Mike Tyson “Should Be Dead Many Times Over”: Why the World Hasn’t Knocked Out the Champ
My earliest memories of Mike Tyson begin in the 1990s. I have a vague recollection of his release from an Indiana prison, where he served three years after being convicted of rape, though I wasn’t old enough to grasp the facts of the case. More vivid memories came later, like his shocking defeat to Evander Holyfield and, of course, “the bite fight.” I remember his sad display against Lennox Lewis and the even sadder post-fight interview, when he said he was going to “fade into Bolivian.” And I remember when he revealed his face tattoo to a bewildered public.
There is a Tyson for every generation; the one introduced to millennials like me was less imposing in the ring and more erratic outside of it. For later generations, maybe they know the Tyson who made a cameo in The Hangover, or the one who squared off with Jake Paul on Netflix.
And yet, the Mike Tyson in my mind’s eye often assumes the form seen in photos taken around the time I was born. Young, imperious, and not yet broken, this was the Tyson at the peak of his athletic and celebrity powers. There he was, hoisted in the air by Don King, his newly won title belt fixed to his waist. And there he was hobnobbing with celebrities, from Brooke Shields to Donald Trump.
All of these images were captured in the 1980s, when Tyson became the youngest-ever heavyweight champion and a bona fide global icon. In a decade that saw the embrace of go-go economics and the emergence of hip-hop, Tyson proved to be the right man for the moment. Styles make fights, but the era makes the fighter.
“I can’t imagine him in a different decade,” said Mark Kriegel, a boxing analyst for ESPN and author of biographies on Joe Namath, Ray Mancini, and Pete Maravich. “He couldn’t have come from another age, or he wouldn’t have been Tyson.”
In a superb new book, Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson, Kriegel details how Tyson was defined by the ’80s—and vice versa. A former sports columnist for the New York Daily News and the New York Post, Kriegel qualifies as an authority on the subject. He has covered Tyson for decades, at times in unflattering terms. At the Post, Kriegel admits, Tyson was his “designated bad guy.” His perception of Tyson—much like the general public’s—is far more positive today. “He was my villain. And some of it I was overboard,” Kriegel told me in an interview. “Some of it was shameful. A lot of it was true. But in a peculiar way, as much as I covered him, he was an abstraction to me.” Kriegel spoke to Tyson twice via Zoom for Baddest Man, although he said they were not “interviews per se.”
The book, which is due out on Tuesday, charts Tyson’s ascent from his troubled childhood in Brooklyn and tutelage under Cus D’Amato, the legendary boxing manager who served as Tyson’s father figure, to his turbulent marriage with Robin Givens. Baddest Man culminates with Tyson’s 91-second knockout of Michael Spinks in 1988. (Kriegel said that a second volume, which will delve into the rape trial and Tyson’s incarceration, is in the offing.)
The fight doubled as a triumph for Trump—a recurring character throughout the book—who paid $11 million to host the title bout before briefly becoming Tyson’s “adviser.” “I think it’s a central glimpse into Trump’s aspirations,” Kriegel said of the Tyson-Spinks fight, “and what Trump would eventually become.”
I spoke to Kriegel by phone this week about what made Tyson a seminal figure of the ’80s, how he’s managed to rehabilitate his image, and why we just can’t quit “Iron” Mike.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Vanity Fair: The public perception of Mike Tyson has shifted seemingly every decade going back 40 years. In the ’80s, he was this prodigious and highly marketable talent. In the ’90s, he became a convicted felon. By the time the millennium arrived, he was a sad and broken figure. And then, from the 2010s onward, he became quite beloved. And so I just wanted to start with a question about his legacy. Fifty years from now, how do you think Mike Tyson should be remembered?
Mark Kriegel: Look, what still blows me away more than anything is the idea that he’s (a) still alive, and (b) that he’s managed to prosper. The only thing that people on both sides of the Tyson aisle could agree on—dedicated detractors, as I had been, and apologists, acolytes, lovers, supporters—was that he wasn’t going to be long for this world. As far as his legacy, he certainly was, I think, the most commercially potent fighter. For a time, the most exciting [fighter]. There were certain things he did without precedent: the youngest-ever heavyweight champion, the amount and the type of commerce he generated. All of that was without precedent, and I think will remain without precedent.
