Original subtitles

When the camera comes on, those demons will appear.

Here comes Mike Tyson now, and as usual, he is all business.

He's watching biggest star and biggest attraction since Muhammad Ali.

The most talked about, the most publicly demanded fight in our time.

Who in this world has any chance against this man?

This great gladiator, this great champion, this giant.

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

Why does boxing mean so much?

Well, boxing's a good metaphor for life.

Because the way you fight, you fight the way you live your life.

He's boxing's most controversial figure both in and out of the ring.

That's how I live my life, reckless, really reckless.

He's the baddest man on planet Earth.

His infamous exploits have earned Mike Tyson enough labels to last several

lifetimes.

He cannot control his temper, and that's frightening.

If he really sunk his teeth in there, it's sure the real brute the beast that

he is.

Everybody's laughing at me.

Mike Tyson?

I never dreamed of living this long.

I never dreamed of having as much money as I did. Well, I'm talking the way I

want to talk to you. You have a problem, turn off your station.

The things that he's gone through, most people would have just been dead.

Mike Tyson is being investigated on rape charges.

Can you tell us what happened?

And he just continues to come back.

I was designed to fight.

and all aspects of life. I refuse to lose.

There's no way I was going to leave this ring alive.

Ah! Stop!

I had to be dead.

How many times do you want to get up after we get in the ass-cake?

It's the same as life.

How many times do you want to get up?

And Tyson says he's the best.

I always showed off when I was a kid. You know, I was fighting, I always

showed off.

We are today a sum total of what we've been.

Every act and every deed we've had makes us what we are today.

Good or bad.

Truth is always stranger than fiction.

Always.

Never fails.

I consider my fighter the greatest fighter that ever lived.

Before he is through, he will prove that to the world and love.

This is a beautiful bag.

So much power in this bag.

This is the first ring I've ever been in in my life.

Big shot, whatever they call me, greatest, whatever they say, this is

where it started, right here. First time, right here.

I don't ever question my blessings. I was taught that as well. But why me?

Right? I said, why me?

My mentor said I'm the greatest fighter because of where I came from.

He said that was my biggest asset, being from Brownfield.

How you feel driving deeper into Brooklyn right now? I love it.

This is who I am.

If I get out right now, they'd know this is Mike Tyson from Brooklyn.

That's what it is.

I was bullied on the streets. I used to rob on these streets. Now I'm famous and

I'm Mike Tyson.

That always just tripped me. I used to rob on these streets, snatch chains on

these streets, snatch people's wallets out of their, when they're in the car,

I'm snatching their wallet off their laps or something.

It's running up and down here. Now I'm Mike Tyson. Everybody knows my name.

The worst community, worst neighborhood right here in Brownsville. The slogan

said, never ride, never will.

Brownsville. That's right. That's the product of Brownsville. Right here.

A role model to a lot of our young black men.

Hey, stop! Stop!

Stop!

Just chill out.

Amboy Street, this is where I grew up.

All this stuff is new.

I'll show you Amboy Street in 1977 or 78. It looks like a parking lot.

I lived with my brother, Rodney, and my sister, Denise, with my mother.

We fell a hard time when we moved to Brownsville.

130,000 people here, mostly blacks and Puerto Ricans, have the worst poverty

rate, the worst disease rate, the highest infant mortality rate, the worst

narcotics problem, the worst housing conditions, the worst school record of

any urban area in America.

It was really destitute, but, you know, I had fun.

I was a young kid. I didn't understand the stress, the pain builds, all that

stuff.

And then the environment got a hold of me.

Me and Mike, we grew up together.

Back in the 70s, we were street kids.

The block where Mike lived was probably the worst block in Brownsville.

You seen a lot of dope fiends walking around.

You see prostitution.

Abandoned buildings. That was our playgrounds, these abandoned buildings.

A lot of stuff was burnt down.

We hung out in there.

I was getting bullied a lot.

Everybody picked on me for some reason.

Always picked on me. My voice, I didn't talk tough.

People grabbed me, jumped on me in the street.

I always fell in the mud.

People were kicking my ass. I didn't want to go to school.

I was a fighter, believe it or not.

The first time I met Mike, He just had dirty sneakers, dirty clothes.

Mike always kept, like, a little dirty hat on. A bunch of guys, we all hung

out, we'd meet up with each other. Like, they didn't want him around. Like, get

out of here, dirty Mike.

This is ridiculous.

Listen, one day I was walking around my school because people were kicking my

ass, so I didn't want to go to school.

I had to wait around until school was over, then I'd go home. So I'm walking

around the school, these guys come up to me, and they say, yo, you want to fly

with us?

I didn't know what fly would us mean.

And I said, yeah.

And he said, climb the fence.

And it was like in a bandit building. I said, well, we got to go inside here

with these guys?

And I started getting a little bit nervous.

And as I come up, I see this box with tin on it and some birds.

I got excited. But what really got me excited is that they left the mountain.

They fly around, and they come back down. Like, whoa!

I'm like, wow, what these tough guys do, that's shit.

That's what attracted me to the birds, because all these tough guys were flying

birds.

I fell in love with the birds.

The whole activity, that whole day was beautiful for me.

My first love was pigeons.

They'd be right here in the kitchen. I'd sit here all day, the whole fucking day.

Just like them, I get angry, I get hungry, I get happy. It's just the same

stuff.

It just becomes a part of your life.

He wasn't gonna let him go. He doesn't like me holding him.

Fear him grunting?

Get the fuck off me.

I didn't want any problems back then. I was just a guy who just wanted to have

fun and fly birds.

But all the guys was taking my birds from me.

One day, this guy had came around. He grabbed a bird, put it on his coat, and

ran outside.

And I ran outside. I said, please, give me my bird back. Please, please.

He said, fuck you, fat motherfucker. Take it. What are you going to do about

it? And he took the bird. He broke his neck.

He hit me with the fucker's bird.

It snapped.

I was tired of people fucking with me.

I used to throw budges.

Hit him with one more shot, boom.

My knees got cold.

That's when we knew, like, you're going to use him to fight.

He was good with a punch.

Started fighting every day.

Knocking people out for their money.

Before they even saw me, just run and punch him in the face.

Take their money.

Mike could knock out grown men. He'd be the one, Mike, get him.

And Mike would come, hit him, and then we all go for the pockets.

As we got older, we started being more daring.

They had a lot of juries stored up on Utica.

We used to throw a brick through the window in there, trying to snatch stuff.

Mike's trying to grab everything.

You know, I used to think my life was made for crime.

That's what everybody in my community did. That's all we did. We lived a life

of crime.

I was 12 years old the first time I was arrested.

That's the first time I went to Spofford.

Spofford House, the facility that houses juvenile lawbreakers in the Bronx,

accused of serious crimes like murder, robbery, rape.

It was really scary. They brought me in the middle of the night, like 4 in the

morning, and then at 7, it was time for breakfast.

As soon as I get in the cafeteria, I hear, hey, Mike, yo, Mike, what's up,

Mike, yo, Mike, Mike. My whole neighborhood was in there.

The first thing they give you when you get there is two cookies, two

cigarettes, and a small container of milk.

Cigarette? I'm 12 years old. They give me a cigarette.

It's better than home.

Mike was locked up like 38 times as a kid.

I got caught so many times.

Imagine how many times I got away.

After a bunch of times going to Sparfit, enough is enough.

He got sent to Tryon.

They sent me to Tryon where no one gets freedom.

That's where all the bad kids go that killed people and did bad crimes, you

know.

Apex Predator guys go and lock you in all the time, 24-7.

And no one cares about you.

But then one day I'm in my locker.

I see guys running to the back where the rooms are.

They're coming back, they got teeth missing, they're bleeding from their

mouth, but they're laughing, they're happy.

Like, what the fuck's going on?

And they said, we're boxing with Mr. Stewart over there. And so I said, I

want to do that.

I was a guard at Triad, and then I ran a boxing program in our unit.

I was a light heavyweight and the national Golden Glove champion in 1974.

When I first met him, Mike was very insecure.

He couldn't look me in the eye.

I told him that if he was doing well in school, I would work with him.

I'd saved my whole life. I wanted to know how I felt about it.

He went from a third to a seventh grade reading level, where he was supposed to

be at the time, in a matter of a month.

And the teacher started calling and said, what the hell happened?

He said, well, he's got something to work for now. I took to it right away.

It was meant for me to do.

Somebody upstairs or something told me that this kid's different.

I couldn't wait to start working with him.

And then when we started, the first sparring session, he swung, tried to hit

me, and he fell down. He made a fool of everything he did.

And I thought this little white guy would kill this guy, right?

He beat the shit out of me. I got hit in the stomach. I couldn't breathe. I felt

like I was dying.

I can't breathe. What the fuck?

And I went down.

I was boxing with Bob Stewart.

And he sent me the bombs. They used to hurt and everything.

But I know I used to like getting hit with bombs.

I said, can you teach me that? I'll hit somebody in the stomach and make them go

down. I said, wait, and I'll show you.

I trained him probably eight, nine months.

I've seen a million kids go through a system like that, and no one worked as

hard as him.

It was just pulling to me. You have to do this.

Other staff I work with would say, what are you wasting your time for? As soon

as he gets out of here, he's just going to get in trouble again and stuff like

that, because that's the way most of our kids work.

And I swear, this is something now that almost makes me cry.

But I can see, I'm not saying he's going to make it, but he wants to make it.

So he said, I'm going to introduce you to somebody else, and he's going to take

you to the next level. Don't worry about that.

And that's when I might cuss.

It is the mark of a great fighter when he has character plus skill.

Cus brought boxing to another level. Cus D'Amato, the genius of boxing.

My name is Cus D'Amato, most knowledgeable man on boxing in the

world.

Bobby Stewie told me he was a great trainer. He had two world champions.

Work with Muhammad Ali.

Well, you'll have to prove that in the ring.

Floyd Patterson.

Cus D'Amato, who raised Floyd Patterson from the age of 14, converting him from

a juvenile delinquent to a world's champion.

Cus used that championship to topple the corrupt boxing establishment of that

time. But the independent tomorrow will not pay $4,000 to step it down the

throat of the managers in a fight.

But boxing passed him by and left him in exile in the country.

I knew Cus D'Amato.

And I knew he was still working with kids.

All of my life, I've been thinking in terms of developing a fighter who was...

made a date with Cuss to come down to the gym, show Mike

off. So I told Mike that he was, like, shaking a fridge. He was a little scared

to come down.

He won't want to see me. He says, yes, he will.

We boxed. He really, really doing good.

After two rounds, they said, all right, that's

enough.

Custer's taking my gloves off.

So I said, he's 13 years old. What do you think of him?

He said, well, nobody here thinks he's 13.

He said, listen, I'm telling you right now, don't lie to me. Tell me the truth.

How old are you? You 13?

I said, yeah, you got my birth certificate.

So sure, I think I'm honest to God. I'm not lying.

He said barring outside distractions.

He said that's the heavyweight champion of the world. Heavyweight champion of

the world. The greatest heavyweight champion we've ever had. Will be the

heavyweight champion of the world and probably the youngest.

How am I to believe that really?

I've come from nothing but crime. I've come from nothing but filth and scum and

all that stuff. How am I to believe that from this white man?

My biggest objection, how could I rob this guy?

Give me two years of your life, three years of your life, Mike.

You will never regret it. Just give me three years. Three years of your life.

So when I first got a try on, I moved straight in with Cuss.

I've been living the last nine months in a detention home.

And then I come here.

Can you imagine being a young black boy from the slums all his life?

His parents lived in abandoned buildings. He could never wash.

He smelled when he went to school. He had dirty clothes all the time.

And then he came and moved here at 14.

But my mother...

was uncomfortable at first what's the purpose of this coming from the

atmosphere of brooklyn i just never trust anybody you don't trust anybody

because up here cuts was doing something for nothing and you're not used to

people in the city doing something for you i said my one of the champ of the

world and she is i don't think she has believed me because i never lived up to

anything that i said to her before he probably thought this guy was using me

for something he had to get my mother okay

I was just begging my police signing, please.

So she signed the paper.

When I first came here, we had up to probably seven guys here at one time.

It was like a camp. That's what it was. It was a fighting camp.

When I first met Mike, very quiet, kept to himself.

For five years, we were roommates and training partners.

I started training in the gym for at least, what, five, six months without

any fights or anything. Just doing motions.

That's where my life began.

That's how I felt. My life is beginning right here.

Right here. Cuts will be right here.

He'll be right here, and then he'll walk around.

And he'll watch me hit him. And when I'm punching, moves will slip in. Peep,

peep. Peep, peep.

Mike was training for the Junior Olympics seven days a week.

First day in the morning, I wake up. I go running.

No matter what day it is, every day we run.

It was my whole life as a kid.

Cus perfected a style, and they called it a peekaboo style.

Well, Cus just called it a tight defense.

Why have your hands down when you might be vulnerable?

You had your hands up. Now you're protecting yourself.

The most important thing is don't be stationary.

Move after your last punch. And put yourself in another striking position so

the other fighter's constantly having to adjust to your movement.

Defense and attack. Attack and defense.

You're gonna do real damage.

You might drop the guy with one punch.

This is not no old puny white man that's just so sorry for this black guy. No,

this is a warrior. This is the Roman emperor I'm dealing with, man. I'm

dealing with a master.

Castellamato was only satisfied with perfection.

Make it perfect.

It's good, but it's not perfect.

Everything has to be perfect. It has to be like this.

He didn't want Mike complimented. He wanted Mike to keep struggling

for approval.

Cuss would say boxing is about 75% psychological and 25% physical.

Physical part of boxing is so minor that most people would never believe it or

accept it.

Cuss dealt with people that had trauma.

Because people that find their way into a boxing gym are people that have no

other option as it is.

He likes damage.

He likes damage.

I only could help anyone that I can influence.

I never knew what desire was to want something real bad.

I fell in love with that feeling.

Once he gave me that feeling, I'd do anything he'd tell me.

Koss always pushed for more. He always found your vulnerability.

I have to first determine his emotional state at the time so that I get to the

core of the person.

Once I reach that point and he's become receptive, now I can first begin to

teach him. You believe the power of thinking, the power of the mind.

You deal in people's minds, and there's nothing more interesting than that.

I was with the master.

You know, you listen to the master, everything will be okay.

That's why I didn't listen to him.

What I do is find out how many layers I have to peel off of him until I get down

to the man himself.

The greatest obstacle to learning is psychological.

My earliest memory is me wanting attention.

And I put drain on my thumb and I put it in my mouth.

And I had to go to the hospital.

Attention from your mom?

If they both were drunk and high talking, and I wanted to be a part of

that energy, nobody would listen to me.

I tried to hurt myself.

I went into detention.

Did it work?

Yeah.

Yeah.

My mother was a sex worker, prostitute, whatever you call it.

Did you see that? Yeah.

Absolutely, yeah.

So firsthand, I was in a bed with her.

Yeah.

I've seen a lot of vicious fighting.

I remember my mother fighting with her boyfriend.

I saw him beat her. He knocked her teeth out. I saw her squalling with some

boiling hot water.

My mother's very violent.

She'd hit me with anything.

She didn't even call it a liquor bottle or anything.

What about your dad? What kind of guy was he?

Temp. Temp was a trick.

Mike first burst on the amateur scene at a national level by going to the Junior

Olympics.

This is the building blocks for the next generation of fighter.

I don't even know where my fear came from.

You know, we just have it.

You know, we just have it. That's the defense mechanism.

Nature gave us fear in order to survive.

Without fear, we would all die.

It was our friend. We should never avoid it.

He said, once you start avoiding it, that's the beginning of your downfall.

You need to control those emotions. You control the fear. You control the

anxiety. You control the self-doubt. You control pain.

He thought I had a low self-esteem.

And he didn't think he'd have enough time to teach me how to handle success,

so he just overrided. He just said, fuck it, you're the greatest ever.

The greatest fighter that ever lived.

Cutter introduced me to a hypnotist. He just put me on there, then he talks to

me.

It's like he put a spell on me.

You remember the type of stuff that said?

Yes. I don't want to tell you. It doesn't matter, really.

It matters. It doesn't matter. You just ask me another question.

I don't trust anybody in general. I don't like people to know me at all.

And I just recently trust them. And I don't let no one get that close.

No one really knows Mike Tyson.

Nobody's really friendly with Mike Tyson.

Except Custom Auto.

And what do you think about the word brainwash? I believe in brainwash,

absolutely.

I believe in that.

that particular state,

I believe, of brainwashing, yeah.

And that cuss brainwashed you?

Yeah.

Yeah, I would say that.

But he brainwashed me, he cleaned the dirty mind, and he made it better.

Let's go get ready for a fight. Come on.

The guy comes to me with a spark.

I fan the spark until it becomes a flame.

I feed the flame until it becomes a fire.

Then I feed the fire until it becomes a roaring blade.

And I pick my title.

No. No winning. I'm smart and hard.

Hey, Cus, eight-second knockout of the first round.

Eight-second knockout.

Fastest knockout ever.

How you doing, Cus?

How you doing?

No, I'm just trying to win.

I got more and more hungry, and I got more and more confident.

I'm going to relax soon, because I don't want my head to swell any more than it

is.

I won the National Junior Olympics, and that gave me an ego that I could beat

the world.

This is the beginning of my legacy.

I just knew what this was all about.

I hate using that word, legacy, but this is my dream. I knew I was going to be

the greatest fighter that God ever created.

I was so certain that he would win the tournament.

I went and ordered a big banner to string across Main Street in Catskill

here.

Welcome home, champs. Michael Tyson.

That was just the best part.

As a kid, 14 to what?

18? Yeah, those were my best years.

That's when you were the happiest?

Yeah.

It was beautiful.

Camille always cooked for us.

Camille Lee Wall was my adoptive mother.

She did all the cooking and we did all the cleaning.

I felt pride because even among white people, it was the first time I ever

felt like an equal.

And they made me feel like an equal.

This coat was stolen by the fastest runner in the world. Come and get me.

Whole life changed.

You get up in the morning, you can go run, come back, watch some fight movies,

take a shower, a bath, wash, then go to school.

At school, Mike's starting to garner attention.

Mike's a very big, superimposing person.

When I first came to school at Castle, they thought I was the teacher.

They said, he's the new teacher?

I was too big to be there.

A lot of the kids, I tease them, call him Mighty Joe Young and likening him to

a gorilla.

I had a teacher one time. I was trying to get out of school.

At some point, it was just not a healthy environment for Mike to be subjected to.

I wasn't meant for school.

I wasn't born for that.

I wanted to be a fighter.

Because it made me believe anybody else wasn't worth listening to, you know?

He only wanted me to listen to him.

Everything he said, I believe it was like the Bible to me.

Move your head, jab and flip, flip and jab. We sparred 100%. When that bell

rang, you fight, and you fight hard.

You don't wear the headgear.

No headgear.

Cuts it, it gave you four senses of security.

Mike's 15 years old.

And we hire sparring partners to come up and train with Mike, and after one day

of sparring, they're leaving.

Sometimes in the middle of the night, they climb out the window and be gone.

They just wanted out of the house cuz they didn't want one more day of

training with Mike.

There was only one sparring partner Cuss said had no fear.

My name's Lennox Lewis.

I'm the last undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.

When I first heard about Mike Tyson, I was around 15, 16.

When I was at the World Junior Championships, most of the Americans

said, oh, well, you didn't beat the best guy. I'm like, I didn't beat the best

guy. And I was looking at my trainer and saying, well, who's this guy?

Well, his name is Mike Tyson. So we found where he lived, Catskill.

We drove up there from Canada.

He came to America to box with me.

I remember, I said, wow, this is how you talk.

I met him. He greeted me.

He was a nice guy until we went and worked out the next day.

When the bell rang, he just ran over to me and tried to take my head off. And I

was like, yo, protecting myself, doing the Muhammad Ali thing.

Because I didn't know how to deal with that type of ferociousness.

It's basically a hard spy.

Mike is like Dr.

Jekyll outside the ring.

He's nice, polite, but Mr. Hyde inside the ring.

It feels like in the ring, it's a whole different story. I'm the killer then.

I was moving around, and Mike kind of got frustrated, so he kind of put his

head up like this to try and have me hit it.

Custom model said, Mike, don't you do this! You're gonna fight this guy

someday! So I always remembered that. We're going to fight someday.

And I was like, okay.

Later on, he said, let's go upstairs and watch some old-time fights.

He actually hanged up a sheet in his room, and there was a projector there.

He turned it on, and we started watching a lot of different fights.

Every day, all day, before and after training, is watch boxing films.

Most of my fighting here was back in the old days, just watching films.

It's just a whole different ballgame from that.

And he said, have you ever seen these guys before? I said, no.

Jack Dempsey, Jack Johnson, Joe Ganz, Joe Walcott.

So many guys, so many nationalities. They're all fucking legends.

I'd be sleeping at 2 or 3 in the morning.

And I'd hear Mike training above me in the house, shadowboxing against Joe

Louis or Jack Johnson. He's just watching. He's pretending like he's

fighting. He's sparring them in the ring.

I used to pick his brain 24 hours a day, just trying to rip everything from his

head. All damn in his fucking face. Because what happened to this guy? What

happened when he fought him? What happened back in 1922?

Did you see when he fought Mondone?

I think I did.

Do you remember that fight? Were you there in 1922? Yeah, I was there, he

says. I used to know it all back then.

After Mike won the Junior Olympics, Cuss wanted Mike to have 20 or 30 more

amateur fights.

And then Mike and Cuss had a plan for Mike to turn pro.

Amateurs is all about gaining experience.

Before you turn pro, you have to have the most amount of experience possible.

And to fight in horrible places.

and getting no press for it. It was beautiful.

It's a real fight fan, constantly going crazy, screaming, cigarette smoke all

over the place.

Tyson does not fool around. He comes at you with a vengeance.

Mike Tyson knocked out every fighter he fought.

Mike was putting in the extra effort, and the results were showing.

He was an absolute force to be reckoned with in amateur boxing.

This is me.

I'm here.

That's how Mike Titans began.

I went back periodically to see my friends and stuff. They were still dying

doing the stuff they were doing.

We're shooting dice one day, and Mike comes to the project.

Nice haircut, nice clothes on, clean sneakers.

We look at him like, shit, Mike clean.

It came back there with the energy and the confidence that I'm going to conquer

the world because I put that shit in my mind. Then I come home and I'm telling

my mother, she thinks I'm a weirdo.

I was just a kid. I was so proud. I thought I was going to be somebody.

I'm in this horrible apartment, this separate, lapidated apartment, falling

apart, rats, bugs, roaches, and I'm telling her how great I am.

I tell her how great I am. She must think I'm totally insane. These white

people will fuck my son up.

I told her, wait, Ma, wait about me.

She said, no, I'll wait about later.

She never heard no talk like this from me before.

She said, there's always somebody better.

I said, yes, exactly, Ma. I'm the guy you're talking about. There's always

better than the other guy. That's me. I'm the guy you're talking about right

here, Ma.

She didn't like me no more after that.

She said, so what's wrong?

I didn't understand where all this confidence and all this death came from.

Did you see that picture clearly?

Good picture, isn't it?

My mother never got to see me fight.

She was very sick.

I would go to the hospital to see my mother. She was doing bad. She wasn't

going to last long.

Cancer, cirrhosis of the liver, she was just really bad.

It was just hard because I was talking to her, and the next thing you know,

boom, she's dead.

When Mike's mother had passed away, Mike dealt with it completely on his own.

And I had just lost my little brother.

And so I went to Mike one day, I said, listen, I'm sorry, you lost your mom, I

lost my brother. If you ever need somebody to talk to, let me know. And

Mike just looked at me, and that was it.

Never talked about it again.

Cuss told me, just keep on succeeding in life.

That's what she wants you to do, is keep succeeding.

Cuss knew it was time for Mike to go after the big goal, youngest heavyweight

champion ever.

Cuss said, we are pro fighters now. It's time to sign the contract.

And he told me, I did not put a gun to your head to make you sign this

contract, right? He said, yeah. So he said, I'll sign the contract.

Traditionally in boxing, the manager gets 33%, the trainer gets 10%, and the

fighter gets the rest.

And that's the agreement that they had.

I really didn't care much about the money back then. I was so focused on

fighting.

From the moment the decision was made to turn professional, Jimmy Jacobs and Bill

Caton became the managing partners of Mike Tyson.

I have good friends like Jim Jacobs and Bill Caton.

who are thoroughly and completely honest and competent in every area.

Jimmy Jacobs thought like Cuss. He managed like Cuss because they were very

close for decades.

But Cuss maintained control of all of the decisions.

The goal was to be the youngest heavyweight champion.

Before me, his fight with Floyd Patterson was the youngest champ.

And Floyd wanted it 21 in 10 months.

Now Mike is 19 in 10 months. So he's got two years.

My first pro fight was with Hector Mercedes.

He had a losing record. He was a short, fat kid.

The morning of the fight, he comes in. He goes, I'm ready. I'm going to win

this. I said, I know you are. I said, go out and dominate.

He doesn't get a glove laid on him.

Stopped him in the first round.

And the winner in this competition will debut Mike Tyson.

I was ringside for most all of Mike's first pro fights.

And from the moment he entered the arena and climbed up those stairs, you knew

something special was going to happen. We're in round one.

Well, we didn't get a chance to see Tyson.

As a kid, I'm knocking out guys and I can't believe I'm doing this. Can Tyson

finish this?

I think so.

So that's enough.

Raised my hand and the place went crazy.

And, um, Carson be pissed.

Surprised you knocked him out? Didn't you train all year for this? Tyson hits

like a steam hammer.

So Tyson goes 5-0 with all five knockouts. He was just a systematic

predator and prey.

He was starting to get some recognition.

He was starting to get a following of people really talking about him.

When I was covering boxing for Newsday in 1985, I was young in the business.

One day, myself and my fellow boxing writers at the other papers were sent a

VHS tape.

Mike Tyson's first several fights.

This one could be over.

Boy, Mike Tyson is powerful, huh?

23-pound weight advantage.

They were all knockouts. And it was a coordinated campaign.

It really brought Tyson to the attention of a lot of people who hadn't seen him,

myself included.

I was at HBO, and they started talking about this kid, that he was working with

Cus D'Amato and living up to the cat skills.

And the people at HBO said, we like this kid.

We're going to see how far he goes.

The whole thing was based around Amato cussing the kid, you know? And there was

a paternalistic thing about it.

In their four years together, Michael Tyson and Cus D'Amato have given each

other the same gift, a future, a chance for Mike, a second chance for Cus.

There was nothing altruistic about this. I mean, why? Why was he doing it? Why

was he doing it? Because this is my way to get another heavyweight champion.

I mean, you know, guys like Cus D'Amato hang around in gyms and they wait

forever for Mike Tyson to walk in. At that time, boxing was just kind of

wallowing.

Boxing was kind of going through a doldrum.

All these guys that followed Larry Holmes and were trading the title back

and forth, they were nobodies. They weren't Muhammad Ali.

There was nobody that anybody would know outside the world of boxing. And now

here comes this kid.

I need a guy like this.

You know, this could be my Muhammad Ali. This could be my Jack Dempsey.

You hear the punches.

It sounded like dropping a watermelon off a building.

Not to be egotistic, but my shots are so accurate and so precise. I can't help

who you are. You have to go down.

Coach told me the more you hurt people, the more these people will love you.

He told me they named their children after you listened to me.

It was fun to see him because this is a man I sparred with, so I wanted to know

how far he could get.

Make no mistake about it. That was a good performance.

To see one of our friends really be called now Kid Dynamite.

It was something.

That's fucking Dirty Mike. Like, whoa.

We didn't believe him. Like, he's doing it.

Around the time that Mike had nine professional fights and then Cuss was

having some health challenges.

His deterioration was pretty swift.

He never told me he was sick.

He never let me have any information about his health.

Did you visit him in the hospital or what happened? Yeah, I visited him in

the hospital.

Did you know he would pass then or what did you guys talk about? Yeah, we were

talking about he was going to pass. This will be my last time talking with him.

I know once I left that room, I was going to never see him again.

What did he say to you? What did you say to him?

He champed, you know, and I said, I don't want to fight anymore.

I said, he said, if you don't, I'll haunt you.

He ain't turning it off.

Why did I put myself through this bullshit?

Why do you think it's bullshit?

Because it's painful, because it's really painful.

I promise I'll be the greatest fighter ever.

But why is that important?

Why is that so important? I look at it and why is that so important?

I'm 60 years old. Why was that shit so important?

There's something wrong with me.

There's gotta be something wrong.

This shit shouldn't bother me.

It's the only way you see me cry and think, oh, this motherfucker weak.

When it's just the opposite.

Greatest heavyweight champion of all time. That's what he wants.

You were the pet project of one of the all-time great trainers, Customato.

Would it be overstating the case if I said he basically saved your life?

No, not overstating at all.

To lose that support structure around you was absolutely really devastating

for Mike.

But we were trained to be emotionally detached.

You control your emotions to such a degree that you're impenetrable. There's

nothing about me that's vulnerable.

I am a destructive machine.

In spite of how you might feel, you have a job.

Go to work.

Ladies and gentlemen.

Because you could miss it.

Mike Tyson is absolutely awesome.

And it's over.

After Cuss passed, Jimmy Jacobs and Bill Caton were now in charge of his career.

And Mike was still marching through exactly as Cuss would have wanted.

12-0, 12 straight knockouts. Mike Tyson.

There was a sense of inevitability.

It was pretty remarkable.

It's like, wow, they can't even hit him. He gets in right away.

Tyson does not throw wild punches.

Big left hook. He's breathing and knows it's just pouring out.

I'm thinking about that dream of being champ.

Everything else didn't matter.

Keep moving up.

How many times have we seen that?

Mike was beautiful in the same way a train wreck is beautiful.

A couple of lefts now, a right, a left. He's got him down.

He was there to destroy people.

He really was unlike anybody up to that time that I'd ever seen, and since, for

that matter.

Mike Tyson brought a new level of excitement to the heavyweight division

that nobody's ever seen before.

That energy where you're sitting on the edge of your seat.

You don't want to go to the bathroom because you might miss something. You

might miss that knockout.

We had a running joke in press row where we would time the national anthem and

then take bets on will the fight go longer or shorter. Mike Tyson!

You're going to fight all the time, everybody.

That's right. That's what I'm in the business for.

Within a year, Mike's already building up to being a top contender and a

heavyweight sensation.

I wanted to be able to throw the greatest punches, the greatest timing.

I wanted to be the greatest champion.

These days, all I do is think about myself, I'm the greatest fighter God

ever created, the greatest fighter since the beginning of life. I see these

things over and over and over and over again.

And when you say it so consistently, it grabs you.

Everything that's in your vision, everything that's in your sight, you

have to believe is inferior to you.

That's why I learned some cuts.

And joining us ringside here is unscathed, unmarked, and undefeated Mike

Tyson. By the time I'm 20, I have enough fight for the title.

I'm number one in the WBC, number one in the WBA, so it really doesn't matter.

I'm going to fight for the title either way. Are you confident right now you can

beat anybody around?

Most definitely, yeah.

Mike Tyson will now face the greatest challenge of his short career when he

meets Trevor Burbick on November 22nd for the WBC heavyweight title.

Do you have a prediction?

Well, the thing is, you know, I'm going there to win, and I'm trying to take him

out before seven rounds.

Heavyweight Boxing Contender, Mike Price.

Mike's just barely over 20 years old.

I had a great teacher in Customada, and he was saying he didn't care how young

your age is, all in the mind.

It would have been great to fight for my title before Coach died, but it wasn't

meant to be that way.

People want to see Mike's ascension to capturing that heavyweight crown.

When you're going to train, do you give up sex?

No.

I think he's refreshing to boxing.

He's got some dynamite in his fist, no doubt about that. He's a good boxer.

Now Tyson, of course, has a chance to be the youngest heavyweight champion ever.

Once I break this record, I'm at this plateau alone.

And the record, I believe, will last immortality. Nobody will ever break the

record. Is there any way in your mind that you can see you losing this fight?

No way. Perhaps if I chop off both of my arms.

The lead up to the Trevor Burbick fight, the anticipation

is what was most palatable because it was there. The electricity in Vegas at

the Hilton Hotel.

This is where it all happened.

Listen, this is how it was back then when you came in here.

Soon as you come in here, boom, it's all in your face.

Everybody's drinking, partying. All the fighters that weren't fighting just came

to see the fighters. The celebrities would be here hanging out.

Sylvester Stallone would be here to see everybody.

Everybody would be out here hanging out.

How good is Mike Tyson, really? This fight has brought everybody out of the

woodwork.

It was just beautiful.

I was just a boy.

The moment of truth is not far off. He could go into the record books. Tonight

is one of the very youngest heavyweight champions of all time.

The guy comes to me with a spark.

I fan the spark and it becomes a flame.

He always had his picture in my locker room.

I just wanted to look at me.

He always had to look at me.

I feed the flame until it becomes a fire.

Before the fight, I said, because I'm going to really hurt this guy, I think.

More than anything, I wanted to do it for him.

I just knew he was in trouble because I was the trouble that he was into.

That's how I knew.

We're just about ready for round one, and let's watch how quick Tyson will

jump on Trevor Burbank. His whole life has been for this night.

Mike Tyson kind of feeling him out here, but he goes with that right-hand lead

right away.

I want to hurt him real bad.

This is round two, the WBC heavyweight championship of the world. Tyson goes to

work right away, and he's down.

He'll have to take the standing eight count as he steps right up. The count's

to four and five and six.

I know it's over. I'm just trying to keep my composure.

Here comes Tyson again. He knows he can hurt him any time. Left hook, right

hand. 20 years old Mike Tyson on his way to becoming one of the youngest

heavyweight champions of all time.

You can let that punch go with the worst kind of intention.

Now bang over here.

Bang with the left hook here or here. He goes down

and he should be able to get up from this.

His legs may be shut. They are.

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

It's all over.

We've got a brand new heavyweight champion of the world, Mike Tyson.

Just a kid. Don't know anything about life.

But believe he does.

The youngest and new WBC heavyweight champion of the world, Michael

Tyson.

That was a true, pure moment.

I mean, all that work. If you think back on the totality of what it took to get

there. It's pretty overwhelming.

Mike took him out quickly. That was impressive for me. I was like, oh, man,

took out Trevor Burbick. Trevor Burbick is a strong man.

You know, they talk about killer instinct.

He defined it.

I was coming to destroy and win the heavyweight championship of the world,

which I'd done. And I'd like to dedicate my fight to my great guardian,

Customato. 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. And smiling, that's right.

Oh, he would have loved that fight. That fight, he would have been laughing.

He would say, my fight is the greatest fight I've ever lived.

Well, he's always with me, but I never think about him. He wouldn't want that,

because I'm a professional, and I don't get involved emotionally, because it

inhibits my performance.

It was spectacular, but there was a melancholy to it, too, and I'll tell you

a story.

That night, I came back to the hotel lobby. It had to be 4 or 5 in the

morning, and who's sitting in a chair by himself with the title belt around his

waist? But Mike Tyson.

You know, usually heavyweight champions, people around him like flies, you know,

and he was just there by himself, and it was a very odd scene.

And I was like, what's going on?

And he goes, I'm just, you know, sitting here. And he looked kind of almost sad.

He was like alone.

He imagined it being a little kid, 20-year-old, high school dropout, and

you're the champ of the world.

My mother, my mentor, my teacher,

The people I wanted the most to see the success not exist.

No one else even mattered back then besides those two about as far as being

proud of me.

And I knew they would have been.

I always wanted to tell them that the world thinks I'm the greatest fighter

ever. I wish she was here to hear them say that.

But he couldn't prepare me for myself.

There's more to me coming into the Younger's Chair, but there's more,

there's so much more that comes with that.

The liberation, the scrutiny, pain.

It's hard to navigate your true self when you really don't know who the fuck

you are.