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Mike Tyson is a retired American boxer who was the undisputed heavyweight champion with a net worth of $1 million. Michael Gerard Tyson was born on June 30th 1966. He was born in Brooklyn New York and has two other siblings. His father left his family when he was just two years old. He was raised in Bedford Stuyvesant until the age of ten when he moved to Brownsville due to financial trouble. Tyson grew up in a horrible neighborhood where his young life was filled with petty crime. By the age of 13 Tyson had already been arrested 38 times. His saving grace came when he was forced to attend the Tryon School for Boys. It was here that Tyson’s talent in the ring began to show. Bobby Stewart, a juvenile detention center counselor and former boxer began to train Tyson for a few months. During this time he introduced Tyson to a boxing manager and trainer, Cus D’Amato. He took training duties over from Bobby Stewart. At the age of 16 when Tyson’s mother passed Cus D’ Amato became his legal guardian. He even took Tyson out of reform school. Cus D’ Amato invited Kevin Rooney to also help train Tyson. Eventually Rooney would take over training fully.

His first huge victory came at the 1982 Junior Olympics where won a silver medal. He holds the Junior Olympic quickest knockout records with just eight seconds. Knockouts seemed to be Tyson’s style considering that he won every bout at the Junior Olympics with a knockout. On March 6th 1985, Tyson would make his professional debut where he went up against Hector Mercedes. His victory was won via knockout. Tyson had 15 fights in his first year as a professional. He won 26 out of 28 fights by KO/TKO. His performance as a fighter began to attract media attention. Tyson’s fame was on the rise and he was already being touted as the next great heavy weight champion. In November of 1985 Cus D’ Amato died without knowing the real success that Tyson would achieve.

On February 16th 1986 Tyson had his first televised fight. He defeated his opponent Jesse Fugerson. Soon at the age of 20 Tyson won the World Boxing Council heavy weight championship. This win made him the youngest Heavyweight champion in history. From there Tyson began a journey to box all top heavyweights in the world. He defeated and won the belts from James Smith, Pinklon Thomas, and Tony Tucker. Tyson had become an American boxing icon. In 1987 Nintendo even released the video game, “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!!” Tyson went on to win numerous fights after this.

Around 1988 Tyson’s personal life began to fall apart. He was going through a divorce with his then wife Robin Givens. With his life is turmoil he fired his longtime trainer Kevin Rooney. Without Rooney by his side he began to slip as a boxer. This truly showed in 1990 where he lost his undisputed championship to Buster Douglas. Tyson would regain his misstep and defeat his next two opponents. This led to Tyson winning a fight with Evander Holyfield who was the undisputed world heavyweight champion. Sadly, the match did not take place when in July 1991; Tyson was arrested for of 18 year old Desiree Washington. He was found guilty of this charge in 1992 and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Tyson only spend about three in person and made a comeback to boxing in 1995. He won his first two comeback fights and pulled in huge numbers for Pay-per view. It didn’t take belong before Tyson won back the WBC title. He would lose the belt to Holyfield not soon after in what was seen as a surprising upset. By this time in his career Holyfield was considered wash-up. The two would go onto become rivals. They met one more time in 1997 and the match made boxing history. When in the third round Tyson bit Holyfield’s ear. The fight was stopped but was then resumed and when they came back Tyson bit his ear again. Tyson was disqualified and became the subject of public scrutiny. One of the bites was so hard that it removed a piece of Holyfield’s ear the ear was later found after the match.

Tyson would return to boxing in 1999 in South Africa. He would continue to fight in other Countries outside of the U.S. These all paid off because in 2002 Tyson had yet another opportunity to win a belt. He went up against Lennox Lewis and went down. In 2003 Tyson filed for bankruptcy. He continued fighting for money but he would achieve no victories. He announced his retirement on July 11th, 2005. Though in his later years he confronted trouble in the ring and outside of the ring he still has a place in history as one of boxing’s greatest.

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