After his easy first round knockout of Michael Spinks on June 27, 1988, Mike Tyson experienced a tumultuous summer to say the least. He had married actress Robin Givens in February of 1988, and it was a troubled union from the start. Then in March, Tyson’s manager Jimmy Jacobs died after a long battle with leukemia.
In August, he got into a 4 a.m. street brawl with fighter MItch Green, and broke his right hand. A month later he ran his BMW into a tree in Catskill, New York on purpose, in what some said was a suicide attempt.
An obviously bewildered Tyson appeared on Barbara Walters in September with Givens, where she called him a manic-depressive. I watched that interview in shock as Mike sat comatose and didn’t utter a single word. The gold-digger filed for divorce days later, after Tyson went on a tirade since she embarrassed him on national television. The young champion’s life was a mess, and guess who stepped in to try and fix everything as the year came to a close. Don King.
Tyson fired long time trainer Kevin Rooney and parted ways with his other co-manager Bill Cayton in December. King had convinced him that they were no good, and he would form ‘Team Tyson’, to rebuild his life and career. He would not be the first to believe the ultimate con-man’s lies. and signed an exclusive promotional contract with the scumbag.
Tyson’s first fight under his new ‘leadership’, was on February 25, 1989 against Brit Frank Bruno at the Hilton Center in Las Vegas. Bruno was big and strong, but had no chin, and absolutely no chance to win. I went over my older brother’s apartment for the first time to watch a fight, which was a huge thing to me. We had a quarrelsome relationship for years, but the fact that he started to take an interest in boxing again helped to heal our differences. It in fact, would be the first of many fights we would watch together in the years to come.
Bruno went down early in the opening round, but got up and actually buzzed the champion with a good combination later in the same round. As the rounds progressed however, Tyson took command and started punishing Bruno with combinations. The end came in the with 10 seconds left in the fifth, after Tyson landed an avalanche of unanswered blows. Surprise.
Team Tyson consisted of a bunch of yes-men, misfits and buffoons, with Don King the ringleader for the circus. Every time Tyson appeared on television, I disliked him more and more, and couldn’t wait until someone came along to knock his ass out.
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