When the 1990s began, Mike Tyson was simply the most feared fighter the sport of boxing had known. He was 23 years old, and undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, having won the WBC version at 20, and destroyed the claimants of the other authorities just past his 21st birthday. He had an awesome physique, including a phenomenal neck of 19 ? inches, as thick and strong as some men's thighs. He entered the ring robeless, wearing simple black shorts and black boxing boots, and with an executioner's air of purposeful intent that carried more menace than King Kong and Godzilla combined. Many of his opponents were beaten by fear before any blows were exchanged. Only four of 37 had managed to be still on their feet at the final bell, mostly by subduing any violent feelings of their own in favour of self-preservation. Then, as soon as the 1990s began, everything went wrong. He lost his title to a 42-1 no-hoper in the biggest shock in boxing history, he was charged with rape, he was convicted, he served half of a six-year prison sentence, he returned to the ring after a four-year absence, regained a world title, then scandalously bit off part of an opponent's ear during a contest and was banned for a year. His outrageous behaviour guaranteed he would remain boxing's biggest-ever box-office attraction.
The bundle of animosity that became famous as Iron Mike Tyson entered the world on 30 June 1966 in the Cumberland hospital in the Bedford-Stuyvesant district of Brooklyn, New York. He weighed exactly 8 ? lb. His mother was Lorna Tyson, who already had two other children, who like Mike carried her maiden name, since she and Jimmy Kirkpatrick, Mike's father, never married. Kirkpatrick was a big, strong labourer, whose legacy to Mike was the genes for the muscular development that would one day make his fortune. Kirkpatrick left the family when Mike was two years old and Lorna took her children to the nearby area of Brownsville, which had even tougher and poorer streets than those they left.
In this environment delinquency was second nature to most of the young boys, and Mike, without a father and with a mother who, however well-intentioned, couldn't control him, could not avoid the influence of the streets. But young Mike was certainly not a bully by nature and indeed throughout his life was to display glimpses of surprising sensitivity in the general picture he otherwise presented of utter callousness. The world bewildered him at times, and perhaps his shocking behaviour was a way to bring some sense into it.
His mother apart, the closest person to Mike as he grew into childhood was his sister Denise. Mike learned from her soft, girlish ways. His voice was quiet, unaggressive and with a slight lisp, which he retained to some degree even when later on he could alienate everybody inside or outside boxing by saying of a punch which broke an opponent's nose: "I catch them there because I'm trying to push the nose bone into the brain".
Perhaps he was still reacting then to the days when his boyhood associates called him the 'the little fairy boy'. There could hardly be a bigger contrast between the man who said those words in his muscled malevolent prime and the retiring, bespectacled, lisping, seven-year-old 'fairy boy', yet only a dozen years or so wrought the difference.
All his life the super aggressive Tyson shown a fondness for pigeons. He kept them as a boy, and legend has it that it was through a bully pulling off the head of one of his pigeons that Tyson discovered his strength and his warlike inclinations. In an unthinking fit of fury young Mike beat up the bigger boy who killed his pigeon, not only realising his power, but that he enjoyed using it.
Tyson based the rest of his boyhood on a life of crime, which was not confined to the petty theft from shops, stalls and slot machines and the pick pocketing in gangs normally associated with youngsters of the district. Tyson was arrested dozens of times before he was 12, and among the offences he committed was armed robbery. He was sent to a New York correction centre, the Tyron School, where the unaccustomed discipline and schooling made him an awkward rebel. But he and the school's athletic coach, Bobby Stewart, an ex-boxer, came to an agreement: Tyson would co-operate in lessons if Stewart would teach him boxing. It didn't take long for Stewart to notice the potential this amazingly strong, belligerent youngster would have as a boxer, and he arranged for him to meet a contact of his in trainer Cus d'Amato. Cus d'Amato was now 70 and in effect retired from the pro boxing game, having been made bankrupt some seven years earlier. He had been very successful in training two of his charges to win world titles: heavyweight Floyd Patterson and light-heavy Jose Torres.
When Cus d'Amato saw the 13-year-old Tyson sparring for the first time he said: "That's the future heavyweight champion of the world". He was living at the time in a large house in the Catskill district of New York, where he had been installed after his bankruptcy by a wealthy friend and boxing fan, Jim Jacobs, a former champion handball player. D'Amato was living there with his partner of 40 years, Camille Ewald, and was so enthusiastic about Tyson's prospects that he persuaded the authorities to allow Tyson to live in the house with himself and Camille. Undertaking to make sure Tyson received an education as well as boxing training in the gym he ran above the local police station.
The arrangement worked pretty well with Tyson embarking on a successful amateur career under D'Amato's surveillance, with Teddy Atlas, a strong-man trainer, brought in to groom Tyson for professional stardom. A hitch which foreshadowed some of Tyson's later problems was overcome. Atlas was told that Tyson had abused a 12-year-old girl and, in an attempt to shock him into behaving more responsibly, he threatened Tyson with a gun.
The partnership became impossible. Tyson was taken back to the Tyron school, but Cus d'Amato quickly arranged for him to return to training under a new trainer, Kevin Rooney.
In the final trials for the 1984 US Olympic team, the 17-year-old Tyson was beaten twice by Henry Tillman, who won the place in the team and eventually the gold medal. D'Amato decided it was time his boxer turned professional.
D'Amato had carefully arranged the wherewithal to finance Tyson's launch to stardom. Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton were the backers and subsequent joint managers of Tyson. Cayton was an advertising executive who had discovered through his business the appeal of old fight films and who, with Jacobs, had formed Big Fights Inc, buying up a huge collection of films which became the basis of a long running TV series. Tyson liked to watch the old films, and became knowledgeable about boxing history and his possible place in it. The films suggested to Tyson and his team the idea that Tyson should enter the ring in his plain black garb, like the old champions, setting himself apart from the modern trend of show-biz entrances and creating for himself the image of the no-frills destroyer.
Tyson's mother died when he was 16, and two years later, Cus D'Amato became his legal guardian. So it was a close-knit, highly professional team which was behind Tyson when he made his pro debut on 6 March 1985 at Albany, New York, against Hector Mercedes. He was not yet 19, and he won by knockout after 107 seconds. Cayton and Jacobs videoed this, an the other quick wins which followed, to compile a tape advertising Tyson for distribution to boxing people. Nothing was being left to chance.
Poor Cus d'Amato, however, was not to live to enjoy the day he became associated with his third, and perhaps greatest, world champion. He died in November 1985, aged 77. Nine days later Tyson beat Eddie Richardson, appropriately in 77 seconds. It was his 12th straight win, and ninth in the first round.
Tyson was not tall for a heavyweight, standing only 5ft 11 ? in, but he weighed an adequate 220lb. D'Amato had taught him how to bob and weave and present a moving and difficult target. He mastered a fine array of hooks and uppercuts which he could throw from a variety of angles. His main assets were his hand speed, enabling him to deliver punches in swift combinations, and the terrific power of his punching. His ruthlessness in finishing off a stricken opponent was unsurpassed.
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