Original subtitles

I'm a big believer everybody gets what they deserve to make them who they are.

I know God probably told me, this is what you act for, wasn't it,

motherfucker? Why you trying to make it a big deal now?

That's what Custer always say, you act for this, right?

He is the youngest ever to win the heavyweight title.

He's always saying, be careful what you act for, you might get it.

That's my great teacher.

What do you think about that, Stefan?

He's right.

He might get it. Be careful.

I want to be the biggest fighter that ever lived in the history of fighting.

Undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, Iron Man.

Be careful

I

Met my early 80s.

He was about 16 And he was still an amateur I

understood very early on that hey man this is a special guy and it's a special

situation eventually i became his manager but in the beginning i just

wanted to be there as his friend sometime i had to pinch myself because

everything was happening so fast ladies and gentlemen the new

undisputed heavyweight champion of the world after cuss's passing

the team was still there You have the trainer, you have the management, Jimmy

Jacobs, and Bill Caton.

But the opening was there for someone to step in and be there for Mike.

And now the premier boxing promoter of the universe, Sir Don King.

And Don wanted to be that guy.

In accordance with his royal majesty, you are hereby proclaimed throughout the

world as the undisputed heavyweight champion.

It's promotion. It's sensational.

It's so...

It's Don.

I've got to do something.

I've been waiting to do it for a long time. Would you just stay right there?

Don was a sensational promoter. Ain't no doubt about this. With the spiked hair

and the vocabulary.

It's going to be so illustrious. It's going to be so majestic.

Such regal splendor. I think Don King will go down in history as one of the

greatest promoters that ever lived.

He could take two ants and sell out a stadium.

He wound up really making his name when he promoted the Muhammad Ali-George

Foreman fight in Zaire.

This is an incredible scene. He makes a fight into an event. The rumble in the

jungle, not a fight in Zaire.

You know, the thrill in Manila was not a fight in the Philippines.

It was like the fight.

I mean, this was the greatest show on Earth.

But what you have to recognize is, in reality, Don's a hustler.

Don King's most important thing is Don King.

He was a numbers runner from Cleveland.

He served time for murder for beating a guy's head against a curb.

He did four years in jail for involuntary manslaughter.

Listen, Don come from the streets. We had to pull your boots up, get out there

and hustle.

So Don has a reputation, some warranted, maybe some not.

His reputation was that he steals from his fighters.

And he would settle with the fighters for much less than he owed them.

That is a conspiracy out to character assassinate me and put me out of

business. In your window, insinuation, accusation, vilification, and

castigation, all unfounded. You understand?

I asked him, I said, you don't steal from your fighters, do you? He said, of

course I do. He said, and they're still going to make more money from me than

they would from anybody else. And he's right.

I've broadcast thousands of fights.

And one thing about Don King, Don knew the psychology of how to work with

fighters, and he knew that money was a motivation.

He's a good businessman.

You could use a man, I guess, on your team. You just got to understand what

you're dealing with.

I think at that time, Don had his own interior motives.

His mission was to get Mike.

At that point, Mike Tyson was the most famous athlete in the world.

I always attracted people.

I would be someone walking the streets, and they think, you know, it might be

100 or 200 people around me.

It's a lot of chaos, constant chaos.

I loved it.

At that time, there were three Mikes. There was Michael Jackson, Michael

Jordan, and Mike Tyson.

It's not sham or diapathy. Camera loved him. People loved him.

If I called my office any day and said, hey, I got a Tyson item, they'd say, all

right, run it.

He went out on a date in L.A. He bought six bottles of Cristal.

Like this guy has now crossed over into the housewives who don't give a shit

about boxing demographic.

He's a good boy.

There was even a Mike Tyson video game. You've got to beat Mike Tyson.

Back then it was awful being young and having all that attention.

Like, he's from the streets.

So he belongs to us.

If you're not part of that culture, you only recognize him as a boxer.

But he is the epitome of people's champion.

He's a thriller.

He's my hero. I grew up in the 80s in one of the most dangerous parts of one

of the most dangerous cities in the country. And for me, he was cool. He was

a superhero.

Uber talented athlete from the hood that then makes it out. It seems like a

cliche. It's not a cliche.

It's salvation.

I lived like a rat in the street all my life. And the next thing you know, I'm

the biggest shit in the world.

When you get that famous at that young of an age, it starts to mess with your

head. You realize that what you are is something special.

I first started with the group New Edition.

And we were playing Madison Square Garden, and Mike showed up. That's where

I first met him. We were both blowing up at the same time.

And both of us were chasing the same things.

What were you chasing?

We were chasing girls.

Chasing girls.

Boxing always has a share of female followers.

They seem to like you. Hi.

How do you keep yourself pure?

I'm not pure.

I'm not pure.

He talked soft, but he knew what he wanted.

I'm light.

China Club.

He was always smiling and pointing.

Look at that one. Look at this one. Look at that one. Look at this one.

Just scoping, scoping, scoping out women.

I met Mike at a nightclub in the 80s.

I was the manager.

He was there to party.

The club owners see money, right? They're like, okay, get the big bottles

out.

The girls see an opportunity.

He didn't have a type. Now, that I know.

I think girl was his type.

He had an insatiable appetite.

If it was up to him, he'd have 100 women sitting around him.

He was the champ, and girls would jump over me to get to Mike.

A lot of women, a lot of women, yeah, a lot of women.

They make me feel like the champion that I am, being with a woman.

I used to tell them, I said, Mike, listen, sometimes they just need a nut.

You can't make love to everybody.

Somebody can get a quickie and that's it.

You want to make love to anything you meet.

You can't do that.

And maybe he's catching up, man. He probably was just catching up from the

Dirty Mike days when he couldn't get nothing.

No one really told us about this stuff, like my mother or someone, about

relationships.

I believe that any man who lacks the love

and touch of a mother will look for love.

in every place that they think it's imaginable. In those instances, sex is

love, or it equates to love, to somebody who does not know what real love is.

I think, subconsciously, I always wanted a girlfriend or partner or something,

because I always have that hole in me, that loneliness feeling.

He was looking for somebody that could be that person that cared about him,

somebody that could fill that void in his life.

And... Robin showed up. Don't worry.

I'll let him down easy.

It's my specialty.

I was somewhere and I seen her on the show on television or something. I

asked, like, who's that girl?

He would watch the show she was on.

So we called her publicist and set it up so he could meet Robin.

The initial reaction was I was extremely flattered.

But I was extremely intimidated.

And then finally my sister said, well, maybe he's a nice guy. Why don't you

meet him?

And so we fly to L.A.

We go to dinner.

The mother was there. She was very protective of Rob, and she was always

there. I didn't realize then, but he was nervous about meeting her. And he came

in with his best friend.

Very shy. He kind of peeked around the table.

And all of a sudden, everything he was hoping was right in front of him.

We sort of love at first sight. We just sort of love each other.

You know, when Mike falls, he really falls heads over heels.

He was that guy, you know? He just lived life to the fullest. How does he help

you with your career? He's just here, like, coming, getting on a plane with me

at 11 o'clock at night or 8 o'clock in the morning and just being here helps an

awful lot.

I fell in love with her quickly.

I believe so. I believe I did.

What? I don't know. I never had a girlfriend before. I had one girlfriend

before that. Two girlfriends, probably.

I'm 21. I only had three girlfriends.

I was dedicated to what I was doing.

You know, I'm just happy Mike found love beyond the ring.

Larry Holmes was a longtime champion.

He had the best jab in boxing I'd ever seen before or since.

And I don't think ever got his just due for being the kind of champion that he

was. Because he followed Muhammad Ali.

Ali was my inspiration.

I was a kid. I saw him fight and said, wow.

I said, I want to be like that guy. I said, wow, I want to be like him.

That's the first time I've ever seen Mike really taking a fight personally.

Because Larry had to be his hero, Ali.

And the way Larry did it, Mike took offense to that.

On October 2nd, 1980, Ali fought Larry Horn.

Muhammad Ali was sick at that time, so he wasn't fully Muhammad Ali.

If I was in Larry Holmes' spot, I wouldn't have boxed him because of that.

It was, yeah, the fight never should have happened.

I watched the fight with Cus, and he had beat Ali unmercifully.

Ali's taking some fishy shots.

How much more of this can he take?

Then, um, we got up in the morning, and Cus said, your job is to defend Ali.

Right before the fight, he whispered in my ear, get him for me.

Right there.

Get him for me.

Tyson quickly on top of Holmes and he nails him right away.

Holmes looking almost in fear of Mike Tyson.

He didn't want to be in there.

This is round four.

Oh, a big right hand.

And in comes Mike.

Down he goes.

Now he's hurt. It's all over.

Big right hand.

Ends the career of the former champion of the world. Mike had beat a legend

that day.

That night was a changing of the guard fight. From Ali to Holmes.

Holmes was done.

Mike Tyson was the new champion.

The Larry Holmes fight was the best fight of my life, probably.

Why? Why that one?

It was a fight that Cuss wanted me to have one day.

And then after the fight, my mother, he came, he said, thanks for getting them

for me.

What'd you say?

I don't know. I wasn't a set example. I don't know.

I don't know.

Thanks a lot.

At some point, Robin said that she was pregnant,

and he was all in.

He wakes me up at 4 o'clock in the morning, and he's just blurting it out.

Hey, man, me and Robin married. I'll call you tomorrow.

And then I'm on the phone. I'm going, what?

Did I just hear it?

And I'm happy for him, man.

They wanted to get married. They got married.

The heart loves what the heart loves.

They did a quick wedding. I think they were in Chicago, and they came back and

made it official here in New York. To me, I'm like, wow, you married a TV

girl. Like, yo.

I'm proud for him, like, yeah, oh, man.

And she had a sister, like, so he's joking, like, yo, what's up with a

sister?

Mike never really had that close family foundation.

So this was all new and was cool. Mike embraced it.

It just changed you completely, you know what I mean? I don't even want to look

at another woman.

But from the very beginning, like, it was so public.

Every single move.

whether it was true, false, or whatever, it was always something.

Let's be honest.

When somebody like Mike marries somebody like Robin Givens, particularly

after a short courtship, people don't trust that, and it's a conversation.

So... They get married, and then people start looking at not just Robin, but her

mother as people that are preying on Mike Tyson.

I think Robin's a nice girl, man. I think she got a bad rap.

Don't forget, Mike was a beloved individual all over the world.

This has been a busy time for Mike Tyson, who got married and then came

here to Tokyo to fight Tony Tubbs.

It was a big thing. I was with Robin.

I had fun. I thought it was a good trip with her.

Were you guys able to have any privacy early on? Not much. I don't think she

wanted any either.

I think she liked living in an open book.

I think, you know, trying to play your marriage out in public is difficult,

especially when you're 21 years old, you know, and all this is new to you.

I'm with Robin Givens, who was attending her first Mike Tyson fight.

As Mrs.

Champion.

Robin, conventional wisdom would be marriage will somehow soften up the

champion. We've been hearing a lot about that. I'm getting blamed for everything.

Hopefully I'll give him some sort of peace of mind.

And I'll love him to death.

I'll do the best I can.

Tubbs is hurt. Tubbs is hurt badly.

Great champion of the world, Mike Tyson!

One brief personal note. You saw behind Mike's shoulder there his co-manager,

Bill Caton. For the first time since Mike's been fighting the other co

-manager, Jim Jacobs, has not been able to make this trip. He's back in a

hospital room in New York.

Jimmy was in there, and he didn't tell me he was sick. I didn't know he was

sick.

I think Mike was disappointed.

that he almost like the last one hearing this stuff about Jim than I think

shortly after Jim passed away.

We went far beyond just fighting and managing.

And it was just a bond there. It seems like I lost my big brother.

I believe there were only three people in Mike's life that he ever loved. One

was his mom, one was Customato, and one was Jimmy Jacobs.

And all three of them died within about five years.

After the fight,

we all go to Jimmy's funeral.

And on that very day, the sweepstakes to be the next.

Jimmy Jacobs begins.

It's obvious that something's going to happen here. There's going to be some

changes. Don King is there.

Shelly Finkel's there.

I am a manager of Iders.

Probably managed more world champions than anyone else in history. I managed

Pernell Whitaker, Manny Pacquiao, Devanda Holifield.

Mike was bigger than life. You can't imagine what he was at that point.

And at the memorial, everyone wanted a piece of him.

Bill was still part of Mike's management team by contract, but there wasn't a

trusting, close relationship.

There was no bond with Bill Caton.

There was a contract, there was a piece of paper that said in the event of Jim

Jacobs' death, you were now owned by Bill Caton, like he was a piece of

property.

He's a businessman.

He's not really a warm, friendly guy.

He just, he wasn't cool with me.

Did you want him to manage you?

Well, I didn't understand if I had a choice that he'd manage me or not.

I was young when I met him.

After the memorial, Tyson is to fight Michael Spinks.

Michael Spinks was the darling.

He was undefeated for 12 years.

And now here comes Mike Tyson.

Naturally, the fight of this magnitude could only be brought together by guys

like Donald Trump, who has the daring, the flair, and the cash to make it

happen.

Paid a lot of money for that fight, and it was worth it. He had the lens on him

more than anybody in the world at the time, only because he was winning.

I could capture all the title belts, but in the eyes of the boxing aficionados,

he wasn't the lineal champion.

Beat the guy that beat the guy that beat the guy that beat the guy. That's the

lineal champion.

To me, the only way Tyson can really, really claim to be the heavyweight

champion of the world is he's got to beat Michael Spence.

Two-time conqueror of Larry Holmes.

There's no doubt in my mind, the best fighter in the world. No one can beat

me.

Well, I think Mike and other great stars, they have an attitude of winning.

They feel they can't lose.

They have an attitude of invincibility.

It was a title fight, but more than that, it was the fight everyone was

looking for.

Now we'll see who's the champion and who's the chump.

Tyson vs. Spinks, once and for all.

I think a lot of us, naively, myself included, believed that Caden would

remain in charge.

But Robin started asking questions right away.

Robin changed things.

Almost as soon as they was married, she called to say, I'm Mrs.

Mike Tyson, and I'm taking over.

She called up Bill Katon and said, we are now in charge of his career.

I said, well, what do you mean by we? My mother and I are in charge of Mike's

career. We're taking over.

The issue is, Michael wants to know about every cent he has, and has every

right to know, because it's Michael's money.

There's a power struggle here.

You have Mike's new wife, who wanted to know what was going on in his financing.

If Michael has...

50 million dollars and he's supposed to have 70 million dollars there's a

problem everybody called a gold digger and this and that but she had every

right asked his wife to ask questions the media made a big thing out of it but

i was a young kid i was in love with my wife i knew nothing about money and how

it works and you know i know nothing about this stuff i believe his manager

bill caton has clearly fed the press

He said he'd stop at nothing less than our getting a divorce.

This is like something out of Dynasty.

At that point, Don was very flattering to Robin. I support Mike Tyson, and I

support Robin Givens, who is a lovely young lady. The best thing that ever

happened to Mike Tyson.

He knew his way in was through the women.

And then you got Bill King saying all these negative things about Don. The

networks don't even want to deal with Don King, finding him totally

irresponsible.

You still doing business with Don?

In my mind at the time, I'm saying, you know, you saying these things to divide

and conquer. You're not saying these things to really help Mike.

You just want to keep yourself in position.

The real issues is, how much money do he supposed to have and how much did he

get? How much is Bill Kaden taking out of his paycheck?

Those are the issues. The rest of this is smokescreen.

Going into the Sphinx fight.

You could see the focus, but behind closed doors. All that stuff was putting

pressure on Mike and his marriage.

It was just tug-of-war bullshit I was dealing with.

And I've got a wife here. I'm trying to have a family.

And then he called me one day, and I think he said, she fell?

She told me she had a miscarriage.

Yeah, it hit Mike pretty hard. Mike was in love with Robin.

and something like that happened, of course you're going to be emotional

about it.

I think he wanted to be there for Rob.

Well, of course I was hurt back then. I was in love with this woman, and she's

devastated.

It was just totally overwhelming.

I didn't know what to do.

So now he's like, yo, I can't do this. He can't hang out. He can't do this.

Which is probably normal if now you got a wife and you want to do the right

thing.

But see...

Mike is a creature of habit.

Like I said, a creature of habit, because when he was younger, sneaking

away from the Catskills, coming back to Brooklyn.

He was doing the same thing.

I wanted to do the right thing.

But that right thing wasn't in my heart, I don't think.

So he called me.

Yeah, I'm tired of this shit.

I just got to get a minute.

Me and him would go running around. We'd go to Nell's clubs and all these clubs.

He'll mess with a couple of girls.

Then he goes back.

I've never been a faithful person in that stage of my life, no.

I was 21 years old. I didn't understand the concept of loyalty in a

relationship.

Everything was all about fucking a bunch of people and stuff.

I believe the problem was, I could see it. The mother used to try to, like,

control it.

She's trying to control the situation.

But then you can't push this guy. You can't hold this guy.

I didn't love my personal life as much as I love my professional life.

All of that turmoil was happening, but more than anything, there was the

business at hand. The fight.

With the Sphinx fight, I remember star after star wanted to be there.

Jack Nicholson, Madonna.

Everybody who was anybody.

wanted to see this, and they showed up.

Who do you think's gonna win?

Mike. I mean, they just all wanted to be in that aura.

The first Mike Tyson fight I went to, it was the Sphinx fight.

The atmosphere was just wild and crazy.

There was an electricity in the air that I don't think you've ever gotten with

any other fight.

Mike Spinks makes his way to the ring.

The night of the fight, everybody's attention was high.

I just felt like the whole place was a time bomb. I felt like everybody in the

place was angry. Everybody had a side.

Everybody was ready to see this explosion come out of the dressing room.

And there you see a shot from behind the young champion as he and his entourage

make their way.

It was like this rumbling. It wasn't even music. It was like... Holy Jesus.

It sounded like Godzilla was walking into the arena.

They feed me with it. What?

They want me to feed them with it.

I've got goose pimples on my arms.

Mike Tyson ready to go against Michael Spinks.

The opening bell. Let's see what's happened.

Let's try.

About two weeks before the Sphinx fight, I get a phone call from Ruth Roper,

who's Robin Givens' mother.

Come and see me in my office.

Okay, I'll come and see you in your office.

And she lays out this tale of woe that Mike is beating up Robin every single

day. And I'm like, wow, okay.

And then suddenly I feel these fingertips drumming on my shoulder.

It's Robin Givens.

She confirms everything.

So I bring it back, hand it to my editor, he reads it.

He goes, look, we can't write the story unless you get Mike.

And Mike's in training camp and he's not talking to anybody and he's in his mood,

you know, he wants to kill the world.

I'm calling everybody I know who knows Mike.

I gotta get Mike.

Now it's about 10 o'clock at night, I'm in my office. All of a sudden the phone

rings, the secretary goes... Hey, well, Mike Tyson's on the phone. Everybody

stops.

And I go, hello?

He goes, what the fuck do you need from me?

I told them everything they said. I read the quotes.

And he got real quiet, real quiet.

And he said, you know, he said, I can't believe, you know, they're saying those

things about me. I said, is it true or is it not true?

He never said it wasn't true.

He said something like, I would never hurt my wife.

And it's obvious they think I'm an asshole.

You know, he's really upset, I can tell. He's very upset.

Was it true?

We fought each other. We fought, yes.

I know people say, she can't fight you, you're Mike Tyson, but we fought.

But now we write the story.

It goes all over the world.

The next day, Ruth and Robin deny it all.

They wanted their story out, then they wanted to pull it back.

trying to get Mike back into the fold.

It was all calculated for control.

So yeah, I picked Sphinx to win.

Tyson attacks immediately.

This is round one. We're just underway.

The reason I picked Sphinx to win was because of all the stuff that was going

on in Mike Tyson's life.

Tyson showing no fear, no respect at all. You're firing Bill Caton. The

uppercut. Don King is moving in on you.

I'm calling you in the middle of the night to tell you your wife is ratting

you out.

And I'm under the mistaken impression that Mike Tyson is

a regular human being and that this will affect him.

I had friends coming from all over the world

and they're entering the arena and you know Mike standing there with his arm up

in the air.

He just won.

That fight, Mike dominated.

That's what you get when you come to a real Mike Tyson fight.

You know, now in hindsight, my judgment that this guy's going to be affected was

right. He was affected. He wanted to kill somebody that night.

And the unfortunate guy he was going to kill was Michael Spinks.

What do you think about that?

After that fight, he was considered unbeatable, untouchable. You didn't want

to fight this guy.

I truly did not believe he would lose a fight for a decade.

The undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, Iron Mike Tyson.

When I came in the ring, I was seeing his face, and I sort of feared. I knew

it was going to be a first-round knockout.

It probably was the greatest performance of Mike's career.

At that time, He don't believe no man can beat him. He felt he was immortal.

He felt he was a god. He has plundered the division.

And right now, the only question is, who really is there left for him to fight?

But I do believe he was hurting at that point. I wasn't really appreciative of

what the reporters did to me.

Building up to this fight, you tried to embarrass me, you tried to embarrass my

family. You attacked somebody I love, like my wife and my mother-in-law. And

that's the only way you could get to me, because...

Basically, I'm a don't care person.

I lived my life like I didn't care all my life, and I always cared, though.

Does that make sense?

You feel like you were pretending that?

No, but I feel like I had to live that life in order to survive.

People knew you cared. They had that over you.

Does that make any sense?

Yeah.

The trip, the path of the trip, huh?

At that point, it seemed to me like we were heading back into that doldrum

period, and we're just gonna watch Tyson roll over these guys.

But that's why the coverage became not so much Tyson the fighter as Tyson

outside the ring.

Down, please.

After the Sphinx fight, Robin...

And her team, her lawyers, her accountants, found evidence of

improprieties that his management team were doing.

And Mike, you know, again, he listened to his wife, listened to his family, and

wanted to make some changes.

I don't like the agreements that I have now with Bill Casey.

That's the major asset of everything.

And I don't like his attitude towards me or towards my family.

Nobody cared about me. I just wanted to get money back then.

Once Cus died, everybody was piranhas.

Bill Caton wants to be in control of everything.

This time, I'm calling the shots.

But Cus trusted Jimmy and Bill, right? Yeah, but everybody changes. Everybody's

not the same.

You know what I mean? They tell me that, um, that trust has an expiration date.

Is Bill Caton totally out of the picture?

Totally out of the picture, yeah.

And as far as my career is going, I asked Donald Trump to be an advisor.

One thing I will say, if somebody's disloyal to you once, they'll be

disloyal to you again.

So you can learn. But the first time is a little bit tougher.

But if you can find loyalty, those are the people you want.

I'm a friend of the family. I'm a friend of Mike's. And they're going to call

their own shots. I'll be an advisor.

And he's got a wonderful family, and I can assure you. And if I, in my opinion,

I didn't think so, I wouldn't be here. You had his wife and mother-in-law now

in charge of the money and where the money's going to go, and we don't need

these managers.

We can do it ourselves.

Hey, look at this.

Mike Tyson married actress Skidman.

Look how happy I looked right here with her.

So young.

So stupid.

When his private life began to go public is when he started to really get

resentful. But unfortunately, you know, I don't think he ever quite understood

that when you're a public figure and as prominent as him, you don't have a

private life anymore. I'm sorry.

I was at this place.

That, but then, and Mitch Green was fucking with me. Listen, I had fought

Mitch Green probably a year or two earlier than that.

He just started fucking with me, and I wasn't in a good mood. I was drinking, I

was drunk.

I punched him in the face.

His head hit the ground, boom, and he got cold.

And I just ran. I got scared. I thought he was dead.

And he ran like a little fag, and I chased him. I couldn't get him. I broke

my hand on his face.

I saw him on television the next day, and his whole eye, he wasn't dead. I was

happy.

Anytime bad publicity comes out, it starts to weigh on you. Day and night,

the media, you know, they wait outside his house 24 hours, and it's difficult.

Hey, Mike. What do you want?

The reality is that there was a lot to find with Mike Tyson.

Some of the stories were whose ass he grabbed, who he smacked in the face.

I don't know. It's just too much shit written on paper every day. It's a bunch

of bullshit.

The life of heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.

Mike Tyson.

Now, what is all this about Iron Mike?

Mike was a target by the media for the same reason that he was loved by the

media, and it was because he was unpolished.

That, as much as the boxing, is captivating. Mike and Robin were living

in an impossible circumstance, and then it got out of control.

You okay? You okay?

Are you okay, Mike?

Can you tell us what happened?

No, no, just get out of here. Come on, please. Can you tell us what happened?

No, nothing happened.

What happened that night?

I don't remember. I was mad at somebody.

I don't know who it was. I don't remember that night that well.

I just remember I hit the tree.

Everybody wanted a story, and whether the stories were true or not, it didn't

matter. They sold.

The media said it was a suicide attempt.

I was just, I just ran into the tree. I didn't really try, I didn't try to kill

myself. I ran into the tree and it knocked me out.

After that, Robin, her mother, they sent me to Robin, the psychiatrist, and they

said I was a fucked up manic depression.

They prescribed me medicine.

And you took it?

And I took it. Hey, I'm getting a headache with this. Hey, let me get up.

I got to get up.

Don't like thinking about this shit. I'm starting to get a headache.

These narratives, they're always shaped by the media and different things.

It might do a little something here. They blow it in proportion.

And I think at that time...

Robin's mother and them, I think they leaked things to the media, and they

would exacerbate things.

I don't think he was mad at depression.

I don't think he was no different than any other kid that comes from the inner

city.

I think that the stories are the stories based on whose side of the story you're

on.

That was the era where, you know, no matter what you did, you were a

celebrity, you would go cry on Barbara Walters' couch and everything was

forgiven.

Quiet, please.

Okay, go ahead.

I trusted Robin and her mother.

They just told me this was the thing to do.

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

No. Me and my wife had arguments.

I never had hit my wife. I grabbed my wife and hold my wife. Mm-hmm. You know

what I mean? I mean, I shake my wife up, but I never... I never totally struck my

wife. Beat her up? No.

I didn't understand what the interview was for.

It was a video about us just chilling, being the couple that we are.

And what happened was, Hugh, that after we did the interview with Mike that you

saw earlier, Robin came to us and said, you're not getting the story straight.

Okay, enter the lovely wife. Hi, Robin.

What's it been like, this roller coaster?

It's been torture.

It's been pure hell.

It's been worse than anything I could possibly imagine.

Throwing, screaming.

Does he hit you?

He shakes. He pushes.

He swings.

I had no idea that she was going to say that.

I thought it was going to be a family interview. I didn't think it was going

to be from Mike Tyson's The Horrible Husband interview.

And just recently, I've become afraid.

I mean, very, very much afraid.

You could see the manipulation in just the interview.

His demeanor was not him.

I remember watching it with my wife. We're going, do you believe this? Like,

you're shaking our heads.

And he's sitting there like a sheep on Valium.

Michael is a manic depressive. He is.

Fuck, you looking like a... You on that TV?

They had to have you drugged up. Was he drugged up?

I believe so. He didn't say that. I believe so.

Did he tell you that? He never said it, but I believe he was.

Were you medicated at the time? Yes, probably.

Antidepressant, I believe.

It was almost like time to steal, and I think that was a turning point. America

seeing this thing for what it was.

Oh, it was spin control by Robin, without a doubt.

She wanted the world to see that not only was she his loving wife, but she

was his caretaker. It was all coordinated to control this guy because

the guy was a cash cow.

Throughout all of this, Barbara, Mike was cool as a cucumber.

Now, when this was over, did he get angry?

What was I going to do, start attacking her on television?

No, they were very affectionate. We stayed around for several hours after

that, and they were very sweet with each other. I miss, I can't believe this

fucking bitch just saying this in front of all these people. You know, I was

really, um...

I was, um, I was upset, and I was gonna show how upset I was once everybody

left.

He only told me one time when they got physical.

That was after the Barbara Walters thing.

I wound up going out there, and that fucking house was a mess.

He tore that place up.

And I was like, yeah, you should have. I said, they would have never left out of

here.

I didn't handle it well.

On Sunday, Michael, as I said, often, you know, things are sometimes difficult

for him to handle.

I got a little scared and I left.

No, I just lost my head. I just lost it.

I think mentally, it messed him up. I think it kind of like, you don't have to

trust nobody.

I just was a miserable guy back then, and I took things too personal.

Especially being married, my heart broke. And back then, I took it too

personal.

That's when I said, Mike.

It's time.

It's time for you and Robin to go separate ways, man.

This is not how marriage is supposed to be.

Everybody thought she was a gold digger. Is that fair to call her that, Mike?

I won't answer the question, but the only thing I can say is that she was

young, and we both got caught up in the situation.

How do I feel about Robin today?

I don't know. I have no hard feelings about her. I'm not angry at her. I don't

want to fight with her.

You know, I didn't make no bad decision there.

I fell in love with somebody.

I don't look at that as a bad decision.

Shit happens, you know.

It was kind of bullshit, though, huh?

After the Robin divorce, I said, I'm going to find you a good management

team.

That's when Mike looked across and said, one or two managed me.

So for him to say that to me, it just meant so much to me. So I put Team Tyson

together.

The first thing I thought of was Don King.

He may be the guy everybody hate, but he making more money than anybody in

boxing. So I kind of encouraged Mike to go sit down and meet with

Don.

Thank God everybody is free at last.

I ended up signing with Don because I realized I'm a product.

Regardless if I want to be one or not.

Okay, I'm in the money game, so I'm a product.

Now let me understand this.

You want Mr.

King to be not so much your manager, but the man who oversees your schedule, your

affairs, and so on. Do I understand that?

Exactly. That was basically like Don and Mike coming out part. He was introducing

to the world that I'm officially Mike's promoter.

So we ended up purchasing some land from Don King, which we turned into a private

camp. Because at that time, Mike just wanted space.

So we would often go there to get away.

I try my best to put people around him that I know that truly we all got one

thing in common, and that's Mike Tyson.

Team Tyson was a band of men, and it was, you know, one for all and all for

one.

Everybody's there, we eat together, you know, watch movies, play basketball.

Come on, guys, get me in that box and go, all right?

Yeah! Money, money!

I used to want to be around people that I trusted, so I used to have some

friends work with me.

Just me, Rory, John, and Don.

They helped me get back on my feet.

Everything around that time was about trying to help Mike.

get through that situation.

We're not gonna talk about robbing. We're not gonna talk about settlements.

All we're gonna do is talk about how beautiful this city is. He was telling

them, you know, you're the champ. You do what you want.

You want to go buy a Bentley, you go buy a Bentley.

You want to go sleep with that girl, you go do it.

Mike became a young, single guy again. Mike was running around, chasing women.

It took him a little minute, but he finally got back to being Mike.

I'm married to a dog that I didn't care no more, so I just went for it.

Mike had enough money to do anything he wanted in the world, and he know two

months from now, I can go back in the ring, make me another $30, $40 million.

Iron Mike has collected a fleet of expensive cars.

When I say, oh, this guy's got 26 cars, my mom would say, you can only drive one

car at a time. And I'm like, yeah, but it'd be nice to have 26 cars.

The word no was a foreign language.

The reason I wanted that guy was to see the flight to France, Italy, London.

I'm on 24-7, 365.

But I had no real power over what he does.

I can't stop him. If he moves, I'm gonna move.

I do basically what Mike Tyson wants to do. I mean, that's what I enjoy.

I didn't know he was sneaking out of the window in the bedroom upstairs, and then

one night he slipped.

And I'm like, what the hell? You're like the Scarlet Pimpernel. You seek him

here, you seek him there, you seek him everywhere.

Well, at that moment, I just feel like the baddest man on the planet.

Everything's mine.

He's the baddest man on planet Earth.

Honestly, I think Don was like an indulgent parent.

You know, just do whatever you want, man.

There were no guardrails.

Hey, Steve, you interviewed me before, right? Two years ago.

Yeah, you tried to nail my black to the cross.

As soon as he realized he didn't have to listen to these people, he's gonna be

who he wants to be.

We shouldn't even talk to that... Yeah, we're off the show.

Get off me. Get off my hand. When you're controlled, you're looking for your

voice. You've been controlled by management.

You've had a marriage that was controlled.

But he had a voice.

Finally, when he had been spoken for up until then.

Of course, that comes with ego.

Even though he never tried to hide who he was, he had no filter anymore.

And he didn't care.

He was doing something that really, really bothers contemporary white

America. He was refusing to subvert his worldview.

to be palatable.

He was saying, fuck it. I just like to live the way I want to live. I like to

do what I want to do.

I shouldn't be castrated for that.

You have to have that godlike persona.

Some people may think it's egotistical, but the masses love it. How dare them

even to challenge me and these fighters, you know what I mean? You know what I

mean? With their primitive boxing skills. You know what I mean? They're as

good as dead.

Team Tyson turned into a very hostile camp to the media.

They limited access, tried to control everything that was said and written

about Mike. Would you stop the pictures right now? Let's get the news covers on.

Protecting him from other people is the easy part. Now, protecting him from

himself, that's a little tricky sometimes.

Mike was intense, man. He wants what he wants, when he want it. He would throw a

tantrum in a second. Especially the closer he gets to a fight, the more

intense he gets.

In those days, the perception was that Tyson couldn't be beat.

You've talked about being in control of your career who is next take all

comments, I don't duck any man Can we assume that Douglas is one of the price

back Thomas?

Come one come all because nobody can get close to me. They're not even close. I'm

the best fighter in the world Mike's next fight is with Buster Douglas in

Japan

To be heavyweight champion of the world, obviously.

You know, that was the reason why I decided to turn pro. To go all the way.

Calling my dad from college in 1981.

Told him that I was coming home this summer and I was going to turn pro and

start my professional boxing career.

Buster Douglas was an ordinary guy. You know, kind of a blue-collar guy. Good

fighter, not a great fighter, but he stretched the imagination.

He was overweight, he was under-trained, but they had to fight somebody.

42 to 1 odds. We're astronomical in a lot of people's eyes, but I felt

differently about it.

Tyson's in Japan to defend his heavyweight boxing title against James

Buster Douglas.

It always took me back to Japan. I mean, we're a great fan of the Japanese

culture, and we're happy to be back.

It's funny because we had seven press conferences.

The week of the fight, we got there.

at his press conference, and the chairs were turned over, and paper was

everywhere, and it was empty.

And even the guys that were there didn't know what to ask me. You know, a couple

of them asked me what color trunks was I wearing, you know, so I could identify

the body or something, you know.

Tyson's expected to deposit Buster Douglas on the seat of his pants.

I wasn't looked at as a major threat.

You got to believe in yourself, first and foremost.

Here we go.