Michael Gerard Tyson was born in the United States on June 30, 1966. He was a professional boxer from 1985 to 2005. At the beginning of his career, he was known as “Iron Mike” and “Kid Dynamite.” Later, he became known as “The Baddest Man on the Planet.” People think that Tyson is one of the best heavyweight boxers ever.
From 1987 to 1990, he was the only heavyweight champion in the world. Twelve of Tyson’s first 19 professional fights were over in the first round. This is how he won. Tyson is the youngest boxer ever to win a heavyweight title. He won his first belt when he was 20 years, 4 months, and 22 days old. He was the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC, and IBF titles.
He was also the only heavyweight to win all three titles. The following year, Tyson beat Michael Spinks in 91 seconds of the first round to become the lineal champion. In 1990, underdog Buster Douglas knocked out Tyson in one of the biggest upsets in history.
Early life
On June 30, 1966, Michael Gerard Tyson was born to a Catholic family in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York City. Rodney, his older brother, was born around 1961, and Denise, his older sister, died of a heart attack at age 24 in February 1990. Tyson’s mother was born in Virginia in Charlottesville. and was said to be a promiscuous woman who might have been a prostitute.
On his birth certificate, “Purcell Tyson,” a “humble cab driver” from Jamaica, is listed as Tyson’s biological father. But Jimmy Kirkpatrick, a pimp, was the man Tyson thought of as his father. Kirkpatrick grew up in Grier Town, North Carolina, a predominantly black neighborhood that was taken over by the city of Charlotte. He was one of the best baseball players in the neighborhood.
Kirkpatrick married, had a son, Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick, Tyson’s half-brother, and helped integrate Charlotte high school football in 1965. Jimmy Kirkpatrick left his family in 1959 and moved to Brooklyn, where he met Lorna Mae (Smith) Tyson, Tyson’s mother. Kirkpatrick went to pool halls, played games of chance, and hung out on the streets. Tyson said, “My dad was just a regular street guy who got caught up in the street world.” Kirkpatrick left the Tyson family around when Mike was born, leaving Tyson’s mother to care for the children independently. Kirkpatrick died in 1992.
The family used to live in Bedford-Stuyvesant, but when Tyson was 10 years old, they had to move to Brownsville because money was tight.
Six years later, Tyson’s mother died, leaving him in the care of boxing manager and trainer Cus D’Amato, who would become his legal guardian. Tyson was 16 at the time. Tyson later said, “I never saw my mother happy or proud of something I did. She only knew me as a wild kid who ran around the streets and came home with new clothes I didn’t pay for. I never met her or learned anything about her. It doesn’t hurt them professionally, but it hurts them emotionally and personally.”
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Professional career
Tyson’s first fight as a pro was on March 6, 1985, in Albany, New York. He was 18 years old at the time. He beat Hector Mercedes with a TKO in the first round. In his first year as a pro, he had 15 fights. Tyson fought often and won 26 of his first 28 fights by knockout or technical knockout. Sixteen of those wins came in the first round.
Over time, his opponents got better and better, like James Tillis, David Jaco, Jesse Ferguson, Mitch Green, Marvis Frazier, and others on the edge of being contenders. His string of wins caught the media’s attention, and Tyson was called the next big heavyweight champion. D’Amato died in November 1985, which was still early in Tyson’s career. Some people think that his death caused many of the problems Tyson had later in his life and career.
Someone should get fired from Hulu. Producers were lying to my friends saying I supported the unauthorized series about my life. https://t.co/KukFMNDkCb
— Mike Tyson (@MikeTyson) August 6, 2022
Tyson’s first fight that was shown on TV all over the country was on February 16, 1986, at the Houston Field House in Troy, New York. He fought a journeyman heavyweight named Jesse Ferguson. In the fifth round, Tyson gave Ferguson an uppercut that knocked him down and broke his nose. In the sixth round, Ferguson started to hold and clinch Tyson, which seemed to be an attempt to keep him from getting hit.
The referee finally stopped the fight in the middle of the sixth round after telling Ferguson several times to listen to him and box. At first, Tyson won the battle because his opponent was kicked out of the ring. The decision was changed to a win by technical knockout (TKO) after Tyson’s team said that a DQ win would end Tyson’s string of knockout victories and that a knockout would have happened anyway.
Personal life
Tyson lives in Nevada’s Seven Hills. He has been married three times and has seven children, one of whom has died. He counts the oldest daughter of his second wife as one of his children, even though she is not biologically his.
From February 7, 1988, to February 14, 1989, he married actress, Robin Givens. At the time, Givens was known for her role on the comedy show Head of the Class. Tyson’s marriage to Givens was very rough, with claims that he was violent, abused his wife, and was mentally unstable.
Things came to a head in September 1988, when Tyson and Givens gave a joint interview to Barbara Walters on the ABC news show 20/20. In the interview, Givens called her life with Tyson “torture, pure hell, worse than anything I could ever imagine.
Givens also said on national TV that Tyson was “manic-depressive,” later confirmed by doctors. Tyson watched with a severe and calm face. A month later, Givens said she wanted a divorce from Tyson, who she said was abusive.
In the book Fire and Fear: The Inside Story of Mike Tyson, Tyson admitted that he punched Givens and said, “That was the best punch I’ve ever thrown in my whole life.”
Tyson said that the book was “full of mistakes.” They didn’t have any kids, but she said she had a miscarriage. Tyson said she was never pregnant and just told him that so he would marry her. The couple lived in a mansion in Bernardsville, New Jersey, while married.
Rape trial and prison
In July 1991, Tyson was arrested for raping 18-year-old Miss Black Rhode Island, Desiree Washington, in an Indianapolis hotel room. From January 26 to February 10, 1992, Tyson was on trial for rape at the Marion County superior court.
A part of Washington’s story was backed up by Tyson’s chauffeur, who said Washington was in shock after what happened. The doctor who looked at Washington in the emergency room more than 24 hours after the incident and confirmed that her injuries were consistent with rape also testified.
Under direct questioning from lead defense attorney Vincent J. Fuller, Tyson said that everything had happened with Washington’s full consent and that he had not forced himself on her. When he was being questioned by the lead prosecutor, Gregory Garrison, Tyson denied that he had lied to Washington and insisted that she wanted to have sex with him. Tyson was found guilty of rape on February 10, 1992, after the jury talked about the case for almost 10 hours.
Many people say that while Tyson was in prison, he became a Muslim and changed his name to Malik Abdul Aziz (though some sources report the adoption of a different Islamic name, Malik Shabazz). [86] But Tyson has said that he became a Muslim before going to jail, but he hasn’t done anything to correct the wrong information in the media. Federal law says that Tyson must register as a Tier II sex offender because he has been found guilty.
Comeback
After getting out of prison, Tyson easily beat Peter McNeeley and Buster Mathis Jr. in his first fights back. Tyson’s first fight back earned more than $96 million worldwide, including a record $63 million for PPV television in the US. 1.52 million homes were paid to watch the fight, a record for the number of PPV viewers and the amount of money made.
People said that Tyson’s management had lined up “tomato cans” to make sure that his comeback fights would be easy wins. In 1998, TV Guide put the Tyson-McNeeley fight on a list of the 50 best sports moments ever shown on TV. In March 1996, when he fought Frank Bruno for the WBC title, Tyson won it easily. It was their second fight, and in the third round, Tyson knocked out Bruno. In 1996, Lennox Lewis said no to a guarantee of $13.5 million to fight Tyson.
This would have been Lewis’s most money from a fight up to that point. Lewis then took $4 million from Don King to step aside and let Tyson fight Bruce Seldon for an expected $30 million instead, with the plan that Tyson would fight Lewis next if he beat Seldon. In September that year, Tyson beat the champion Seldon in the first round to win the WBA belt. Seldon got a lot of bad press and jokes because it looked like he was giving up Tyson’s small punches.
For almost 4 years, Jason Martin has been a freelance writer for newspapers, journals, blogs, books, and online material. He covers the most recent news as well as many other topics.