Mike Tyson: Punches, Prison and Pygmalion Effect
“My main objective is to be professional but to kill him. I want to rip out his heart and feed it to him. I want to kill people. I want to rip their stomachs out and eat their children.”
Despite his (in) famous lifestyle, varied addictions, failed marriages and jail sentences, Mike Tyson (born Michael Gerard Tyson), has been one of the most renowned heavyweight boxers of all time. Bullied as a boy, Tyson often found himself in fights with those who ridiculed his high-pitched voice and lisp. Under Cus D’Amato’s tutelage, Tyson grew up to be the youngest heavyweight boxing champion. This victory marked the beginning of Tyson’s enviable rise to success, fame and fortune. But his blatant disregard for self-control, both inside the ring and outside soon overshadowed his boxing brilliance. His aggression made his progress regressive. Coupled with years of wild partying, addictions, convictions and jail-term, Tyson became the most loved bad boy. Nevertheless, soon Tyson found himself reeling in debt and facing bankruptcy, but Tyson being Tyson fought his way back. He worked back towards regaining his glory – professional and personal – restoring his dignity and winning back the love of his family. Given his extraordinary career and life, Tyson won a place in the Boxing Hall of Fame in 2011. What reasons could have influenced Tyson’s violent and reckless behavior? Did D’Amato’s demise and the dizzying pace of his success leave Tyson disillusioned? What role did the Pygmalion effect play in shaping Tyson’s attitude and behavior? Was he a victim of his unbridled success? Was his behavior a larger-than-life manifestation of years of self-depreciation and bruised self-image?
Birth of the World Heavyweight Champion
Michael Gerard Tyson known to the world as Mike Tyson (Tyson) was born on June 30th 1966 to Lorna Tyson (Lorna) and Jimmy Kirkpatrick. An alcoholic mother with no steady means of livelihood and an absentee father, who worked as a pimp and abandoned the family when Tyson was only 2 years old was what he had for a family.
As a child, Tyson lived in condemned buildings, which lacked basic amenities including water and power supply, among other things. To add to this, the neighborhood he grew up in was notoriously famous for its crimes. Describing his neighborhood and home in Brownsville, Brooklyn, Tyson said, “…That is the kind
of life I grew up in. People in love cracking their heads and bleeding like dogs…Holy shit, I was scared to death of my family…”..........
Tyson: Professional Glory and Personal Infamy
In 1982, Tyson won the gold, second time in a row, at the Junior Olympics. What was disturbing, however, was the fact that by then Tyson had also taken up to drinking and drugs, on the sly.
March 6th 1985 marked Tyson’s debut into professional boxing against Hector Mercedes, who was knocked out in the first round by the 18 year old Tyson.
His opponents were intimidated by Tyson’s notable defensive abilities, strength and quick fists and were often scared to hit the fighter. This gave Tyson the uncanny ability to take his opponents down in just one round and thus earning him the nickname, “Iron Mike” . The ‘hit-and-away’ style of the amateurs was no match for Tyson’s ‘high-pressure’ technique. He fought 15 bouts in the same year and won every single fight either by a ‘knockout’ or a ‘technical knockout’. That year The Ring Magazine (an American Boxing magazine) named him their “Prospect of the Year”..............
Tyson and Transformation
Tyson described his avatar during his heydays as that of an ‘arrogant prick’. His self-loath had reached a point where he wanted to deface himself. At the height of his career, he had to hire bodyguards for a completely different reason as he had into an unbelievable cad. He said, “I hired bodyguards not to protect myself from the public, but to protect the public from me.”...............
