, opponents refusing to fight, nearly breaking Francois Botha’s arm, being knocked out by Danny Williams (who?) and ultimately he no longer had the desire to fight anymore and quitting in the ring against Kevin McBride. He was sentenced to probation after pleading guilty to narcotics possession and admitting that he has a cocaine problem. Then, his daughter died tragically in the home of his ex-wife and people began to realize that Mike Tyson is human too.
The shame of Mike Tyson is that for many of his fights he earned nearly $30 million to get in the ring and his fortune was estimated as high as $300 million, yet he filed for bankruptcy in 2003. Bad advice, a lifestyle of extravagance and Don King’s shady business practices has left Iron Mike owing Uncle Sam nearly $40 million and countless creditors millions more.
While the past two decades haven’t been kind to Mike Tyson, for four years he was “Kid Dynamite”, he filled the imaginations of boys across the world and carried a the hopes of a culture on his shoulder into the ring each time he stepped through the ropes. For many, the dynamo of Mike Tyson will never be duplicated, for many; he is the best we’ve ever seen. For others, the worst of Mike Tyson is what will be remembered.
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