I was on a phone call with Mike Tyson about a decade ago, years after his career as an active fighter had ended. And having seen the worst of him up close, I was blunt with the former heavyweight champ.
“Mike, we all thought you’d either be dead or in prison by now,” I said.
“So did I,” he responded.
Tyson’s continuing self-awareness is probably one reason he’s in a much better place as he prepares to face Roy Jones Jr. in a pay-per-view exhibition for charity Saturday night at Staples Center in Los Angeles.
He’s happy with his family life, oversees the successful cannabis company Tyson Ranch and, at 54, is a good citizen. The contrast between the current version of Mike Tyson and the one who walked out of prison after a 3½-year stint for rape in 1995 couldn’t be more stark.
The earlier Tyson was a bitter, brooding wretch who trusted almost no one and was convinced the world had conspired against him. He was alternately combative or irrational – or a disturbing combination of both – which made being around him and his entourage uncomfortable.
“I hate everybody,” he told boxing writer Nigel Collins, who interviewed him at his correctional facility in Indiana for a Ring Magazine story.
His worst moments have been well publicized.
Inside the ring, Tyson, apparently frustrated that Evander Holyfield repeatedly butted him, gnawed off a portion of his rival’s ear in the infamous “Bite Fight” of June 1997 in Las Vegas. He was disqualified, temporarily lost his boxing license and didn’t fight again for a year and a half. It was one of the darkest moments in boxing history.
Outside the ring, examples of his abhorrent or strange behavior abound.
He routinely used crude, sometimes lewd language. For example, speaking to a group of television journalists, he frightened a female reporter who asked him about an upcoming fight by replying: “It’s no doubt I am going to win this fight and I feel confident about winning this fight. I normally don’t do interviews with women unless I fornicate with them. So you shouldn’t talk anymore … unless you want to, you know.”
He called a Canadian television interviewer “a piece of s—” on air for mentioning that he was a convicted rapist. He told another reporter to “f— off” on live TV after the interview was ended because of Tyson’s swearing.
I was at a press conference in Los Angeles to promote his fight against Andrew Golota in October 2000. He was 2½ hours late. And when he arrived, he was at his most bizarre. Not much of what he had to say made sense, although one comment stood out: “I’m on the Zoloft to keep me from killing y’all.”
He seemed to be on something. At one point of the event, and for no apparent reason, he stripped off his shirt and jumped onto the table that stood on the dais. He yelled, “I’m a street person!”
Um, OK.
One local columnist, an unusually cynical reporter who thought he had seen it all but had never been exposed to Tyson, was stunned by the behavior.
“What the hell was that?” he asked. “Welcome to the world of Mike Tyson,” I replied.
Tyson saved some of his most shocking behavior for Lennox Lewis, who knocked him out in June 2002. Tyson was interviewed by Jim Gray after he stopped Lou Savarese in 2000 and went on a classic – and ugly — rant.
“I’m the best ever,” he said. “I’m the most brutal and vicious and ruthless champion that’s ever been. There’s no one can stop me. Lennox is a conqueror? No, I’m Alexander. He’s no Alexander. I’m the best ever.
“There’s never been anybody as ruthless. I’m Sonny Liston. I’m Jack Dempsey. There’s no one like me, I’m from their cloth. There’s no one that can match me. My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable, and I’m just ferocious. I want your heart, I want to eat his children.”
And, in a sequel to the second Holyfield fight, he sparked a brawl at a news conference in New York and bit Lewis’ leg during the commotion.
“Everyone started jumping in,” Lewis said on the Rich Eisen Show. “At the bottom was me and Tyson,” Lennox Lewis said in an interview on the Rich Eisen Show. “They were clearing everybody off. I said, ‘Hey! He’s biting my leg.’ And everybody had a shocked look. My security saw it. And then they started giving him some elbows. Then, he released my leg.”
Tyson struggled outside the ring but could generally count on positive outcomes inside it. He regained a portion of the heavyweight championship by knocking out Frank Bruno in March 1996 and added another belt by stopping Bruce Seldon in his next fight.
Then things went south. Evander Holyfield was thought to be in decline when he challenged Tyson in November 1996, which is why he started as a 25-1 underdog in the fight. However, in significant upset, he stunned the world by knocking out Tyson in 11 rounds.
One of the many great stories surrounding that event was a pre-fight poll of boxing writers in which only one – Ron Borges – picked Holyfield to win.
“My choice of Holyfield over Tyson was always quite firm,” said Borges, who explains his reasoning below. “I would have picked him had they fought earlier as well.”
And then there was the unfortunate second fight with Holyfield, who lost part of his ear as result of Tyson’s outrageous behavior. That was the lowest of his many lows as it relates to boxing.
Tyson would fight 10 more times before retiring, including the pathetic loss to the vastly superior Lewis and a final fight against journeyman Kevin McBride – a fighter he would’ve destroyed a few years earlier — in which he couldn’t make it past six rounds.
That was 15 years ago. During that time, Tyson, determined to control his demons, sought help, worked on himself and evolved from a sometimes-raving lunatic into someone resembling a normal person. He seems happy.
Which leads us to this Saturday. Tyson feels and looks fantastic, particularly for a 54-year-old, which is the result of a heathy diet and boxing workouts – some caught on video – that have brought back memories of Tyson in his prime and convinced him that he could return to his roots.
We thought he’d either be dead or in prison. Instead, he’ll be exchanging punches with Jones for charity. Who would’ve predicted this?
Here is a further look back into the post-prison years from some of those who were there to witness them. Those who shared there memories are broadcaster Steve Albert, who called 15 of Tyson’s fights; Borges, who made the correct call on the first Tyson-Holyfield fight; and Norm Frauenheim and Tim Smith, writers who covered Tyson at that time.
Here’s what they had to say.
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WHAT WAS TYSON LIKE AFTER HE LEFT PRISON?
TIM SMITH
“The Mike Tyson who got out of prison was probably more angry than the one who went in. In his estimation he was a wrongly convicted man who served prison time for something he didn’t do. He didn’t do much to try to hide or contain that anger.
“His relationship with his promoter Don King was also beginning to deteriorate after he got out of prison. King had installed Rory Holloway and John Horne as Tyson’s managers. They wanted to insulate him from everyone, including the press, so that King could keep a firm grip on his top earner.
“Horne created an adversarial relationship with the press and Tyson played his role perfectly. He was mistrustful of almost everyone – anD rightfully so because people had taken advantage of him for most of his life.
“There was one occasion when a group of reporters were interviewing Tyson and the reporter for UPI (United Press International) identified himself before asking a question. Tyson said, ‘I’m not talking to that guy because one of his trucks ran over my dog.’’
“Someone had to explain to him that it was a UPS truck that ran over his dog. It wasn’t UPI. I think Tyson was joking, but you never could tell. Tyson was a powder keg and no one knew when he was going to explode.”
STEVE ALBERT
“Tyson wasn’t just about raw power. He was theater. He was drama. He was unpredictable. You never knew what he was going to do next. His time in prison made him even more magnetic. He came out angry and bitter and looking to prove something with his fists.
“It didn’t matter who his opponent was – Peter McNeeley, Julius Francis, Lou Savarese, Brian Nielsen or Clifford Etienne. People wanted to see the Tyson of old, the Tyson who used to obliterate his opponents.”
***
WHAT WAS IT LIKE TO BE AROUND TYSON DURING THAT TIME?
STEVE ALBERT
“Generally speaking, when I think back on that period of Tyson’s career, I remember that it was a very challenging time. I was always on edge leading up to calling a Mike Tyson fight because ring skills aside, you just never knew what to expect from him.
“He was so unpredictable and in the back of my mind, I always felt as if he was going to do something bizarre. I was one of those guys who meticulously prepared for each fight show. I’d have an over-abundance of material from researching each fighter, studying videotape to understand their strengths and weaknesses.
“I would talk to people and prepare lots of notes. But prior to a Tyson fight, I always thought that no matter how hard I had prepared for that fight, something was going to go wrong which would send all that hard work and preparation right out the window.
“It was a trying time for everyone involved. There was no broadcast training in the world that could prepare a play-by-play or blow-by-blow announcer for this kind of environment. I always tried to keep the mood light and humorous in production meetings, fighter meetings, just generally being around the broadcast crew who were a great bunch of people, but when I got to the site of a Tyson fight, the mood was different.
“I remember thinking, ‘It’s not supposed to be like this.’ But we made the best of it.
***
THE FIRST TYSON-HOLYFIELD FIGHT
STEVE ALBERT
“I don’t think there’s any question that that version of Tyson had lost a step. His reflexes weren’t quite the same and it seemed more difficult for him to get out of the way of punches. He was slower, more flat-footed and would sometimes square up, which made him an easier target.
“That said, any fighter who can punch like a mule-kick — as Tyson could — was always dangerous. And that’s what the allure was with Mike Tyson. He didn’t lose that aspect of his game. And with Mike, that’s all it took. One punch, especially a Tyson punch, could change the whole dynamic of a fight in a split second.
“I did not expect Tyson to lose to Holyfield in their first fight. However, when you reason it out, it starts to make sense as to why that may have happened. Just prior to his fight with Tyson, Holyfield fought Bobby Czyz, who at the time was also my broadcast partner on Showtime Championship Boxing.
“Bobby had been a world champion at light heavyweight and cruiserweight. He moved up to heavyweight to fight Holyfield in 1996 in the main event at Madison Square Garden. It was Holyfield’s first fight since losing to Riddick Bowe and he was stopped for the first time in his career.
“He was 33 and people were telling him to retire, which he had done in 1994 after he looked lackluster against Michael Moorer. After that fight, Holyfield was diagnosed with a heart ailment.
“Before his fight with Czyz, he was advised to retire again. Instead, he fought the 34-year-old Czyz. While Evander had his way in the early rounds, Bobby came on in rounds four and five and even had the crowd chanting his name. It was turning into an exciting fight.
“But as the sixth round was ready to start, the Czyz corner stopped the fight and Holyfield won by TKO. Bobby had complained of severe burning in his eyes and couldn’t see and later contended that the Holyfield corner put something on Evander’s gloves.
“Well, Tyson and his people perhaps felt that Holyfield was past his prime, not the same fighter he used to be. On top of that, he’d been diagnosed with that heart ailment. Tyson may have let down in his training for Holyfield based largely on what he and his team observed against Czyz.
“Some people say that Holyfield could thank Bobby Czyz for his victory over Mike Tyson in 1996.”
RON BORGES
“My choice of Holyfield over Tyson was always quite firm. I would have picked him had they fought earlier as well. Why? Several reasons. Unlike most of the opponents Tyson fought. Holyfield was never intimidated by him, dating back to their amateur days.
“They had a hellacious sparring session once as amateurs that Pat Nappi finally had to stop because it was a gym war. While at the Olympic Developmental camp in Colorado Springs before the ’84 Games there was an incident when a bunch of the fighters were playing pool. The winner kept the table. Loser gave up the stick.
“Tyson lost but refused to give up his cue to Holyfield, who was next up. Holyfield, I was told, went up and took it out of his hand without saying a word. Tyson went off to his room for the night. I always felt because of those things Tyson was intimidated by Holyfield, who he knew would stand up to him.
“If he couldn’t get him out early, which seemed unlikely to me because of Holyfield’s chin and resolve, Tyson would break down. I also never forgot being in Houston at Holyfield’s camp one day before the fight. He was eating breakfast after that 5 a.m. workout he used to do in the morning (I hated that!) and ESPN was on the TV.
“John Horne came on yapping about the dreadful things Tyson was going to do to Holyfield. Evander stopped eating, watched, then went right back to eating without saying anything. I asked what he thought about what Horne said, which was something crude.
“He just looked at me and said, ‘Don’t matter what he says. either way we got to fight.’ That was it. No emotion. No intimidation. No nothing. Just ‘either way we got to fight.’ That was his real strength. His mind and his faith that he was protected by a Higher Power. That Higher Power wasn’t going to fight for him. That was Holyfield’s job. But he believed he would protect him.
“If you recall, Tyson rocked Holyfield with a big right hand only seconds into the fight because Holyfield was expecting a left, which was Tyson’s usual pattern. Holyfield swung right around. It was the only moment I was worried but only for an instant because Holyfield fired right back and answered.
“Before that first round was over Holyfield quickly made apparent he was physically stronger than Tyson too. That was a key element because it allowed Holyfield to repeatedly tie Tyson up after one punch and then push him back.
“I believed Holyfield was stronger and would do what he planned, which was use his strength advantage to smother Tyson inside and then push him back. That kept Tyson on his back foot as much as possible and thus negated much of his power.
“A key moment in the first fight came at the end of the first round. Holyfield had told me a month or so before the fight that Tyson tries to hit you after the bell, knowing the ref will jump in before you can retaliate. Tyson did just that after the bell sounded to end Round 1 and Holyfield jumped in as the ref tried to get between them and nailed Tyson back. It was a statement that basically told Tyson, ‘We can do this however you want to do it.’ Early in the next round Holyfield hurt him for the first time. No coincidence.
“Holyfield also told me about a month before the fight that Tyson likes to jump in with his head ahead of his gloves. As he put it, ‘He has that big HEAD. He comes in and see his head coming and back up and he hits them with the left hand. He dips and then throws it. When he comes in with his head like that, I’m coming forward not going backward.’ He did exactly that.
“Although some believe Holyfield butted Tyson in those fights, if you go watch the tape, the clash of heads is a result of Tyson leading with his head and Holyfield refusing to back out. I don’t think either guy was butting the other but the clashes were inevitable if Holyfield didn’t retreat. Which he would not. That is exactly what happened in both fights.
“Once Holyfield hurt Tyson and refused to back down, Tyson began to unravel mentally. Once the aura of being the bully was gone he was the intimidated one. He was never strong mentally, going back to his amateur days. By the final few rounds of the first fight he was what the old trainers used to call a “game quitter.” He took his beating but got to the point where he was desperate and no longer trying to win. Holyfield broke him down mentally first and then physically, which was what I felt he always would have done.
“I also felt for all the heat Holyfield took after the Bobby Czyz fight for his supposedly ‘poor performance’ people lost sight of the fact he won every round and made the guy QUIT ON HIS STOOL after only five rounds. I never could quite understand what people saw that night. Surely it wasn’t Holyfield’s greatest performance but it was a one-sided win. Always baffled by that reaction from people, especially fight guys who should have known better.”
***
THE SECOND TYSON-HOLYFIELD FIGHT
STEVE ALBERT
“No one expected the ear biting in the second fight, obviously. In retrospect, should we have seen something like that coming? On the night of the second fight, I remember walking from my hotel room at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas to the MGM Grand Garden Arena with this feeling in my gut that Tyson was going to do something strange. But nobody could have seen something like that coming.
“We did point out during the broadcast that Holyfield was repeatedly head-butting Tyson and he was really getting frustrated. But again, what later took place, what he actually did to Holyfield was not factored into my thought process.
“When it did happen, I was announcing in disbelief. Obviously, this was something I had never seen or experienced during a broadcast. We were in unchartered waters. It was something for which you could never prepare. But I remember thinking to myself, ‘I was right about Tyson doing something bizarre.’ But biting off a piece of Holyfield’s ear had never entered my mind.
“I tried to keep my cool under very frenetic circumstances and just try to describe what was going on, even though it was extraordinary. Extraordinary was followed by pandemonium because after Tyson bit Holyfield a second time, referee Mills Lane stopped the fight and disqualified Mike.
“That’s when all hell broke loose and Tyson tried to go at Evander again despite the fact that the ring was now packed with security people. Tyson was just swinging randomly at anybody. Through it all, I just kept on announcing, trying my best to describe this wild scene.”
RON BORGES
“As for the second fight, once again Holyfield established early that he would not back down or retreat, resulting in another clash of heads that left Tyson bleeding and at a loss for what to do next. I believe Tyson quickly began to look for a way out, one that would be acceptable in the circles in which he traveled.
“He chose to bitE Holyfield, knowing he’d get DQ’d. That was his way out of what he knew was coming, which would be another lopsided beating in the end. He wanted no part of that so he found a way out.
“I also have always felt as odd and troubling as that ending was it was good that Lane stopped it after the second ear bite because had the fight gone on Holyfield was going to take it to a nasty place. He was always willing to fight Tyson in whatever manner Tyson wanted to engage. My guess is this would have become an ugly foul fest. Holyfield would have won that too but didn’t have to go there.”
***
AFTER THE HOLYFIELD FIGHTS AND HIS SUSPENSION
NORM FRAUENHEIM
“Mike arrived, unannounced, in Phoenix during the fall of 1998. He was first spotted on the Arizona State campus. At the sight of him, students reacted the way Chinese citizens must have when he suddenly showed up at Tiananmen Square to visit Chairman Mao’s tomb in 2006. They were fascinated.
“What was he doing here? Why was he here? Mike’s unpredictability has always part of his mystique. You just never knew where or when he’d show up or even exactly which Mike would be there from day-to-day.
“Turns out, he had come to Phoenix to see a sex counselor. He was there for what he said was sex addiction. He wanted to change, he said then. But he also said he would continue to train at a beat-up old downtown gym, then called Madison Square Garden, later renamed Central Boxing.
“The place, an old drug store built in 1920s, was about to be condemned as a fire hazard. But Tyson saved it from the wrecking ball. He liked it because it was run down and hot. During a Phoenix summer, only hell is hotter. On a 110-degree day, it would be 120 -plus inside the gym. There was no air conditioning. Just box fans blowing around the hot air.
“But Tyson genuinely liked it. It was if he had come to the desert to reinvent himself. But it was clear he couldn’t. There were still too many demons. He couldn’t beat them or really anybody else who mattered.
“His first fight after he arrived in Phoenix was against Frans Botha in January 1999. He won, but it was a forgettable victory, memorable only for an unpredictable moment when Tyson tried to break Botha’s arm. I don’t know why he tried to snap off Botha’s arm in a clinch. I’m not sure he knew why. But it was a gesture of futility, one that seemed to say his days as a boxer were finished.
“It also said he didn’t really want to be there. He liked Phoenix. Kids would stop by the gym and give him unusual looking pigeons. He lived comfortably in Scottsdale. There were few complications, other than a complaint from his neighbors, who demanded that he tear down his pigeon coup.
“He just didn’t want to be in the ring anymore. It’s no coincidence, perhaps, that his exasperation with boxing then began to become evident. He began to say that his life had been a failure. He said he just wanted to escape. Yet, he continued to fight, almost as he didn’t know what else to do.
“There was a trip back to jail, nine months in 1999, for an altercation with two motorists after an accident in August 1998. There were no contests against Orlin Norris and Andrew Golota. There was Brian Nielsen and Lou Savarese. All were sanctioned bouts, but they were really shows, circus-like moments to see if Tyson would show up and which Tyson would appear.
“Then, he was stopped by Lennox Lewis. It all ended when he quit after six rounds against Kevin McBride on June 11, 2005. His career was over. Then again, it had been for at least seven years.”
***
TYSON’S EVOLUTION INTO A SOLID CITIZEN
STEVE ALBERT
“In the midst of being around the Tyson craziness and calling many of his strange scenarios, I will admit that there was a time or two when I didn’t think that Mike would be long for this world, that something awful was going to happen to him.
“Today, I’m glad nothing like that happened. I do believe he is a changed man on many levels. When he was fighting, I don’t think he trusted a lot of people around him. Now, I truly believe that is different. He seems more at peace with himself and he’s certainly more reserved. I see the way he interacts with people and that’s clearly not the Tyson I observed when we covered his fights.
“He was a guest in Canastota, New York when I was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2018 and he couldn’t have been more friendly and respectful. Heaven knows, I had expressed my honest feelings about him on the air, particularly the night of the infamous bite fight and my words were pretty rough. But he was nothing but gracious toward me.
“I was not thrilled at the time we did his fights because while he was obviously a great talent, I felt that he was disruptive to the sport. All that said, in looking back at those strange and unpredictable times, I came to realize that it allowed me to really grow as a broadcaster and it may have even helped stamp my ticket to the Hall of Fame. So, after all that drama, angst and tumult, perhaps I should say, thank you Mike Tyson.”
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