Los Angeles (AFP)
Glory, degradation, redemption and - boxing obliges - the comeback will have punctuated the "larger than life" life of former heavyweight terror Mike Tyson, determined to return to the ring at 54 years old.
More dramatic, romantic still, than that of "Rocky Balboa" in the cinema, the existence in the form of a roller coaster of Tyson is thus about to pass by the box "return", 15 years after having hung up the gloves and a last defeat pathetic against an Irish stranger, Kevin McBride.
At the time, at almost 39 years old, it had been a long time since "Iron Mike" was not really worthy of the nickname acquired during a career where he was first introduced as the "Kid Dynamite" by Sports Illustrated, who in 1985 saw him as the next big heavyweight.
Its accession to the top has indeed been meteoric. Between March 6, 1985 and September 6, 1986, barely 18 months, he played his first 27 professional fights, all won, including 15 in the first round.
In the next, he defeats the Canadian Trevor Berbick in the second round and becomes the youngest boxer in the history of world heavyweight champion, at 20 years, 4 months and 23 days.
For more than three years, his sharkish gaze, his phenomenal punching power, his unalterable fury inspired fear in all his opponents.
"I did not know how to do otherwise. I was mad, I had the impression of being a barbarian king set out to conquer the Roman Empire", he said of this period when he also made the headlines scandalous newspapers, between his divorce from actress Robin Givens, who accuses him of violence, and a few brawls that often bring him back to his original condition as a little thug from Brooklyn.
- Ear bites -
Born June 30, 1966 in Brownsville, renowned for its high crime rate, young Michael, raised by his only mother, does not escape the streets where he does not just run after the pigeons he loves.
His first fight pits him against a bigger one, who just tore off the head of one of his birds. "That's where I realized I could be the center of attention. It felt good to win. Everyone was screaming, clapping. I've lived with that applause all these years," he said. to Details magazine.
An offender at eight, he had 38 arrests when he was thirteen, when boxing coach Cus d'Amato took him under his wing. There he finds a spiritual father who will however cease to live there, four years after his death, in 1990, when James Buster Douglas inflicts his first KO in Tokyo.
"Boxing was disinteresting me. I just didn't feel Cus in me anymore. When Douglas got up after I knocked him to the mat, it made him stronger. No one else had done it before." , he will explain.
The fall of the foal of the sulphurous promoter Don King is brutal. Two years later, he was convicted of raping a beauty queen and served in prison until 1995.
His return to the ring is victorious, but not very convincing since he recovers his titles against modest opponents. And in 1996, he lost them again, corrected by Evander Holyfield yet considered to be in decline.
The revenge, in 1997, is tragicomic: Tyson bites Holyfield in the ears until blood. The image goes around the world and the one who is now nicknamed "the worst man on the planet" receives a suspension.
- Addictions and bipolarity -
In 2002, he failed to become world champion over three decades, punished by the British Lennox Lewis. Ruined, Tyson, who now sports a tribal tattoo around his left eye, ended his career in 2005 with a record of 50 wins (44 KOs) and six losses.
The result is an inexorable fall, marked by depression, drugs (cocaine) and several arrests. “I have no idea who I am,” he tells the New York Times. “All my life I've been drinking, I'm on drugs, I've been partying, and suddenly everything is 'Stop. I never thought I would live to this age. "
An age of reason resulting from a third marriage in 2009, with Lakiha Spicer, just after the accidental death of one of her seven children.
In recent years, in addition to appearances in the cinema ("The Hangover"), he has performed on stage in a successful one-man-show where he recounts the ups and downs of his own life. He also continues confessions, admitting in particular to having been raped at the age of seven and suffering from bipolar disorder.
It is also flourishing in the legal cannabis business and while the Covid-19 is rampant, another virus ends up catching up with it: that of boxing. The exhibition fight that awaits him against Roy Jones Jr will not be used this time to meet his debts, but, he promises, to raise funds for charitable purposes.
"I'm going to help the homeless and the addicted. Because I've been homeless and I've been addicted. I know how hard it is. There isn't so much people who can survive it like I did. "
© 2020 AFP