Who is Mike Tyson? All About The Baddest Man on the Planet!

Who is Mike Tyson? A boxer of exception who made the crowds stand up in the middle of the night on his name alone at his peak? A powerhouse of nature who has been through the highest and lowest levels? A guy who is no better than his unflattering reputation? Not saying anyone can answer that. Nor does the man himself know how to answer it. With his name once again coming up as he punched a fellow passenger on an airplane, in this article, we take a look into his life with the false air of a play in 21 chapters. Stay tuned! Mike Tyson biography Born June 30, 1996, in a Brooklyn hospital, it's an understatement to say that Michael Gerard Tyson did not have an easy life from the start. His father abandoned him at the age of 2, and he was raised with his brother and sister by his single mother, who had a hard time making ends meet. When her mother loses her job when he is 7 years old, he finds himself alone in the streets of Brownsville, one of the most dangerous ghettos in the country. He was sexually assaulted at the same time by a stranger (something he only recently revealed). He threw himself into delinquency, notably taking advantage of his small size to break into houses by going through the windows. 14 Interesting Facts about Duchess Kate A difficult childhood At 13 years old, his record counts no less than 38 arrests. And when he lost his mother to cancer three years later, the wound opened up that would never close: "I never saw my mother happy or proud of me. She knew only the bad side; she saw me coming home with new clothes that she knew I had not paid for. I never had a chance to talk to her, to know her better. emotionally it devastated me." Although he is a certified punk, Mike is regularly bullied by boys and girls his age because of his chubby appearance and the hair on his tongue. More of an introvert, at age 9, he found refuge in pigeon breeding, a love that would stay with him for the rest of his life - in the early 2000s, the domesticated more than a thousand of them on his New York property. "Pigeons are the first people I have loved in my life. I do not know why, but for me, they are not so different from humans." Sadly, when his friends heard about his new hobby, they came to visit him to steal his birds. One of them takes the opportunity to torture another and then rip off its head despite Tyson's pleas. Suddenly, out of control, he, who up to then was not a brawler, hit someone in the face for the first time in his life. According to his admission, he took "pleasure" in beating him up; from then on, he did not hesitate to throw punches, including against 30-year-olds who refused to pay him when he won the dice against them. Imprisoned at the age of 14 at the Tryon School for Boys juvenile detention center following another arrest, Mike Tyson wanted to try his hand at English boxing. There, former professional Bobby Stewart (45 wins, 5 losses) imposed him to spend one month without committing any disciplinary offence before training. 15 Celebrities Who Refuse to Join Social Media The big opportunity comes Then, after several weeks, he introduces Mike to the man who will change his life for good: Constantine 'Cus' D'Amato. A former manager of Stewart and several Hall of Famers such as Floyd Patterson or Jose Torres, Constantine D'Amato immediately detected the immense potential of this tumultuous teenager. Or, to quote Tyson: "He may have just met me, I may have still been a kid, but he predicted I would be world champion.” The 70-year-old man who Muhammad Ali gave him the nickname of "the Bible of boxing" set about implementing his plan without further ado, but not without reformatting his new foal from scratch. Reputed to be as austere as intractable with his boxers, D'Amato set about making him "an arrogant sociopath", according to Tyson. Or, as he wrote in his 2017 book Iron Ambition, "Cus persuaded me that hurting others was noble (...) I had no feelings for my fellow man, no compassion. I was programmed to be like that, to be empty." Who is Tyson Beckford? First success at the youth level Though a gold medalist at the Youth Olympic Games in 1981 and 1982, Tyson, not quite 18, just missed qualifying for the 1984 Olympics. This was because of a certain Henry Tillman, who defeated him by a small margin during the qualifications before taking the first step of the podium in Los Angeles. By 1990, both men found themselves in the pros in a Las Vegas ring. Titled The Road Back, the bout lasted two short minutes and 47 seconds. Tillman did his best to avoid his opponent before taking a counter right that left him with all four irons in the air. John McAfee Biography The youngest World Champion Just a year and a half after his professional debut, and with 27 wins in 27 fights and 25 knockouts, Kid Dynamite was given a chance on November 22, 1985, to become the youngest world champion in boxing history at the age of 20 years and 145 days. Trevor Berbick, facing him, quickly understood that the duel was about to turn into a thrashing. The television commentators pressed the pace as if it were a 100-meter race. The matter was settled in 335 seconds by what remains one of the most famous KOs in the noble art: dazed after a left hook to the forehead, Berbick collapsed for the first time, only to try twice to get up and then fall back to the ground like a drunkard. "Nothing was going to stop me that night," Tyson said afterwards. "I didn't come to box; I came to hurt him because I knew my life would be better after this. I just wanted to have the life that Cus predicted I would have." He added. Although unfortunately for him, Cus D'Amato, who had died a year earlier, did not see his prophecy come true, Mike would nevertheless live that life. Or at least for a very short time. To Tyson, a fight was won or lost even before the first round. It was all about the face-to-face meeting that preceded the fight, that moment when he looked his future victim straight in the eye. Therefore, it was out of the question for him to give the latter any respite. With black shorts, no robe, no socks, and ready to fight, he went to the ring even if he had to pay a fine each time for not respecting the dress rules. However, this ritual, which inspires terror, was mainly aimed at reassuring Tyson, who, despite his reputation, also knew fear. Constantly on edge, it was indeed necessary that, like a robot, he limited his gambling to the maximum. Steve Lott, one of Tyson's few friends, knew about his mental fragility and insisted on taking him to the stadium the day before his fights so that he could familiarize himself with the place (getting into the ring, moving around, checking the stiffness of the ropes, etc.) and reduce any possible last-minute disturbances. The Match of Donald Trump Having unified the WBA, WBC and IBF belts, Iron Mike, as he was then known, will find 31-year-old Michael Spinks in his path. Unbeaten in 31 fights (21 KOs), he was considered (including by Ali) the only man capable of making him bite the dust. The event, organized in June 1988 in Atlantic City by Donald Trump, is presented as the most lucrative in the history of the sport. Unfortunately, anyone expecting a clash of the titans was surprised. After thundering in the press conference that he wanted to "rip Spinks' heart out and put it under his nose", Tyson needed no more than 91 seconds to set the record straight. Ninety-one seconds in which he landed 23 punches, including a left hook to the chin that sent Spinks to the ropes for the first time in his career. For the record, his trainer Kevin Rooney had led him to believe before the bell rang that he had bet his purse and his own on a first-round victory. Seated on top of the world three days shy of his 22nd birthday, Tyson later confided in a press conference that he wanted to end his career on that note. Spinks, on the other hand, rumored to have been afraid of his opponent just before the fight, actually retired a month later. Winning his first 19 fights by KO, Mike Tyson won 23 fights before the end of the first round, including seven in less than a minute! What was his secret? A punch without equal, but not just. "Everyone thinks that no one has ever hit as hard as me, but most of the heavyweights were bigger than me. The truth is, I was really fast. I hit first, which is why my knockouts looked so spectacular. I was hitting hard, but I had great precision in my execution. I would hit in certain places." He explains. Besides his compilations of knockouts that are circulating on the net, let's remember that in 1999 his fight against Orlin Norris ended in a no-decision after he hurt him with a punch to the knee, or that in 2000 he knocked out the referee who was trying to prevent him from continuing to hit his opponent on the ground. A sex addict! If we believe his bodyguard Rudy Gonzalez, the file in which Tyson listed all the women he remembered having slept with (which excluded one-night stands and groupies) counted more than 1300 names in 1992! One of them was the model Naomi Campbell, whom he had a brief affair with in 1988. In the book Taming the Beast: the Untold Story of Mike Tyson, Rory Holloway, Tyson's manager, recounts how the two lovebirds fell in love with each other at first sight during a party organized by Russell Simmons in New York. "My job was to make sure Mike stayed out of trouble, kind of like a nanny. At one point, I see him talking to a girl. I had to rub my eyes when I saw that it was Naomi Campbell. She was perhaps the most beautiful woman of her time. She had that wildness, that vivacity... and those legs." Mike and Naomi then ask him to hold their drinks for a few minutes so they can go talk a little more quietly in the bathroom. Stationed in front of the door, Mr Holloway tries as well as he can to prevent the other guests from entering. Minutes pass, and the situation becomes more and more uncomfortable; he, however, decides to go to see what they can make. "There I saw Naomi on the toilet, the skirt up and Mike, who was active behind her." Rory Holloway explains. Tyson and Campbell will not continue their romance for a long time, however, as the model does not support the infidelities of the boxer. Too bad they, in the pages of the prestigious Vogue magazine, were so well together. An early star of the sports business In the 1980s, professional sports became a sports business, thanks to the takeover of brands and the rise of TV rights. One of the first stars of this new era was Mike Tyson. He accepted a new kind of sponsorship contract in early 1986 (before his first world championship title) when the president of Nintendo USA, Minoru Arakawa, offered him $50,000 over three years to launch a video game in his name on the NES, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! Set up as an unbeatable end boss, he can regret not having negotiated a bigger check. With over 2 million cartridges sold, Mike Tyson's Punch-Out! is the eleventh best-selling game in the history of the console. Tyson also made video game history by inspiring one of the most famous characters in the Street Fighter license, boxer Balrog. In Japanese versions of the game, he is called M. Bison. Not necessarily thrilled with the idea of very probable international lawsuits, Capcom decided in 1991 to reverse the names of three of the four bosses in all other countries - initially, the army chief M. Bison (the M standing for Mister and not Mike) was named Vega and the masked assassin Vega was called Balrog. The ultimate boxing match that never happened In our collective unconscious, it is the ultimate boxing match that puts face to face two men, two tempers, and two styles that everything opposes. Ali's agility and finesse against Tyson's power and aggressiveness. In reality, the fight has already taken place: the 1974 Rumble in the Jungle. Ali gave George Foreman the pill that we know. Yeah, because, whatever those whose boxing culture is limited to Mayweather's Youtube videos, if Mohammed Ali is unanimously considered as "The Greatest", Mike Tyson is at best a top 10 in the history of heavyweights, way behind (in no particular order) Joe Louis, Lennox Lewis, Jack Dempsey, Rocky Marciano, or Jack Johnson. And even if Ali himself said that only Tyson could have beaten him in his glory days (which he recently denied). The fact remains that the two champions had always been close since the day when, after losing to Larry Holmes in 1980, 14-year-old Tyson swore on the phone to his idol that he would avenge him. Seven years later, it was done, not without Ali reminding Tyson of his promise just before the fight - "Remember what you said - get him for me". In 1995, Ali came to pick up Tyson himself when he was released from prison to take him to pray. Marriage and Divorce Within a month of starting to date the apprentice actress Robin Givens, Mike Tyson put a ring on her finger on February 9, 1998, without signing any marriage contract. The following eight months, when interviewed with the world champion on the TV set of the program 20/20, Givens claims that living with him is "a torture, a hell, worst than anything she could imagine". October 7, she asked for a divorce. What does it matter then if she claims that Tyson regularly raised his hand on her (which he admitted with his lips 20 years later) and has threatened to kill her family, according to a large part of public opinion, and more particularly to the African-American community, she is the archetypal gold digger. An evil and manipulative woman, she would have taken advantage of the boxer's psychological instability to extort from him a part of his fortune estimated at 50 million dollars. Tyson claimed that they said "I do" because Givens "made him believe" that she had become pregnant, and as soon as they got married, she and his mother bought a house for 4.6 million dollars. A war of proceedings ensued (which did not prevent the two terrible lovers from continuing to sleep together during this time) until the separation was officially pronounced on Valentine's Day of 1989. Givens officially got $10 million in compensation but always denied receiving a single cent. Mike Tyson: All alone By the end of 1988, no member of the Mike Tyson's best friends and the inner circle was by his side. His spiritual father and mentor, Cus D'Amato, and his co-manager Jimmy Jacobs, have passed away, and his manager Bill Cayton and his coach Kevin Rooney have been fired. Now more isolated than ever, he's a perfect target for Don King, who has been eyeing him for some time now. Officially became his promoter on October 26, 1988; if he also knows how to play his flaws, it is to better lead him by the nose by flattering his low instincts. Wishing to make his new foal migrate to the Showtime channel, "PalpaKing" imposed on him a series of fights with no other interest than to free him as soon as possible from his broadcasting contract previously signed with HBO. Very short term, this calculation turns out to be disastrous for Tyson, who, in the process, gives up his work discipline, gets involved with more and more dubious people, and finally loses absolutely everything - his title, money, freedom. Or, as Steve Lott puts it: "From 1985 to 1988 with Cayton and Jacobs, anything that could go would go. After Mike was fascinated with Robin Givens and Don King, all that could go wrong did go wrong." Most rancorous towards King, Tyson would sue him in March 1998 for $100 million for embezzlement, throw "a kick in his f*cking head" at him in 2003, say of him in 2009 that he is "a piece of shit who would sell his mother for a dollar" and more recently throw a glass of water in his face in a press conference (for which he later apologized). First defeat on the ring! A kind of quasi-exhibition in Japanese lands, the fight against James 'Buster' Douglas is considered a warm-up round before crossing swords with Evander Holyfield. So what a surprise for the few US viewers who woke up on the night of February 11, 1990, to see the man who had fought six times in the opening round of a Tyson fight holding his own. Even better, not satisfied to have gotten up after a devastating right hook in the eighth round, he sent the 42-to-1 favorite to the mat for good in the tenth! Sacred as the new Rocky by the media, Douglas may have been more of a curiosity than the next king of world boxing, but it was a great feat - all the more so since, like Tyson, his life was a disaster at the time (his wife left him, mother died a few weeks earlier, and baby mama had kidney disease...). Anyway, nothing of this would have happened without Bobby Brown. While on tour in the land of the Rising Sun, the writer of Don't Be Cruel paid a courtesy visit to his buddy Tyson the day before the fight... before the meeting degenerated into an orgy. "Mike and I stayed up all night with the dozen or so girls who were working at the hotel. Honestly, we had a good time even though I kept telling him, 'Yo Mike, you might want to get some sleep; you're going in the ring tomorrow', and he said, 'Look, Bobby, this guy's an amateur, I can beat him without sleeping for five weeks. Do not worry; tomorrow will be one of my shortest fights'." In fact, Tyson would make a phone call to Brown after the fight to admit that he should have listened to him. First legal trouble comes in The summer of 1991. Invited to attend the rehearsals of a Miss contest, Mike Tyson, 25 years old, meets one of the participants, Desiree Washington, aged 18. Later that evening, the girl agrees to go up to his hotel room. On July 22, she filed a complaint for rape. Indicted on September 9, 1991, the fighter risks up to 63 years of imprisonment. To defend himself, he hires the star of the bar, Vincent Fuller... an attorney who was specialized in tax cases. When the hearing began, over 400 journalists and reporters from all over the world flocked to attend the proceedings. On February 10 1992, after 9 hours of deliberation, the Jury found the accused guilty based on the testimony of the limousine driver who said that she had driven Washington home in the early morning "in a state of shock" and on the testimony of the doctor who had examined her afterwards. The following March 26, Michael G. Tyson was sentenced to ten years in prison, with four years suspended and the possibility of release after three years. Upon leaving the court, he said: "I swear on everything I have that I didn't do what she said I did to her. Perhaps I'm being punished for other things I've done; maybe it's a fair shake." Always stingy in confidences when it comes to displaying his private life, yesterday as today, Tyson, however, categorically refuses to address the subject in public other than fiercely denying any non-consensual relationship. He converted to Islam in prison After being released on March 25, 1995, with a kufi on the head, the old prisoner numbered 922335 confirmed the news by going to the nearest mosque, then by letting know that he had adopted the Koranic name, Malik Abdul Aziz. Of course, such a turn to 180 degrees is not without surprise. On the one hand, during his three years at the Indiana Youth Center, Tyson admitted to having "so much sex that he didn't have the strength to train". On the other hand, afterwards, it was worse. However, he regularly reaffirms his faith, as in 2012 when he made his pilgrimage to Mecca and the following year when he told Fox News that "Allah does not need him, he needs Allah". However, this did not stop him in 2016 from supporting Donald Trump's presidential candidacy as a "black Muslim". He was friends with 2Pac Shakur Referred to the overdose for thirty years in the rap culture based on punchlines spinning the metaphor with the power of his punch, as a majority of emcees, Tyson does not care to be an example; he who, like them, enjoys playing the "nightmare of America" with the white class. He has been a buddy of 2Pac's since that day when, before his fame, he brought him and his whole crew into a Los Angeles club that the bouncers wouldn't let him in. Tyson shares many similarities with 2Pac. To start with, having been convicted of rape. In fact, Shakur went to visit Tyson in prison - which according to the latter, he had the gift of annoying the guards, as the rapper raised the tension by his mere presence. Used to go in the ring to the sound of Ambitionz Az A Fighta, a rewrite by 2Pac of his song Ambitionz Az a Ridah, both men see their destinies linked forever on September 7, 1996: on the ring, Mike defeated poor Bruce Sheldon in 1 minute 49, 2pac, who was present in the audience, a few hours later murdered by bullets. Tyson vs Holyfield! Several times postponed (because of Tyson's defeat against Douglas in 1990, because of Tyson's broken rib in 1991, and because of the conviction of Tyson in 1992), the fight against Evander `The Real Deal' Holyfield finally took place on November 9, 1996, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. Despite four quick victories in 13 months ( eight short rounds in total), even though he still attracts the crowds, although he is the favorite, Mike Tyson, at 30 years old, is not the prodigious boxer he once was. Away from his former technicality, he now simply tries to put some punches on his opponent’s head to try to deal him a fatal blow. Now back in top form after almost having a heart attack a year earlier, Holyfield inflicted a very logical technical knockout on his opponent in the eleventh round, thus burying the Iron Mike myth once and for all. Eight months later, revenge was organized. The following is known: In the first round, Tyson bites Holyfield's right ear, gets warned by the referee, who, surprisingly, does not stop the fight, and then breaks a bolt in the third round by tearing off part of his left ear this time. Tyson will justify his gesture by arguing the head blows made by the crafty Holyfield; his coach Teddy Atlas will say that Tyson behaved like that to prevent a second defeat in a row. At the same time, Holyfield will finally get his ear back in 2013 during a commercial shot for Foot Locker. Tyson vs Lewis: Back to the top! Banished for 15 months and fined 3 million dollars, Tyson set out to return to the top in 2002 by seizing the WBC/IBF/IBO titles held by Lennox Lewis. Again, this was the fight the world was clamoring for, particularly since Tyson revels in his caricature, as when, back in June 2000, after disposing of Lou Savarese in 38 seconds, he launches into a tirade that flirts with psychopathy. "I am the best. I'm the most brutal, most vicious champion. Nobody can stop me! Is Lennox a conqueror? No, I am Alexander the Great. He is not. I'm the best. There's never been anyone as cruel as me. I'm Sonny Liston. I am Jack Dempsey. There is no one like me. I am their kind of guy. Nobody can match me. I'm a fierce player; my defense is unstoppable. I am fierce." And he concluded with: "Lennox, I need your heart. I wanna eat your children! Praise Allah!" Two years later, during a press conference officially announcing the fight between the two heavyweights, Tyson threw himself without warning at the British. Plated on the ground by all his entourage after having knocked out his bodyguard, he bites his leg! Once on his feet, he attacked the journalists present with insults copied/pasted from a ghetto movie - "You scared white pussy (...) I'll fuck you till you love me faggot!" Consequently, the commission of Nevada withdraws his license. When the fight was held four months later in Memphis, the organizers took every precaution. The two boxers did not occupy the dressing rooms at the same time, instructions from the referees were given before entering the ring, and when the fight was introduced, they placed a dozen security guards between them to prevent any possible outburst before the bell rang. Oh, and Mike went down by knockout in the eighth. Mike Tyson tattoo? One of the world-famous! Back in 2003, Tyson was getting ready to fight Clifford Etienne. In full training camp, he decided to drop everything to go get a shot. His coach Jeff Fenech was furious and dropped him, believing that he was trying to ruin the fight. Mike eventually came back, however, not with a face covered in hearts as he had planned, but a Maori design on his left eyebrow, and went on to blow away Etienne in less than a round, which happened to be the very last victory of his career. On his wife's advice, he did not have his right eyebrow covered in the same way. However, he already had a whole collection of the most bizarre portraits on his body. The Argentine communist Che Guevara on his belly, tennis player Arthur Ashe (winner of Wimbledon in 1975) on the left shoulder, his former wife Monica Turner on his forearm, or even the Chinese leader Mao Zedong (the initiator of the policy of the Great Leap Forward, the gulag and the Cultural Revolution, a total of 70 million deaths) on his right biceps. The last fight More of an entertainer than anything else, Tyson continues to perform sporadically as Michael Jordan did with the Washington Wizards. However, on June 11, 2005, the third fight in three years will be his last. After being beaten by the very honest Danny Williams eleven months earlier, the man who was nicknamed at the peak of his glory "the baddest man on the planet", faced at 38 years old the very limited Kevin McBride in what looked like a bad parody. After attempting to break his arm in the sixth round and then being deducted two penalty points for headbutting him in the next round, Tyson sat on his chair, unwilling to continue the fight and then explained on the microphone that he "did not want to disrespect the sport". "My heart is not in it anymore. I apologize to the fans who paid for this. I wish I could have done better, but it is time for me to move on, be a better father, and take care of my children." Tyson was relieved and thought in his heart that he could finally devote his days to "fucking and getting high until he died". The era of decline begins Though he received $5.5 million for his performance against Bride, Tyson actually only got $250,000. The rest of the money was seized by his creditors. In debt to the tune of 23 million dollars, despite having received no less than 300 million dollars over the last 20 years, he was forced to declare bankruptcy in 2003. Drug consumption, lousy contracts, trials, petty theft, divorce, alimony, taxes would be an understatement to say that he has bitten all the hooks of the new rich life. Just between 1995 and 1997, he has spent 9 million dollars in legal fees, 230,000 dollars on phone bills and 410,000 dollars on a birthday party! As a luxury car enthusiast (he has been credited with more than a hundred purchases), he must have hired a guy whose job was to track down the cars he couldn't remember who he had lent them to. And on the subject of crazy expenses, it is impossible not to mention his two $140,000 Bengal tigers which, on top of having cost him $4,000 a month in food and $125,000 a year in training, caused him to pay $250,000 to compensate a woman whom they had once attacked. The result was that by 2006, Tyson, 40 years old at the time, had been reduced to putting the gloves back on in exhibitions just to replenish his coffers - and also Z series movies, books, documentaries, and a one-man show, partnerships, etc. “Undisputed Truth”: Mike Tyson Autobiography Mike Tyson published his autobiography, the Undisputed Truth , in 2013. Amidst a thousand anecdotes as crazy as each other, the story is the journey of a man all his life in the grip of his self-destructive impulses. A guy devoured by his addictions (to cocaine, alcohol, women, blood...) who does not hesitate to write the most serious sentences like "Sometimes I fantasize about blowing a guy's brains out to finish my days in jail ". Or who during the promotional campaign confides "not even knowing who he is anymore", that "life is a joke", "some days it's as if he woke up in a dream and said to himself," How could all this happen? Sincerely told, he added a layer recently when in tears, he returned to what he was and what he has become. "The art of combat and war is all I have ever known, all I ever studied. That is why they all feared me in the ring. I was the destroyer. That is why I came into the world. Now those days are behind me, and I feel empty. I'm nothing anymore." "I am not that person anymore, and I miss him. Sometimes I feel like a bitch. Still, I do not want that person to come back because it would be chaos again if they came back. I hate the guy I used to be; I am afraid of him." Unforgettable Tales of Triumph in the Boxing World: Ever wondered how the world of boxing has been portrayed on the silver screen? We have handpicked the top 15 films that showcase not just the sport, but human emotion and struggle. Click here to delve into these knockout classics and buckle up for an unforgettable cinematic experience.

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Who is Mike Tyson? All About The Baddest Man on the Planet!

Here we take a look at the crazy life of Mike Tyson

21. Mike Tyson biography

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