Yesterday, Mike Tyson came clean on the fact that he’s been lying about his sobriety. Always colorful, Tyson comes off as a flawed yet likable figure frequently. The video below is a press conference where he opens up, seemingly without even being asked, about some of the mistakes of his past.
I liked Tyson when he was young. He was short for a heavyweight, at 5’10”, and he used to come out with just a towel around his head, and his black shorts and shoes on, rather than the customary robe. He looked like he was just there to beat somebody up, then go home. No boxer even went the distance against Tyson until his 20th fight. Shortly after that, he won the WBC Heavyweight Title, with a 2nd round TKO over Trevor Berbick in 1986. Tyson became the youngest heavyweight champion ever at 20 years and 4 months old.
He continued undefeated, but in 1988, things began to unravel for Tyson. He fired his manager Bill Cayton, and his trainer Kevin Rooney. He then signed up with Don King. Not surprisingly, Tyson’s personal and professional life went downhill from there. His marriage to actress Robin Givens in 1988, lasted one year. Then in 1991 he was arrested for rape, convicted in February of 1992, and sentenced to a 6 year prison term, of which he served 3 years.
In the middle of all that turmoil, Tyson lost for the first time as a professional boxer in February 1990, against heavy underdog, Buster Douglas. Douglas’ mother had died of a stroke just 23 days before the fight. Tyson was knocked out in the 10th round. At the time, I thoroughly enjoyed watching him get beat. “The baddest man on the planet” as he was called, had finally gone down. A year after he was released from prison, he was upset again, this time by former champion Evander Holyfield in 1996. They had a memorable rematch the next year, in which Tyson bit off part of Holyfield’s ear, and was disqualified.
After earning somewhere in the $400 million range in his boxing career, Tyson filed for bankruptcy in 2003, and eventually retired in 2005, with a career record of 50-6-2. Since his retirement, he has made appearances with World Wrestling Entertainment, and has appeared in The Hangover movies. He also had a one-man show, which was a 36-city tour earlier this year, called Mike Tyson : Undisputed Truth.
When Tyson appears in public, like in the video above, he usually seems to be a tormented soul, who try as he may, can’t seem to live a normal life. He does have times where he does good, like his Mike Tyson Cares Foundation, that helps kids from broken homes. It’s difficult to have a definite feel for him. Between the rape, the biting of Holyfield’s ear, and some of his horrible off-the-cuff comments over the years, to when he opens up to the point where you feel sorry for him. One thing about him, that was never in doubt. He’s not boring. Let’s hope that Mike Tyson can stretch his sobriety a lot longer than 6 days, and eventually come to peace with himself, and this world.
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