♪♪
Lawson: Mike is a complicated individual.
Bayless: I never knew what Tyson I was going to get.
Gordon: He looked like he could kill somebody.
Man: Unapologetically open and honest.
Lott: You could not have a better friend than Mike Tyson.
♪♪
Walters: Were you an unhappy kid?
Tyson: I knew I had something and I had to let it out.
♪♪
I've been listening to people tell me
I wasn't going to do anything with my life.
♪♪
I knew I was special.
I wanted to do something. I didn't know what it was.
Announcer: Mike Tyson!
Michael is intimidating. He cannot control his temper.
Atlas: I was going to kill him if I had to.
D'Amato: He's my boy. He's with me.
Get it, baby! [ Laughs ]
Announcer #2: It's over!
Announcer #3: Mike Tyson has been knocked out.
Boyd: It's a tragic narrative, the rise and fall.
Reporter: The alleged victim's statements
were credible enough to warrant a full investigation.
Man #2: I cannot believe he bit him
and expected to get away with that.
Perez: He just destroyed his career.
Have a nice fight, Mike.
[Bleep] off.
Wald: The drugs made him very, very dark.
Hujtyn: The only person that defeated him was him.
Matthews: This is the way it's going to end?
Free Mike Tyson!
Crowd: Free Mike Tyson!
Schaap: If Mike Tyson gets out of prison in 2020 rather than 1995,
I don't know what would happen today.
Woman: Sexual violence has got to go!
[ Chanting ] Hey, hey! Ho, ho!
Lawson: Will there be a tomorrow for Mike Tyson?
Walters: This may be the biggest challenge
and the biggest fight you ever had.
I usually come out on top,
and I plan on coming on top again.
♪♪
[ Bell dings ]
♪♪
[ Tiger roars ]
♪♪
[ Crowd cheering ]
♪♪
[ Helicopter blades whirring ]
♪♪
Announcer: This is the biggest fight with the biggest buildup
of legitimate quality
since Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier
for the first time 17 years ago in Madison Square Garden.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Announcer #2: Obviously, Mike Tyson behind that crowd coming in.
Mike Tyson was called the baddest man on the planet
because he was the baddest man on the planet.
Announcer #2: Everything that Tyson does is intimidating.
Matthews: When Tyson fought, everybody stopped to watch.
The world stopped.
Nothing compared to a night
that Mike Tyson was fighting for the title.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Announcer #2: Mike Tyson surrounded by security,
his handlers as he comes in.
Kriegel: Tyson's story breaks all the rules.
[ Camera shutters clicking ] Black guy.
Violent sport.
[ Sirens wailing ]
Grows up in and around violence.
Goes away...for rape.
Rivers: Mike! Mike! Mike, I need you!
Right here, right here!
Kriegel: And he is more loved now than he ever has been.
I've never seen Americans allow that to happen to somebody.
[ Crowd cheering ]
Announcer #3: Mike Tyson, as always, no shirt, no robe, no accoutrement.
Matthews: The Tyson/Spinks fight was the biggest event
that you could imagine ‐‐ bigger than the World Series,
bigger than the Super Bowl,
bigger than the NBA Championship.
Man: Hey, Michael.
Briggs: It was a who's who event. Oprah was courtside.
Anybody who was somebody was there.
Announcer #3: Muhammad Ali has just entered the ring here
to take his bow.
Perez: Everybody was looking for the next Ali.
And then here comes Kid Dynamite.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Briggs: People feared him.
They thought their life was going to end.
Announcer #4: Whoa!
Man #2: I mean, no fighter wants to get run over by a truck.
There's few people in the world that go by one name.
Man #2: Tyson.
Man #3: Tyson.
Woman: Tyson.
Man #4: Tyson.
His was the most recognizable face on the planet ‐‐
more than the pope,
more than Queen Elizabeth, more than the president.
Synonymous with the big names ‐‐ Jesus Christ and Mike Tyson.
C. Douglas: In White America,
the image of Mike Tyson was that he was scary.
From the Black perspective,
he was a hero
because he was a success in the White man's world
and gain worldly possessions at the White man's game.
There's no way in the world I could be beat. I refuse.
There's no way.
[ Crowd cheering ]
Wooley: Courtside seats were $1,500.
The fight grossed $70 million.
Everybody wanted a piece of that fight,
including Donald Trump.
♪♪
King: Donald Trump, who has the daring, the flair,
the look, and the cash to make it happen.
[ Laughter ]
Reporter: Donald Trump put up $11 million
to host this fight
and has made it his personal mission.
Hazzard: What would benefit? Trump's casinos, of course.
The boardwalk was packed.
Two tickets ‐‐ Who needs 'em?
You couldn't get a room within 10, 15 miles
of Atlantic City.
It was shown in over 16 countries.
King: Listen to all the gossiping, the stories
that surround this magnificent event
that transpired here at Trump Plaza.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Announcer #2: The heavyweight champion of the world comes into the ring.
This is why we're here.
Wooley: Mike Tyson was a kid.
He was only 21 years old.
He had to carry the whole industry on his shoulder.
He wasn't equipped for that.
Announcer #2: Millions and millions of dollars on the line.
Billions of people, literally, watching this fight.
Hazzard: You never know a person...
...until you start to peel back the layers of that person...
...and where they've been and where they came from.
Dapper Dan: Mike is from the hood.
When Mike hits you, it came from the corner ‐‐
every corner in the world.
[ Bell dings ]
It's like, "Whoa, they must have brought this guy
straight from the street."
♪♪
I grew up, literally, across the street
from Mike Tyson.
I'm from Ocean Hill‐Brownsville, and so was Mike,
and then Mike lost his home, and he moved down the hill to Amboy.
You know, when you go down the hill,
it's savagery down there, you feel me?
You gotta to be ready prepared because it's rough.
It was so dangerous.
[ Sirens wailing ]
I'm talking about gangs.
I'm talking about girls disappearing.
I'm talking about dead bodies being found in vacant lots,
you know, at 10:00 in the morning.
You gotta worry about who's going to take your sneakers,
who's going to take your bus pass.
Who was going to come out and duck out of a building
and grab you, rape you, stab you, murder you.
So you become paranoid. You live by that.
You know that, "Yo, they might be scheming on me."
And this is poor people robbing poor people.
The rest of the country hears about Harlem all the time.
Harlem, compared to Brownsville,
is a stable, middle‐class community.
Tyson: It was always hostile. Cops always stopping.
You know what I mean? Ambulance always coming
to pick up somebody,
guns always going off.
People are getting stabbed. Windows are being broken.
Very, very hostile.
I mean ‐‐ And like I said, you become accustomed to it.
Briggs: Chances of making it out of Brownsville is slim to none.
I'm gonna tell you right now, it's a door,
and it's 50,000 people trying to get through one door ‐‐
You know what I mean? ‐‐ with no opportunity.
I always have Mike's permission to share what I do.
He didn't really have a healthy childhood at all.
His mother was alcoholic, and she loved him dearly,
but when she would be drinking, she was extremely abusive.
His mom, on Saturdays, usually on the weekends,
would hook up with some guy and bring him home,
and they were usually both drunk,
and oftentimes, his mother would get beat up,
and then he would watch them having sex.
And so violence, sex, alcoholism, abuse of women ‐‐
those were his baseline for normal.
He picks up the nickname "Dirty Ike" from the kids in the street
because his personal hygiene is just lacking.
Murray: He said that, in the neighborhood,
he was really bullied and teased a lot.
♪♪
Matthews: He found some serenity
only really from raising pigeons,
and it gave him some stature in his community.
Perez: Pigeon flying is ‐‐ is so synonymous with Brooklyn.
I mean, with New York, but primarily with Brooklyn.
It was a sport to fly a pigeon. A guy three blocks away
might have a pigeon coop, and we would battle.
You sent all your pigeons up at the same time,
and then they'd fly around, and then they'd interact,
and who could draw the most pigeons
from the other guy's pigeon coop?
Perez: It's just a form of escapism,
and it's also a source you run to for love.
Bayless: He loved the freedoms the pigeons had ‐‐
that they had a home that was a good home, a roost,
but they could fly free during the day
and return to their roost.
And Mike couldn't fly free.
They're like my brothers and sisters, my friends,
and I don't have to worry about them asking me for any money
or trying to get over me
or do anything or trying to hurt me for any reason.
Heller: One day, Mike Tyson, he's with his pigeons,
and one of the older boys
who had been victimizing him on the streets turns up,
and he starts tormenting Mike.
And he goes into Mike's coop,
and he takes one of Mike's pigeons in his hand,
and he's playing with the pigeon.
And Mike is begging him, "Don't hurt the pigeon."
And instead of giving the bird back to Mike,
this guys twists the pigeon's head
and rips the head off this pigeon.
The bird is twitching, literally in its death throes.
And Mike Tyson goes berserk.
Mike Tyson beats the living daylights
out of this bigger, stronger kid.
And that may well have been the turning point
in Mike Tyson's life.
♪♪
Man: The street is the place where you become a man.
♪♪
And you hustle to stay alive.
Mike Tyson started hanging out with a different crowd,
and there, with older guys, older gang members,
he was groomed, groomed in street crime.
♪♪
When after a while, people treat you a certain way,
you become just like them.
That type of violence,
that type of abject poverty rewires your brain.
It rewires your emotional intelligence.
It was so exciting. I mean, you couldn't see...
Me and your world is so vastly different.
You could never understand
the action and excitement of it all.
To be able to outsmart somebody was a big thrill,
to outsmart them, to out‐time them, to out‐think them,
even though they know that you're a crook.
When you're in a brothel, when you're walking
in the check‐cashing place or the grocery store,
they know to watch you, and you still outsmart them.
It's a fear and a challenge at the same time.
It's the fear of getting caught, but it's a challenge ‐‐
"Can I get away?"
[ Police sirens wailing ]
Matthews: Mike Tyson was arrested all the time as a kid.
[ Cell door clanks ]
I think, by his own count, more than 30 times.
Heller: After a while of being sent to detention centers,
the authorities feel
that he's really headed for serious trouble.
♪♪
They send him upstate New York to the Tryon School,
a place where troubled kids are sent.
He hears that one of the guards at Tryon,
a guy named Bobby Stewart, had been a boxer.
They used to let me work with the kids.
Mike said that he heard about this,
and he wanted to get involved.
♪♪
The first day we ever boxed,
he humiliated me in front of everybody ‐‐
beat me up, hit my body.
I went down.
He thought I would never want to box again
after taking the beating.
And after that, I said, "Can I learn?
You think I can learn? You think I got anything?"
I work with him one on one, wait for him to quit,
but he wouldn't quit.
The third‐shift staff would come to me the next day sometimes
and say, "Bobby, he was up till 4:00 in the morning.
He's in there practicing what you showed him."
Colangelo: Bobby Stewart said to Mike Tyson,
"If you stay out of trouble,
I'll bring you down to a man who trained champions."
♪♪
D'Amato: It is the mark of a great fighter
when he has character plus skill,
because a fighter with character and skill
will often rise and beat a better fighter
because of this.
Ali: Cus D'Amato, the genius of boxing.
He knows all about boxing.
He can tell you about all the fighters,
from the first fighter up until myself.
He's the Bible of boxing.
Cus D'Amato, the legendary boxing trainer
who had taken two fighters to world championships,
but who now was 72 years old,
and he was running a gym above the police station...
No, no. Fight back and forth like this.
Oh, okay.
...for amateur fighters,
local kids who lived in Catskill.
♪♪
Colangelo: Bobby Stewart brought him down to the gym,
and he introduced him to Cus.
Cus couldn't believe the size of him.
And Teddy Atlas was working the ring there,
and he says,"We got nobody big enough for him to box,"
and I said, "No, I'm gonna box with him."
Colangelo: Cus said to me, you know,
"How old do you think that guy is?"
"Geez, Cus," I said, "I don't know, 21, 22, 23."
You know, somewhere in there.
And he says ‐‐ he smiled.
I said, "What are you smiling at?"
He says, "He's 12 years old." "What?"
I says, "12 years old?" And I called him over.
"Come over here. I want to talk to you."
So he comes over, and I says, "Get closer.
I want to see your face. Get closer."
And you could see, all underneath here, the baby skin.
Atlas: He's 190 pounds solid
and talked with a little bit of a very low, whispery voice.
I get him gloved up, and we go.
Colangelo: He had Bobby against the ropes.
So Bobby would have to use everything he had as a grown man
to push this kid away.
Everything I showed him,
it was like he'd been doing it for 25 years.
Atlas: And we could see he's got power, we can see he's got quickness,
but he's also very raw.
Relax.
He didn't want to get out of the ring.
Stewart: Cus was taking my gloves off,
and I said, "What do you think?"
He says, "Bar any distractions,
we're looking at the next
heavyweight champion of the world."
He was like...
How can I say this?
He was like a big piece of marble,
and Cus was going to chisel out this statue,
and it was going to be perfect.
So, initially, Bobby Stewart would be bringing Mike Tyson
back and forth to Catskill from the Tryon School
and training with Cus and Teddy.
Tyson: I started training at the gym
for at least, what, five, six months
without, you know, any fights or anything.
Just doing the motions,
getting everything practiced down.
What do you think, with the bag?
I'll work on the bag.
Colangelo: He's coming into a strange place,
and he doesn't know what to expect,
and at the same time,
he wants to make a great impression.
Hujtyn: He was very eager to prove
how serious he was in the ring
and how he was going to give 110% in the ring.
Training's not just doing all exercises.
That's the easy part in boxing, is training, physically.
It's mentally that's the hard part,
and people have you doing it over and over and over and over
and over and over.
That's not building up your body or your legs
or your heart.
It's building up your mind.
♪♪
Man #2: When you first met Mike at a young age,
anybody who looked at his history at that point
would have said, "Geez, this is a bad kid."
Well, I wouldn't say he was bad,
because, basically, he had some wonderful quality.
But then he had the environment in which he grew up, with...
He was tremendously physically talented.
But where he was flawed was up here.
The fear, the insecurity, you know, the self‐doubt.
"Am I really this good?"
Hujtyn: Cus would repeat over and over
to Mike from the beginning,
"Do you know you're going to be
heavyweight champion of the world someday?"
And if you say it enough times, you believe it.
And if you believe it, then you have no doubt.
To me, fear is the greatest obstacle to learning.
Fear is like fire.
If you learn to control it, you can make it work for you.
You let it get out of control, it can destroy you
and everything around you.
You've got to control your fear
and control your emotions and make them work for you.
Make them fuel.
Murray: Cus put him to where he said,
"When you get in that ring,
you hate that other guy and you are going to kill him."
The whole fight is won before it ever starts
if you can intimidate the other guy to make him afraid of you.
That's it. See?
Ain't no way he's going to hit you then. Right?
And remember, it's always good to throw the punch
where you could hit him and he can't hit you.
That's what the science of boxing is all about.
Remember, from the side,
you can let that punch go with the worst kind of intention
because you know he can't hit you back,
so you can throw the bomb
with all the power you can generate.
Bap‐bap. Bap‐bap. Bap‐bap‐bap.
Move then hit again. You know what I mean?
Keep it going as though there's an exchange
and the guy's still fighting with you.
Atlas: I was in the gym with him every day and every night,
and I'm teaching a specific style ‐‐ the peek‐a‐boo.
♪♪
D'Amato: You not only got to throw punches,
you gotta learn how to miss punches.
You know what that means?
Bring your hands up like this, your elbows in here,
and you're looking to slip punches
and be aggressive, where straight punches, you slip,
round punches, you weave.
You're looking to make them miss
and create openings, create holes,
create opportunities where now you can punch
because he gave you ‐‐ make him miss.
Oh, he missed? Bang, bang. I can catch him.
Be the champ of the world someday.
Just keep in mind where it's supposed to be.
♪♪
Right there. That's it. There you go.
Again, again.
Who's the last guy to stop?
Time. Very good. That's what...
Very good. That's what you have to do.
Gordon: For the first time in his life, he had direction.
He still had a lot of issues,
but he was overcoming them by being around Cus D'Amato.
I have never seen a fighter like Mike.
He may go down in history as one of the greatest we ever had,
if not the greatest that ever lived.
♪♪
Heller: After a few months,
Mike Tyson moved into the house full time with Cus D'Amato.
Hujtyn: The house was a Victorian mansion on 10 acres
overlooking the Hudson River.
It was a magnificent property. It still is.
What do you do with the sunflower seeds?
[ Speaking indistinctly ]
This is for you.
Matthews: Cus D'Amato had a whole stable of young fighters
that he took in.
He would have a half dozen kids,
maybe more than that, living in his house.
There was a structure.
You get up, you do real work,
you have to do chores around the house.
One took out the garbage, one shoveled the snow,
one did this, one did that.
[ Groans ]
Greenburg: And it became very much a home for Mike Tyson,
which he had never really had.
Man: What's Mike like?
I mean, is he good? Is he a good kid?
Basically, he's a good kid. Yes.
I think he grew up without any love or affection.
He just grew up in the street looking for something.
He wanted somebody to pay attention to him.
Did Cus pay attention to him?
Very much so.
I'll never forget it ‐‐ He sat at the table,
and he wasn't used to sitting at that kind of a table
with all the food, sitting as a family.
And you could see that Tyson is going out of his way
to be the way he thought he needed to be.
Very, very polite. "Yes, ma'am. Yes, sir."
And she asked him to get a spoon in a drawer behind him.
He was so nervous, he moved real fast.
His legs were like this, and his leg got stuck
under one of the branches of the table
and picked up the table,
and all the food started sliding,
and Camille is, like, screaming, like, "What are you doing?"
You know, like she's worried about that.
And Tyson is, like, crying,
like, "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry,"
because he thought he did, you know,
something that's going to get him in trouble.
And I look at Cus, and Cus is going, "What power!
The next heavyweight champ of the world."
[ Laughs ]
Mike, being from where he was from,
you know, at all times, he's guarded.
♪♪
Tyson: Coming from Brooklyn, I just never trust anybody.
You don't trust anybody.
Cus was doing something for nothing.
You're not used to people in the city doing something for you
and them not wanting something back in return.
So I just shied off.
I didn't like that for some reason.
♪♪
[ Whistles ]
But now, coming here and living with him,
it's just that ‐‐ it's like day and night.
It's hard to believe.
♪♪
Man: Has Mike changed since he's lived here?
Ewald: Very much. How?
He's more kinder, he's more thoughtful.
I think he's more responsive.
There's no violence.
There's no yelling and screaming.
You have your own bed to sleep in.
Little things that we take for granted.
He was in awe, and he was thankful to be there.
♪♪
Man #2: Is it tough for you, a 76‐year‐old White guy,
to work with a 17‐year‐old Black kid from Brooklyn?
Not at all. He's my boy. He's with me.
And for that reason, I just accept him that way.
And I think the same thing applies
to everybody in the house who lives with him.
Tyson: He's like my father.
It's like a father‐and‐son relationship.
You know, even though he is my manager and trainer,
sometimes I forget that because of the way we are.
He's just accepting me like I was his son,
just off the street, like nothing.
[ Indistinct conversation ]
Man #3: Michael Tyson and Cus D'Amato
have given each other the same gift ‐‐ a future.
A chance for Mike, a second chance for Cus.
Hujtyn: They grew up under similar oppressive conditions.
Cus grew up in the Depression, very poor.
D'Amato: I grew up without a mother.
My mother died. I don't remember my mother.
And I was fortunate
because I was self‐reliant at a very young age.
He had to pretty much rely on himself,
and made his way by his wits alone.
He could only be measured by boxing
and what he put forth in boxing.
That was it. There was no other currency to measure him.
Tyson: He was a teacher in all aspects.
He was cunning, he was smart, he was shrewd.
Cus made Tyson this obsessive kind of encyclopedia of boxing.
And Mike would watch the films, old 16 millimeter films.
Well, I might have to come back and fix these up.
Seems like somebody was fooling with them.
Colangelo: He would set up this projector and put up a screen,
and he would watch all these films.
[ Projector whirring ]
I'mma show all the fighters that I admire, okay?
♪♪
Announcer: Henry Armstrong on the left,
looking to be the first man to win four world championships.
Heller: He would study these films not only for boxing technique,
but to see the way these fighters posed,
acted, to see their bravado,
how they carried themselves in the ring.
Tyson: They stand for different things ‐‐
heart, courage, you know, ability.
Colangelo: He liked Ali and Frazier,
but Dempsey was the one that stood out.
Because Jack Dempsey was so ferocious,
and he was like a Roman gladiator in the ring.
That was the one that was his favorite fighter.
I mean, in a lot of ways, he modeled himself like that.
Boyd: To learn the history of boxing the way Mike Tyson did,
by watching old fight films, really helped him
sort of envision a place for himself as a boxer
when his time came to, you know, take the crown.
I would like to be something like them.
I'd like to be not much ‐‐ flamboyant or something,
arrogant, you can say, but just to be in a way
that's different from all the fighters nowadays.
My mother told me one day she don't like boxing.
But she said, you know, "It's horrible and I don't like it,
but whatever you want to do, just be the best of it."
And that's how it's gonna be.
While Mike is living in Catskill,
he gets word that his mother dies.
♪♪
Walters: But were you close to your mother?
Tyson: Very close, yeah.
She wanted to be a school teacher.
Something that happened ‐‐
Her father was sick, and she went to take care of her father.
And I guess she got married to my father.
And he left her or she left him,
but it broke her heart,
and it just beat her, you know what I mean?
Life just wore her down after that.
Murray: Cus and Camille became foster parents.
Cus knew what Mike Tyson was feeling inside,
and Cus said that.
Tyson: And no one really knows Mike Tyson.
Nobody's really friendly with Mike Tyson
except Cus D'Amato.
♪♪
Your mind is not on your work.
Just trying to ‐‐
There's something distracting you.
D'Amato: I often say to him, "You know, I owe you a lot,"
and he doesn't know what I mean.
But I'm gonna tell him now what I mean.
If he weren't here,
I probably wouldn't be alive today.
That's it? See?
Ain't no way he's going to hit you then. Right?
The fact that he is here and doing what he's doing
and doing as well as he's doing and improving as he has
gives me the motivation and interest to stay alive.
What's the rule? What's the rule?
If you can hit him with two,
should you hit him with one?
Come on. With bad intentions.
Believe in yourself. Feel it.
Atlas: You know, we've been training for all this time.
Now it was time to take it on the road.
♪♪
Atlas: We've been training for all this time.
Now it's time to get experience under your belt.
And the things that were told to him were coming true.
"You listen to us, you become a good fighter,
you're going to travel,
you're going to see the world."
Win this title, and then we'll go home.
To all our friends, right? Yes, sir.
Good.
Look, look, look. Just relax, Michael.
Relax. Just relax. Come here.
Atlas: Before the fight, he felt scared.
He felt nervous.
He started saying, "If I don't win,
then they won't like me."
I just reminded him,
"This is what we do,
and we ain't going to get rid of the fear,
but we are gonna ride it."
Let's go get ready for a fight. Come on.
That's it. Good. Good.
You're the champ who fights smart
and like a tiger and calm.
Announcer: He carries his left hand low.
We'll see whether the two match up.
There's the right hand. There's the left.
There's the last right.
The towel's coming in.
Look at old Tyson jump on the ropes.
That is it. They threw the towel in.
Threw the towel in. [ Speaking indistinctly ]
Atlas: I was proud of what we did.
I wanted Cus to be proud.
Man: The reigning number one, Mike Tyson!
[ Cheers and applause ]
I was so certain that he would win,
I went and ordered a big banner
to string across Main Street in Catskill here ‐‐
"Welcome home, champs."
♪♪
Heller: This myth built up over the years ‐‐
this myth of Cus and the kid.
Reporter: Cus D'Amato is more than a manager of champions.
He is a saver of souls.
Many of us, myself included, and I plead guilty,
swallowed the Cus and the kid narrative.
This is a kid who had a terrible upbringing,
who was redeemed by Cus D'Amato,
which in itself is a racist trope.
Here's the great White father
who has rescued Mike Tyson from the streets
and civilized him.
Schaap: Their relationship is much too complicated
to be put into this kind of simple narrative
of surrogate father and wayward surrogate son.
There are mutual interests and there are mutual goals.
Boyd: Cus was a good trainer. He helped Mike a great deal.
But he's also an opportunist and self‐interested.
Doesn't make him a criminal,
but also doesn't make him, you know, a saint.
Hujtyn: Don't think that Cus was focused solely on Mike being a champion.
He wanted Mike to have a future, to have a role in life
that wouldn't let him slip back to what he was on the streets.
Man #2: You were telling me a story
about how Mike ran away once.
Yes. Not only once. Few times.
Atlas: The school started having problems with girls
and with ‐‐ with behavior.
I would discipline Tyson for things he did wrong.
Cus would find a way to say it was okay.
Cus became the good cop. I became the bad cop.
I put him out of the gym.
Cus started making allowances for him,
and he was sneaking him in the gym when I wasn't there.
Hujtyn: They were not allowances.
Mike needed to be in the gym
because if he wasn't in the gym, he would be easily misled
to do things that were not beneficial.
And Cus knew that.
And besides, whose gym was it? Whose house was it?
Whose child was it?
Mike was Cus' child, in effect.
Heller: The tensions continued to mount,
and, eventually, it led to an incident
that caused the break
between Mike Tyson and Teddy Atlas.
I had just recently got married. I have sister‐in‐laws now,
and one of them was 11‐years‐old, and...
...and he grabbed her,
and he knew that she was my sister‐in‐law.
You know, he knew how I was with family ‐‐
protective, the way everyone is.
I knew what I was prepared to do.
I was going to kill him if I had to.
He saw me coming.
♪♪
I just called him a piece of crap,
and I put the gun, you know, to his head,
and I told him that
he will never go near anybody in my family again.
And I said, "Do you understand?"
And it was like a little smirk.
I don't know if it's fair to say smirk,
but it was ‐‐ it was like that.
Like, just shouldn't have been, you know?
And I saw that.
I stuck the gun in his ear.
[ Gun cocks ]
I started to pull the trigger.
And at the last second, I pulled it out of his ear,
and I ‐‐ I fired the gun, and he fell on the floor,
grabbing his ear.
That was enough. That was it for Cus.
Pulling the gun, that was it.
Teddy gone? So be it.
♪♪
Man: That was good. That's a good move.
Hazzard: It seems like, every 50 to 100 years,
we get a personality in the sport of boxing
that's just phenomenal.
And Mike Tyson was a phenomenal element of boxing
when he came in.
Matthews: He's now going to be the heir to Dempsey,
Marciano, Lewis, and Ali,
who, you know, are like the Mount Rushmore
of heavyweight champions.
His skill set was top tier. Really impressive.
Perez: For a fighter to be that young,
that well trained, and that disciplined
was explosive.
Him and Cus dropped the bomb on the boxing world.
Boom.
Welcome to Mike Tyson's world.
I'm the young champ, young kid,
I'm making it, I'm coming up.
C. Douglas: Once that first bell was rung,
"Let me at him! Let me at him!"
Announcer #1: Here he comes. Whoa.
Announcer #2: That jaw might be broken.
I was terrified by that brother.
Announcer #3: And he put it all there.
Announcer #4: The right to the head,
and it's all over. Goodbye.
Bayless: He actually invented a new way to throw a punch,
which was where he leaped up into punches.
[ Cheers and applause ]
It was borderline lethal, what he did.
♪♪
Greenburg: I'm sitting in my office at HBO, and a package comes.
On it is a note, and it says, "Ross,
I want you to take a look at a new heavyweight."
Plug it into the machine,
and I'm seeing this, you know, 13 straight knockouts,
and my mouth dropped.
To actually see it was chilling.
And so I traveled up there.
And there are about 4,000 or 5,000 people ‐‐
a pretty small arena, but a loud arena.
Announcer #5: Right uppercut, and Tyson has put him down.
Greenburg: And you could tell that those people knew
that this was different and special.
Announcer #6: This is as bad as I've ever seen.
Announcer #7: That's it.
Boyd: You know, here was this young fighter
who was knocking people out with regularity.
He had the pedigree of Cus D'Amato.
And because he was so young, it looked as though
he was in a position to dominate the sport for a long time.
Tyson: First of all, I'd like to thank Cus
for putting in all the hard work and reaching me to the goal
that we're trying to prove right now.
♪♪
D'Amato: I consider my work
to have been completed at this point,
but I know I must have forgot something.
I can't see just what it was.
Hmm.
I guess that's about it.
Colangelo: I call the house.
And I believe it was Nadia that answered the phone,
where she says, "You don't ‐‐ I guess you don't know."
♪♪
[ Car door closes ]
♪♪
Bayless: Cus' death was
one of the most brutal moments in his life.
♪♪
Just when he was about to go off and do great things
due to Cus' tutelage, Cus was gone.
Tyson: I owe Cus more than just boxing.
He was a philosopher. He was everything.
Man #2: Do you miss Cus?
Yes.
♪♪
Bentt: I'm sure, at some point,
Cus and Mike had a conversation about death.
"You have a mission to commit to.
We have a pact.
If I'm here or not, you complete that pact."
And I'm sure Cus spoke to Mike about that.
And even when Cus died,
Cus spoke to Mike about that, and Mike heard that.
♪♪
Reporter: Tyson pounds on, perfecting the craft
the old man taught him,
becoming the hero that he never had.
Reporter #2: Mike Tyson, age 19, has the skills and is determined
to win the heavyweight boxing championship of the world.
‐Mike! ‐Mike Tyson!
[ Cheers and applause ]
In your mind, if your managers
came to you and said, "Mike,
we think you're ready for a title shot tomorrow,"
do you ‐‐ would you agree with them at this point?
Tyson: Most definitely.
I'm confident I can beat any fighter in the world.
♪♪
Reporter #3: We're inside the Las Vegas Hilton,
and in this ring behind me,
WBC heavyweight title holder Trevor Berbick
will put his championship on the line
against unbeaten heavyweight sensation Mike Tyson.
Announcer: The moment of truth is not far off.
♪♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
He could go into the record books tonight
as one of the very youngest heavyweight champions
of all time.
This is what Mike Tyson has trained his whole life for.
Announcer #2: Berbick as he makes his way
out of his locker room and toward the ring now.
Bentt: Berbick was a threat.
Mike and his team, they were aware of that.
Trevor Berbick was the last man to beat Muhammad Ali.
Announcer #1: There is electricity in the crowd.
I've got goosebumps.
On the line, the WBC heavyweight championship of the world.
Gordon: The bell rings.
Tyson comes out in overdrive, throwing shots.
♪♪
Announcer #1: Oh, left hook really got him.
Gordon: He was in total command,
and he hit this guy so hard.
Announcer #1: Look at this, combination,
and Trevor's ready to go, but he stays on his feet.
[ Bell rings ]
Announcer #2: That was a big, big round for Mike Tyson.
Not only...
Bentt: And when Mike goes back to the corner
between Round One and Two,
someone in his corner sees something.
Berbick was keeping his hands low.
And if you keep your hands low, what's susceptible?
[ Whistles ] The temple.
Announcer #1: Tyson goes to work right away,
and he's got Trevor in trouble.
And he's down!
He launches one of his classic combinations
on Trevor Berbick.
Boom with a right,
then he hit him with an uppercut to the chin,
and then hit him with a left hook.
Announcer #1: And he goes down! He goes down!
Matthews: And he tried his best to get up.
Announcer #1: He should be able to get up from this.
His lights maybe should stay on.
Gordon: Berbick catches himself on the ropes as he's down,
picks himself up, but he's all dizzy.
And he falls down again.
Announcer #1: I don't know if he's gonna be able to continue.
Perez: God bless his heart, man,
'cause that's a heart of a true warrior,
to keep trying to stand up.
His body was like, "No."
Announcer #1: And he's counted out.
It's all over.
We got a brand‐new heavyweight champion of the world.
[ Bell rings ] Announcer #2: The winner by a TKO,
Michael Tyson!
Greenburg: From that moment, from that statement,
we knew we were living something special.
Lott: After the fight, in the ring,
Mike said something that was so...emotional.
I'd like to dedicate my fight
to my great guardian, Cus D'Amato,
and I'm sure he's looking ‐‐
he's looking, and he's talking to all the great fighters,
and saying his boy did it.
[ Voice breaking ] "My boy did it."
That was great.
Gordon: That little green belt ‐‐
that was worth everything to Tyson.
I saw him in the dressing room, he's kissing the belt,
and he goes, "I did it! I did it!"
♪♪
But the moment, for me, that night
was him on the phone talking to Camille,
just talking to her about the experience.
It was like calling back home and sharing it with her.
Ewald: And that's what Cus always wanted,
a champion of all the champions.
He wanted Mike to be champion.
Perez: When you have nothing but a dream,
and then that dream comes true
as a result of hard work and dedication,
it's so much sweeter when you win that way.
Everything paid off.
♪♪
Reporter: At 20 years and 5 months,
Mike Tyson became the youngest fighter
to ever hold a heavyweight title.
Reporter #2: The fact is, Tyson's rise has been meteoric.
Reporter #3: Mike Tyson now catapults
from being a local celebrity
to becoming a multimillion‐dollar man.
♪♪
Gordon: Once Mike Tyson became
heavyweight champion of the world,
advertisers wanted a piece of Mike Tyson.
Reporter #2: He's already pocketed a cool half million
for this beer commercial.
I like Suntory Dry.
If you could drink it, if you could drive it...
Tyson power!
Announcer: Toyota truck.
...Mike Tyson was the guy to sell it for you.
Reporter #2: The soft‐drink company has produced
a series of commercials with the champ.
Diet Pepsi only.
Matthews: He was one of the first boxers
to have really big endorsement deals.
And, wham, they're dead.
Matthews: Muhammad Ali at his height
had, like, shoe polish and roach powder.
Greenburg: Clearly, Mike was making multimillions
every time he fought.
Announcer #2: Oh, what a shot!
Announcer #3: Tyson bangs in the body. Ooh!
But he was also ringing the cash register for HBO
and a lot of other networks.
Announcer #3: Stopped the fight!
He's hurt! It's all over!
Gordon: And they could put him on pay‐per‐view.
I'm paying 100 bucks, a million people are paying 100 bucks.
He was a money‐making machine.
Announcer #4: A punishing left hook, and that's it.
They think I'm the hottest thing since sliced bread.
C. Douglas: He was admired in the Black community
because when someone who looks like me is succeeding,
I am uplifted myself.
Announcer #4: The power of Mike Tyson.
You know, there were three Black men
who ruled the world during this time.
It was Michael Jordan, Michael Jackson,
and it was Mike Tyson.
And everybody wanted to be Mike.
Announcer #5: You've got a shot at Tyson's title.
The only question was, which Mike do you want to be?
[ Laughs ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
Reporter #2: Children and adults beg him for autographs.
Fans and reporters follow him wherever he goes.
He gets no relief, not even during 4:00 A. M. jogs.
Good morning! Which way do I go? Where's the hotel?
Perez: You're an overnight sensation,
and you're walking in the street,
and people are yelling your name.
Girls are throwing themselves at you,
and there's money, money, money that you never, ever had.
How do you process all of that?
♪♪
Matthews: The night he won the title
from Trevor Berbick in Vegas,
I came in from a club at 4:00 in the morning,
and who was sitting in the lobby by himself
with that title belt around his waist
but Mike Tyson.
He was lonely, isolated,
wasn't sure what to do with himself.
Gonzalez: The day Cus died, Mike died with him.
♪♪
My first passenger and my only passenger
in the limousine service was Mike Tyson.
♪♪
I always saw Mike
through the rearview mirror of those limousines
just as a sad young guy trying to hide the fact
that he didn't know what to do next.
During that time, two men represented Mike Tyson,
Bill Cayton and Jim Jacobs,
and Jim did his best to console him when he needed consoling
and just guide him through the ups and downs
of being such a public figure in such a public world.
Cus D'Amato was violently opposed
to the ignorance and corruption in boxing.
♪♪
Gordon: During those early years, that money came in,
and they put it away for him.
And they set up all kind of annuities for him.
When I worked for them, Mike Tyson was at home at 9:00,
because they told me one time,
"You don't do what the champion wants.
You do what's good for the champion."
♪♪
What fighters need to do is have somebody there
that they can trust.
We don't have that kind of education
to know what we're doing with our money.
Somebody's got to help us.
♪♪
Reporter #3: What do you think's going to be
with Mike in the future?
What do you think will happen with him?
[ Sighs ] What will happen to him?
I think if he listens to everybody ‐‐
listens to Jimmy, listens to Bill ‐‐
I think he could become a very great person.
♪♪
Strawberry: When you have millions of dollars
and you come from nothing,
it means nothing anyway because you had nothing growing up.
There's no education for that.
There's...trust for that.
♪♪
Money comes into play. Fame comes into play.
Notoriety comes into play.
And it's very hard to deal with them when you're young.
♪♪
Boyd: And I think one of the ways
you can sort of stay connected and plugged in
is by going back to something that's very familiar.
He always seemed comfortable to go home to Brooklyn
and be around his people.
Perez: He was Brooklyn's own,
and so everyone felt a connection to him.
And everyone lied, "I know Mike Tyson.
Yeah, yeah, yeah."
Like, you don't know Mike Tyson.
"Yes, I do, duh‐duh‐duh."
Dapper Dan: Mike Tyson, like, was in the ghetto.
You could see him.
So he was that boy wonder that we could relate to.
Gonzalez: We would park these cars,
which, by the way, no one would ever touch.
I was probably the only guy in the world that left
a $300,000 Ferrari sitting in Brooklyn
and it was still there four hours later.
Grinker: We were in the car at one point,
and all these little kids came by.
And they were ripping up, like, a paper bag or something
so they could have paper for him to sign.
I loved that moment.
You know, this hero comes back.
[ Engine starts ]
[ Beep, gearshift clicks ]
Gonzalez: He was always handing out money.
We would be driving in the street,
and he would see a homeless guy,
and he would jump out of the limousine.
It got to a point where we had to put special locks
so he wouldn't open these doors.
You know, I was scared he would get runned over.
And people said, "Why are you giving bums money?"
Because our family was homeless.
And I remember that situation.
♪♪
Perez: He wanted a new narrative.
He didn't want to be the kid
that everyone picked on and beat up and bullied.
It's hard to let go of a childhood that wasn't so great.
And you want to keep going back to make it right.
You keep wanting to correct it.
He told me that money doesn't make you happy.
♪♪
It just buys you enough time to realize you're not happy.
♪♪
Dapper Dan: No famous person ever in my history
has been inside the ghetto, what we call inner sanctum,
like Mike Tyson.
You know, on the block at the party.
Gonzalez: We left Brownsville.
One night, it would be Eddie Murphy's mansion.
It would be Bentley's nightclub, or we would hit Studio 54.
We had some fun nights, and he loved me like a little brother.
You know, he'd just put his arm around me,
and we'd go through the club and hang out.
He was great.
Matthews: Cus D'Amato had this guy.
He's like, "I'm making you into heavyweight champion.
No, you can't go out with girls.
No, you can't go out drinking with your friends."
Those handcuffs were off after he beat Berbick.
Are the women, like, approaching you now?
I mean, you know...
It's tough being 20.
[ Laughter ]
Heller: When you're heavyweight champion of the world,
you symbolically are the most powerful man in the world,
and now all these beautiful women
wanted to be with him, suddenly ‐‐
Suzette Charles, who had been Miss America;
Naomi Campbell, a supermodel;
people who were totally inaccessible to him previously.
He had relationship after relationship,
and then, finally, he meets his princess.
Gosh, you look really...
I don't know. Hot.
Really?
Matthews: Robin Givens was the star
of a TV show called "Head of the Class."
[ Reporters clamoring ]
Smith: Robin Givens was one of the few Black actresses
on television or in films ‐‐ somebody that myself
and a lot of my friends looked to
as such an amazing person, so beautiful, so smart.
Supposedly had been with Michael Jordan,
supposedly been with Eddie Murphy,
and Tyson was running in those circles.
Gonzalez: She was very nice. She was very respectful.
He really, really was in love with her.
He went bananas.
Boyd: I remember Mike Tyson and Robin Givens
at the NBA all‐star game in 1988 in Chicago.
Announcer: Michael Jordan!
Boyd: It was something that the media
and others paid a lot of attention to.
I mean, the heavyweight champion of the world and this actress ‐‐
It kind of fits into notions that Americans have long had
about individuals like Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe.
Givens: He was persistent.
He came to claim me, and I like that.
Grinker: So then there's this wedding,
and it's ‐‐ it feels very real.
They had a good rapport.
They laughed a lot.
Yeah, I definitely could see him
totally in love with her, like a puppy.
Reporter: Robin, inquiring minds want to know,
how does a woman who went to Sarah Lawrence
wind up falling in love with a guy
who's a graduate of the school of hard knocks?
God, I want to know, too.
There's something ‐‐ We have a lot in common,
tradition ‐‐ traditional families,
and we just sort of love each other.
It was sort of love at first sight.
It was hard in the beginning,
but we got through it and we ended up married.
Perez: Everyone's like,
"Oh, it's going to work because opposites attract."
Yeah.
Announcer: Good left by Tyson.
Tubbs is hurt.
Tubbs is hurt badly.
Boyd: When you think about Mike Tyson in the ring,
he was unbeatable,
but outside the ring, he had to face Don King.
Get it now, baby! Only in America!
Tyson: Don King is the greatest promoter
in the history of the world.
He is just magnificent, the way he articulate his words.
King: He's going to be SKD,
what we call in the vernacular of the ghetto ‐‐
something kind of different.
[ Laughs ]
Reporter #2: An arresting figure with his wild hair.
Reporter #3: Why do you wear your hair that way?
I don't wear my hair that way. My hair wears me.
Ping, ping, ping, ping, ping.
My hair was coming up like this.
It is au naturale.
Bayless: Nobody that I've ever encountered could sell better
than Don King could sell fights.
And I'm certain that it can only go one way ‐‐
Mike Tyson, double your money.
Thank you.
Gordon: Don King was a street guy from Cleveland, Ohio.
Numbers runner, this and that.
Don King is no one to [bleep] with, you know, period.
He beat a man to death on a street corner in Cleveland
who owed him money.
The guy was saying, "I'll pay you, Don,"
as Don King was kicking him to death on a street corner.
Don King goes to jail for four years
on a manslaughter rap.
Boyd: Don King listened to the first Ali‐Frazier fight
on the radio in the penitentiary,
and three years later, he was promoting
The Rumble in the Jungle in Zaire.
Announcer: And quickly, a combination.
Matthews: Which is, you know, at that point, a blockbuster.
He's got Muhammad Ali.
He's got all the money.
He is the king of boxing.
But someone like Don King, he wants everything.
He wants the power, you know what I mean?
King: It's not about white power.
It's not about black power.
It's about green power, M‐O‐N‐E‐Y, man.
And we know we gonna get mucho, mucho dinero.
Martin Luther King took us to the mountaintop,
and he showed us the promised land.
I want to take us to the bank.
Reporter #4: But if there's one person he hopes is listening,
it's Mike Tyson, who at age 21
figures to be the biggest money winner in boxing history.
Don King kept looking for a way to move in on Mike Tyson.
♪♪
And then the unexpected happened.
Reporter #5: Funeral services were held today
at Hillside Memorial Cemetery
for boxing manager Jimmy Jacobs, who died Wednesday.
Heavyweight champion Mike Tyson, whom Jacobs co‐managed,
was one of the pallbearers.
Heller: So within two years, Mike Tyson lost both his mentor,
Cus D'Amato, and Jimmy Jacobs.
He was lost.
Gordon: I remember at Jim Jacobs' funeral,
and I was there in L. A.,
was when Don King began to put the full‐court press on Tyson.
Reporter #3: When Jim Jacobs died,
did you not go to Mike Tyson
and say, "You don't want to stay with this other guy who's white.
You want to come with me"?
No, I never even went to him, period,
to even talk to him about that.
Let me ask you about another trait
people say of Don King.
They say he uses race.
He plays on the race.
"Brother," he says to a Black fighter,
"you don't want that White manager.
Brother, you come with me because we're Black."
You do that?
[ Chuckles ] That's ridiculous.
Let me tell you something, Sam.
In America, it's sad, but it's true.
You know, racism is prevalent here in America,
and it's the exception rather than the rule
when a Black represents a Black.
The rule is that White represents Black in boxing,
entertainment, in sports, and everything else.
♪♪
Gordon: We saw a metamorphosis in Mike Tyson,
and I think only Mike can tell you
what he was going through, the pain he was going through.
It just didn't ever feel like he was grounded and truly happy,
and his life started to spiral out of control.
♪♪
And now I guess I'm Mike Tyson, what everybody wants to see.
♪♪
Announcer: He is gone by now.
He has no legs at all.
Tyson: It's just my nature to reach for you
and take your heart and your blood and your spleen
and your liver, your eye socket.
Announcer: And 10 seconds to go in the round.
There's the left hand. He's down again. It's over.
Bayless: The sport of boxing
has always exploited its fighters
because it's never enough just to win a fight.
Announcer #2: And there comes the gladiator.
The public wants more.
Right on down after a right hand.
The public wants personality.
Tyson: I dare them to challenge me
with their somewhat primitive skills.
They're just as good as dead.
The public wants soap opera.
♪♪
Reporter: The fight is about to begin between Mike Tyson
and the challenger, Michael Spinks,
to determine who will be
the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
Announcer #3: "Iron" Mike Tyson!
Reporter #2: These men are very businesslike as they arrive
and step onto the scales at Trump Plaza today.
This theater is absolutely jammed.
Wooley: The fight was named Once and For All.
Both men were undefeated.
Man: Okay, Michael Spinks, 212 pounds and 1/4.
Wooley: That created the excitement behind this fight.
Who was going to win? Nobody knew.
Man: Michael Tyson, 218 pounds and 1/4.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Greenburg: I remember Mike Tyson and Robin Givens
were reported to be getting into fights
in their Bernardsville home
that they had just bought prior to the Spinks fight.
Reporter #3: Tyson was caught up in a family squabble.
He was accused of hitting his wife.
She was accused of dominating him.
Obviously, we're sitting in our offices at HBO
kind of rolling our eyes.
Okay, what's going on there?
Matthews: The stress that was leading up to the Spinks fight
on Tyson had to be tremendous.
Clearly, you know, his marriage is falling apart.
There were these horrible stories in the media,
one of which I wrote,
but there were other stories, as well.
He was just, like, sick of the media coverage,
sick of all the people pulling on him.
You can see his mood darkening.
What about all the things
that have been written about your personal life?
The majority of things that you read
is preposterous.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Announcer #4: I want to tell you,
the electricity of this crowd is awesome.
Greenburg: The one thing about Mike Tyson
was as much chaos was going on around him,
he never let that affect his tunnel vision
of what Cus had taught him...
getting in the ring and execute the game plan.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Announcer #5: People are betting on Michael Spinks
because he hasn't lost a fight in 12 years.
I knew I had my hands full,
and I knew what I was up against.
♪♪
Announcer #4: He's got that scornful look on his face,
"Hey, let's get it going."
Briggs: We don't understand fear until fear hits us.
You start sweating, perspiring in front of the world.
You on television,
and you got Mike Tyson right across from you.
And you trying to tell yourself, "Stay calm, stay calm."
No, listen, you about to get that thunder put to you.
Announcer #6: Referee Frank Cappuccino
begins to issue final instructions.
Cappuccino: Alright, both of you, touch gloves.
Good luck to both of you.
Gonzalez: There's a misconception
that Tyson was vicious and he was angry.
It was just a technique.
[ Bell rings ]
Announcer #4: The opening bell. Let's see what happens.
Gonzalez: It's no different
than what a tap dancer does on the floor.
Announcer #4: Tyson attacks immediately,
cuts up the ring, throws a wild right hand.
This is Round One. We're just underway.
He would knock out somebody, send you flowers.
He would be like, "Dan, I really hit that guy hard."
Announcer #4: Tyson just looking for the opportunity
to land a vicious left hook and then a right hand.
A right hand lands on the head of Mike Spinks.
It's Tyson all the way here in round number one.
Vicious shots to the body.
Nothing really heavy landing yet,
but he's taking them.
The uppercut. Body shot.
Down goes Mike Spinks for the first time.
Spinks: When I got hit,
I lost my cools and just tried to hit him back.
Announcer #4: Here comes Mike Spinks in.
He leads with a right hand. Down he goes.
I don't think you get up from this.
Mike Spinks is laying flat on his back.
The count is up to five, and six and seven and eight.
He won't be able to do it. It's all over!
A dramatic first round for Mike Tyson.
[ Cheers and applause ]
And the time, it tells me 1:31,
one of the fastest knockouts in heavyweight history.
Wooley: 91 seconds.
That meant that Tyson made about a quarter of a million dollars
for every second he was in that ring.
Announcer #4: I have never seen a guy taken out so viciously.
Gonzalez: I didn't get to see any of it.
I had to park the limousine, and I see Mike come out.
And he still has his raps.
He's pulling them off, and he jumps in the limousine.
And I look. I said, "What happened?"
He goes, "He's done. It's done. Let's get out of here."
That's how fast this was.
Announcer #4: And now the question is,
who in this world has any chance against this man?
Schaap: This was the coronation.
This was Mike Tyson sending a message that...
"I am now the king of the world."
You would think that riding the crest of that Spinks win
would have put him on top of the world, but actually...
Reporter #4: Are you okay, Mike?
Man: How you feeling?
...it was the beginning of a downward spiral
that lasted for quite a while.
Just get out of here. Come on. Please.
Reporter #4: Robin, can you tell us ‐‐
No, nothing happened.
Reporter: Has the price of fame been too great for you?
When you're a celebrity, especially of my caliber,
you make a great deal of money,
and once you make a great deal of money,
there's a whole bunch of greed involved.
And that's the only thing that interferes as far as your life
and in your professional career.
Dapper Dan: I watched all these vultures converge on Mike.
I said, "Damn."
It was a sad picture.
Gordon: He was battling with King,
he was battling with Robin Givens,
and all the magazine writers,
the newspaper writers, went from saying
the most glowing things in the world about Mike...
to making jokes about him.
Reporter #2: This Sports Illustrated article
and some of the others, the tone is that suggests
that you and your mother are opportunists
and that you are meddling too much in Mike's career.
Right. That's absurd.
First of all, I'm Michael's wife,
and not only that, but we're family.
Gordon: Many of us who were his friends,
he questioned our friendship.
He asked, "Are you still my friend?
Because I don't know who my friends are."
Givens: An incident happened, and we noticed
a discrepancy with Michael's money.
If Michael has $50 million
and he's supposed to have $70 million,
there's a problem.
Gordon: By the time 1988 was running out,
that fantasy love story was disappearing,
and we all remember him being on ABC
with Barbara Walters.
Good evening. I'm Hugh Downs.
And I'm Barbara Walters, and this is "20/20."
♪♪
And you knew before it that the electric sparks would fly
and something bizarre would happen that night.
Well, Hugh, these days, it seems that the only time
Mike Tyson's name is in the news
is when it's linked to something sensational.
♪♪
Walters: Outside the ring, there was trouble ‐‐
Tyson hurt in a Harlem street brawl
with fighter Mitch Green.
Tyson broke his hand and Green's face.
Then rumors that the brief marriage was falling apart
and that Tyson was beating his wife.
Reporter #3: Are you okay, Mike?
Man: How you feeling?
Tyson in the news again.
This time, he was knocked out,
crashing his own car into a tree,
reportedly an attempted suicide
after another fight with his wife.
Reporter #3: Can you tell us what happened?
No, no. Just get out of here. Come on. Please.
Walters: And another incident ‐‐
this time, Tyson attacked an NBC News crew
which caught him on an early‐morning run.
Reporter #4: Mike. What do you want?
Matthews: You couldn't keep up with it.
I mean, this guy basically was reality television
way before reality TV was invented.
♪♪
‐Are we rolling? ‐Yeah.
Barbara coming down.
Walters: Okay, here we go. We're talking.
How long have you been in this house?
For at least 4 1/2, 5 months.
Matthews: Back in the 1980s,
there was a standard rehabilitation tour
for celebrities who had been disgraced.
You would go to Barbara Walters, sit on the couch, and cry.
Walters: I went to the estate Tyson calls home
in exclusive Bernardsville, New Jersey.
Inside, the white room for music and relaxing...
♪♪
...the dining room, fit for grand parties...
and the living room with its gold‐leaf ceiling
and yellow silk draperies and couches.
You really decorated this house.
I did everything. Me myself.
But you never grew up with any of this.
You don't have to grow up with it.
I mean, you're not born with good taste.
You develop it.
Stedman Guff: Everyone on the crew
and Barbara Walters herself...
You look like a country squire here
with your dogs and your estate.
...we were all impressed by how he put
his personal taste into this place.
Because the house is very elegant.
Elegant is true,
but from the outside, it's overwhelming.
We thought it was very elegant, and you don't think of
heavyweight champions as elegant.
You hear all the rumors. Anything untrue?
Well, I'm not a psychopath or a maniac or anything.
People think you're violent.
I'm not at all violent.
And at times, you know, I raise hell,
of course, yeah,
and, I mean ‐‐ and I like to raise hell
because that's basically my nature,
you know what I mean?
You come from my background or anything...
But, I mean, I'm not a violent guy.
I would never want to hurt anyone,
and definitely not the stories you're going to hear.
It's been said that you've hit your wife.
No. Never hit her?
Like I said, me and wife had arguments.
I never have hit my wife.
I grab my wife and hold my wife...
Mm‐hmm. ...you know what I mean?
I may have shaken my wife up.
But I've never totally struck my wife
or beat her up, no.
Walters: What happened was, Hugh, that after
we did the interview with Mike, Robin came to us and said,
"You're not getting the story straight."
Man: Okay, enter the lovely wife.
Greenburg: And indeed, it became one of the most remarkable,
strange interviews maybe in the history of the medium.
Does he hit you?
♪♪
There was no prenuptial agreement.
Givens: No, and why should there be?
We got married to be together forever,
not to plan for divorce.
For this stage of my life, I do have many millions.
My wife just has to ask for it,
and she has every penny I have.
Man: Okay, guys, come on up and give me one more take.
Tyson: The house looks great from right here, right?
It does. This is a good view.
Stedman Guff: When we shot the footage of Mike
touring the estate with his wife, Robin,
they seemed very compatible
and they seemed very relaxed with one another.
So we were surprised by the turn the interview took
because it was not reflected in their behavior with one another.
What's it been like, this roller coaster?
Basically, I'm really concerned more about my wife
because I stand strong regardless of the circumstances.
I stand strong, you know what I mean?
It's been torture.
It's been pure hell.
It's been worse than anything I could possibly imagine.
She led him right into the limelight
and then dropped a hammer on him in front of the world.
Walters: Robin, some of the things that we've read,
that Mike has a very volatile temper, true?
Extremely volatile temper.
What happens?
He gets out of control.
Throwing, screaming.
Does he hit you?
He shakes. He pushes.
He, um...
He swings.
Sometimes, I think he's trying to scare me...
Kriegel: That moment, with him sitting there like a zombie,
there's something...
voyeuristic and completely screwed up about it,
but you know you can't not watch it.
That feels like the genesis
of what we now call tabloid culture.
And just recently, I've become afraid.
I mean, very, very much afraid.
He couldn't believe that she would say such things about him.
He told me, "I felt paralyzed.
I felt like I was in concrete.
I couldn't move. I didn't know what to do."
Imagine the huge event of a Black man
making an ass of himself,
and there's a lot of people in American society
who would love to see that,
but Tyson wouldn't give it to them.
Michael is a manic depressive.
He is.
And when he's in a manic state,
he doesn't sleep.
He gets you up. There's an argument.
I mean, of course you want to sleep.
Walters: So you run out of the room, and he runs after.
Right.
As a viewer, you just kind of shrug your shoulders going,
"What am I watching here?
Why is she opening up her private life like this?"
I can't imagine
that anyone could live with Mike Tyson
and not recognize that there was a problem.
Walters: Hey, listen, you're a guy
who said you want challenges.
This may be the biggest challenge
and the biggest fight you ever had.
Well, I usually come out on top,
and I plan on coming on top again.
I cannot imagine another heavyweight champion
having been humiliated publicly like that
in the history of boxing.
You know, if you're Mike Tyson...
it's tough.
It's one thing to live through it.
It's another thing for 300 million people to watch.
♪♪
Smith: The interview created headlines around the world
because Mike Tyson was a world champion,
emphasis on "world."
I mean, these were not things
that were discussed on television in that era.
I think the media turned on it
because his life was a spectacle.
The late‐night talk shows, the Johnny Carsons,
delivered their monologue every night with Tyson jokes.
Did you know there's a video game out called
"Mike Tyson's Punch‐Out!!"?
And that's just based on his home life.
There's another one.
About a week after the interview aired,
he went from sadness to then anger.
I remember we were watching television.
He had lunch, and he said, "You know, I'm done with this."
And he went upstairs,
and he just started throwing things out the window.
Reporter: A horde of reporters and photographers
were staked outside of Tyson's home in Bernardsville today,
but the champ had still not returned
after his rampage here yesterday,
tossing chairs and other items through windows
of his $6 million mansion.
In fact, we helped him throw some stuff out the window.
"Let's empty out the closets.
Let's get this nightmare out of your life."
Reporter: Actress Robin Givens and her mother
fled the estate and called police.
Since he didn't threaten anyone or strike anyone,
there's very little they can do,
and they consider this case closed.
Some news that may not come as much of a surprise.
Actress Robin Givens has filed for divorce in Los Angeles
from heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.
Smith: The Barbara Walters interview
changed Robin Givens' life, also.
You could say it was kind of a disaster for her.
♪♪
Robin Givens was constantly trashed in the media.
♪♪
It was relentless.
Robin Givens is in the news again.
I guess you know about this.
She's suing Mike Tyson for $125 million,
but since it involves her reputation,
I'm sure it'll just wind up in small‐claims court, but...
But the idea that she was playing a victim
in that situation,
the idea that we immediately distrust
her characterization of events, I think is beyond unfortunate.
It's systematic...
and like so many others, I'm tired of it.
♪♪
Tyson went into a period where all of his worst instincts
were indulged and encouraged.
Gonzalez: We had four penthouse apartments, three mansions...
Reporter: A disco, indoor racquetball, indoor pool...
Gonzalez: ...private aircraft...
Reporter: ...a master bedroom with five televisions...
Gonzalez: ...200 cars...
Reporter: ...five of these Bentley convertibles
at $320,000 each.
Gonzalez: ...a lot of jewelry.
People wanted to see,
"Mike Tyson just spent a million dollars in Gianni Versace."
Heller: He would go to nightclubs.
He would grab women inappropriately.
Gonzalez: I would have girls pull up to the limousine
and throw their underwear at me
and say, "Give this to your boss.
Here's my number."
It was nonstop with groupies.
♪♪
Stedman Guff: He acted out in a way
that generated more headlines...
Only in America!
...and this to Don King, as a boxing promoter, was huge.
And it made people more interested to buy tickets
when he fought.
♪♪
Bayless: "You people want me to be
self‐destructing 'Iron' Mike Tyson."
I just felt like he got trapped in that.
♪♪
Reporter #2: Now to Tokyo, where heavyweight boxing champ
Mike Tyson has taken his show and his title on the road.
Reporter #3: $6 million ‐‐
that's what Mike Tyson is said to be getting
just for showing up in Tokyo.
Tyson's in Japan to defend his heavyweight boxing title
against James "Buster" Douglas.
Schaap: He's the biggest star in the world of sports,
and nobody cared about this fight
because nobody expected it to be a fight
because it was considered a joke.
[ Bell rings ]
Announcer: Good luck there,
and "Buster" Douglas.
Greenburg: "Buster" Douglas, a 42‐1 underdog from Ohio,
was regarded as just another fight for Mike Tyson.
One round, 91 seconds, maybe 92 seconds.
J. Douglas: When they said it was 42‐1,
it was no surprise to me.
I was surprised it was that close.
1,000‐1 would've been appropriate.
Matthews: People thought he was a quitter.
His reputation was in the toilet.
J. Douglas: You know, I really thrived off that negativity,
and I knew that I had the ability to go fight Tyson.
Gordon: Every single night, instead of resting,
Tyson was partying.
"Buster" Douglas was training and resting
and training and resting.
♪♪
Pearl: I'm glad he's the last one.
I have two other sons, and he's the last one
that I have to, you know, go through this with.
I guess you're proud of him tonight.
Very much so.
Matthews: Then his mother dies
less than a month before the fight,
and he decides he's going to draw strength from that.
J. Douglas: She meant a great deal to me,
and I'm going to miss her tremendously, but...
You know, just got to go on.
Announcer: James "Buster" Douglas!
Greenburg: Many fighters might have just said, "I can't do it.
It's too emotional.
I can't go in the ring."
You know, that was my mom.
And she raised me to be strong.
♪♪
I felt that, in a sense,
it made me even more, you know, determined
because she meant more to me than anything, anybody.
I wasn't going to let her down.
♪♪
Announcer #2: Douglas insists that he's going to
shock the world in this fight.
[ Bell rings ]
J. Douglas: Early in the fight,
the thing that was surprising me
was how easily I was able to hit him.
Announcer #3: Couple of right hands by Douglas.
J. Douglas: Once I started touching him and reaching him,
I started bringing the power.
Announcer #2: Had a good right hand and a good right uppercut,
and two more good rights.
Perez: Everybody was shocked
at the amount of punches that "Buster" Douglas was getting in.
Announcer #2: Right hand by Douglas right on Tyson's chin.
He was connecting, and it was just like, "Oh, my God, no."
Announcer #2: Another right hand,
and now Tyson seems to be wobbling.
Mike is not throwing back.
Schaap: He's doing to Mike Tyson
what Mike Tyson does to all of his other opponents.
Announcer #2: "Buster" Douglas is completely
dominating this round.
And again, the champion wobbles back to the ropes.
Schaap: In the 10th round,
Douglas delivers the coup de grace.
♪♪
Announcer #2: What an uppercut by Douglas, and down goes Tyson.
Schaap: Tyson is down, he's struggling,
he's reaching for his mouthpiece,
clearly doesn't know where he is or what's going on.
‐It's over! ‐It's over!
Announcer #2: Mike Tyson has been knocked out.
Those words were words you never thought you'd ever hear
in your lifetime.
Smith: It was the shot heard 'round the world.
This was the era before social media.
You had to call people on the phone and say,
"Did you just see that Mike Tyson got knocked out?"
And that's what happened.
As you seen over there, he was flat on his ass.
Announcer #2: Let's go ahead and call it the biggest upset
in the history of heavyweight championship fights.
Schaap: "Iron" Mike.
♪♪
"Invincible" Mike, the destroyer of worlds.
That's over.
Boyd: We have a long history in this country
of supporting people on the way up...
Tyson: I have in my mind I'm the young champ,
young kid making it and I'm coming up.
I'm the young Mike Tyson.
I'll beat them, I'll game them, I'll punch them.
♪♪
Reporter #4: How good are you?
I do not know how good I am.
♪♪
Boyd: ...and once they reach the top,
wanting to see them fall.
Announcer #2: Down goes Tyson!
Boyd: It's drama.
♪♪
Tyson: They want to see me self‐destruct.
They want to see me one day with handcuffs
and walking into police cars.
People, they love saying, "Look, this is what I told you.
I told you he was headed for that.
I told you he was headed for that."
♪♪