He's always been a fascinating guy. Sitting down with Mike Tyson for a few minutes for a candid conversation can often turn into a trip to bizarro world. It's also a window into one of the most brutally honest athletes in the world.
Tyson recently stated he was broke during an appearance on "The View" and now in an interview with Details magazine, Tyson questions what he's accomplished during his first 44 years.
The first stage of my life was just a whole bunch of selfishness. Just a whole bunch of gifts to myself and people who didn't necessarily deserve it. Now I'm 44, and I realize that my whole life is just a [expletive] waste. "Greatest man on the planet"? I wasn't half the man I thought I was. So if there's a big plan now, it's just to give—it's selflessness, caring for the people who deserve it. Because I think I'm a pig. I have this uncanny ability to look at myself in the mirror and say, "This is a pig. You are a [expletive] piece of [expletive]."
Tyson says he has a sixth sense around bad people.
That's why it's very difficult for me when people are offering me all that adulation and love. I just feel dirty. These people want to hug me, they want to touch me, and I'm feeling like, "Get your [expletive] hands off me." I feel that energy of theirs, and it's just filth and murder. It's not that they're bad people necessarily; it's just that they did something bad, and you can feel it on them. I have to go and wash up before I touch my own kids.
He says he feels lost right now and sometimes doesn't recognize the changes around him.
I went back to Brownsville with my reality-TV-show crew, they're doing a segment about my childhood racing pigeons, and Brownsville's all upscale now. They got surveillance cameras, buildings that were abandoned cost, like, a million now, and I'm thinking, My life must've been a lie, 'cause there's nothing there that looks like my childhood. This white woman come up, and I'm thinking, Wow. When I was a kid, she would've been robbed and raped and left for dead. This is a real strange scenario, and I just wanted to cry. I'm like, "Who am I? Where's my heritage?"
What shouldn't get lost during the interview is Tyson's fanaticism for the sport he dominated during the late '80s. When asked about intimidation and respect as a factor in and out of the ring he pointed to Muhammed Ali.
Believe it or not, with all that poetry and the butterflies, what I learned from Ali was meanness. He was the meanest fighter of all time. He'd be in there with Foreman, hardest puncher of all time, he'd be in there with Frazier, another hardest puncher, and he'd be taking it, boom, getting pounded, and then he'd turn, when it was his time, and you'd look at that face, and he's screaming. [Does an Ali impression] "I'm not [Throws a punch] scared [Throws a punch] of you, you [expletive] faggot. [Throws two punches] You [expletive] punk. I'm [expletive] God, and worship me. I'm the greatest. [Throws two punches] You're a little [expletive] boy, [expletive]." Nobody at ringside reported it, but nobody [expletive]-talked like Ali.
There are some good things in Tyson's life. He lost a tremendous amount of weight by going on a strict vegan diet. With a little hope remaining, he wants to be a productive citizen the rest of the way.
And after I lost my 4-year-old daughter? All these people reached out and I realized: I just want to be of service to people. I need to help. I need to have something, finally, that I can offer people in this world.
Check out the interview. Tremendous stuff.
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