Frank Thomas

Tyson Notable Sports Figures
Awards and Accomplishments
1986 Takes WBC heavyweight championship, November 22
(youngest heavyweight champ in history)
1987 Takes WBA heavyweight title, March 7
1987 Takes IBF heavyweight championship, August 1 (becomes
undisputed World Heavyweight Champion)
1989 Defeats former champ Michael Spinks, by a knockout in 90
seconds
his disastrous marriage. King also proved useful, moving
swiftly to close Tyson’s joint accounts with Givens,
just in time to prevent her from transferring over
$600,000 into her own account.
At the same time, King began to plant doubts in
Tyson’s mind about all the “white men” around him,
particularly his manager. Perhaps drained from his recent
experiences, Tyson began to listen, and before long
he was firmly in King’s corner, even giving him a limited
power of attorney. “I think Don has sold black to
Tyson,” former heavyweight champ and King client
Larry Holmes told Sports Illustrated. Cayton could only
add, “I feel very sad that Mike appears to have gone
from a manipulative situation … to another, far more
manipulative situation.”
Tyson, however, wasn’t worried. He still had his millions,
he still had his undefeated pro career, and he still
had his title. In April, 1989, he successfully defended the
latter two against England’s Frank Bruno, easily overpowering
him in the fifth round. Then, on June 27 in Atlantic
City, in what may have been his greatest night in
the ring, he floored former champ Michael Spinks in all of
90 seconds. Then, on February 10, 1990, the unthinkable
happened in Tokyo. James “Buster” Douglas, a 42-1 underdog
who couldn’t even get a photographer to come to
his weigh-in, came back from an eighth round knockdown
to fell the champ in the tenth. It was impossible,
and at first, Don King wouldn’t let it happen. He got representatives
from the WBC, the WBA, and even the
Japan Boxing Commission to declare that Douglas
should have been counted out in the eighth round, awarding
the fight to Tyson. But King too suffered a rare defeat,
and in the face of enormous public outrage, the fight
and the title were soon awarded to Buster Douglas.
And into Hot Water
For Tyson, it was the beginning of the end. Not that it
was obvious in the ring. Shortly after the Douglas fiasco
he began his comeback, knocking out former Olympian
Henry Tillman in the first round on June 16, and defeating
Donovan “Razor” Ruddick twice in 1991. He was all
set to take on the new heavyweight champ, Evander
Holyfield, in November, 1991. The fight never happened.
While attending the Miss Black America Pageant in
July, Tyson had earned a bizarre new title when a pageant
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organizer called him a “serial buttocks fondler,” accusing
him of assaulting 11 of the 23 contestants. It was easy
fodder for late-night comedians. But nobody was laughing
when one of those contestants, Desiree Washington,
brought a much more serious charge. According to her,
Tyson had lured her to a hotel room during the contest
and then raped her. He was tried and convicted, and in
March 1992, he was sentenced to six years in prison.
It was a stunning turnaround for the champ who once
seemed so unbeatable, so exciting, and of course it
brought an immediate backlash. In the popular mind,
Tyson was now a brutal thug who could not control his
impulses, and had landed where he should have been all
along. Before long Tyson was in trouble, accused of assaulting
a guard, and placed in solitary confinement. Before
long, odd stories began to leak out, that Tyson was
reading up on communism. Perhaps this was a response
to rumors that Don King was squandering his fortune,
that Tyson might be a penniless proletarian by the end of
his jail term. There were stories that he had converted to
Islam. People wondered if Tyson was a changed man. At
any rate, he emerged from prison on March 25, 1995,
having served only three of his six years.
On the Comeback Trail—Again
Mike Tyson’s first stop after being released was a
mosque, where he prayed with Muhammad Ali. Some
speculated that it was a sign that things were changing.
But one aspect remained the same. On the day he was released
Don King negotiated a deal with Showtime on behalf
of “his” champ. Tyson’s first post-prison bout was
with Peter McNeely, who looked good on paper with a
36-1 record. But the 36 victories were against habitual
losers, and the loss was to McNeely’s only opponent with
a winning record. McNeely’s manager threw in the towel
85 seconds into his match with Tyson. A broken thumb
postponed his next match, but on December 16, Tyson
knocked out Buster Mathis in the third round. In March
of 1996, he likewise dispatched Frank Bruno in the third.
After three easy victories, and not incidentally, $65 million
richer, Tyson was feeling on top again. On September
7, 1996, he met Bruce Seldon, who was on the mat in 109
seconds. Some fans said they did not actually see a
punch, and wondered if the fight was fixed. Seldon’s
manager speculated that his client had actually suffered a
nervous breakdown in the face of Tyson—and, in fact,
Seldon has not fought another boxing match since then.
Finally, boxing fans could look forward to a long-delayed
match-up, when Evander Holyfield agreed to fight
Tyson in November of 1996 for the heavyweight championship.
Against all odds the 34-year-old Holyfield
ended what Sports Illustrated’s Richard Hoffer called
Tyson’s “machinery of menace,” when he won a technical
knockout in the eleventh round. It was a huge upset,
defying all expectations. In fact, pay-per-view channels
had offered a per-round price, so customers would not