Mike Tyson Rusts Away

It would be a misnomer to say that Mike Tyson lost his focus, because any focus that he had was imposed on him from the outside. Tyson worked hard initially because he idolized his surrogate father-figure Cus D'Amato, and afterwards his surrogate uncle, co-manager Jim Jacobs. Those men kept Tyson busy, but by 1988 both men were gone. In 1985 and 1986, Tyson was fighting at least once and sometimes as often as three times a month. He was always in the gym. Even after taking the WBC title from Trevor Berbick, Tyson was still a very busy for a top fighter, performing in 8 big fights in the space of 19 months. In the same time period, most fighters at the top would have 4 or 5 bouts. After Michael Spinks, however, Tyson's schedule slowed down and he had more and more time to himself. He slacked off at the gym and started partying.

Tyson met actress Robin Givens in March 1987 and married her in February 1988. Givens and her mother basically looked at Tyson as a cash machine, and the relationship was soon sinking. Meanwhile, Don King was dueling with Bill Cayton, Jim Jacobs's partner in the management of Tyson's career, over Tyson's future contract. In late 1988, Tyson fired longtime trainer and D'Amato protege Kevin Rooney. Divorce proceedings with Givens were underway by mid-1989, which signaled the ascendancy of Don King in Tyson's career. King was instrumental in protecting Tyson's wealth from Givens and her mother, but would later prove to be far more expensive and predatory than the gold-digging Givens clan.

Finally, the words of Larry Holmes are instructive. He once said that a short heavyweight like Mike Tyson had to work hard, and that Tyson didn't have that in him. Long before fighting him, Holmes predicted that Tyson would make it big, slack off at the gym, lose a few fights, and wind up in jail. It proved prophetic. Tyson's superlative head movement and combination punching began to erode, as Tyson stopped training so hard. The thing that made Tyson work hard and become a great fighter was never Tyson himself; he was no Joe Frazier.

Road to Waterloo

In February 1989, Mike Tyson met British contender Frank Bruno. This was only six months after the utter annihilation of Michael Spinks, so Tyson was still in top form. Bruno wobbled Tyson early, but Tyson then dropped Bruno with a left hook in the 1st, and then drilled him on the ropes in the 5th with a pair of right uppercuts and a left hook, leaving him senseless. The fight was stopped in the 5th. Tyson then destroyed Carl "The Truth" Williams in 1 Round in August.

February 1990 saw 37-0 Tyson, the Undisputed World Heavyweight Champion, in Japan and headed for calamity. With an inexperienced and clumsy crew manning his corner, Tyson was unfocused and facing a James "Buster" Douglas who put out a career-best performance. Douglas was a good fighter, and certainly did not deserve the 42-1 odds that bookmakers gave him. However, he would have had little chance against the Tyson of 1987, and the fight was viewed as a tune-up bout for a fight with a rising Evander Holyfield. The Tyson of 1990 was a different story.

Without his sharp head movement, Tyson failed to find a way to deal with Douglas's quick jab and 12 inch reach advantage. Tyson did catch Douglas with the one big punch (an uppercut) in the 8th, but Douglas rallied and gave Tyson a whomping, leading up to a 10th Round knockout. It was one of the most shocking upsets in the history of any sport.

For his part, Don King responded by announcing that Douglas had actually been knocked out in the 8th, and was the beneficiary of a "long count." He successfully persuaded the WBC to strip Douglas of their title, annul the verdict and give the belt to Tyson, but when the WBC tried the storm of protest forced them to relent. The loss would stand.

Comeback Derailed

Tyson started his comeback only 4 months after the loss to Douglas. He got revenge on his amateur rival Henry Tillman with a 1st Round knockout, and destroyed fringe contender Alex Stewart in 1 Round. It seemed like the old Mike Tyson was back.

Now the #1 contender for Evander Holyfield's world title (Holyfield had sensed crushed Douglas), he fought the #2 contender Donovan "Razor" Ruddock of Canada in March 1991. Rudduck was knocked down in the 2nd and 3rd, but rallied to make the fight competitive in the middle rounds. However, when he was rocked in the 7th, the referee prematurely stopped the fight. The ending was controversial enough to make a June rematch necessary. This fight saw Rudduck hit the canvas twice, but Tyson losing points in the 4th, 9th, and 10th for fouling. In the end, Tyson won a points victory. Overall it was the most challenging fight Tyson had yet experienced, with Rudduck being an example of a new generation of heavyweight contenders. A fight was schedule with Evander Holyfield for that Autumn.

Tyson would have to wait a long time for his showdown with Holyfield. He was arrested in July, charged with rape, and convicted in February 1992. He be sentenced to 6 years in prison, and serve 3 of them.

Comeback #2

Released from prison in March 1995, Tyson started his comeback by fighting a tomato can named Peter McNeely. The bout should have been a non-event, but the Tyson mystique had grown to enormous proportions during the years in prison. The event grossed an enormous $96 million dollars, but lasted all of 89 seconds.

Tyson then fought 20-0 fringe contender Buster Mathis, Jr. (son of the 1960s fringe contender) and stopped him in 3. That led to a rematch with Frank Bruno. Cut over the eye in the 1st Round, a terrified Bruno barely defended himself and succumbed in 3 Rounds. "Iron" Mike Tyson had won back the WBC Heavyweight Title and become a two-time champion.

However, Tyson quickly vacated the WBC belt, because it came with an inconvenient stipulation: namely #1 contender Lennox Lewis. Ducking Lewis, Tyson went after WBA champion Bruce Seldon, who many think took a dive. Tapes show that Seldon was not even touched by the punch that produced the "first knockdown," and merely grazed by the punch that stopped the fight. Whether it was corruption or cowardice, Seldon folded in the 1st. Rapper Tupac Shakur was killed later that night, shot to death mere hours after leaving the fight.

Holyfield: A Long Time in Coming

Fighting the likes of McNeeley and Seldon, and ducking Lewis was causing scorn to be heaped upon Tyson in droves. The boxing community and the public wanted to see him fight a real contender. By now Evander Holyfield was 34, and considered by some to be washed up. Don King felt Holyfield had the name to be a viable big fight opponent, but was not a threat to Tyson. It turned out that both King and the pundits were wrong about Holyfield.

November 1996 finally saw these two men meet. Tyson rocked Holyfield in the 1st, but "The Real Deal" refused to be intimidated and stood his ground. When Tyson hit him after the bell, Holyfield hit him back. Holyfield employed a strategy of blocking Tyson's limited one-big-punch approach, and then clinched him and muscled him backwards onto the ropes. Making Tyson back up took the power out of his punch. Holyfield would then score punches either on the ropes, or as Tyson came off them. Holyfield was dominating Tyson, who had no answers. Tyson was knocked down in the 6th and suffered a cut on the eye. Psychologically broken down, he was stopped in the 11th Round.

The rematch was held in June 1997, but quickly degenerated into a bloody farce. Nothing had really changed, and Holyfield was set to outbox and knockout Tyson again. Tyson first tried to break Holyfield's arm in a clinch, and then bit the top of Holyfield's right ear off. He was disqualified, fined $3 million, and banned from boxing for more than a year. During his second exile from boxing, he made a much criticized appearance on World Wrestling Entertainment.

Comeback to Nowhere

In January 1999, Tyson fought South African fringe contender Franz Botha. The emperor's clothes were truly off now: Botha outboxed Tyson, to which Tyson responded by trying to break Botha's arms in a clinch. Botha went on to openly mock Tyson, but was overconfident: Tyson still had his power, if nothing else, and felled Both with one straight right in the 5th.

Tyson followed this by picking a fight with a middle-aged man on the Washington Beltway, and was imprisoned in the Montgomery County jail for 9 months. He was released and fought former cruiserweight champion Orlin Norris in September 1999. Tyson knocked Norris down with a hook thrown after the bell, and Norris hurt his knee in the fall. The fight was ruled a no-contest.

In 2000, Tyson knocked out Briton Julian Francis, fringe contender Lou Savarese, and made fringe contender Andrew Golota quit in his corner (Golota was, if anything, more unstable than Tyson). In 2001, he stopped Danish creampuff Brian Nielsen in the 7th.

Although no one in boxing considered Tyson's three fight "win" streak to have made him worthy of a title challenge, people still would pay to see him fight and that made him a cash cow for champion Lennox Lewis. After all, professional boxing is about making money - prizefighting - and few fighters will turn down an easy bout that will rake in the cash. The strange part was that really only two groups of people were interested in watching Mike Tyson do anythng at this point: the diehard knuckleheads of the "baddest man on the planet" fanclub, and the people with the morbid curiousity of wanting to see who's ear Tyson would bite off next. It would not be Lewis: the champ played it safe and still easily knocked Tyson out in the 8th, in an event that made $107 million.

Tyson knocked out fringe contender Clifford Etienne in the 1st Round in February 2003. In August, he filed for bankruptcy, having somehow squandered $300 million (or whatever was left after he allowed King to embezzle some of it).It drained whatever was left of Tyson's fighting spirit, and he was stopped in his next fight by British journeyman Danny Williams. In his next fight in 2005, he quit in the 7th against journeyman Kevin McBride.

Legacy

Since quitting to Danny Williams, Tyson has been involved in various efforts to stave off his creditors and make a living: boxing "exhibitions," licensing his name, and the sad old famous ex-boxer standby of greeter in Las Vegas. He has been routinely in and out of trouble with the law on petty matters such as drug possesion.

Mike Tyson's legacy as a boxer is obscured by much hype and emotion. He stands at 50-6-2 (44KOs) and a two-time heavyweight champion who reigned as Undisputed Champion the first time around, with 9 defenses in that first reign. His second reign was something of a farce, made possible only due to the political machinations of Don King, who managed to keep legitimate contenders away from two of the three main world titles in preparation for Tyson's return.

As impressive as Tyson's first reign was, however, it is important to remember that it built on the wreckage of the most lackluster opposition heavyweight boxing had ever known to that time (indeed, it was the worst until recent times). Furthermore, he failed the greatest test of a champion: the test of dealing with defeat. Tyson did not come back either from Buster Douglas or prison as a chastened man, rededicated to the skills and hard work that made him great. Instead, he sunk deeper into the mire. Although many still worship Tyson as "the baddest man on the planet," the truth is that few consider him to rank among even the Top 10 of great heavyweight champions.

Sources: boxrec.com; The Ring; ESPN Classic Sports; YouTube; Personal Experence; Sports Illustrated; Dark Trade; Only in America.