Tyson (2026) s01e02 Episode Script
Greed
-[somber music playing]
-[traffic honking]
[Tyson] I'm a big believer
everybody gets what they deserve
to make them who they are.
Then God probably tells them,
"This is what you asked for,
wasn't it, motherfucker?"
"Why are you trying
to make it a big deal now?"
That's what Cus was always saying.
"You asked for this, right?"
[bell rings]
[commentator] He is the youngest ever
to win the heavyweight title.
[bell rings]
[Tyson] He was always saying, "Be careful
what you ask for. You might get it."
That's my great teacher.
What do you think about that, Stefan?
[Stefan] He's right.
You might get it. Be careful.
I wanted to be the biggest fighter
that ever lived
in the history of fighting.
[ring announcer] Undefeated, undisputed
heavyweight champion of the world,
Iron Mike Tyson!
Be careful.
[somber music continues]
[music fades out]
[somber music playing]
[man] I met Mike 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 this is a special situation.
Eventually, I became his manager.
But in the beginning,
I just wanted to be there as his friend.
[trainer] Be ready to move.
Come right back.
Sometimes I had to pinch myself,
because everything was happening so fast.
[video rewinds]
[horns playing]
Ladies and gentlemen, the new undisputed
heavyweight champion of the world.
[man] Hey, Mikey!
After Cus's passing,
the team was still there.
You had the trainer.
You had the management,
Jimmy Jacobs and Bill Cayton.
But the opening was there for someone
to step in and be there for Mike.
[announcer] And now, the premier
boxing promoter of the universe,
Sir Don King.
[Patti] And Don wanted to be that guy.
[upbeat music playing]
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… You know, it's Don.
I've gotta do… I've gotta do something.
I've been waiting to do it
for a long time.
-Would you just stay right there?
-[Don King laughs]
[audience laughing]
[King] Johnny Carson, y'all!
Don was a sensational promoter.
Ain't no doubt about it.
This is gonna be a fight.
With the spiked hair and the vocabulary.
It's gonna be so illustrious.
It's gonna 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.
[commentator] This is an incredible scene.
He makes a fight into an event.
The "Rumble in the Jungle,"
not "a fight in Zaire."
"The Thrilla in Manila."
It was not "a fight in the Philippines."
It was the fight.
I mean, this was
the greatest show on Earth.
But what you have to recognize is,
in reality, Don's a hustler.
[upbeat music playing]
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.
[Rory Holloway] Listen,
Don comes from the streets
where you had to pull your boots up,
get out there and hustle.
So Don has a reputation.
Some warranted, maybe some not.
His reputation was
he steals from his fighters.
And he would settle with the fighters
for much less than he owed them.
[King] There is a conspiracy out
to character-assassinate me
and put me out of business.
With innuendo, insinuation,
accusation, vilification,
and castigation, all unfounded.
You understand?
[audience laughs]
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 gonna
make more money from me
than they would from anybody else."
And he was right.
[man] 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 can use a man like this on your team.
Just gotta understand
what you're dealing with.
I think at that time,
Don had his own interior motives.
His mission was to get Mike.
[audience applauding]
At that point, Mike Tyson
was the most famous athlete in the world.
-["Hypnotize" by Notorious B.I.G. playing]
-[crowd clamoring]
Sicker than your average
Poppa twist cabbage off instinct… ♪
[Tyson] I always attracted people.
I would be somewhere walking the streets,
and next thing you know,
it might be
like 100 or 200 people around me.
[crowd clamoring]
[Tyson] It was 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.
[man] Action!
That Brooklyn bullshit, we on it ♪
Just not sharing my Diet Pepsi.
I like Suntory Dry.
[Matthews] Camera loved him.
People loved him.
[Joan Rivers]
Ladies and gentlemen, Mike Tyson.
If I called my office any day
and said, "Hey, I got a Tyson item,"
they'd say, "Run it."
He went out on a date in LA.
He bought six bottles of Cristal.
This guy has now crossed over
into the "housewives who don't give a shit
about boxing" demographic.
He's a good boy.
Thanks for the T-shirts!
There was even a Mike Tyson video game.
[man in video game]
You've gotta beat Mike Tyson.
Back then it was awesome,
being young and having all that attention.
[man] 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 cliché.
It's not a cliché. It's salvation.
Biggie, Biggie, Biggie… ♪
[Tyson] 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.
[reporter]
…heavyweight champion of the world!
You'll never know what it's like
to come from a scared, innocent nobody
to that Mike Tyson.
You know, just saying the name
tells you the elevation of what it was.
[reporters clamoring]
Hey! Hey! Mike! Mike!
[Bobby Brown] 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.
[dramatic music playing]
[Brown] 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.
-[crowd screaming]
We were both blowing up at the same time.
And both of us were chasing
the same things. [chuckles]
-[Floyd Russ] What were you chasing?
-We were chasing girls. [chuckles]
Chasing girls.
[audience cheering]
[host] Boxing always has
its share of female followers.
-They seem to like you.
-Hi.
[female audience members] Hi!
How do you keep yourself pure?
[audience laughs]
-I'm not pure. [chuckles]
-[host laughs]
-[audience laughs and cheers]
-I'm not pure.
He talked soft,
but he knew what he wanted.
["Hypnotize" playing]
[Brown] Limelight. 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 out women.
I met Mike at a nightclub in the '80s.
I was the manager. He was there to party.
If the club owners see money,
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.
[Anthony Pitts]
He had an insatiable appetite.
If it was up to him, he'd have
a hundred 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'd make me feel
like the champion that I am.
Being with a woman.
Tits and bras, ménage à trois… ♪
I used to tell him, "Mike, listen,
sometimes they just need a nut."
"You can't make love to everybody."
Somebody, you get a quickie,
and that's it.
[chuckles] "You wanna make love
to anything you meet."
[song ends]
[Fagan] You can't do that.
-[siren wailing]
-[wings flutter]
[Fagan] Maybe he's catching up, man.
He probably was just catching up
from the Dirty Mike days
when he couldn't get nothing.
[somber music playing]
No one really taught us about this stuff,
like my mother or someone.
About relationships.
I believe that any man who lacks, um…
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.
[wings fluttering]
I think, subconsciously, I always wanted
a girlfriend, a partner or something.
Because I always had 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, "Who's that girl?"
[Holloway] 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 LA. They go to dinner.
The mother was there.
She was very protective of Robin.
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, uh… the table.
And all of a sudden, everything
he was hoping was right in front of him.
[Givens] It was sort of
love at first sight.
We just sort of loved each other.
You know, when Mike falls,
he really falls head over heels.
He was that guy, you know.
He just lived life to the fullest.
[reporter] How does he help you
with your career?
He's just here. Getting on a plane with me
at 11:00 at night
or 8:00 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.
[Floyd Russ] Why?
[Tyson] 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.
[dramatic music playing]
[crowd cheering]
[Tompkins] 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 when I was a kid.
I saw him fight and said, "Wow."
[bell rings]
I said, "I wanna be like that guy."
I said, "Wow, I wanna be like him."
[ring announcer] Muhammad Ali!
That's the first time I ever seen Mike
really taking a fight personal.
Because Larry had beat his hero, Ali.
And the way Larry did it,
Mike took offense to that.
[Tyson] On October 2nd, 1980,
Ali fought Larry Holmes.
[Lewis] Muhammad Ali was sick
at that time.
So he wasn't fully Muhammad Ali.
If I was in Larry Holmes's spot,
I wouldn't have boxed him because of that.
It was…
The fight never should've happened.
[Tyson] I watched the fight with Cus.
And he beat Ali unmercifully.
[commentator]
Ali's taking some vicious shots.
How much more of this can he take?
Then, when we got up in the morning,
and Cus said, "Your job is to avenge Ali."
Right before the fight,
Ali whispered in my ear, "Get him for me."
Right there. "Get him for me."
[bell rings]
[commentator 2] Tyson quickly
on top of Holmes. He nails him right away.
Holmes looking almost in fear
of Mike Tyson.
[dramatic music playing]
He didn't wanna be in there.
-[commentator 2] This is round four.
-[crowd clamoring]
[commentator 2] Oh, a big right hand!
He's definitely hurt.
It's just a matter of time,
and in comes Mike.
Down he goes.
Oh, he's hurt. It's all over.
[Tyson chuckling]
[commentator 2] A big right hand
ends the career
of the former champion of the world.
Mike had beat a legend that day.
[Tompkins] That night was
a changing-of-the-guard fight.
From Ali to Holmes.
Holmes was done.
Mike Tyson was the new champion.
[somber music playing]
The Larry Holmes fight was
the best fight of my life, probably.
[Floyd Russ] Why that one?
It was the fight that Cus
wanted me to have one day.
Out of time. Lift up your feet.
And then, uh, after the fight,
Muhammad Ali came.
He said, "Thanks for getting him for me."
-[Floyd Russ] What'd you say?
-[mutters]
I was… I wanted to set an example of…
I don't know. I don't know.
His thanks meant a lot.
[spectators cheering and applauding]
I felt good. I was with Robin,
and we went to somewhere.
We ate… We got some burgers.
When you're leaving Atlantic City,
you go by…
Big burgers. We ate some burgers.
My biggest fight.
Then we go eat hamburgers afterwards.
I was just happy with what was going on.
I was happy to have Robin at that time.
[gentle music playing]
At some point,
Robin said that she was pregnant.
And he was all-in.
[phone ringing]
[Holloway] He wakes me up
at 4:00 in the morning,
and he just blurted it out.
"Hey, man, me and Robin married.
I'll call you tomorrow."
[phone clatters]
And hung up the phone.
I'm going, "What did I just hear?"
I'm happy for him, man.
He got… They wanted to get married.
They got married.
The heart loves what the heart loves.
[Patti] They did a quick wedding.
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."
She had a sister. I used to joke with him,
"Yo. What's up with the sister?"
[Holloway] Mike never really had
that close family foundation.
So this was all new.
It was cool. Mike embraced it.
It just changes you completely.
You know what I mean?
I don't even wanna look at another woman.
[music turns tense]
But from the very beginning,
it was so public.
Every single move,
whether it was true, false, or whatever,
it was always something.
[Van Lathan] 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.
[music darkens]
[Holloway] I think Robin was a nice girl.
I think she got a bad rap.
Don't forget, Mike was
a beloved individual all over the world.
[upbeat music playing]
[reporter] This has been a busy time
for Mike Tyson,
who got married and then came here
to Tokyo to fight Tony Tubbs.
[Tyson] It was a big thing.
I was with Robin.
I had fun.
I thought it was a good trip with her.
[Floyd Russ] 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.
[Holloway] I think 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.
[man] I'm with Robin Givens,
who's attending her first Mike Tyson fight
as Mrs. Champion.
[laughs]
Robin, conventional wisdom would be
marriage will somehow
soften up the champion.
I'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 love him to death.
I'll do the best I can.
[crowd cheering]
[man] Oh, damn!
[commentator] Tubbs is hurt.
Tubbs is hurt badly.
[dramatic music playing]
[ring announcer] Heavyweight champion
of the world, Mike Tyson!
[commentator] One brief personal note,
you saw behind Mike's shoulder there
his co-manager, Bill Cayton.
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.
[Tyson] Jimmy wasn't there.
And he didn't tell me he was sick.
I never knew he was sick.
I think Mike was disappointed
that he was almost like
the last one hearing this stuff about Jim.
Then I think shortly after,
Jim passed away.
[Tyson] We went far beyond
just fighting and managing.
There 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 Cus D'Amato,
and one was Jimmy Jacobs.
And, uh, all three of them died
within about five years.
[Tyson] I trusted Jimmy.
You know, he looked after me like Cus did.
Cus told me he was the guy to trust.
Then I felt alone, you know.
[man] Turn right up the curb.
[Matthews] 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 gonna happen here.
There's gonna be changes.
Don King is there.
Shelly Finkel's there.
[tense music playing]
[Shelly Finkel]
I am a manager of fighters.
Probably managed more world champions
than anyone else in history.
I managed Pernell Whitaker,
Manny Pacquiao, Evander Holyfield.
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 Cayton.
There was a contract.
There was a piece of paper that said,
"In the event of Jim Jacobs's death,
you are now owned by Bill Cayton."
Like a piece of property.
[Tyson] He was a businessman.
He's not really a warm, friendly guy.
He just… He wasn't cool with me.
[Floyd Russ]
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.
[Finkel] After the memorial,
Tyson is to fight Michael Spinks.
Michael Spinks was the darling.
[crowd screaming]
[Tompkins] He was undefeated for 12 years.
And now here comes Mike Tyson.
Naturally, a 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.
[chuckling]
[dramatic music playing]
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.
Mike had captured 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's the lineal champion.
To me, the only way Tyson can really claim
to be the champion of the world
is he's got to beat Michael Spinks,
two-time conqueror of Larry Holmes.
[Tyson] No doubt
I'm 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.
[Finkel] 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.
[narrator] Tyson versus Spinks,
once and for all.
[Matthews] I think a lot of us, naively,
myself included,
believed that Cayton
would remain in charge.
But Robin started
asking questions right away.
[dramatic music playing]
[Bill Cayton] Robin changed things.
Almost as soon as they were married,
she called to say,
"I'm Mrs. Mike Tyson,
and I'm taking over."
[Patti] She called Bill Cayton and said,
"We are now in charge of his career."
He said, "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 finances.
If Michael has $50 million
and he's supposed to have $70 million,
there's a problem.
Everybody called her a gold digger
and this and that.
But she had every right,
as his wife, to ask questions.
[Tyson] 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.
You know, I knew nothing about that stuff.
I believe his manager, Bill Cayton,
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.
[King] 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 Cayton saying
all these negative things about Don.
The networks don't want to deal
with Don King,
finding him totally irresponsible.
[Holloway]
But you're still doing business with Don.
In my mind at the time, I'm saying,
"You're 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."
[King] The real issue is,
how much money is he supposed to have
and how much did he get?
How much is Bill Cayton
taking out of his paycheck?
Those are the issues.
The rest of this is a smokescreen.
[Holloway] Going into the Spinks fight,
you could see the focus.
But behind closed doors,
all that stuff was putting pressure
on Mike and his marriage.
It was just a 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 that 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 happens,
of course you're gonna be
emotional about it.
I think he wanted to be there for Robin.
[Tyson] 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.
[Fagan] 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've got a wife,
and you wanna do the right thing.
But see, Mike is a creature of habit.
Like I say "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.
[Fagan] 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, all these clubs.
He'd mess with a couple of girls.
Then he goes back.
I'd never been a faithful person.
At 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 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 loved my professional life.
[Patti] All of that turmoil was happening,
but more than anything,
there was the business at hand.
The fight.
With the Spinks 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 is gonna win?
-Mike.
They just all wanted to be in that aura.
[crowd cheering]
The first Mike Tyson fight I went to,
it was the Spinks 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.
[commentator] Mike Spinks
makes his way to the ring.
[Matthews] The night of the fight,
everybody's tension was high.
I 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.
[commentator] 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… [growls]
It was like, holy Jesus.
Sounded like Godzilla
was walking into the arena.
[Tyson] Like funeral music.
-[Floyd Russ] What?
-They wanted to hear the funeral music.
[laughs]
[man] Y'all go back.
[commentator] I've got goose pimples
on my arms.
[dramatic music builds]
[commentator] Mike Tyson ready to go
against Michael Spinks.
[bell rings]
[commentator] The opening bell.
Let's see what happens.
Tyson--
[whirring]
[Matthews] About two weeks
before the Spinks fight,
I get a phone call from Ruth Roper,
who's Robin Givens's 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, "We can't write
the story unless we get Mike."
And Mike's in training camp,
and he's not talking to anybody.
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 ten o'clock at night.
I'm in my office.
All of a sudden, the phone rings.
The secretary goes,
"Hey, Wal, Mike Tyson's on the phone."
Everybody stops. And I go, "Hello."
He goes,
"What the fuck do you need from me?"
I told him everything they said.
I read the quotes.
And he got real quiet. Real quiet.
And he said, you know, "I can't believe
they're saying those things about me."
I said, "Is it true or is it not true?"
And he did not…
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."
He's really upset.
I can tell he's very upset.
[Floyd Russ] Was it… Was it the truth?
We fought each other. We fought, yes.
I know people say, "She can't fight you.
You're Mike Tyson," but we fought.
And 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,
and they wanted to pull it back,
trying to get Mike back into the fold.
It was all calculated for control.
So yeah, I picked Spinks to win.
[commentator] Tyson attacks immediately.
This is round one. We're just underway.
The reason I picked Spinks to win
was because of all the stuff
that was going on in Mike Tyson's life.
[commentator] Tyson showing no fear,
no respect at all.
-[Matthews] You're firing Bill Cayton.
-[commentator] 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.
[commentator] Body shot.
Down goes Mike Spinks.
And I'm under the mistaken impression
that Mike Tyson is a regular human being
and that this will affect him.
[commentator] Here comes Mike Spinks in.
He leads with the right hand.
Down he goes!
I don't think he'll get up from this.
Mike Spinks is laying flat on his back.
The count is up to five.
And six. He won't be able to make it.
-He's not going to make it.
-It's all over! Mike Tyson has won it.
A dramatic first-round knockout.
1:31 of the first round.
One of the fastest knockouts
in heavyweight history.
I had friends coming
from all over the world.
And they're entering the arena,
and Mike's standing there
with his arm up in the air.
He'd just won.
That fight, Mike dominated.
That's what you get
when you come to a real Mike Tyson fight.
[dramatic music playing]
[Matthews] You know, now in hindsight,
my judgment that this guy's
gonna be affected was right.
He was affected.
He wanted to kill somebody that night.
And the unfortunate guy he was
gonna kill was Michael Spinks.
[man] Wally!
What do you think about that?
After that fight, he was considered
unbeatable, untouchable.
You didn't wanna 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 could see.
I saw the fear in his face.
I knew it was gonna be
a first-round knockout.
It probably was the greatest performance
of Mike's career.
[Holloway] 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,
tried to embarrass my family.
To attack somebody I love,
like my wife and my mother-in-law,
that's the only way you could get to me
because basically I'm a don't-care person.
[King clapping]
I lived my life
like I didn't care all my life,
and I always cared, though.
-Does that make sense?
-[Floyd Russ] Mm-hmm.
Do you feel like you were pretending then?
No, but I felt I had to live
that life in order to survive.
People know you care,
they have that over you.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah.
The trip… The past is a trip, huh?
At that point, it seemed to me
like we were heading
back into that doldrum period,
and we're just going to watch
Tyson roll over these guys.
But that's why the coverage
became not so much Tyson the fighter
as Tyson outside the ring.
[camera clicking]
-[man 1] Down, please.
-Sorry.
[Holloway] After the Spinks fight,
Robin and her team,
her lawyers, her accountants,
found evidence of improprieties
that his management team were doing.
And Mike, again, 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 Cayton.
That's the major aspect of everything.
And I don't like his attitude
towards me or towards my family.
[Tyson] Nobody cared about me.
They just wanted to get money back then.
Once Cus died, everybody was piranhas.
Bill Cayton wants
to be in control of everything.
This time, I'm calling the shots.
[Floyd Russ]
Cus trusted Jimmy and Bill, right?
Yeah, but everybody changes.
Everybody's not the same, you know?
They tell me that trust
has an expiration date.
[reporter] Is Bill Cayton
totally out of the picture?
Totally out of the picture. Yeah.
And as far as my career is going,
I've 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 gonna call their own shots.
I'll be an advisor.
And he's got a wonderful family,
I can assure you.
If, 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,
where the money's gonna go,
and, "We don't need these managers.
We can do it ourselves."
[Tyson] Hey, look at this.
"Mike Tyson marries actress Givens."
Look how happy I looked here with her.
[Floyd Russ] So young.
So stupid.
[laughing]
When his private life began to go public
is when he started
to really get resentful.
But unfortunately,
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, Dapper Dan's,
and Mitch Green was fucking with me.
Listen, I had fought Mitch Green
probably a year or two earlier than that.
He started fucking with me,
and I wasn't in a good mood.
I was drinking. I was drunk.
I punched him in the face.
Head hit the ground, boom,
and he was out cold.
And I just ran.
I got scared. I thought he was dead.
He ran like a little fag,
and I chased him. I couldn't get him.
This guy, 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'd wait outside his house 24 hours.
And it is difficult.
-[reporter] Hey, Mike.
-What do you want?
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 was just…
Too much shit was in the paper every day.
It was 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.
Come on, hear me out. Man, hit the--
That, as much as the boxing,
is captivating.
Mike and Robin were living
in an impossible circumstance.
And then it got out of control.
[ominous music playing]
[man] Mike, how do you feel?
-[woman] You okay?
-[man] You okay?
[woman] Are you okay, Mike?
Can you tell us what happened?
No! Just get out of here. Come on, please.
-[woman] Robin, can you tell us--
-No, nothing happened.
-[woman] Obviously, something happened.
-I don't believe this.
-[Floyd Russ] What happened that night?
-I don't remember. I was mad at somebody.
I don't know if it was Robin.
I don't remember that night that well.
I just remember I hit the tree.
-[woman] Come on. He's a big celebrity.
-So what? Get out of here!
[woman] He's not a private person.
Give me a break.
The man's obviously not feeling well.
Let me give you a statement.
Everybody wanted a story.
And whether the stories were true or not,
it didn't matter. They sold.
[Floyd Russ] The media said
it was a suicide attempt.
I just ran into the tree. I didn't really…
I didn't try to kill myself.
I ran into the tree,
and it knocked me out.
After that, Robin and her mother,
they sent me to Robin's psychiatrist.
And they said I was
a fucked-up manic depressant.
They prescribed me medicine.
-[Floyd Russ] And you took it?
-And I took it.
Hey, I'm getting a headache with this.
Hey, guys, let me get up. I gotta get up.
I 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 out of proportion.
[dramatic music playing]
[Holloway] 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 it was manic depression.
I don't… 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,
no matter what you did,
you were a celebrity,
you would go cry
on Barbara Walters's couch,
and everything was forgiven.
[man] Quiet, please. Okay, go ahead.
[Tyson] 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 hit my wife.
I grab my wife and hold my wife.
-Mm-hmm.
-You know what I mean?
I shake my wife up,
but I never, as I told you,
struck my wife, or beat her up, no.
[man] Okay, that's good. Cut.
[indistinct chatter]
I didn't understand
what the interview was for.
I thought it was just a video
about us just chilling,
being the couple that we were.
Yeah, 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."
[man] Okay, enter the lovely wife.
Hi, Robin.
What's it been like, this rollercoaster?
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, um…
He swings.
I had no idea that she was gonna say that.
I thought it would be a family interview.
I didn't think it was gonna be
some "Mike Tyson's
a horrible husband" interview.
[Givens] 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.
[Matthews] I remember
watching it with my wife,
going, "Do you believe this?"
We're shaking our heads.
And he's sitting there
like a sheep on Valium.
Michael is a manic depressive. He is.
You're looking like a f…
You're on that TV…
-They had to have him drugged up.
-[Floyd Russ] Was he?
-I believe so.
-[Floyd Russ] He didn't say that.
-Did he tell you that?
-He never said it, but I believe he was.
-[Russ] Were you medicated at the time?
-Yes, probably.
Anti-depressant, I believe.
[Holloway] It was
almost like time stood still.
And I think that was a turning point,
America seeing this thing for what it was.
Oh, it's been controlled 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 gonna 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 mean, I can't believe
this fucking bitch is 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.
[man] Shall we?
[indistinct chatter]
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.
I was like, "Yeah, you shoulda.
They would've never left outta here."
[dramatic music playing]
But 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.
I just lost my head. I just lost it.
I think, mentally, it messed him up.
I think it kinda like… feel,
"I could trust nobody."
I just was a miserable guy back then.
And I took things too personal.
Especially being married
and my heart broken.
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?
Can I tell you?
I won't answer the question.
But the only thing I can say
is that she was young, and she just…
We both got caught up in the situation.
[audience applauds]
-[Donahue] Right on, very good.
-[man] Yeah.
How do I feel about Robin today?
I don't have no hard feelings about her.
I'm not angry at her.
I don't wanna 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?
[chuckles]
[Holloway] After the Robin divorce,
I said, "I'm gonna find you
a good management team."
And that's when Mike looked across
and said, "Why don't you manage me?"
So for him to say that to me,
it just… 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 hates,
but he's making more money
than anybody in boxing.
So I kind of encouraged Mike
to go, uh, sit down and meet with Don.
Oh, free at last, free at last.
Thank God Almighty, he's free at last.
I ended up signing with Don
because I realized I'm a product,
regardless if I wanna be one or not.
Okay, I'm in the money game,
so I'm a product.
Now let me understand this.
You wanted 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's coming-out party.
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 tried 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.
[Pitts] Everybody's there.
We eat together,
watch movies, play basketball.
Come on, guys. Get me in
and I'll just go, all right?
Yeah, come on! Come on!
Shit.
[Tyson] I wanted
to be around people that I trusted,
so I said, "Let me 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 Robin.
We're not gonna talk about settlements.
All we're gonna do is talk about how…
[Matthews] King was telling him,
"You're the champ. You do what you want."
"You wanna go buy a Bentley,
go buy a Bentley."
"You wanna 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.
[Tyson] My marriage was over.
I didn't care no more,
so I just went for it.
[Holloway] Mike had enough money
to do anything he wanted in the world,
and he knew two months from now,
"I can go in the ring,
make another $30, $40 million."
[reporter] Iron Mike has collected
a fleet of expensive cars.
[Lewis] When I say,
"Oh, this guy's got 26 cars,"
my mom would say,
"You can only drive one car at a time."
But I'm like,
"Yeah, but it'd be nice to have 26 cars."
The word "no" was a foreign language.
Everything I wanted, I got.
Let's get a flight
to France, Italy, London.
We were just getting on a Concorde,
a private plane.
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?"
The Scarlet Pimpernel.
You seek him here. You seek him there.
You seek him everywhere.
Well, at that moment, I just felt
like the baddest man on the planet.
Everything's mine.
[dramatic music intensifies]
[King] He's the baddest man
on planet Earth.
Honestly, I think Don was
like an indulgent parent.
"Just do whatever you want, man."
There were no guardrails.
-Steve, you interviewed me before, right?
-Two years ago.
Yeah, you tried to nail
my Black a to the cross with those…
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 s bag.
F you, we're off the show.
-Matter of fact, I don't even wanna talk--
-No, no, no.
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.
I ain't doing s for these s bags.
F you.
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 wanna live.
I like to do what I wanna do.
I shouldn't be castrated for that.
You have to have that God-like persona.
Some people may think it's egotistical,
but the masses love it.
How dare them even to challenge me,
these fighters, 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.
[King] Would you stop the pictures now?
Let's get the news coverage…
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 wants 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.
-[crowd cheering]
-[bell rings]
-[crowd cheering]
-[bell rings]
[reporter] You've talked about being
in control of your career. Who is next?
I take all comers. I don't duck any man.
Uh, can we assume then
that Douglas is one of the prospects?
All comers. 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.
[Buster Douglas] My goal?
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.
I called my dad from college in 1981.
I told him I was coming home that summer,
and I was gonna turn pro
and start my professional boxing career.
[Tompkins]
Buster Douglas was an ordinary guy.
You know, kind of a blue-collar guy.
Not a great fighter
by any stretch of the imagination.
[man] Douglas is in deep trouble
on the ropes.
He was overweight, he was under-trained,
but they had to fight somebody.
42-to-1 odds.
[Douglas] The odds were astronomical
in a lot of people's eyes,
but I felt differently about it.
[reporter] Tyson's in Japan
to defend his heavyweight boxing title
against James "Buster" Douglas.
[Tyson] It's always good
to be back in Japan.
I mean, we're great fans
of the Japanese culture,
and we're happy to be back.
[Douglas] It's funny because we had
separate press conferences
the week of the fight.
We got there after 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.
A couple of them asked me
what color trunks was I wearing?
So they could identify
the body or something.
Tyson's expected to deposit
Buster Douglas on the seat of his pants.
This dude ain't gonna do nothing to him.
I wasn't looked at as a major threat.
But you gotta believe in yourself,
first and foremost.
[exhales sharply]
[intense music playing]
-[bell rings]
-[commentator] Mike Tyson, here we go.
[dramatic music playing]
[music fades out]
-[traffic honking]
[Tyson] I'm a big believer
everybody gets what they deserve
to make them who they are.
Then God probably tells them,
"This is what you asked for,
wasn't it, motherfucker?"
"Why are you trying
to make it a big deal now?"
That's what Cus was always saying.
"You asked for this, right?"
[bell rings]
[commentator] He is the youngest ever
to win the heavyweight title.
[bell rings]
[Tyson] He was always saying, "Be careful
what you ask for. You might get it."
That's my great teacher.
What do you think about that, Stefan?
[Stefan] He's right.
You might get it. Be careful.
I wanted to be the biggest fighter
that ever lived
in the history of fighting.
[ring announcer] Undefeated, undisputed
heavyweight champion of the world,
Iron Mike Tyson!
Be careful.
[somber music continues]
[music fades out]
[somber music playing]
[man] I met Mike 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 this is a special situation.
Eventually, I became his manager.
But in the beginning,
I just wanted to be there as his friend.
[trainer] Be ready to move.
Come right back.
Sometimes I had to pinch myself,
because everything was happening so fast.
[video rewinds]
[horns playing]
Ladies and gentlemen, the new undisputed
heavyweight champion of the world.
[man] Hey, Mikey!
After Cus's passing,
the team was still there.
You had the trainer.
You had the management,
Jimmy Jacobs and Bill Cayton.
But the opening was there for someone
to step in and be there for Mike.
[announcer] And now, the premier
boxing promoter of the universe,
Sir Don King.
[Patti] And Don wanted to be that guy.
[upbeat music playing]
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… You know, it's Don.
I've gotta do… I've gotta do something.
I've been waiting to do it
for a long time.
-Would you just stay right there?
-[Don King laughs]
[audience laughing]
[King] Johnny Carson, y'all!
Don was a sensational promoter.
Ain't no doubt about it.
This is gonna be a fight.
With the spiked hair and the vocabulary.
It's gonna be so illustrious.
It's gonna 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.
[commentator] This is an incredible scene.
He makes a fight into an event.
The "Rumble in the Jungle,"
not "a fight in Zaire."
"The Thrilla in Manila."
It was not "a fight in the Philippines."
It was the fight.
I mean, this was
the greatest show on Earth.
But what you have to recognize is,
in reality, Don's a hustler.
[upbeat music playing]
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.
[Rory Holloway] Listen,
Don comes from the streets
where you had to pull your boots up,
get out there and hustle.
So Don has a reputation.
Some warranted, maybe some not.
His reputation was
he steals from his fighters.
And he would settle with the fighters
for much less than he owed them.
[King] There is a conspiracy out
to character-assassinate me
and put me out of business.
With innuendo, insinuation,
accusation, vilification,
and castigation, all unfounded.
You understand?
[audience laughs]
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 gonna
make more money from me
than they would from anybody else."
And he was right.
[man] 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 can use a man like this on your team.
Just gotta understand
what you're dealing with.
I think at that time,
Don had his own interior motives.
His mission was to get Mike.
[audience applauding]
At that point, Mike Tyson
was the most famous athlete in the world.
-["Hypnotize" by Notorious B.I.G. playing]
-[crowd clamoring]
Sicker than your average
Poppa twist cabbage off instinct… ♪
[Tyson] I always attracted people.
I would be somewhere walking the streets,
and next thing you know,
it might be
like 100 or 200 people around me.
[crowd clamoring]
[Tyson] It was 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.
[man] Action!
That Brooklyn bullshit, we on it ♪
Just not sharing my Diet Pepsi.
I like Suntory Dry.
[Matthews] Camera loved him.
People loved him.
[Joan Rivers]
Ladies and gentlemen, Mike Tyson.
If I called my office any day
and said, "Hey, I got a Tyson item,"
they'd say, "Run it."
He went out on a date in LA.
He bought six bottles of Cristal.
This guy has now crossed over
into the "housewives who don't give a shit
about boxing" demographic.
He's a good boy.
Thanks for the T-shirts!
There was even a Mike Tyson video game.
[man in video game]
You've gotta beat Mike Tyson.
Back then it was awesome,
being young and having all that attention.
[man] 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 cliché.
It's not a cliché. It's salvation.
Biggie, Biggie, Biggie… ♪
[Tyson] 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.
[reporter]
…heavyweight champion of the world!
You'll never know what it's like
to come from a scared, innocent nobody
to that Mike Tyson.
You know, just saying the name
tells you the elevation of what it was.
[reporters clamoring]
Hey! Hey! Mike! Mike!
[Bobby Brown] 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.
[dramatic music playing]
[Brown] 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.
-[crowd screaming]
We were both blowing up at the same time.
And both of us were chasing
the same things. [chuckles]
-[Floyd Russ] What were you chasing?
-We were chasing girls. [chuckles]
Chasing girls.
[audience cheering]
[host] Boxing always has
its share of female followers.
-They seem to like you.
-Hi.
[female audience members] Hi!
How do you keep yourself pure?
[audience laughs]
-I'm not pure. [chuckles]
-[host laughs]
-[audience laughs and cheers]
-I'm not pure.
He talked soft,
but he knew what he wanted.
["Hypnotize" playing]
[Brown] Limelight. 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 out women.
I met Mike at a nightclub in the '80s.
I was the manager. He was there to party.
If the club owners see money,
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.
[Anthony Pitts]
He had an insatiable appetite.
If it was up to him, he'd have
a hundred 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'd make me feel
like the champion that I am.
Being with a woman.
Tits and bras, ménage à trois… ♪
I used to tell him, "Mike, listen,
sometimes they just need a nut."
"You can't make love to everybody."
Somebody, you get a quickie,
and that's it.
[chuckles] "You wanna make love
to anything you meet."
[song ends]
[Fagan] You can't do that.
-[siren wailing]
-[wings flutter]
[Fagan] Maybe he's catching up, man.
He probably was just catching up
from the Dirty Mike days
when he couldn't get nothing.
[somber music playing]
No one really taught us about this stuff,
like my mother or someone.
About relationships.
I believe that any man who lacks, um…
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.
[wings fluttering]
I think, subconsciously, I always wanted
a girlfriend, a partner or something.
Because I always had 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, "Who's that girl?"
[Holloway] 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 LA. They go to dinner.
The mother was there.
She was very protective of Robin.
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, uh… the table.
And all of a sudden, everything
he was hoping was right in front of him.
[Givens] It was sort of
love at first sight.
We just sort of loved each other.
You know, when Mike falls,
he really falls head over heels.
He was that guy, you know.
He just lived life to the fullest.
[reporter] How does he help you
with your career?
He's just here. Getting on a plane with me
at 11:00 at night
or 8:00 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.
[Floyd Russ] Why?
[Tyson] 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.
[dramatic music playing]
[crowd cheering]
[Tompkins] 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 when I was a kid.
I saw him fight and said, "Wow."
[bell rings]
I said, "I wanna be like that guy."
I said, "Wow, I wanna be like him."
[ring announcer] Muhammad Ali!
That's the first time I ever seen Mike
really taking a fight personal.
Because Larry had beat his hero, Ali.
And the way Larry did it,
Mike took offense to that.
[Tyson] On October 2nd, 1980,
Ali fought Larry Holmes.
[Lewis] Muhammad Ali was sick
at that time.
So he wasn't fully Muhammad Ali.
If I was in Larry Holmes's spot,
I wouldn't have boxed him because of that.
It was…
The fight never should've happened.
[Tyson] I watched the fight with Cus.
And he beat Ali unmercifully.
[commentator]
Ali's taking some vicious shots.
How much more of this can he take?
Then, when we got up in the morning,
and Cus said, "Your job is to avenge Ali."
Right before the fight,
Ali whispered in my ear, "Get him for me."
Right there. "Get him for me."
[bell rings]
[commentator 2] Tyson quickly
on top of Holmes. He nails him right away.
Holmes looking almost in fear
of Mike Tyson.
[dramatic music playing]
He didn't wanna be in there.
-[commentator 2] This is round four.
-[crowd clamoring]
[commentator 2] Oh, a big right hand!
He's definitely hurt.
It's just a matter of time,
and in comes Mike.
Down he goes.
Oh, he's hurt. It's all over.
[Tyson chuckling]
[commentator 2] A big right hand
ends the career
of the former champion of the world.
Mike had beat a legend that day.
[Tompkins] That night was
a changing-of-the-guard fight.
From Ali to Holmes.
Holmes was done.
Mike Tyson was the new champion.
[somber music playing]
The Larry Holmes fight was
the best fight of my life, probably.
[Floyd Russ] Why that one?
It was the fight that Cus
wanted me to have one day.
Out of time. Lift up your feet.
And then, uh, after the fight,
Muhammad Ali came.
He said, "Thanks for getting him for me."
-[Floyd Russ] What'd you say?
-[mutters]
I was… I wanted to set an example of…
I don't know. I don't know.
His thanks meant a lot.
[spectators cheering and applauding]
I felt good. I was with Robin,
and we went to somewhere.
We ate… We got some burgers.
When you're leaving Atlantic City,
you go by…
Big burgers. We ate some burgers.
My biggest fight.
Then we go eat hamburgers afterwards.
I was just happy with what was going on.
I was happy to have Robin at that time.
[gentle music playing]
At some point,
Robin said that she was pregnant.
And he was all-in.
[phone ringing]
[Holloway] He wakes me up
at 4:00 in the morning,
and he just blurted it out.
"Hey, man, me and Robin married.
I'll call you tomorrow."
[phone clatters]
And hung up the phone.
I'm going, "What did I just hear?"
I'm happy for him, man.
He got… They wanted to get married.
They got married.
The heart loves what the heart loves.
[Patti] They did a quick wedding.
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."
She had a sister. I used to joke with him,
"Yo. What's up with the sister?"
[Holloway] Mike never really had
that close family foundation.
So this was all new.
It was cool. Mike embraced it.
It just changes you completely.
You know what I mean?
I don't even wanna look at another woman.
[music turns tense]
But from the very beginning,
it was so public.
Every single move,
whether it was true, false, or whatever,
it was always something.
[Van Lathan] 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.
[music darkens]
[Holloway] I think Robin was a nice girl.
I think she got a bad rap.
Don't forget, Mike was
a beloved individual all over the world.
[upbeat music playing]
[reporter] This has been a busy time
for Mike Tyson,
who got married and then came here
to Tokyo to fight Tony Tubbs.
[Tyson] It was a big thing.
I was with Robin.
I had fun.
I thought it was a good trip with her.
[Floyd Russ] 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.
[Holloway] I think 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.
[man] I'm with Robin Givens,
who's attending her first Mike Tyson fight
as Mrs. Champion.
[laughs]
Robin, conventional wisdom would be
marriage will somehow
soften up the champion.
I'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 love him to death.
I'll do the best I can.
[crowd cheering]
[man] Oh, damn!
[commentator] Tubbs is hurt.
Tubbs is hurt badly.
[dramatic music playing]
[ring announcer] Heavyweight champion
of the world, Mike Tyson!
[commentator] One brief personal note,
you saw behind Mike's shoulder there
his co-manager, Bill Cayton.
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.
[Tyson] Jimmy wasn't there.
And he didn't tell me he was sick.
I never knew he was sick.
I think Mike was disappointed
that he was almost like
the last one hearing this stuff about Jim.
Then I think shortly after,
Jim passed away.
[Tyson] We went far beyond
just fighting and managing.
There 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 Cus D'Amato,
and one was Jimmy Jacobs.
And, uh, all three of them died
within about five years.
[Tyson] I trusted Jimmy.
You know, he looked after me like Cus did.
Cus told me he was the guy to trust.
Then I felt alone, you know.
[man] Turn right up the curb.
[Matthews] 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 gonna happen here.
There's gonna be changes.
Don King is there.
Shelly Finkel's there.
[tense music playing]
[Shelly Finkel]
I am a manager of fighters.
Probably managed more world champions
than anyone else in history.
I managed Pernell Whitaker,
Manny Pacquiao, Evander Holyfield.
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 Cayton.
There was a contract.
There was a piece of paper that said,
"In the event of Jim Jacobs's death,
you are now owned by Bill Cayton."
Like a piece of property.
[Tyson] He was a businessman.
He's not really a warm, friendly guy.
He just… He wasn't cool with me.
[Floyd Russ]
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.
[Finkel] After the memorial,
Tyson is to fight Michael Spinks.
Michael Spinks was the darling.
[crowd screaming]
[Tompkins] He was undefeated for 12 years.
And now here comes Mike Tyson.
Naturally, a 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.
[chuckling]
[dramatic music playing]
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.
Mike had captured 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's the lineal champion.
To me, the only way Tyson can really claim
to be the champion of the world
is he's got to beat Michael Spinks,
two-time conqueror of Larry Holmes.
[Tyson] No doubt
I'm 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.
[Finkel] 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.
[narrator] Tyson versus Spinks,
once and for all.
[Matthews] I think a lot of us, naively,
myself included,
believed that Cayton
would remain in charge.
But Robin started
asking questions right away.
[dramatic music playing]
[Bill Cayton] Robin changed things.
Almost as soon as they were married,
she called to say,
"I'm Mrs. Mike Tyson,
and I'm taking over."
[Patti] She called Bill Cayton and said,
"We are now in charge of his career."
He said, "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 finances.
If Michael has $50 million
and he's supposed to have $70 million,
there's a problem.
Everybody called her a gold digger
and this and that.
But she had every right,
as his wife, to ask questions.
[Tyson] 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.
You know, I knew nothing about that stuff.
I believe his manager, Bill Cayton,
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.
[King] 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 Cayton saying
all these negative things about Don.
The networks don't want to deal
with Don King,
finding him totally irresponsible.
[Holloway]
But you're still doing business with Don.
In my mind at the time, I'm saying,
"You're 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."
[King] The real issue is,
how much money is he supposed to have
and how much did he get?
How much is Bill Cayton
taking out of his paycheck?
Those are the issues.
The rest of this is a smokescreen.
[Holloway] Going into the Spinks fight,
you could see the focus.
But behind closed doors,
all that stuff was putting pressure
on Mike and his marriage.
It was just a 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 that 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 happens,
of course you're gonna be
emotional about it.
I think he wanted to be there for Robin.
[Tyson] 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.
[Fagan] 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've got a wife,
and you wanna do the right thing.
But see, Mike is a creature of habit.
Like I say "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.
[Fagan] 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, all these clubs.
He'd mess with a couple of girls.
Then he goes back.
I'd never been a faithful person.
At 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 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 loved my professional life.
[Patti] All of that turmoil was happening,
but more than anything,
there was the business at hand.
The fight.
With the Spinks 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 is gonna win?
-Mike.
They just all wanted to be in that aura.
[crowd cheering]
The first Mike Tyson fight I went to,
it was the Spinks 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.
[commentator] Mike Spinks
makes his way to the ring.
[Matthews] The night of the fight,
everybody's tension was high.
I 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.
[commentator] 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… [growls]
It was like, holy Jesus.
Sounded like Godzilla
was walking into the arena.
[Tyson] Like funeral music.
-[Floyd Russ] What?
-They wanted to hear the funeral music.
[laughs]
[man] Y'all go back.
[commentator] I've got goose pimples
on my arms.
[dramatic music builds]
[commentator] Mike Tyson ready to go
against Michael Spinks.
[bell rings]
[commentator] The opening bell.
Let's see what happens.
Tyson--
[whirring]
[Matthews] About two weeks
before the Spinks fight,
I get a phone call from Ruth Roper,
who's Robin Givens's 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, "We can't write
the story unless we get Mike."
And Mike's in training camp,
and he's not talking to anybody.
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 ten o'clock at night.
I'm in my office.
All of a sudden, the phone rings.
The secretary goes,
"Hey, Wal, Mike Tyson's on the phone."
Everybody stops. And I go, "Hello."
He goes,
"What the fuck do you need from me?"
I told him everything they said.
I read the quotes.
And he got real quiet. Real quiet.
And he said, you know, "I can't believe
they're saying those things about me."
I said, "Is it true or is it not true?"
And he did not…
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."
He's really upset.
I can tell he's very upset.
[Floyd Russ] Was it… Was it the truth?
We fought each other. We fought, yes.
I know people say, "She can't fight you.
You're Mike Tyson," but we fought.
And 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,
and they wanted to pull it back,
trying to get Mike back into the fold.
It was all calculated for control.
So yeah, I picked Spinks to win.
[commentator] Tyson attacks immediately.
This is round one. We're just underway.
The reason I picked Spinks to win
was because of all the stuff
that was going on in Mike Tyson's life.
[commentator] Tyson showing no fear,
no respect at all.
-[Matthews] You're firing Bill Cayton.
-[commentator] 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.
[commentator] Body shot.
Down goes Mike Spinks.
And I'm under the mistaken impression
that Mike Tyson is a regular human being
and that this will affect him.
[commentator] Here comes Mike Spinks in.
He leads with the right hand.
Down he goes!
I don't think he'll get up from this.
Mike Spinks is laying flat on his back.
The count is up to five.
And six. He won't be able to make it.
-He's not going to make it.
-It's all over! Mike Tyson has won it.
A dramatic first-round knockout.
1:31 of the first round.
One of the fastest knockouts
in heavyweight history.
I had friends coming
from all over the world.
And they're entering the arena,
and Mike's standing there
with his arm up in the air.
He'd just won.
That fight, Mike dominated.
That's what you get
when you come to a real Mike Tyson fight.
[dramatic music playing]
[Matthews] You know, now in hindsight,
my judgment that this guy's
gonna be affected was right.
He was affected.
He wanted to kill somebody that night.
And the unfortunate guy he was
gonna kill was Michael Spinks.
[man] Wally!
What do you think about that?
After that fight, he was considered
unbeatable, untouchable.
You didn't wanna 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 could see.
I saw the fear in his face.
I knew it was gonna be
a first-round knockout.
It probably was the greatest performance
of Mike's career.
[Holloway] 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,
tried to embarrass my family.
To attack somebody I love,
like my wife and my mother-in-law,
that's the only way you could get to me
because basically I'm a don't-care person.
[King clapping]
I lived my life
like I didn't care all my life,
and I always cared, though.
-Does that make sense?
-[Floyd Russ] Mm-hmm.
Do you feel like you were pretending then?
No, but I felt I had to live
that life in order to survive.
People know you care,
they have that over you.
Does that make any sense?
Yeah.
The trip… The past is a trip, huh?
At that point, it seemed to me
like we were heading
back into that doldrum period,
and we're just going to watch
Tyson roll over these guys.
But that's why the coverage
became not so much Tyson the fighter
as Tyson outside the ring.
[camera clicking]
-[man 1] Down, please.
-Sorry.
[Holloway] After the Spinks fight,
Robin and her team,
her lawyers, her accountants,
found evidence of improprieties
that his management team were doing.
And Mike, again, 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 Cayton.
That's the major aspect of everything.
And I don't like his attitude
towards me or towards my family.
[Tyson] Nobody cared about me.
They just wanted to get money back then.
Once Cus died, everybody was piranhas.
Bill Cayton wants
to be in control of everything.
This time, I'm calling the shots.
[Floyd Russ]
Cus trusted Jimmy and Bill, right?
Yeah, but everybody changes.
Everybody's not the same, you know?
They tell me that trust
has an expiration date.
[reporter] Is Bill Cayton
totally out of the picture?
Totally out of the picture. Yeah.
And as far as my career is going,
I've 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 gonna call their own shots.
I'll be an advisor.
And he's got a wonderful family,
I can assure you.
If, 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,
where the money's gonna go,
and, "We don't need these managers.
We can do it ourselves."
[Tyson] Hey, look at this.
"Mike Tyson marries actress Givens."
Look how happy I looked here with her.
[Floyd Russ] So young.
So stupid.
[laughing]
When his private life began to go public
is when he started
to really get resentful.
But unfortunately,
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, Dapper Dan's,
and Mitch Green was fucking with me.
Listen, I had fought Mitch Green
probably a year or two earlier than that.
He started fucking with me,
and I wasn't in a good mood.
I was drinking. I was drunk.
I punched him in the face.
Head hit the ground, boom,
and he was out cold.
And I just ran.
I got scared. I thought he was dead.
He ran like a little fag,
and I chased him. I couldn't get him.
This guy, 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'd wait outside his house 24 hours.
And it is difficult.
-[reporter] Hey, Mike.
-What do you want?
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 was just…
Too much shit was in the paper every day.
It was 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.
Come on, hear me out. Man, hit the--
That, as much as the boxing,
is captivating.
Mike and Robin were living
in an impossible circumstance.
And then it got out of control.
[ominous music playing]
[man] Mike, how do you feel?
-[woman] You okay?
-[man] You okay?
[woman] Are you okay, Mike?
Can you tell us what happened?
No! Just get out of here. Come on, please.
-[woman] Robin, can you tell us--
-No, nothing happened.
-[woman] Obviously, something happened.
-I don't believe this.
-[Floyd Russ] What happened that night?
-I don't remember. I was mad at somebody.
I don't know if it was Robin.
I don't remember that night that well.
I just remember I hit the tree.
-[woman] Come on. He's a big celebrity.
-So what? Get out of here!
[woman] He's not a private person.
Give me a break.
The man's obviously not feeling well.
Let me give you a statement.
Everybody wanted a story.
And whether the stories were true or not,
it didn't matter. They sold.
[Floyd Russ] The media said
it was a suicide attempt.
I just ran into the tree. I didn't really…
I didn't try to kill myself.
I ran into the tree,
and it knocked me out.
After that, Robin and her mother,
they sent me to Robin's psychiatrist.
And they said I was
a fucked-up manic depressant.
They prescribed me medicine.
-[Floyd Russ] And you took it?
-And I took it.
Hey, I'm getting a headache with this.
Hey, guys, let me get up. I gotta get up.
I 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 out of proportion.
[dramatic music playing]
[Holloway] 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 it was manic depression.
I don't… 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,
no matter what you did,
you were a celebrity,
you would go cry
on Barbara Walters's couch,
and everything was forgiven.
[man] Quiet, please. Okay, go ahead.
[Tyson] 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 hit my wife.
I grab my wife and hold my wife.
-Mm-hmm.
-You know what I mean?
I shake my wife up,
but I never, as I told you,
struck my wife, or beat her up, no.
[man] Okay, that's good. Cut.
[indistinct chatter]
I didn't understand
what the interview was for.
I thought it was just a video
about us just chilling,
being the couple that we were.
Yeah, 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."
[man] Okay, enter the lovely wife.
Hi, Robin.
What's it been like, this rollercoaster?
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, um…
He swings.
I had no idea that she was gonna say that.
I thought it would be a family interview.
I didn't think it was gonna be
some "Mike Tyson's
a horrible husband" interview.
[Givens] 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.
[Matthews] I remember
watching it with my wife,
going, "Do you believe this?"
We're shaking our heads.
And he's sitting there
like a sheep on Valium.
Michael is a manic depressive. He is.
You're looking like a f…
You're on that TV…
-They had to have him drugged up.
-[Floyd Russ] Was he?
-I believe so.
-[Floyd Russ] He didn't say that.
-Did he tell you that?
-He never said it, but I believe he was.
-[Russ] Were you medicated at the time?
-Yes, probably.
Anti-depressant, I believe.
[Holloway] It was
almost like time stood still.
And I think that was a turning point,
America seeing this thing for what it was.
Oh, it's been controlled 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 gonna 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 mean, I can't believe
this fucking bitch is 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.
[man] Shall we?
[indistinct chatter]
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.
I was like, "Yeah, you shoulda.
They would've never left outta here."
[dramatic music playing]
But 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.
I just lost my head. I just lost it.
I think, mentally, it messed him up.
I think it kinda like… feel,
"I could trust nobody."
I just was a miserable guy back then.
And I took things too personal.
Especially being married
and my heart broken.
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?
Can I tell you?
I won't answer the question.
But the only thing I can say
is that she was young, and she just…
We both got caught up in the situation.
[audience applauds]
-[Donahue] Right on, very good.
-[man] Yeah.
How do I feel about Robin today?
I don't have no hard feelings about her.
I'm not angry at her.
I don't wanna 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?
[chuckles]
[Holloway] After the Robin divorce,
I said, "I'm gonna find you
a good management team."
And that's when Mike looked across
and said, "Why don't you manage me?"
So for him to say that to me,
it just… 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 hates,
but he's making more money
than anybody in boxing.
So I kind of encouraged Mike
to go, uh, sit down and meet with Don.
Oh, free at last, free at last.
Thank God Almighty, he's free at last.
I ended up signing with Don
because I realized I'm a product,
regardless if I wanna be one or not.
Okay, I'm in the money game,
so I'm a product.
Now let me understand this.
You wanted 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's coming-out party.
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 tried 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.
[Pitts] Everybody's there.
We eat together,
watch movies, play basketball.
Come on, guys. Get me in
and I'll just go, all right?
Yeah, come on! Come on!
Shit.
[Tyson] I wanted
to be around people that I trusted,
so I said, "Let me 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 Robin.
We're not gonna talk about settlements.
All we're gonna do is talk about how…
[Matthews] King was telling him,
"You're the champ. You do what you want."
"You wanna go buy a Bentley,
go buy a Bentley."
"You wanna 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.
[Tyson] My marriage was over.
I didn't care no more,
so I just went for it.
[Holloway] Mike had enough money
to do anything he wanted in the world,
and he knew two months from now,
"I can go in the ring,
make another $30, $40 million."
[reporter] Iron Mike has collected
a fleet of expensive cars.
[Lewis] When I say,
"Oh, this guy's got 26 cars,"
my mom would say,
"You can only drive one car at a time."
But I'm like,
"Yeah, but it'd be nice to have 26 cars."
The word "no" was a foreign language.
Everything I wanted, I got.
Let's get a flight
to France, Italy, London.
We were just getting on a Concorde,
a private plane.
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?"
The Scarlet Pimpernel.
You seek him here. You seek him there.
You seek him everywhere.
Well, at that moment, I just felt
like the baddest man on the planet.
Everything's mine.
[dramatic music intensifies]
[King] He's the baddest man
on planet Earth.
Honestly, I think Don was
like an indulgent parent.
"Just do whatever you want, man."
There were no guardrails.
-Steve, you interviewed me before, right?
-Two years ago.
Yeah, you tried to nail
my Black a to the cross with those…
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 s bag.
F you, we're off the show.
-Matter of fact, I don't even wanna talk--
-No, no, no.
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.
I ain't doing s for these s bags.
F you.
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 wanna live.
I like to do what I wanna do.
I shouldn't be castrated for that.
You have to have that God-like persona.
Some people may think it's egotistical,
but the masses love it.
How dare them even to challenge me,
these fighters, 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.
[King] Would you stop the pictures now?
Let's get the news coverage…
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 wants 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.
-[crowd cheering]
-[bell rings]
-[crowd cheering]
-[bell rings]
[reporter] You've talked about being
in control of your career. Who is next?
I take all comers. I don't duck any man.
Uh, can we assume then
that Douglas is one of the prospects?
All comers. 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.
[Buster Douglas] My goal?
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.
I called my dad from college in 1981.
I told him I was coming home that summer,
and I was gonna turn pro
and start my professional boxing career.
[Tompkins]
Buster Douglas was an ordinary guy.
You know, kind of a blue-collar guy.
Not a great fighter
by any stretch of the imagination.
[man] Douglas is in deep trouble
on the ropes.
He was overweight, he was under-trained,
but they had to fight somebody.
42-to-1 odds.
[Douglas] The odds were astronomical
in a lot of people's eyes,
but I felt differently about it.
[reporter] Tyson's in Japan
to defend his heavyweight boxing title
against James "Buster" Douglas.
[Tyson] It's always good
to be back in Japan.
I mean, we're great fans
of the Japanese culture,
and we're happy to be back.
[Douglas] It's funny because we had
separate press conferences
the week of the fight.
We got there after 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.
A couple of them asked me
what color trunks was I wearing?
So they could identify
the body or something.
Tyson's expected to deposit
Buster Douglas on the seat of his pants.
This dude ain't gonna do nothing to him.
I wasn't looked at as a major threat.
But you gotta believe in yourself,
first and foremost.
[exhales sharply]
[intense music playing]
-[bell rings]
-[commentator] Mike Tyson, here we go.
[dramatic music playing]
[music fades out]