♪♪
[ Train cars rattling ]
♪♪
[ Bell dings ]
♪♪
[ Tiger roars ]
♪♪
[ Ball rattling ]
[ Film reel whirring ]
♪♪
[ Distant cheers and applause ]
♪♪
[ Jet engines roar ]
♪♪
Gonzalez: I should've took him off that flight.
I was with that man 24 hours a day.
♪♪
If I would have taken him off that flight,
history would have had a different ending.
Man: Welcome to the Indiana Black Expo
in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Black Expo in the early '90s in Indianapolis
was a very popular event.
Tell everybody...
B.B. King's in town.
Announcer: Queen Latifah!
Yeah!
Aw, yeah.
Boyd: It drew Black people from all over the country,
from various walks of life, celebrities, entrepreneurs.
[ Music playing indistinctly ]
It was a celebration of Black excellences people say now.
This is Fresh Prince
reporting live from the Black Expo.
Nassau: If you wanted to see a celebrity,
the Indiana Black Expo was the place.
But of course, Mike Tyson, at the time,
there was not a bigger sports figure in the world
than Mike Tyson.
He's a great American and he's alright and he's pretty tough.
Let's hear it for Mike Tyson!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Nassau: It was like being as close to greatness
as you will ever come in your life.
[ Cheers and applause ]
I'm going to make this short
'cause I'm not much for speeches,
and I'm not much of a politician either, but...
When he entered the room, women were just crazy.
I don't know where we were, but I do distinctly remember
a woman taking her underwear off and throwing it and saying ‐‐
and screaming something about, "Mike, you're an animal,
but I'll tame you."
[ Laughs ] Thanks, thanks, thanks.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Boatwright‐Daus: He was so close to us in that we could say,
"Hey, Mike," or we could touch him on the shoulder.
We all were still like,
"I can't believe he's standing right here."
Hi, I'm Mike Tyson.
Be sure to watch the Miss Black America pageant
on this channel.
Announcer: Contestant one,
Jacqueline Abrams from Millen, Georgia...
Contestant 20, Parquita Nassau from Atlanta, Georgia.
And here are the contestants in sportswear
by Wilbourn Exclusives.
♪ Indianapolis, Indiana ♪
♪ Yeah ♪ ♪ Indianapolis, Indiana ♪
Nassau: When I was a little girl,
I watched the Miss Black America pageant for years,
thinking it would be great to enter one day.
I loved the fact that it represented
so many different types of Black women.
Announcer: Give a nice round of applause to our contestants once more.
They'll be right on.
♪♪
♪ Hey, Black girl, I love you so ♪
♪ You mean so much to me ♪
Nassau: You got young men,
you got all these beautiful Black women,
you know, out there, you know, dancing in swimsuits.
All the girls gravitated around Mike Tyson, and he was playful.
♪♪
I'm in a dream. Day after day.
Beautiful women in such an array.
Oh, we must try that again.
[ Laughter ] Let's try that again.
When he got to me, he asked where I was from,
and I told him I was from Georgia.
And Mike Tyson responded, "Oh, good,
because I like to eat ‐‐
and I'm not talking about food."
And so at that point, I backed off.
I recall him looking at the group of girls around him,
and he would point and go, "I want to F you,
you, you,
and bring your roommate too because, you know,
I'm a celebrity and we do that kind of thing."
And there were some other girls in the room who didn't care,
and they gathered even more because, you know, again,
it was Mike Tyson.
He was their hero.
Man: What's your contestant number?
Hello, I'm Desiree Washington.
I'm contestant number 8.
Okay, stand by.
Nassau: And I recall Desiree constantly
saying that Mike Tyson was her father's hero.
My ideal mate is athletic,
and baseball is what he likes to play.
He'll argue his case with specific times and dates,
because I love a man who loves to debate.
He'll reach for the highest star, no matter how far.
Boatwright‐Daus: Well, when she was in the room with Mike,
I mean, her eyes just lit up.
I recall a picture where he's standing with other contestants
and she's out of the line,
and she just has this look on her face like, you know, "Wow."
♪♪
Oh, I'm in a dream. Day after day. Mm!
Beautiful women, such an array.
What can I say?
Mmm, mmm, mmm, mmm.
Man: Now play with them a little.
Yeah, definitely. That sounds better.
We were all young. We were silly girls.
And, you know, most of us had never
had an opportunity to be that close to a celebrity.
You could see that she was just in awe of his presence.
The president of the Rainbow Coalition,
the Reverend Jesse Louis Jackson!
Boatwright‐Daus: From my memory, I met him again
when Jesse Jackson was speaking.
‐I am... ‐I am...
‐...somebody. ‐...somebody.
‐I am... ‐I am...
‐...somebody. ‐...somebody.
Nassau: Let me set the picture for you.
Jesse Jackson is up on the podium
giving one of his best speeches.
Now, Desiree is right next to me.
Desiree is flashing her swimsuit pictures,
and she was showing it to Mike Tyson.
It was like he was a kid in a candy store.
And I felt someone hit me on my behind.
Mike Tyson is going around feeling on women's derriere,
he's feeling on their butts ‐‐
and asking everybody out at the same time.
It was crazy.
Desiree was 18, so she was much younger than me.
I recall when, after meeting Mike Tyson,
Desiree being really close to another girl at the pageant.
There was some conversation that they were going to go
on a double date with Mike Tyson.
I just chopped it up to be girl talk, you know,
saying ‐‐ she said, you know, he was dumb, he was stupid,
that Robin Givens had gotten some of the money
and she was going to get some, too.
Nassau: I was like, "Desiree,
you're really not going to go out with him, are you?"
And Desiree turns to me and goes, "I know."
And so, in my head, she wasn't going to go out with him.
[ Applause ]
But the next morning, there was rumbling at the pageant.
And the rumbling was that Desiree did go out
with Mike Tyson that night and the date didn't go so well.
[ Static/ 911 Call ]
Man: An allegation of rape has been made
against Mr. Mike Tyson.
Woman: Tyson is the target of an investigation
that so far has lasted two weeks.
Modisett: A special grand jury
of the Marion County Superior Court
returned a four‐count indictment
charging Michael Tyson with one count of rape,
two counts of criminal deviant conduct,
and one count of criminal confinement.
Man: Tyson is accused of raping an 18‐year‐old contestant
in the Miss Black America pageant last July
at this hotel in downtown Indianapolis.
Mike Tyson is being charged for rape.
Desiree Washington.
And I looked at him,
and Mike was scared.
Modisett: The victim was led to believe that her meeting with Tyson
was to be platonic.
In fact, however,
Tyson intended to have sexual relations with her.
When she refused his advances,
Tyson had forced, nonconsensual sex with the victim.
And he looked at Don.
He said, "Your [bleep] got you in trouble now [bleep]
and now you need my help.
You need big daddy to save you now."
He was shocked.
He was like, "I didn't do that. I didn't do that."
[ Camera shutters clicking ]
King: Hey, my man. [ Laughs ]
Oh, I love it. I love it.
Only in America, guys.
We're here today, as you know, for an arraignment
on the accusation of a rape charge,
and Mike Tyson wants to speak to you himself
and make a statement.
The situation that occurred is totally ridiculous,
and I didn't hurt anyone or do anything to anyone.
And I love women. You know, I mean, my mother is a woman.
I respect them as well.
And the caution ‐‐ I mean, every time I trust one
or get involved with one in a certain way like this,
something happens, so I'm confused.
I ‐‐ Like I said before,
Desiree Washington knows what happened in the room,
I know what happened, and I know I'm innocent.
We love you, Mike!
Woman: Meanwhile, a no‐contact order has been handed down,
which prohibits Tyson or anyone else on his behalf
from contacting the alleged victim.
She's trying to heal herself.
She wants to go on with her life,
and she wants to see that the right thing is done
for her and for others.
Nassau: I can't even imagine
what it must have been like for Desiree.
I mean, literally, people would get in your face
like, "Mike Tyson didn't do that!
He could have never done that!"
It takes a lot of internal strength
for a young Black woman like Desiree Washington,
who I think wasn't much more than 18 years old,
to accuse this iconic figure like Mike Tyson of misconduct.
Black men, maybe historically, have been portrayed in terms of,
you know, accusations of sexual violence.
It's that the whole stereotype
was built upon Black men raping white women
or Black men acting sexually inappropriate
towards white women.
I mean, the Emmett Till case is the most famous even now.
Emmett Till was lynched for perhaps whistling
at a white woman,
so people knew these stories going back through time
and were saying that, once again,
a Black man was being lynched by the system.
Woman: A gauntlet of reporters and spectators
barely let former heavyweight champion
Mike Tyson get to his car.
The discomfort for me came in that many
of these previous cases
involved Black men being charged with assaulting white women.
But Mike Tyson was being charged with raping a young Black woman.
So a lot of us had to wrestle with how to view this case.
♪♪
One ticket, $100.
$100. Man: I'll give you $10.
Man #2: $100 per seat.
That is the going rate scalpers are commanding to view
either an afternoon or morning session
of the Mike Tyson rape trial.
And some people are getting it.
[ Indistinct conversation ]
Man: Good luck, Mike.
[ Cheering ]
Shipp: This case represented a lot to a lot of people,
perhaps the end of a career of a famous athlete.
For many women,
it was an opportunity for victims
of what was called date rape or acquaintance rape
to be taken seriously.
For Black people,
there were myriad questions about justice for Black men
and justice for Black women.
Woman: Inside, you might call this Network Row.
CNN seems to have acquired the biggest spot.
The first "Oh, no" moment
was an entire city block lined up with satellite trucks.
ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, ESPN, all these ‐‐
It's the big time.
Man: When workmen are done converting this room two floors below,
it'll serve as sort of a courtroom extension.
Reporters, perhaps as many as 100,
will watch the trial on TV monitors in here.
They won't be able to record sound or pictures,
which means while they'll be watching it on TV,
you won't be able to.
Garrison: Anxiety had me. I was sick.
You're never confident you're going to win,
and you're never ready.
Man: What did happen here July 19 ‐‐
We do know, at 2:00 a. m.,
an attractive, 18‐year‐old honor student
accompanied Tyson to room 606.
He says she agreed to sex.
She says she was attacked.
Shaw: Rape cases are very difficult cases
because they're "he said, she said."
Most of the time, there's nobody else around.
There's him and there's her.
And if you don't have forensic evidence
or you don't have a third‐party witness of some kind,
it's a jump ball.
Man: The jury makeup
is predominantly male and predominantly white ‐‐
a disturbing development to some Tyson supporters.
There were a lot of people
planting a lot of crap on both sides.
I know they're going to rip the girl apart,
and I know that it's going to be more than evidence with Tyson.
I know it's also going to be like his whole persona.
Man: Leading up to the trial,
do you think Mike's gotten a fair shake in the media?
[ Laughs ]
Let me tell you something, man.
As far as the media was concerned,
I think that Mike Tyson will have been tried and convicted
and lynched and hung.
So I wouldn't think that it would be anywhere
near what we would call, in the American way, fair play.
Douglas: Don King was responsible
for finding Mike Tyson a lawyer,
and for all of Don King's wealth and influence,
he probably did not make the best selection.
Man: Vince Fuller is a lawyer from Washington, D. C.,
with one of the premier criminal trial firms in the country.
I wasn't sure that he was exactly comfortable
with a street crime.
And he represented Don King, he was the big guy ‐‐
D.C. Circuit and all that business.
I remember the defense strategy like it was yesterday.
I mean, we coined a term for it ‐‐ the "creep defense."
Shaw: "Mike Tyson is basically
the worst human being on the face of the earth,
ladies and gentlemen of the jury,
and so she should have known better
than to go up into the hotel room."
It was particularly distressing for me
as an African‐American lawyer
because his lawyers chose a really insidious defense.
I dare say, if there had been an African‐American lawyer
on Mike Tyson's team,
they would not have put forward that defense.
♪♪
Woman: The 18‐year‐old beauty queen from Rhode Island
scurried in the back door of the Indianapolis courthouse
while Mike Tyson entered through the front door,
basking in the cheers of fans.
[ Cheers and applause ]
♪♪
Man: The woman accusing Mike Tyson of rape
tells a chilling tale of what happened early morning,
July 19th, at the Canterbury Hotel.
I hit him. It was like hitting a wall.
I cried. I did anything to get him to stop.
I couldn't defeat him physically.
Garrison: She stepped through the doorway into the courtroom.
There was this quiet gasp in the gallery.
Nobody can believe that she was so ‐‐ She was 106 pounds.
Just a delicate little thing.
And so the juxtaposition of him at 240, 250
and her at 18 years old was pretty powerful stuff.
Washington: I had no control of anything.
All I could do was beg and cry.
That's all.
I have nightmares.
I went from being such an outgoing person,
someone who was just so social ‐‐
I was voted friendliest in high school ‐‐
to just so secluded.
I just sat in my room
and in the corner of my bed,
and I just couldn't move.
For the longest time, I couldn't believe it.
I said, "Why?" You know, "Why me? Why?
Why did this happen to me?"
Free Mike Tyson!
Nassau: The reaction from the African‐American community
and the community at large, it was explosive.
They're railroading Mike Tyson.
I mean, people were vicious in their comments about Desiree.
Man: She wanted what she got!
She raped herself! She went in the room with him intentionally!
He wanted sex! Man #2: Shame on you for blaming the victim.
Oh, is she a victim? He's a victim, too! Look at that!
We came here to see that justice would be done.
Shipp: One of the Black Baptist denominations,
they were strong supporters of him.
[ Crowd chanting "We love Mike" ]
There was the question of, why do you side with Mike Tyson,
the bad boy, against Desiree Washington,
the good girl who's also a member of the denomination
and is a Sunday school teacher?
With God, I can't lose, and I love you all. Thank you.
Shipp: So, Black women have had to fight for themselves
and fend for themselves for years.
Sometimes their abusers have been Black men.
But because Black men are also being treated
as they have been by the larger society,
Black women are often dissuaded from coming forward.
Will you stand and be sworn in, if you will?
Professor, do you swear to tell the whole truth...?
There had been an allegation against Clarence Thomas
when he was nominated for the U. S. Supreme Court.
Anita Hill came forward
and said that he had created a very hostile environment.
My working relationship became even more strained
when Judge Thomas began
to use work situations to discuss sex.
Shipp: So she was really raked over the coals publicly.
That created kind of a chilling effect,
I think, on women who would come forward with allegations.
Man: Tyson's lawyer was not able to shake
the woman's well‐rehearsed testimony.
She left the courtroom in a hurry
after more than six hours on the stand.
Man #2: Mike, are you winning now?
Are you ahead?
‐Mike! ‐Mike? Mike.
Man #3: Tyson appeared glum as he arrived today
to tell his side of the story.
Man #4: Aside from his birth, these next few hours
are perhaps the most important hours in Mike Tyson's life.
Voyles: It was always Mike's position
that she voluntarily came up to his room.
It was always Mike's position
that she voluntarily had sexual intercourse with him.
It was always Mike's position that at no time did he have sex
with this woman against her will.
Shaw: And let's just talk about the moment
when the trial changed.
He admitted, at some point, he said to Desiree Washington,
"I want to F you."
And then I looked over at the jury, and I'm telling you what,
if you want to see anger on the front of people's faces,
the moment after something is said, it was there.
Five words changed everything.
Man: In Indianapolis,
the former world heavyweight championship boxer Mike Tyson
is waiting to hear what the jury has to say
about charges of rape against him.
[ Cheers and applause ]
Man #2: The former heavyweight champion left court amidst supporters
and alongside his foster mother and promoter Don King.
Shaw: His eyes were kind of hollow,
his eyes were a little bloodshot.
It was like, you know,
"The worst is coming, and I know it's coming,
and there's nothing I can do about it."
Man: As Tyson left court looking somber and spent,
spectators made known their opinion.
[ Crowd chanting "Not guilty" ]
♪♪
Man: About five minutes ago, we received word from the jury
that they have reached a verdict.
♪♪
Man #2: Let's go, Mike!
How you doing, man?
Good luck, Mike.
Let's go, Mike!
[ Cheering ]
Matthews: We go in, it was dark.
It's winter, dead of winter, cold out.
Tyson came in, and he looked worried.
♪♪
When I came back, Mike was sitting out there,
and he was by himself at the counsel table,
and I immediately went to sit with him.
Man: It was a rare knockout punch for Mike Tyson.
The jury deliberated nine‐and‐a‐half hours
and found him guilty on all three counts of rape
and two counts of sexual deviant assault.
[ Indistinct shouting ]
Man: Another innocent person jailed.
You know he wasn't gonna get no fair trial.
Woman: Angry words filled the night air,
and tears filled the eyes of those who say
Mike Tyson was convicted because he is Black.
Because I know, what happened to him, it shouldn't have happened.
Douglas: When there's someone who is succeeding
and the white man is going after him, too,
we say it's a railroad.
Woman: This is a racist state we're living in.
This is Klan land.
Woman #2: More angry words today
on a radio talk show in Indianapolis.
Callers to WTLC overwhelmingly agreed
Tyson didn't get a fair shake because of his color.
Woman #3: That ain't no fair trial.
[ Crowd chanting "Free Mike Tyson" ]
Douglas: Even if it's not a railroad,
we say it because we are so accustomed,
as Black people,
to being railroaded.
Mike Tyson is innocent. He did not get a fair trial.
Man: Yes, sir!
Douglas: And it is in that environment in 1992
that we were trying to embrace Mike Tyson
even when he was being accused
of a dastardly deed by a Black woman.
♪♪
Man: The former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson
was sentenced to prison today ‐‐
six years beginning immediately,
which will put him back into the same prison culture
where he was discovered as a young fighter 12 years ago.
♪♪
It looked to a lot of Black people like
this was another successful Black guy
who became too successful and the powers that be
went to put him in his place.
Tyson: And I knew I was innocent,
but I knew when I was in that court
and when I was looking at that verdict, I knew ‐‐
I was always nervous and worried
because I knew they were gonna take me away
from people that I loved,
but I was just prepared for it.
♪♪
Voyles: I said, "Here, let me cover your hands,"
and he didn't want to do that.
Woman: Mike, what would you like your fans to know?
And I think he wanted to just show that,
you know, "I'm in custody, I shouldn't be,
and I want people to see what's ‐‐ here I am."
Two lives, two young people's lives
have been dramatically affected,
but I think that we need to keep in mind
what an inspiration Desiree Washington
has been to all of us.
Nassau: Desiree is such a little girl, but it's a powerful notion.
She brought down a huge icon.
Mike Tyson had been undefeated for the most part.
Here, this 18‐year‐old contestant comes along,
and she defeats him.
Garrison: I saw Desiree Washington one more time
after the case was over with,
and that was in the company of Barbara Walters.
[ Whispering ] I don't want to do it.
Garrison: Hmm? I'm scared.
Nah. Piece of cake.
It's scary. It's scary.
Okay. How are we doing, guys?
‐We have speed. ‐Okay.
Do you want to tell people why you wanted to do this interview?
I decided to do this interview and only this interview
because there are so many unanswered questions,
so many things that weren't covered
or that didn't come out on TV during the trial.
Do you think today it was bad judgment
that you went into that room?
Naturally, I do because of what happened.
But if nothing had happened,
I don't think I would have thought it was bad judgment
because I didn't think anything of it.
Another beauty pageant contestant quoted you
as saying, "He's got a lot of money and he's dumb.
You saw what Robin Givens got out of him."
That's another thing that I never said.
If Mike Tyson were in front of you
and you could talk to him,
what would you say, if you could, to Mike Tyson today?
I would tell him that he's sick, that he hurt me really bad.
I would tell him, "You need help."
And if he had come to me any time before
or gone to his lawyers
or to anyone and said, "I was wrong"...
You know, the first step to any recovery is admitting
that you have the problem.
"I admit that I have a problem and I need help.
Get me some help."
I wouldn't have gone through this trial.
If Mike Tyson had come to you afterwards and said,
"I was wrong, I apologize," you would have dropped charges?
"I need help, I'm going to get that help,"
and I could ensure the fact that he would go
and get that help and that, you know,
no one else would be subjected to this ‐‐ because I pity him.
But I feel worse for the person that would be the next victim,
because I know personally
what this person would be going through.
This man had to be stopped.
Nassau: Date rape had never been discussed
on a national, international stage or platform
as much as it was after that trial.
Desiree moved this conversation forward for sure.
Black women are still fighting to be heard.
We're still fighting to be believed.
There's still the questions being raised about,
"Why are you bringing this up?
Why did you let it happen?"
We still face those questions as women
and particularly as Black women.
♪♪
Tyson: You know, this is something that I pass, you know what I mean?
I'm not dead.
I mean, long as I'm breathing, my brain is functioning,
my heart is functioning, I'll prevail.
Boyd: Having been the heavyweight champion of the world
and then you're sitting in the pen,
if you have any competence at all,
that's going to tell you this is not a place to be.
The first night that you were here,
when you went in your cell and the door was closed
and the lights went out, what thoughts did you have?
Um, I don't know.
It wasn't realistic at that point,
but I knew ‐‐ I mean, after being in my cell,
I mean, for a couple of days, though ‐‐
I used to say cells are horrible.
You never forget them, I mean, as long as you live.
Mike said to me, "I definitely did not do
what I was accused of then,
but I have done things in my life
that I didn't get caught from that I deserve to be.
And so I figured that it was, you know,
it was just my time to have to pay the price."
Wald: It was very upsetting.
I mean, who wants to go from the lifestyle he had
to, you know, an 8x12 cell and being known as a rapist.
Voyles: I would go out and see him on a regular basis
all through his period of incarceration.
Here's a guy who, while he's in prison, his visitors list
is like a who's who of people in the entertainment world,
in the sports world, who are coming to visit with him.
I wanted him to think that, you know,
he still had a friend.
What'd you think of Mike today?
What did you guys talk about? How'd he look?
Well, Mike looked excellent.
And I think he's taking all this in stride.
And Mike is doing pretty good for himself.
Obviously, from what your T‐shirt says,
you feel Mike
got a raw deal.
Oh, definitely.
I feel like Mike was railroaded and what have you.
And they should give him another trial
or just let them go.
♪♪
Lott: Mike would come in, sit down, and we start talking.
And I couldn't imagine
the emotion he was feeling,
but I didn't want to make it worse.
So we started talking about boxing,
what's happening in New York.
His absence saw the rise of some pretty extraordinary fighters ‐‐
Riddick Bowe, Evander Holyfield ‐‐
and boxing saw this great comeback
with George Foreman.
What do you do with your mind
in a place of confinement?
You know, they confine everything but your mind.
You can't confine someone's mind.
I think that's the only state of you
that's actually free at all.
♪♪
Our body's only purpose is to carry our brain ‐‐
just to carry our brain.
And from that perspective only, that I ‐‐
I believe, that we live ‐‐
for our brain to absorb knowledge.
He was interested in reading about things
and learning about things that he hadn't been ‐‐
he hadn't had time to before.
I read a guy by the name of Homer,
and he wrote about Achilles and Hector
and he wrote about that war.
There's really no wise men in this world
because, as you know, knowledge is just everlasting.
The only wise man is God.
Confinement put me in a situation
to understand Islam,
become a Muslim and be proud of becoming a Muslim.
By the time Tyson goes to jail and embraces Islam,
it's just a broader understanding.
Still a lot of controversy.
Still a lot of people who are against Islam.
But in a lot of ways, Ali helped kind of
introduce this concept to America.
I'm asking you in a nice way, the world is watching,
and I want to have a lot of ‐‐ I want you to respect it.
And I would like for you to call me by my name now.
Muhammad. Muhammad Ali.
Boyd: There were other athletes, figures who had embraced Islam.
Lew Alcindor
becomes Kareem Abdul‐Jabbar, for instance.
And so 30 years later in the '90s,
I just think it played out very differently.
Bradley: As his release approached,
Tyson was being wooed by boxing's top promoters.
Close friends say he'll probably rejoin the flamboyant
Don King as he launches his comeback.
I told him, "Mike, please consider this ‐‐
when you get out, don't go back to Don King.
Get your own lawyer. Get your own accountant.
Get your own adviser.
Do not go back to Don."
Don was around when he was in prison
and was visiting him constantly
and took great pains probably
to make sure that that relationship would hold
when he came out.
There was a lot of discussion
about some crazy deals for huge money
that Don was obviously offering Mike that he couldn't refuse.
Pauley: Sometime tomorrow morning,
Mike Tyson will be a free man after three years behind bars.
Gordon: When Mike Tyson was set to come out of prison,
it was like the anticipation for a big fight.
"Three weeks to go, two weeks to go.
Tyson gets out a week from today."
Man: It's an event.
They have trucks camped out
outside of the prison in Indiana
from Japan, the BBC.
Matthew: It was announced that he would be released at dawn
on a certain day,
and as the sun came up, here comes Tyson.
Boyd: It was very dramatic.
The dude with the coat holding it up over him.
And he's a Muslim and people are curious.
I'm quite sure Mike had some real challenges
coming out of prison,
and I think that's the biggest challenge for Mike
probably was what people were going to say.
Man: Mr. Tyson, how are you?
Larry King: Go ahead. What's your question?
Yes, I was just wondering, being a convicted rapist
and a convicted felon,
is it difficult to try to adjust into a normal life?
You know, I'm just living my life.
There comes a time in your life
where everything that happens in the past
has to just stay there
and I have to continue to just go forward with my life.
Are you gonna get married?
Yes, definitely.
To be a person with so much
weight on your shoulders like Mike Tyson,
and so many people's eyeballs is on him
watching his every move.
We're still basically waiting for Tyson to show up.
But take a look out here.
Look at all the media that have
come from all over the country,
in fact, all over the world.
Man: Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Michael Tyson.
Thank you.
Hazzard: Everybody was wondering where he was going to start
back into his boxing career.
And so we were all waiting with bated breath
for what he was going to do.
I'm here today to make a statement about my future.
There's been a lot of speculation about my plans,
and here they are.
I will fight again.
And I want to confirm that Don King will continue
to promote my fight.
King: The former world champion of the world,
Mike Tyson!
[ Cheers and applause ]
Mike Tyson!
Allahu Akbar ‐‐ God is great!
Smith: I think America wants to see Mike Tyson
just get it back somehow.
It's my pleasure to be here,
always, to come back to New York City.
Can you please just step back in the ring for us
and let us feel so great and wonderful through you
because you got up off that mat and won again?
'Cause we want to win again.
Our Mike Tyson! Our Mike Tyson! Our Mike Tyson!
Let me say this,
I would like to think that in this #MeToo era,
that Mike Tyson would be held to some different standard.
[ Cheers and applause ]
If Mike Tyson gets out of prison in 2020 rather than 1995
after spending three years in prison for rape,
I don't think he's reintegrated into society again
as a celebrity.
But boxing allowed him to continue to fight,
and so he maintained his relevancy.
♪♪
Excuse me, please.
♪♪
Perez: He still had the boxing world...
in the palm of his hand
even after doing three years in prison.
That's pretty fantastic.
♪♪
Schaap: And if you blinked, you missed it.
Announcer: Mike Tyson winning in a minute and 29 seconds.
Announcer #2: Third round, Tyson unloads
huge right uppercut on Buster, knocks him down and out.
Schaap: Mike Tyson wins with a third‐round technical knockout.
♪ 'Bout to do it again ♪
Announcer: There they are, ladies and gentlemen,
Bruce Seldon, Mike Tyson,
for the WBA Heavyweight Championship of the world.
Perez: Everyone expected Mike Tyson to win.
All of New York, all of Brooklyn,
all of hip‐hop, everybody was on fire.
He married hip‐hop and boxing that night.
Like, that's pretty amazing.
And then, you know, he'd come out to Tupac's song.
Boyd: You want to talk about toughness.
You want to talk about being hard, kicking ass.
I mean, the baddest man on the planet.
That's some hip‐hop [bleep]
Just as Mike did for the heavyweight division in boxing,
Tupac Shakur did for hip‐hop.
He was a game changer.
♪ Back to get wreck ♪
♪ All respect to those who break their neck to keep their... ♪
He brought a different honesty and truth back into hip‐hop.
How we doin'? Happy night, do you expect?
Yeah, very happy. Very happy.
Perez: They both understood each other
for being two individuals that were highly misunderstood.
So I think that it was inevitable for them
to become friends.
Announcer: Seldon's gone, Mike knocked him down
with about 1:35 left in Round 1.
Gordon: Right after the Seldon fight,
I went into Tyson's dressing room.
Tupac Shakur walks into the dressing room
and they hug each other.
Tyson introduces me to Tupac.
Tupac gives me a hug.
Then he said, "I got to run."
It was party time.
I go to bed.
And then the phone starts ringing.
And it seemed like the world changed.
♪♪
Everybody was trying to figure out if it was true.
Tupac really get shot? Is he dead?
Doctors could not save the life of rapper Tupac Shakur.
Tupac died from his wounds.
Death Row Record executive Suge Knight survived.
Perez: I was stunned.
Everyone was beside themself in disbelief and grief.
It's immediate grief.
I lost a friend, you know?
And Mike was a very good friend as well.
And it was ‐‐ it was a...
♪♪
Shakespeare couldn't have written it better.
♪♪
Gordon: The money was flowing in
and he was spending all his time in Sin City.
There were more temptations than he ever had in his life.
Kriegel: You're at the highest echelon of American fame.
You're not living in the real world.
You have to be rudderless, almost by definition.
What we didn't know at the time was,
we didn't know he was getting high.
We didn't know he was snorting coke.
When Tyson reached a certain level of income,
he obviously indulged in a lot of things.
Woman: First stop on the tour, Mike's Las Vegas house.
[ Gasps ] Look at that rug.
Wald: I got Roseanne the first interview with Mike post‐prison,
and part of that was when we got to Mike's house,
he was in the swimming pool
with a full‐grown 400‐ or 500‐pound tiger.
Full adult playing basketball with the tiger,
like playing with a kitten or an old dog or something.
You know? [ Chuckles ]
Kriegel: It felt like he was the champ again.
No one really knew the truth of it...
until he was with Evander.
He believes he's the best fighter in the world.
I definitely know I'm the best fighter in the world,
and we're gonna see Saturday night.
♪♪
Briggs: Holyfield is not a regular human being,
he come hard, he come to fight, he come to war.
Look at him.
And they get in a ring together,
and then you see for the first time
that Evander is actually bigger.
Tyson, because he was a bully in the ring,
didn't like bigger guys.
Perez: It was two bulls just coming forward with each other.
And Holyfield was not intimidated or scared.
Holyfield figured it out ‐‐ hit him in the body,
take out his breath, take his rhythm away,
and then also headbutt him,
headbutt him so he could be stunned.
He is knocked down by a body punch
in the middle of the fight.
He's completely shot.
Then Evander Holyfield hit him with a barrage of punches
and his knees buckle.
He had him hurt and the fight was eventually stopped.
♪♪
Holyfield out‐dirtied him. He beat him.
You know, he bullied him. He bullied the bully.
I went in there. I fought and gave my best.
I was tired and he just kept fighting,
and I got caught in some exchange,
and then he fought a hell of a fight.
Losing in boxing isn't like losing in another sport.
It's not like, you know,
you dropped a double header this weekend.
It's a kind of death.
Reporter: A question for Mike.
Do you feel that your air of invincibility
has now been shattered for good?
People lose, everyone loses. We lose in fights.
We lose in life. We lose our family members.
After Tyson lost to Evander Holyfield,
it had a dramatic impact on his psyche.
♪♪
Matthews: Don't forget, when a fighter gets beat like that,
he doesn't forget it, you know?
He remembers, "You know, this guy beat me last time.
You know, can he do it to me again?"
May 3rd is the date. Mark it on your calendars.
It is being billed as a rematch of the best fight of 1996.
♪♪
Tyson: I'm confident I'm gonna win.
Okay? I'm just ready to fight.
I'm ‐‐ Your guys are talking ‐‐
People on his side are talking, they're not fighting.
People on my side are talking, they're not fighting.
But I'm going to fight, and he's not
going to have the championship come Saturday night.
And he was going in with this attitude of revenge.
"I'm getting you back."
Man: A rematch for the WBA Heavyweight Championship
of the world ‐‐ Mike Tyson, Evander Holyfield.
♪♪
Man: Championship rematch between heavyweights
Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson
may be the most anticipated fight in two decades.
♪♪
Mike Tyson fought him rough. Evander fought him even rougher.
And hit him low, one for good measure.
Hazzard: Halfway through that fight,
I could see things changing.
I could see, it seemed like Mike's confidence was leaving.
I could see that Evander Holyfield's confidence
was constantly building.
They were clashing a lot.
♪♪
In the first couple of rounds, he'd been headbutted again.
Caused a huge gash over Tyson's eye.
He frustrated him by using those headbutts repeatedly.
I mean, Mike Tyson even turned to Mills Lane,
like, "Man, help me out here!"
Wald: He was screaming, "Look what he did,
look what he did, look what he did!"
Mills Lane looked through him like he didn't exist.
And that's what Mike lost it.
And all of a sudden, it wasn't Mike Tyson the champion,
it was Mike Tyson from Brownsville
that got cheated, that got spit on,
that got sucker‐punched, that got underestimated,
and didn't receive the proper love and guidance from home.
And he didn't know what to do...
except to bite.
And bite he did.
♪♪
After he bid off the chunk of ear,
he spit it out at Holyfield's feet
and went like this, "Go ahead, look at it."
It was the most unsportsmanlike thing I have ever seen.
Man, that was heartbreaking to watch.
I couldn't stop crying, and I couldn't stop saying,
"Oh, my God, he's lost it. He's lost it. He's in trouble.
He's in trouble. He's in trouble.
This isn't entertainment. This isn't funny.
This is this man's life. He just destroyed his career!"
Gray: Jesus, it was chaotic.
The sheriffs and the police got into the ring
and tried to separate the fighters
and then they took him out of the ring,
and then he was just showered with debris and beer.
Schaap: I remember him, you know, moments after Mills Lane
ends the fight, talking to Jim Gray,
and he said, "Did you see what he was doing to me?"
Man: Was that a retaliation for the eye?
When you bit him in his ear?
Regardless of what I did, he'd been butting me for two fights!
But you got to address it, Mike.
I did address ‐‐ No, I did address it.
I addressed it in the ring.
Why did you do that, though, Mike?
I mean, was that the proper response to me?
Look at me. Look at me. Look at me. Look at me.
I gotta go home and my kids are gonna be scared of me.
Look at me, man.
Here we go, stand back. Stand back, stand back.
Man: Mike, what happened, man? Why'd you bite him?
[ Indistinct shouting ]
Lawson: And those fans were not happy.
The things that were coming out of their mouths ‐‐
that took a toll with Mike.
It did something to him.
Well, what a scene it was last night in Las Vegas.
It wasn't so much a heavyweight championship fight
as it was a championship bite.
Tyson inexplicably turned into Hannibal Lecter last night.
It was so terrible. I cannot believe he bit him
and expected to get away with that.
I don't feel there's any justification in what he did.
I was disgusted.
It's all anybody talked about, was him biting Holyfield's ear.
Interesting concept in sports TV ‐‐
pay per chew.
[ Laughter, applause ]
Bayless: In epic failure,
Mike became even more famously infamous.
I saw the fight, and until what happened,
it was ‐‐ it was a good fight.
And I was horrified by it,
and I think the American people are.
♪♪
Man: Nine minutes. Literally nine minutes.
Man: Get the shot that you need.
Step back. Let's get a two shot.
First of all,
have you watched the fight since it happened?
I've seen it, yes. You know, you can't help it.
Even if I never watched it at home,
it's on every screen in the city when you walk the streets.
Yeah, I watched it.
And what was your reaction when you saw what you did?
Really? "Ah [bleep]"
You're watch it in a joking manner,
people are watching in in a joking manner.
I have to watch it in a manner of disgust,
disdain, and yes, semi‐humiliation.
We had done a long interview with Mike.
I don't think he had accepted at that time his career was over.
I think he knew that he was gonna be suspended.
But I don't think he thought that in the long run,
this was gonna be the end of Mike Tyson the fighter.
The Nevada Boxing Commission
has revoked Mike Tyson's boxing license
and fined him as much as the law allows, $3 million ‐‐
one‐tenth of the money he made
in the brawl against Evander Holyfield.
Mike was really in a real dark period of his life.
He was looking to resume his career in boxing,
but he also was fighting demons.
Murray: When I first met Mike in '99,
he was married to Dr. Monica Turner
and they came for marriage counseling.
Unfortunately, that marriage ended,
and he told me that here he had this beautiful wife,
lovely home, beautiful children,
everything he thought he'd ever wanted, he had.
He said, "I got up in the middle of the night
and went down to a bar, got drunk, got in a fight,
had sex with some girl from there.
I realized the next day, 'No, I don't like this.
This is not what I want to be.'"
He couldn't go anywhere without people, you know,
wanting to mess with him,
thinking that they'll get a settlement
or they'll ‐‐ you know, something will happen.
Woman: Green is suing Tyson over an incident
that took place in Harlem eight years ago.
Man: Two Baltimore women claim Tyson
physically and verbally assaulted them.
As far as the lawsuits are concerned,
whether he was an easy target
or whether he was just a crazy, abusive guy running around,
his persona didn't give him much wiggle room.
Recently, there were reports that Tyson was broke
or down to his last several million dollars.
He blames Don King.
Lawson: I remember being in his office and him saying to me,
"Things are getting ready to change
significantly in my life,"
and he says, "Are you with me?" And I said of course.
Pugmire: After King and Tyson went their separate ways,
Tyson was a little bit of a ‐‐ like a rudderless ship,
you know, a little bit of a wayward fighter.
[ Sighs ]
Man, listen, right...
I don't know nothing about being the heavyweight champion.
Only thing I know, I know how to fight, right?
Gordon: He looked back at his life and he saw himself
as a very used individual.
I'm a street person. I don't even want to be a street person.
I don't even like ‐‐ I don't even like typical street people,
but that's just who I became and what happened in my life
and the tragedies in life that made me that way.
But, you know, I'm Mike, you know.
I'm not malevolent or anything. I just am.
He became a very bitter person.
Man: Mike, Francois Botha's a 6‐1 underdog.
Are there any concerns on your part?
I don't know anything about that.
I don't know nothing about numbers.
I just know what I can do. I'mma kill this mother[bleep]
Okay.
Whether it was by design or not,
he played exactly the role the media wanted him to play.
Mike, why do you have to talk like that?
Well, I'm talking to you the way I want to talk to you.
You have a problem, turn off your station.
You know what? I think we'll end the discussion right now.
Then we're good [bleep]
You got it. Have a nice fight, Mike.
[Bleep] off.
He wanted to play the bad guy,
and we wanted him to play the bad guy.
Man: There are those in the boxing press
that have referred to this fight as kind of like a freak show.
Neither party was interested in much nuance at that point.
How could y'all guys really judge?
Y'all guys are not ‐‐ You don't have to merit to judge us.
What have you accomplished in our field to judge us
of being bums or not bums, of being freak shows?
Well, the pressure is like being in someone's fist,
and, like, you can't breathe.
Look at me, I've been embarrassed,
humiliation, degradation,
and any other "‐tion" you can name!
Bentt: Mike's meltdowns in front of the camera
saved his life probably.
That was his outlet.
You know, you have to express that.
Tyson: So every now and then, I kick your [bleep] ass
and stomp on you and put some kind of pain,
inflict some kind of pain on you
'cause you deserve to feel the pain,
somewhat of the pain that I feel.
And yeah, it's ugly, it's impolite,
but that was part of his manner of articulating his pain.
♪♪
Schaap: So what's the attraction now?
It's the promise of mayhem.
Here's a guy, you don't know what he's gonna do.
He might try to break someone's arm, like with Botha.
He might try to knock out the referee, too,
which is what happens in the Savarese fight.
It becomes a carnival with Mike Tyson.
♪♪
Gray: I believe that leading up to the Lennox Lewis fight,
Mike Tyson knew in his heart of hearts
that his skills were eroding.
Schaap: Lennox Lewis dismantles him.
Lennox Lewis breaks him down piece by piece.
That was the night where I sat back at the end and said,
he is what they call, within boxing, a shot fighter.
He's lost his ‐‐ his will to box.
♪♪
And Mike's there in his dressing room,
and he's cradling in his arms his son Miguel,
who's only a few weeks old at the time,
and he says, "I'm just gonna fade into oblivion now."
A year after the Lewis fight,
now he's fighting Clifford Etienne,
and he's gotten a tattoo over half his face.
I do have to ask, Mike, why did you tattoo half your face?
And that, too, now is probably, I don't know, 10 days old.
And he says...
I just feel like I wanted to tattoo my face.
I didn't like the way it looked, and I just wanted to change it.
Schaap: I'll never forget it. He says, "Because I hate myself,
because I was sick of looking at myself in the mirror."
♪♪
And if you were a true fan,
by the time McBride came around, you wanted to say please stop.
I remember getting a call that said that,
"You're fighting Mike Tyson," and I said, "Yeah."
"They're only offering $150,000 to fight him."
I says, "I don't care what they're offering.
I'd have fought Mike Tyson for nothing."
♪♪
Gordon: We've seen it happen to so many fighters
who stay around too long.
It's almost on one night they become old men.
Announcer: ...the journeyman is making Mike Tyson
look like a third‐tier heavyweight.
Gordon: When Kevin McBride pounded him and Tyson went down,
you could look at his face
and you could see resignation on his face.
♪♪
Something we had never seen before.
I'm the boss! I'm the [bleep] boss. Enough, yes!
Enough. That's it.
Announcer: It's over.
Kevin McBride is the winner,
Mike Tyson quits on his stool.
He's not coming out for the 7th round.
He talks to Jim Gray afterwards and he is resigned to it.
I mean, he is now saying out loud
the part you're supposed to whisper.
I realize I don't think I have it anymore,
'cause I got the ability to stay in shape,
but I don't got the fight and guys I don't think anymore.
When did you recognize that? At what part of the fight?
I don't know. Early into the fight.
I'm just sorry I let everybody down.
I don't have this in my heart anymore.
Schaap: I think Tyson never expected to be in this position
where he would have to imagine
the reality of life after boxing.
I don't think he ever thought he was gonna get there.
♪♪
Gray: When you're used to making millions and millions of dollars
and spending all kinds of money,
you go back and do what you have done best
and you think that that's going to lead to enough
to support the lifestyle that you have ‐‐
or in this instance, to pay off some of the debts.
He was the undisputed champion of the world!
Undisputed champ!
At 20 years old!
Mike Tyson is coming!
[ Indistinct shouts ]
Schaap: He goes to Las Vegas
to set up in the lobby of the Aladdin Hotel
to basically go through, you know, the motions of training.
Man: Give it up for Mike Tyson, folks. Come on, give it up.
Schaap: Here he is in this diminished state,
reduced to basically singing for his lunch.
Let him work, let him work. Let him work.
And he resents it.
And he talks about it.
It's just so ironic when people see me, they smile.
I used to think that that's what they want,
they want me to curse them out, they want me to grab my crotch,
and they want me to be that tough guy.
That's just ‐‐ That's so ironic.
I just ‐‐ I don't know. I want to change.
I want to run away from that guy,
but everybody always pulls that guy back out of me.
I think Mike Tyson's love/hate relationship with his public
is the perfect American tragedy.
[ Indistinct chatter ]
Mike, please, that T‐shirt, please!
The fans helped make Mike who he became.
But sometimes we as fans
buy into the fantasy of who Mike Tyson is,
and we don't allow him to be a complete person.
Please! Please! That T‐shirt! Please!
I'll give you one Monday, on Monday.
[ Shouting indistinctly ]
Thank you.
You're welcome.
I don't want this. I don't want this.
I would love it if everybody left
and I just box or train by myself with the guy.
I wish they all never come see me.
Now, would any other fighter say that?
I don't want them. I wish they'd get the [bleep] out of here.
♪♪
Murray: One of the things that Mike said when he first started therapy,
was, "I want to know why I do what I do."
And he really wanted to be somebody
that could be respectful of other people
and that they would respect him for who he originally was,
not for all of the craziness hype.
In retrospect and hindsight
or whatever the scientific term we use,
my life is ‐‐ over 20 years of my life...
Yeah, 20 years of my life, maybe four ‐‐
maybe since I was 12, it's been a lie.
It's been a lie. It's been truly a lie.
Man: Looking to be the first man
to win four world's championships.
In their first fight, November 25, 1938,
at Madison Square Garden in New York...
Bayless: Mike Tyson fought against himself
since he first started amateur boxing.
♪♪
There was a whole nother man in there,
a whole nother man who was fighting in his soul
with the boxer.
Murray: I remember him being very tearful,
saying, "I'm not that man anymore."
He said, "I don't hate people anymore."
Mike, can I get a picture? How's life treating you, man?
[ Indistinct chatter ]
Schaap: For Mike Tyson, this is uncharted territory.
Man: Watch out, watch out, champ.
He was convinced ‐‐
and there was good reason to believe this ‐‐
that he would die young.
Now, all of a sudden, he's 40 and he's not dead
and he's also not boxing.
So then who is Mike Tyson?
Woman: May I have your full name?
Michael Gerard Tyson.
He doesn't know. He has no idea.
Woman: Former heavyweight champ Mike Tyson in trouble
with the law again...
After being arrested on drug and DUI charges
outside a Scottsdale, Arizona, nightclub.
And he turns to drugs.
He is still dealing with all of this pain
and all of this disappointment and all of this self‐loathing.
If you test positive on your drug tests
or you fail to report as required,
your release can be revoked and you can be returned to jail.
Murray: If you know anything about addictions or an addict,
even though their mind is saying, "I want to do this,"
the addiction can take over.
That underneath drive is always there.
So that's something that he's always had to deal with.
Man: Mike, what happened last night?
He started doubting everything about himself,
the drugs made him very, very dark.
Lawson: I'm thinking, will there be a tomorrow for Mike Tyson?
I don't want him to commit suicide.
I don't want him to end up in prison.
I don't want him to, you know, harm anyone
because he's frustrated
and someone walks up to him and agitates him.
Gray: Mike's biggest losses haven't been
to Evander Holyfield and Buster Douglas,
they were big in the sport ‐‐
but his biggest losses have been, you know,
the loss of all those people who were close to him,
who he trusted at a young age
and who are not in his life.
And then the loss, tragically,
of his daughter on the treadmill.
Man: Mike Tyson's daughter Exodus,
pronounced dead late Tuesday morning.
She had reportedly been playing near a treadmill
in the family's Phoenix home
when she was choked by the machine's cord.
Tyson rushed to the hospital to see her.
Gray: My wife, Fran, and I, we just called to let him know
that we cared about him and that we were there for him.
I do remember Mike saying, you know, that ‐‐ that...
all the things that happened in his life,
he could have died on numerous occasions,
and at that point, he had wished
that perhaps he would have been dead.
But when I went to the hospital, the people that were there,
they're up there because their kids were dead, too.
Goldberg: Mm‐hmm. Or about to die.
Mm‐hmm.
I remember that interview with Bernard Goldberg
and the emotion.
That's ‐‐ That's Mike.
So who the hell am I?
Their kids are dying, too.
I couldn't handle it at all.
You have to go now. You understand, right?
Thank you.
Mothers and fathers and siblings,
you know, they never really get over it.
♪♪
Lawson: The loss was a transition for him,
it made him recognize
how important it is to be a father figure
and being present in his kids' life
and not just being a provider.
It was a big part of his change.
♪♪
Murray: When I first met him, he did not cry at all.
He was really tough and really hard
and, "I don't want to be here."
And this ‐‐ You know, "This sucks,"
and [chuckles] et cetera.
But as time went by and we really began to work
on these early childhood issues, yes, tears started to come.
Oh, I've had sessions in which he just sobbed.
♪♪
[ Cheering and applause ]
♪♪
Tyson: Me and this guy both come from basically it's the sewage,
and we watched each other grow to become established
and esteemed fighters, you know what I mean?
And I just want you to know, it's just been a pleasure
passing through life being acquainted with you.
Okay. [ Applause ]
I knew how much it bothered him,
and I knew he had been carrying that for so long.
To be able to look him in his eye
and announce this to the world as well.
How good for Mike?
One time, I believed there can't be peace without war.
I realize that you need to love each other
and treat each other better.
Thank you for agreeing to have this moment here.
Oh, it's been my pleasure.
It's something that should have been done a long time ago.
Thank you. Thank you, both.
Evander Holyfield and Mike Tyson.
[ Applause ]
Yeah, I was ‐‐ I was doing "Friday Night Fights,"
I was doing ESPN.
Announcer: ...action started off with Cuellar and Marrero here.
Atlas: I'm sitting doing the commentating.
Suddenly one of my guys say,
"Teddy, listen, we're not sure what's going on over here,
but it seems Mike Tyson is heading over towards you."
Next thing you know, he was right behind me.
[ Chuckles ]
And he just said, "I'm sorry."
Said, "Teddy, I'm sorry."
♪♪
"Will you accept my apology?"
Put his hand out.
And so I shook his hand, and he hugged me.
Kriegel: I have to think that not being a fighter anymore,
not having to play the bully,
not having to make other people scared of him,
that enabled the guy to move on and grow up.
That liberated him.
Hey, everyone, I'm Kristin Herold in Hollywood,
where the summer movie season is in full swing.
We're here at the premiere of "The Hangover."
♪♪
Perez: "The Hangover" for Mike Tyson was a game changer,
and when they showed him,
I screamed along with the entire audience.
It was kind of crazy.
He was playing himself. There was a tiger involved.
♪ Why you keep this silence ♪ Whoa!
Quiet, quiet!
Smith: And then he's singing a Phil Collins song.
Mike Tyson?
Shh!
This is my favorite part coming up right now.
♪ ...you and me ♪
[ Drum break ]
♪ I can feel it comin' in the air tonight ♪
Need a chorus line, guys.
♪ Oh, Lord ♪
[ Grunts ] Oh, geez!
Smith: And then he just off and hit somebody,
as Mike Tyson will do, in the mouth.
Wait a minute. Where you get that cop car from?
We, uh, stole it from these dumb‐ass cops.
Nice!
[ Laughter ] Nice, guys.
Incredible intellect, you know, and a great heart
and a wicked sense of humor.
You know, a lot of things that people didn't give him credit for.
And it's been great to see that we see this new Mike
emerge over the last 20 years.
Man: Mike! Mike!
Mike, I need you, right here, right here!
I think that people who knew who Mike Tyson was in that audience
weren't just rooting for him, that, you know,
because he was funny and he was entertaining.
It was because he was entering his second act
and everybody was happy for him.
You and I have gone through a lot.
Yes, yes. And I welcome you.
[ Applause ] It's wonderful to have you here.
Whether it was his fault or not, he had been through enough.
He's learned some hard lessons,
and thank goodness he's got a wonderful wife now.
Kiki's just a wonderful person. She really is.
She's a great person.
He had always said, "I want to be able to be faithful
to one woman and to be a good father
who is there for my children."
And I think that's what Kiki has been for him.
Gray: I would say, post‐boxing,
she's the best thing that's ever happened to him.
I tell him all the time, don't screw this up.
Do not screw this up no matter what you do.
She's been wonderful for him, to him,
and it can't be easy.
When Mike did his one‐man show, the crowd loved it.
[ Reporters shouting ]
Perez: With the help of Kiki,
he was able to tell his story clear, plain, and concise.
This is my father, Curly Lee Kirkpatrick.
But wait a minute.
Now, if Curly Kirkpatrick is supposed to be my father,
then who the [bleep] is this dude on my birth certificate?
When you are that raw
and you expose that stuff, it's captivating.
You can't take your eyes off it,
almost like you couldn't take your eyes off him in the ring.
You know, I really don't know much about my mother.
I remember her drinking a lot and always angry and fighting.
I knew she had dreamed of becoming a schoolteacher.
You know, this is the only picture I have of my mother, Lorna Mae.
I know when she took this picture,
she never imagined that her boy would make it out of Brownsville
unless I did it in some handcuffs or a wooden box.
♪♪
An actor's job is to express the pain,
dysfunction that he experienced.
Dude was completely, unapologetically
open and honest.
Schaap: He wants to explore his experiences.
He wants to talk about the forces that shaped him.
Anybody who was around the orbit of Mike Tyson
heard stories that Mike was abused as a kid.
I think in some ways Mike was waiting for someone to ask him.
One day, a guy grabbed me
and tried to bring me into a building.
What did he do to you?
Well, I don't like to talk about that, you know?
I like to keep that where it was in the past,
but I was molested as a child.
In that one incident? Yes.
What kind of impact do you think that had on you?
It made me have to be tough...
from the world I lived in.
You didn't carry that rage with you?
I could have, definitely.
Definitely, no doubt about it.
If you really ‐‐ If you put it in that perspective, yeah.
"I'm not gonna be picked on." Yeah.
"I'm not gonna be bullied."
Never again.
"I'm not gonna be grabbed by some guy."
Never again.
♪♪
Drugs, booze, violence...
death.
You're not supposed to survive that. He did.
♪♪
Briggs: When the bell rings, the fight don't end,
the fight of life, you know what I mean?
Mike has shown me and so many others that,
don't give up, keep making it, you know what I mean?
♪♪
Here was a guy who was just like us,
went to the same schools,
ate free lunch where we ate free lunch,
and grew up just like we did.
You could be down and out, lose everything, but guess what,
you got a chance.
Do something, use that energy,
use your pain as fuel, and Mike Tyson shows you that.
♪♪
Holmes: We turn now to Mike Tyson's return to the ring.
You heard me correctly ‐‐
Mike Tyson coming back to the ring to fight
15 years after retiring from boxing.
The now 54‐year‐old former heavyweight champ
is set to fight former world champion
Roy Jones Jr. this weekend.
You look great. We've been ‐‐
A lot of folks have been checking in with you.
You've been putting some posts out there.
We see you look great, but you have to ‐‐ help us ‐‐
You ain't seen nothing, Mr. Holmes.
Mr. Holmes, you ain't ‐‐ Look.
I gotta show you my body, baby. Oh, now ‐‐
Gotta show you how beautiful I look, baby.
Uh, well, I ‐‐ Clearly, you're ‐‐
This what I'm talking about, homey.
Brother Holmes, this is where it's at, man.
This is where it's at.
Bayless: I think at age 54,
he's actually having fun training,
knowing what he knows now that he didn't know then.
Mike Tyson is ready for his comeback fight.
But first, the story career highlights
and crushing blows that brought him to this point.
The legendary boxing champion not holding back
about the moments that defined him.
Woman: It's all sanitized.
Pitts: We just want to make sure we keep you safe.
You're very safe.
How you doing, man? I'm Byron Pitts.
Pleasure to meet you. So nice to meet you, brother.
Pleasure. Honor.
When the bell sounds at the upcoming fight,
part of you will return to the old Mike Tyson, you think?
Things happen when two men
get in the ring and we throw punches.
It's an unwritten clause in our contract.
From our experience of being young fighters
and watching our friends, it's an unwritten clause
that at any time during training
and fighting, you can die.
The old Mike Tyson, I would imagine, wanted that to happen,
was okay of the idea of the opponent dying
or you having to die to be successful.
Well, that guy, he didn't have any self‐love or self‐respect.
So of course, he don't want to live.
He doesn't like himself.
Whatever it is that I think I am
or whatever I thought I was about the baddest guy,
the mean‐‐ that guy's dead.
You know, we're boxing, boxing, I'm gonna be that guy then,
but as far as livin', that guy's dead.
I'm trying to kill that guy.
But that guy was my only salvation for a long time.
In all of my life, I've been thinking in terms of
developing a fighter who was perfect.
He may go down in history as one of the greatest we ever had,
if not the greatest that ever lived.
♪♪
That's all we talked about ‐‐ success.
Beating everybody.
Have a lot of women, have a lot of cars or planes, boats.
Everything we wanted.
That's how we lived our life, and we had nothing.
We were living, thinking that we were great all day.
All day, every day, we were great.
♪♪
If you could talk to 20‐year‐old Mike,
what would you say to him?
It's gonna hurt.
It's gonna hurt bad. It's gonna really hurt.
Life is gonna hurt him really bad.
I lived in fear.
I am from Brownsville, Brooklyn.
I'm what fear looks like.
Look at me.
If you think anybody's afraid of me,
I'm probably a thousand times more afraid of them
than they are of me.
That's why I'm more aggressive than they are.
And my whole life is fear‐based ‐‐
I'm afraid of my mother's boyfriend,
I'm afraid of the guys outside.
How do you endure that,
survive that?
I'm made for that. That's what I'm made for.
Absolutely. That's who I am.
I want to be up more than anybody wants me to be down.
♪♪
Whoo!
[ Pigeons cooing ]
Tyson: This is the first love I ever had
besides my mother or something.
This is my first love, first thing I ever loved.
Do they love you back?
It doesn't matter. I love them.
You know, my first fight I ever had in my life
was over a pigeon.
Some kid, a bully in my neighborhood, took my pigeons,
and I never fought anybody before,
but one guy at the time placed the bird under his shirt
and someone said, "He has a bird.
He has one of your birds," and I ran around the corner
and said, "Can I please have my bird?"
He said, "No, you fat [bleep] You want this bird?"
And then he broke my bird's neck and hit me with the bird.
[ Laughs ] Ruthless, he hit me with the bird,
poured the bird blood on me, hitting me with the bird,
and then one of the guys there,
they used to bully me, too, say, "You better fight him."
Iron Mike was born in that moment.
Yeah, no doubt about it.
♪♪
We want people to see that we're the best
in some field or another.
We want people to like us so we can feel good about ourselves.
We're born with honor, just waking up in God's environment.
This is honor at its best.
And in our quest for receiving honor,
you know, being the best in the world at what I do,
being the egotistical guy, we wind up losing it.
♪♪
Success to me is, um...
not cheating on my wife.
Success for me is, um, not going to prison.
Success for me is, um...
being responsible and being present.
That's success for me.
That's just ‐‐ It's just what it is, you know?
I'm from Brownsville, Brooklyn,
and I have a penchant for violence.
I'm 52 years old ‐‐ well, 54 ‐‐ and I still have ‐‐
and there's a possibility there's another little act
to do something really stupid and lose everything.
My baseball teacher told me the eagle never looks up
because it flies the highest.
Well, it's the highest flying bird.
Yeah.
He says they never look up.
Well, life had beaten me into submission.
You know, life is just ‐‐ life was tougher than me,
so I'm trying to go the other way now.
No, I'm doing the other way. I'm not trying.
I'm ‐‐ I'm ‐‐ I'm committed of living the other way.
Eagles get all the birds.
Oh. Nothing stands a chance.
Anything that could fly. He's king of the air.
They eat mountain goats, too.
Yeah, but I don't think they can catch pigeons.
I think pigeons are too agile for them.
I learned gratitude.
This is what I learned from life kicking my ass.
I learned gratitude.
Gratitude.
♪♪
Morocco, do you really understand how much I love you?
You do?
That's right.
♪♪
Going back up this way.
♪♪