Original subtitles

Mike is a complicated individual.

I never knew what Tyson and I was going to get.

He looked like he could kill somebody.

Unapologetically open and honest.

You could not have a better friend than Mike Tyson.

Were you an unhappy kid?

I knew I had something and I had to let it out.

I've been listening to people telling me I wasn't going to do anything with my life.

I knew it was special.

You want to do something, but you didn't know what it was.

Michael is intimidating.

He cannot control his temper.

I was going to kill him if I had to.

He's my boy.

He's with me.

It's a tragic narrative.

The rise and fall.

The alleged victim's statements were credible

enough to warrant a full investigation.

I cannot believe he bit him and expected to get away with that.

He just destroyed his career.

Have a nice fight, Mike.

off.

The drugs made him very, very dark.

The only person that defeated him was him.

This is the way it's going to end?

Free Mike Tyson!

Free Mike Tyson!

If Mike Tyson gets out of prison in 2020 rather

than 1995, I don't know what would happen today.

Will there be a tomorrow for Mike Tyson?

This may be the biggest challenge and the biggest fight he ever had.

I usually come out on top, and I plan on coming out on top again.

This is the biggest fight with the biggest build-up of legitimate quality since

Muhammad Ali fought Joe Frazier for the first

time 17 years ago in Madison Square Garden.

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.

Everything that Tyson does is intimidating.

When Tyson fought, everybody stopped to watch.

The world stopped.

Nothing compared to a night that Mike Tyson was fighting for the title.

Mike Tyson surrounded by security, as handless as he comes in.

Tyson's story breaks all the rules.

Black guy, violent sport, grows up in and around violence.

Goes away for rape.

And he is more loved now than he ever has been.

I've never seen Americans allow that to happen to somebody.

Mike Tyson, as always, no shirt, no robe, no accoutrements.

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.

It was a who's who event.

Oprah was courtside.

Anybody who was somebody was there.

Muhammad Ali has just entered the ring.

He entered the ring here to take his bow.

Everybody was looking for the next Ali.

And then, here comes Kid Dynamite.

People feared him.

They thought their life was going to end.

Whoa.

You have a sledgehammer, man.

You're ready to die to see how did that end up being hit.

I mean, no fighter wants to get run over by a truck.

There's few people in the world that go by one name.

Tyson.

Tyson.

Tyson.

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.

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 gained 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.

Courtside seats were $1,500.

The fight grossed $70 million.

Everybody wanted a piece of that fight, including Donald Trump.

Donald Trump, who has the daring, the flair,

the look, and the cash to make it happen.

Donald Trump put up $11 million to host this

fight and has made it his personal mission.

What would benefit?

Trump's casinos, of course.

The boardwalk was packed.

Two tickets, who needs it?

You couldn't get a room within 10, 15 miles of Atlantic City.

It was shown in over 16 countries.

Listen to all the gossip and the theories that surround

this magnificent event that transpired here at Trump Plaza.

The heavyweight champion of the world.

The world comes into the ring.

This is why we're here.

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.

Millions and millions of dollars on the line.

Billions of people literally watching this fight.

You never know a person until you start to peel back the layers of that person.

And where they've been.

Where they came from.

Mike is from the hood.

When Mike hit you, it came from the corner.

Every corner in the world.

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 is 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 here.

You feel me?

You gotta be ready, prepared, because it's rough.

It was so dangerous.

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 o'clock in the morning.

You gotta worry about who's gonna take your sneakers.

Who's gonna take your bus pass.

Who is gonna 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.

It was always hostile.

Cops always stopping.

You know what I mean?

Am-Lam's always coming to pick up somebody.

Guns always going off.

People are getting stabbed.

Windows are being broken.

Very, very hostile.

You know what I mean?

And like I said, you become accustomed to it.

Chances of making it out of Brownsville is slim and 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.

He said that in the neighborhood he was really bullied.

He was bullied and teased a lot.

He found some serenity only really from raising pigeons.

And it gave him some stature in his community.

Pigeon flying 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 fly around.

And then they interact.

And who could draw the most pigeons from the other guy's pigeon coop?

It's just a form of escapism.

And it's also a source you run to for love.

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 and 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.

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 guy 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.

When you become a man.

We 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.

Re-wires your brain.

It re-wires your emotional intelligence.

It was so exciting.

I mean, you can, you see.

Me and your world is so vastly different.

You could never understand the action and the excitement of it all.

To be able to outsmart somebody was a big thrill.

To outsmart them, to out-time them.

To out-thank them.

Even though they know that you're a crook.

When you're on the bus or 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 a fear of getting caught.

But it's a challenge.

Can I get away?

Mike Tyson was arrested all the time as a kid.

I think by his own count more than 30 times.

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 have a box.

He humiliated me in front of everybody.

Beat me up, hit me in the body.

I went down.

He thought I would never want to box again.

After taking a 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 to 4 o'clock in the morning.

He's in there practicing what you showed him.

Bobby Stewart said to Mike Tyson.

If you stay out of trouble.

I'll bring you down to a man who trained champions.

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.

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.

For amateur fighters.

Local kids who lived in Catskill.

Bobby Stewart brought him down to the gym.

And he introduced him to Cus.

Cus couldn't believe the size of him.

Teddy Atlas was right there.

He was working in the ring there.

And he says.

We got nobody for him.

Big enough for him to box with.

I said.

No.

I'm going to box with him.

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.

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 can see all underneath here.

The baby skin.

He was 190 pounds.

Solid.

And uh.

Talked with a little bit of a.

Very low.

Whispy voice.

I get him gloved up.

And we go.

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 had been doing it for 25 years.

And we could see he's got power.

We could see he's got quickness.

But he's also very raw.

Relax.

He didn't want to get out of the ring.

Cuts was taking my gloves off.

Yeah.

And I said.

Uh.

What do you think?

He says.

Bar any distractions.

We're looking at the next heavy weight champion of the world.

He was like.

How can I say this?

He was like.

This guy.

This guy.

A big piece of marble.

And Cuts 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 Cuts and Teddy.

I started training in the gym for at least what?

Five.

Six months.

Without.

You know.

Any fights.

And everything.

Practice style.

Uh.

What do you think of the bat?

Huh?

I look at the bat.

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.

He was very eager to prove how serious he was in the ring.

And how he was going to give a hundred and ten percent in the ring.

Training is not just doing all exercises and exercises.

That's the easy part.

In boxing.

Boxing is training.

Physically.

Mentally.

That's the hard part.

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 is building up your mind.

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 qualities.

But then he had the environment in which he grew up with.

He was tremendously fit.

Physically talented.

But where he was flawed was up here.

The fear.

The insecurity.

You know.

The self-doubt.

Am I really this good?

Cuss 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.

If you let it get out of control.

It's going to destroy you and everything around you.

You got to control your fear.

And control your emotions.

And make them work for you.

Make them fuel.

Cuss 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.

Die.

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 can 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.

Hit again.

You know what I mean?

Keep it going.

It's still an exchange.

And the guy is still fighting with you.

I was in the gym.

I was in the gym with him every day.

And every night.

And I'm teaching a specific style.

It's a peek-a-boo.

You not only gotta throw punches.

You gotta learn how to miss punches.

You know what I mean?

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 a mess and create openings.

Create holes.

Create opportunities.

Where now you can punch.

Because he gave you a... Make a miss.

Oh, he missed.

Bang, bang.

I can catch him.

Be a champ of the world someday.

Just keep in mind where it's supposed to be.

Back down.

That's it.

There you go.

Now you got... Again.

Again.

Who's the last guy to stop?

Time.

Very good.

That's fine.

Very good.

Yeah.

That's what you have to do.

For the first time in his life, he had direction.

He still had a lot of issues.

But he was always on the right track.

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.

After a few months, Mike Tyson moved into the house full-time with Cus D'Amato.

The house was a Victorian mansion on 10 acres, overlooking the Hudson River.

It was a magnificent property.

It still is.

Cus D'Amato had a whole stable of young fighters that he took in.

He would have half a dozen kids, maybe more than that, living in his house.

There, it was a structure.

You get up, you do road work, you have to do chores around the house.

One took out the garbage, one shoveled the snow, one did this, one did that.

And at the end of the day, he became very much a

home for Mike Tyson, which he had never really had.

What's Mike like?

I mean, 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 place.

He sat at the table with all the food, sitting as a family.

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, ma'am.

And she asked him to get a spoon and 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 Kameelah's, like, screaming, like, what are you doing?

You know, like, she's worried about that.

And Tyson is, like, crying, like, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Because he thought he did something that was going to get him in trouble.

And I look at Cus, and Cus is going, what power!

The next heavyweight champ in the world.

Mike, being from where he was from, you know, at all times, he's guarded.

I just never trust anybody.

You don't trust anybody.

Cuts with 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 shy off.

I didn't like that for some reason.

But now coming up here and living with him, it's like day and night.

It's hard to believe.

Has Mike changed since he's lived here?

Very much.

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.

Is it tough for you as 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.

He's like my father.

And 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.

Michael Tyson and Customato have given each other the same gift.

A future.

A chance for Mike.

A second chance for Cus.

They grew up under similar oppressive conditions.

Cus grew up in the Depression.

Very poor.

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.

I do know anyone who has won an Olympic title must have skill, competitive spirit

and other qualities necessary to be a champion.

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.

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, you know, watch the films.

Old 16mm films.

Boy, I'm gonna have to come back and pick these up.

I feel like somebody's been fooling with them.

He would set up this projector and put up a screen and he would watch all these films.

I'm gonna show all the fighters that I admire you, okay?

Henry Armstrong on the left, looking to be the

first man to win four world's championships.

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.

They stand for different things.

Heart, courage, you know, ability.

He liked Ali and Fraser, 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.

And in a lot of ways, he modeled himself like that.

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 of a flamboyant or something arrogant, you could say,

but just to be in a way, yes, 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 going to be.

While Mike is living in Catskill, he gets word that his mother dies.

Were you close to your mother?

Very close, yeah.

She wanted to be a schoolteacher.

Something had happened, her father was sick and she wanted to take care of her father.

And I guess she got married to my father, right?

And he left her, 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.

Cus and Camille became foster parents.

Cus knew what Mike Tyson was doing.

He knew what he was feeling inside.

And Cus said that.

No one really knows Mike Tyson.

Nobody's really friendly with Mike Tyson, except Cus D'Amato.

Your mind is not on your work.

There's something distracting you.

I often say to him, you know, I owe you a lot, and he doesn't

know what I mean, but I'm going to 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're going to hit him with two, should you hit him with one?

Come on, abandon tension.

Believe in yourself.

Feel it.

You know, we've been training for all this time.

Now is time to take it on the road.

MUSIC PLAYS We've been training for all this time.

Now it's time you get experience under your belt.

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, then we'll go home.

To all our friends.

Right?

Yes, sir.

Good?

Look, look, look, just relax, relax.

Just relax.

When we first started out, you know, I don't really know what to do.

I don't like the place that anybody likes me.

Before the fight, he felt scared, he felt nervous.

He started saying, if I don't win, they won't like me.

I just reminded him, this is what we do.

And we ain't going to get rid of the feeling, but we are going to ride it.

Let's go get ready for a fight.

Come on.

MUSIC PLAYS That's it.

Good, good.

You're the champ.

Fight smart.

Iron like a tiger and calm.

One carries his left hand low.

We'll see whether the two match up.

There's the right hand.

There's the left.

That's right.

The towel's coming in.

Look at old Tyson jump on the ropes.

That is it.

They threw the towel in with the talon.

He didn't want to show.

I was proud of what we did.

I wanted Custer to be proud.

MUSIC PLAYS 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.

MUSIC PLAYS This myth built up over the years, this myth of Cuss and the Kid.

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 Cuss 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.

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.

Cus was a good trainer.

He helped Mike a great deal.

He's also an opportunist and self-interested.

Doesn't make him a criminal, but also doesn't make him a saint.

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.

You were telling me a story about how Mike ran away once.

Yes, not only once, a few times.

The school started having problems with girls and with behavior.

I would discipline Tyson for things he did wrong.

Cus would find a way to say he was okay.

Cus became the good cop.

I became the bad cop.

I put him out at the gym.

Cus started making allowances for him, and he

was sneaking him in the gym when I wasn't there.

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's child, in effect.

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 gotten married.

I have sister-in-laws now, and one of them was 11 years old.

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 gonna kill him if I had to.

He saw me coming.

I just caught him a piece of crap.

And I put the gun, you know, to his head.

And, um, I told him that he will never go near anybody in my family again.

And I said, do you understand?

And there 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.

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.

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.

He's now gonna be the heir to Dempsey, Marciano, Lewis, and Ali, who,

you know, like the Mount Rushmore heavyweight champions.

His skill set was top tier.

Really impressive.

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.

Once that first bell was rung... Let me at him.

Let me at him.

Here it comes.

Whoa.

That jaw might be broken.

I was terrified by that brother.

And he put it all there.

The right to the head, and it's all over.

Good try.

He actually invented a new way to throw a punch,

which was where he leaped up into punches.

It was borderline lethal, what he did.

I'm sitting in my office at HBO, and a package comes.

On it is a note that 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 in a pretty small arena, but a loud arena.

Right uppercut.

And you could tell that those people knew that this was different and special.

This is as bad as I've ever seen.

That's it.

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.

First of all, I'd like to just thank Cus for putting in all the hard work and

reaching me to the goal that we're trying to prove right now.

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.

Well, I guess that's about it.

I called the house, and I believe it was Nadia that answered the phone.

Well, she says, you know, I guess you don't know.

Cus's death was one of the most brutal moments in his life.

Just when he was about to die, to go off and do

great things, due to Cus's tutelage, Cus was gone.

Well, Cus, more than just boxing, he was a philosopher.

He was everything.

You miss Cus?

Yes.

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.

Tyson pounds on, perfecting the craft the old man

taught him, becoming the hero that he never had.

Mike Tyson, age 19, has the skills and is determined to

win the heavyweight boxing championship of the world.

Mike, Mike Tyson!

In your mind, if your managers came to you and said, we think you're ready for a

title shot tomorrow, would you agree with them at this point?

Most definitely.

I'm confident I could beat any fighter in the world.

We're inside the Las Vegas Hilton, and in this ring behind me, WBC

heavyweight title holder, Trevor Brubick, will put his championship on the line

against unbeaten heavyweight sensation, Mike Tyson.

A moment of truth is not far off.

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.

Brubick, as he makes his way out of his locker room and toward the ring now.

Brubick was a threat.

Mike and his team, they were aware of that.

Trevor Brubick was the last man to beat Muhammad Ali.

There is electricity in the crowd.

I've got goosebumps on the line.

The WBC heavyweight championship of the world.

The bell rings.

Tyson comes out in overdrive, throwing shots.

He was in total command.

And he hit this guy so hard.

When Mike goes back to the corner, between round

one and two, someone in his corner sees something.

Brubick was keeping his hands low.

If you're keeping your hands low, what's susceptible?

The temple.

He launches one of his classic combinations on Trevor Brubick.

Boom, with a right.

Then he hit him with an uppercut to the chin.

And then hit him with a left hook.

He goes down.

And he tried his best to get up.

He should be able to get up from this.

His legs may be shut.

Brubick catches himself on the ropes as he's down.

He picks himself up, but he's all dizzy.

And he falls down again.

I don't know if he's gonna be able to continue.

God bless his heart, man, because that's a heart

of a true warrior, to keep trying to stand up.

His body was like, no.

And he's coming home.

The winner by a TKO, Michael Tyson.

From that moment, from that statement, we knew we were living something special.

After the fight in the ring, Mike said something that was so emotional.

I'd like to dedicate my fight to my great guardian, Custom Otto.

And I'm sure he's up there and he's looking and he's

talking to all the great fighters and saying his boy did it.

My boy did it.

That was great.

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.

And that's what Gus always wanted.

A champion of all the champions.

He wanted Mike to be champion.

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.

Everything paid off.

At 20 years and 5 months, Mike Tyson became the

youngest fighter to ever hold a heavyweight title.

The fact is, Tyson's rise has been meteoric.

Mike Tyson now catapults from being a local

celebrity to becoming a multi-million dollar man.

Once Mike Tyson became heavyweight champion of the

world, advertisers wanted a piece of Mike Tyson.

He's already pocketed a cool half million for this beer commercial.

I like Satori Dry.

If you could drink it, if you could drive it.

Tyson power!

Toyota truck.

Mike Tyson was the guy to sell it to you.

The soft drink company has produced a series of commercials with the champ.

Diet Pepsi only.

He was one of the first boxers to have really big endorsement deals.

Wham, they're dead.

Muhammad Ali at his height had like shoe polish and roach powder.

Clearly, Mike was making multi-millions every time he fought.

Oh, what a shot!

See, Tyson banged to the body.

Ooh, what a shot!

But he was also ringing the cash register for HBO and a lot of other networks.

Oh, no, stop the fight!

Oh, he's hurt!

It's all over!

And they could put him on pay-per-view.

I'm paying a hundred bucks, a million people are paying a hundred bucks.

He wasn't.

He was a money-making machine.

That punishing left hook, and that's it.

You think the hottest thing's in sliced bread?

He was admired in the black community because when

someone looks like me is succeeding, I am uplifted myself.

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.

You've got a shot at Tyson's title.

The only question was, which Mike do you want to be?

Children and adults beg him for autographs.

Fans and reporters follow him wherever he goes.

He gets no relief, not even during 4 a.m.

jogs.

Which way do I go?

Where's the hotel?

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?

The night he won the title from Trevor Burbick in

Vegas, I came in from a club at 4 in the morning.

And who was sitting in the lobby by himself with that title belt around his waist?

Mike Tyson.

He was lonely, isolated, wasn't sure what to do with himself.

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 Caton 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.

Custom auto was violently opposed to the ignorance and corruption in boxing.

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 o'clock 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.

What do you think's going to be with Mike in the future?

What do you think will happen with him?

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.

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.

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.

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.

Mike Tyson, like, was in the ghetto.

You could see him.

So he was that boy wonder that we could relate to.

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.

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.

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 run over.

And people would say, why did you give these bums money?

Because our family was homeless and I used to remember that situation.

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.

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.

We left Brownsville.

One night it would be Eddie Murphy's mansion.

It would be Bentley's nightclub.

We would hit Studio 54.

We had some fun nights.

And he loved me like a little brother, you know.

He just put his arm around me.

And we'd go through the club and hang out.

He was great.

Customano 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 Burby.

Are the women, like, approaching you now?

I mean, you know.

It's tough being 20.

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.

Susanna 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?

Robin Givens was the star of a TV show called Head of the Class.

Tell us about your father.

He was one of the few black actresses on television or in films.

Somebody that myself and a lot of my friends look to as such an amazing person.

So beautiful, so smart.

Supposedly had been with Michael Jordan.

Supposedly had been with Eddie Murphy.

And Tyson was running in those circles.

She was very nice.

She was very respectful.

He really, really was in love with her.

He went bananas.

I remember Mike Tyson and Robin Givens at the NBA All-Star Game in 1988 in Chicago.

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.

He was persistent.

He came to claim me.

And I like that.

So then there's this wedding and 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.

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.

A traditional family.

And we just sort of love each other.

We sort of love at first sight.

It was hard in the beginning, but we got through it and we ended up married.

Everyone's like, oh, it's going to work because opposites attract.

Yeah.

Good left by Tyson.

Tubbs is hurt.

Tubbs is hurt badly.

When you think about Mike Tyson in the ring, he was unbeatable.

But outside the ring, he had to face Don King.

Get it on, baby.

Only in America.

Only in America.

Don King is the greatest promoter in the history of the world.

I mean, it's just magnificent the way he articulates his words.

He's going to be SKD, what we call in the vernacular of the ghetto.

Something kind of different.

An arresting figure with his wild hair.

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 here.

It is au naturel.

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.

Don King was a street guy from Cleveland, Ohio.

Numbers runner, this and that.

Don King is no one to 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.

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.

And quickly a combination.

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?

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're going to 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.

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 boxing.

And he found Mike Tyson.

And then the unexpected happened.

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.

So within two years, Mike Tyson lost both his mentor, Customato, and Jimmy Jacobs.

He was lost.

I remember at Jim Jacobs' funeral.

And I was there in L.A.

It was when Don King began to put the full court press on Tyson.

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.

I didn't even talk to him about that.

Let me ask 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?

That's ridiculous.

Let me tell you something, Cesar.

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

and entertainment and sports and everything else.

We saw a metamorphosis in Mike Tyson.

And I think only Mike could 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.

It's just my nature to reach for you and take your heart or

your blood or your spleen or your liver or your eye socket.

You have ten seconds to go in a round.

There's a left hand.

He's down again.

It's over.

The sport of boxing has always exploited its fighters.

Because... it's never enough just to win a fight.

And there comes the gladiator.

The public wants more.

Bruno down after a right hand.

The public wants personality.

I didn't challenge me with a somewhat primitive skill.

They're just as good as dead.

The public wants soap opera.

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.

Michael Tyson.

Fight.

Tyson.

These men are very businesslike as they arrive

and step onto the scales at Trump Plaza today.

This theater is absolutely jammed.

The fight was named once and for all.

Both men were undefeated.

Michael Spinks.

212 pounds and one quarter.

That created the excitement behind this fight.

Who was going to win?

Nobody knew.

Michael Tyson.

218 pounds and one quarter.

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.

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?

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 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.

I want to tell you the electricity in this crowd is awesome.

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 Cuss had taught him.

Getting in the ring and execute a game plan.

People are betting on Michael Spinks because he hasn't lost a fight in 12 years.

I know I had my hands full and I knew what I was up against.

He's got that scornful look on his face.

Hey, let's get it going.

We don't understand fear until fear hits us.

You start sweating, perspiring in front of the world.

You're on television and you got Mike Tyson right across from you.

You're trying to tell yourself, stay calm, stay calm.

No, listen, you're about to get that thunder put to you.

Referee Frank Cappuccino begins to issue final instructions.

All right, both of you, touch gloves.

Good luck to both of you.

There's a misconception that Tyson was vicious and he was angry.

It was just a technique.

Let's see what happens.

It's no different than what a tap dancer does on the floor.

Tyson attacks immediately, cuts off the ring, throws the wild right hand.

This is round one just underway.

He would knock out somebody, send you flowers.

He would be like, damn, I really hit that guy hard.

Tyson just looking for the opportunity to land

a vicious left hook and then a right hand.

The right hand lands to 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.

When I got hit, I lost my cool and just tried to hit him back.

Here comes Mike Spinks in.

He leans to the right hand.

Down he goes.

I don't think he'll 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 after Barak's first round knockout for Mike Tyson.

And the timer tells me 1.31, one of the fastest knockouts in heavyweight history.

Ninety-one seconds.

That meant that Tyson made about a quarter of a

million dollars for every second he was in that ring.

I have never seen a guy taken out so viciously.

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 wraps.

He's pulling them off, and he jumps in the limousine.

And I look.

I said, what happened?

He's gone.

He's done.

Let's get out of here.

That's how fast this was.

And now the question is, who in this world has any chance against this man?

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... Are you okay, Mike?

How are you feeling?

It was the beginning of a downward spiral.

It lasted for quite a while.

Just get out of here.

Come on.

Wait.

Wait.

No, nothing happened.

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 your professional career.

I watched all these vultures converge on Mike.

I said, damn.

It was a sad picture.

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.

The 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.

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.

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.

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 Minutes.

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.

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 false.

They were falling apart.

And that Tyson was beating his wife.

Are you okay, Mike?

How are 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.

Can you tell us what happened?

No, no, just get out of here.

Come on, please.

And another incident.

This time Tyson attacked an NBC News crew which caught him in an early morning run.

Mike, what do you want?

You couldn't keep up with it.

I mean, this guy basically was reality

television way before reality TV was invented.

Okay, here we go.

We're talking.

How long have you been in this house?

For at least four and a half, five months.

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.

I went to the estate Tyson calls home.

In exclusive, Bernardsville, New Jersey.

Inside, the White Room.

For music and relaxation.

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?

Yeah, I did everything.

Me, myself.

But you never grew up with any of this.

You don't have to grow up with it, you know what I mean, to know.

You're not born with good taste, you develop it.

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 so 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.

You know, at times, you know what I mean, I raise hell, of course, yeah.

And I like to raise hell, you know what I mean, because that's basically my nature.

You know what I mean?

It comes from my background and things, but I mean, I'm not a violent guy.

I would never want to hurt anyone.

And definitely not the stories, you know what I mean, you hear.

It's been said that you've hit your wife.

No.

Never hit her?

Like I said, me and my wife had arguments.

I never hit my wife.

If I grab my wife and hold my wife, you know what I mean?

I mean, I shake my wife up, but I never totally struck my wife or beat her up, no.

And 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.

Okay, enter the lovely wife.

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.

No.

What 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 a millions.

My wife would just have to ask for it, and she has every penny I have.

Okay, guys, come on up and give me one more take.

The house looks great from right here, right?

It does.

This is a good view.

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,

you know, 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 let him right into the lam light and then

dropped the hammer on him in front of the world.

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 swings.

Sometimes I think he's trying to scare me.

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 him.

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.

So you run out of the room and he runs after you.

Right.

As a viewer, you're just kind of shrugging

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.

Hey, listen, you're a guy who said you want challenges.

This may be the biggest challenge and the biggest fight you ever had.

Yeah.

I usually come out on top and I plan on coming out 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.

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 that Johnny Carson's

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.

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.

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 as a surprise.

Actress Robin Givens has filed for a divorce in

Los Angeles from heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.

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 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.

We had four penthouse apartments, three mansions.

A disco, indoor racquetball, indoor pool.

Private aircraft.

A master bedroom with five televisions.

200 cars.

Five of these Bentley convertibles at $320,000 each.

A lot of jewelry.

People wanted to see.

Mike Tyson just spent a million dollars in Gianni Versace.

He would go to nightclubs.

He would grab women inappropriately.

I would have girls pull up to the limousine and throw

their underwears at me and say, give this to your boss.

Here's my number.

It was nonstop with groupies.

He acted out in a way that generated more headlines.

Only in America.

And this to Don King as a boxing promoter was huge.

It made people more interested to buy tickets.

When he fought.

You people want me to be self-destructing Iron Mike Tyson.

I just felt like he got trapped in that.

Now to Tokyo, where heavyweight boxing champ Mike

Tyson has taken his show and his title on the road.

Six million dollars.

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 Gates.

Douglas.

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.

Good luck there at Buster Douglas.

Buster Douglas, a 42 to 1 underdog from Ohio, was

regarded as just another fight for Mike Tyson.

One round, 91 seconds, maybe 92 seconds.

When they said it was 42 to 1.

It was no surprise to me.

I was surprised it was that close.

A thousand to one would have been appropriate.

People thought he was a quitter.

His reputation was in the toilet.

You know, I really thrived off that negativity.

And I knew that I had the ability to go fight Tyson.

Every single night, instead of resting, Tyson was partying.

Buster Douglas was training and resting and training and resting.

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 though.

Very much so.

Then his mother dies less than a month before the fight.

And he decides he's going to draw strength from that.

She meant a great deal to me and I want to miss her tremendously.

But, you know, I just got to go on.

James Buster Douglas!

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.

Douglas insists that he's going to shock the world.

He's going to shock the world in this fight.

Early in the fight, the thing that was surprising

me was how easily I was able to hit him.

A couple of right hands by Douglas.

Once I started touching him and reaching him, I started bringing the power.

That's what happened.

Another good right hand and a good right uppercut and two more good rights.

Everybody was shocked at the amount of punches that Buster Douglas was getting in.

Right hand by Douglas, right on Tyson's chin.

He was connecting and it was just like, oh my God, no.

You're too flat footed in there.

Another right hand and now Tyson seems to be wobbled.

Mike is not throwing back.

He's doing to Mike Tyson what Mike Tyson does to all of his other opponents.

Buster Douglas is completely dominating this round.

And again the champion wobbles back to the ropes.

In the 10th round, Douglas delivers the coup de grace.

That was a uppercut.

What an uppercut by...

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.

Mike Tyson has been knocked out.

Those words were words you never thought you'd ever hear in your lifetime.

It was the shot heard around 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?

That's what happened.

As you've seen over there, he was flat on his ass.

Let's go ahead and call it the biggest upset in

the history of heavyweight championship fights.

Iron Mike.

Invincible Mike.

The destroyer of worlds.

That's over.

We have a long history in this country of supporting people on the way up.

I have in my mind, I'm the young champ.

The young kid.

I'm making them.

I'm coming up.

I'm the young Mike Tyson.

I'll beat them.

I'll game them.

I'll punch them.

How good are you?

I do not know how good I am.

And once they reach the top, wanting to see them fall.

It's drama.

They want to see me self-destruct.

They want to see me one day with handcuffs and walking in the police cars.

All David до́о́ Lt's going to see me.

Look, this is what I told you.

I told you that he was headed for that.

I told you that he is headed for that.

Are you?