The Tyson Era

Mike Tyson's rise to undisputed heavyweight champion was quicker and more impressive than that of any heavyweight before or since. He was born on June 30, 1966 and brought up in the tough Brooklyn area of Brownsville. Even as a child he was extremely strong for his age.

Mixing with street gangs, he was an experienced mugger by the age of 13, when he was confined in a reformatory for troubled juveniles. He was introduced to the trainer Cus d'Amato, who became his guardian and mentor, developing his boxing potential. As an amateur, he failed to make the 1984 U.S. Olympic team and turned professional in 1985.

At 5ft 11 inches he was short for a modern heavyweight, his most notable physical characteristic being a 19 and 3/4 inch neck.

At 218 pounds he was very fast for his weight and combined extraordinary handspeed with devastating punching power. He always entered the ring without a robe, wearing black trunks and black shoes, cultivating a no-frills executioner image. At the time be beat Michael Spinks he looked unbeatable and seemed assured of a long reign as champion.

But the seeds of his downfall were already present. Cus d'Amato had died in 1985, and Tyson's management team became Bill Cayton and Jim Jacobs, d'Amato's friends and sponsors in the development of Tyson as a boxer. In February 1988 Tyson married actress Robin Givens, who was allegedly pregnant by him. Givens, with her mother supporting her, had a difference of opinion with Cayton about Tyson's contract. Jacobs died of leukaemia.

Tyson and Givens began to row- publicly. The promoter Don King, with the intention of controlling the heavyweight division, persuaded Tyson to try to ditch Cayton and align himself with King. Soon Tyson's private life became as newsworthy as his boxing. He crashed cars and was involved in skirmishes with men and women, including a former opponent.

After beating Spinks he drove into a tree in what some papers construed as a suicide attempt. He had fights with Givens who humiliated him on television, describing him as 'scary'.

The marriage lasted eight months before Givens filed for divorce.

Tyson sacked his cornerman Kevin Rooney, but won his next defence, on February 25, 1989, stopping Frank Bruno in the fifth round in Las Vegas, but was less impressive than usual. In July he looked back to normal in destroying Carl Williams in one round in Atlantic City. But he withdrew from a fight with Razor Ruddock to take on James Buster Douglas in Tokyo. The contest took place on February 11, 1990 with Douglas, the biggest outsider possible, being on offer at 42-1.

Douglas fought two weeks after the death of his mother, and with the mother of his own son seriously ill. Nevertheless he produced easily his best-ever performance.

Tyson was sluggish and under-trained and, when his initial onslaught was easily resisted by Douglas, he ran out of ideas. Douglas's hooks and uppercuts began to shake Tyson and close his eye. In the eighth Douglas staggered Tyson with a right to the mouth but, as he followed up, he was chopped with an uppercut. Douglas rose at eight, more angry than hurt, survived the round, and resumed his supremacy, culminating in a tenth - round knockout of Tyson.

The W.B.A. anti W.B.C., prompted by Don King, whose close associations with the sanctioning bodies, in particular the W.B.C., was the cause of much criticism in boxing circles in the 1980s and 1990s, 'suspended the result', on the ludicrous grounds that the referee, Octavio Meyran, had been slow in taking up the count in the eighth round, and that Douglas had received longer than ten seconds to recover. This manoeuvre was so laughed to scorn by the boxing press and public that it was unsustainable.

Tyson made a good recovery in the ring, with wins over henry Tillman, Alex Stewart and Razor Ruddock (twice) and a title challenge wits arranged with the new champion. Evander Holy field, for October, then November, 1991. However, in September, Tyson, whose cavalier treatment of' women acquaintances, and even strangers, had attracted attention before, was indicted on a rape charge. In February, 1992, he was convicted and sentenced to six years imprisonment.

Buster Douglas's reign as champion did not survive his first defence. On October 25, 1990 Evander Holyfield, the former cruiserweight champion, knocked him out in the third round in Las Vegas. Holvfield had campaigned as a heavyweight since 1988, and was still unbeaten, having accounted for former heavyweight champions Pinklon Thomas and Michael Dokes. He had scientifically increased his weight from 190 lbs to 208 lbs.

Holyfield's first defence was against another former champion, George Foreman. Foreman had retired in 1976 and his weight had ballooned to over 3001h. But in March 1987, at 2601b, he began a comeback. With his head shaven, the huge Foreman beat 24 opponents, 23 by the quick route, before tackling Holyfield on April 19, 1991 at Atlantic City. Eighteen years had passed since the 43-year-old had first ",on the title, but he put up a good show and took Holyfield the distance.

After the cancellation of his defence against Tyson, Holyfield faced a substitute in Bert Cooper on May 15, 1992 in Atlanta. Cooper was stopped in the seventh, but not before he had floored Holyfield for the first time in his career.

On June 19, 1992 Holyfield faced another comebacking ex-champ in Larry Holmes, who was in his 43rd year. Holmes was easily outpointed, but went the distance. He became the third heavyweight, after Louis and Ali, to contest the title in three separate decades.

With Riddick Bowe, Lennox Lewis and Razor Ruddock far worthier opponents than those he had faced so far, the Holyfield camp was party to an agreement in which he would face Bowe and Lewis would face Ruddock, the two winners to meet. Lewis knocked out Ruddock in the second round in London on October 31, 1992 and Bowe outpointed Holyfield on November 13, 1992 in Las Vegas.

The size and power of Bowe, who was 30 lb heavier than the champion at 235 lb to 205 lb, was too much for Holyfield, and only Holyfield's superb conditioning allowed him to remain standing and fight back. Bowe won a unanimous decision in an outstanding fight.

Having become champion, Bowe now declined to meet Lewis in his first defence and on December 14 was stripped by the W.B.C. Bowe retaliating by dropping the W.B.C. belt into a trash can. Lewis was proclaimed the W.B.C. champion.

Bowe made his first defence of the W.B.A. and I.B.F. titles on February 6, 1993 at Madison Square Garden, New York. Bowe came into the ring at 2431b, but was still a pound lighter than the flabby Michael Dokes, the 1982 W.B.A. champion, who was stopped in the first round. Lewis's first defence of the W.B.C. title was a much sterner task. He faced the 1987 I.B.F. champion Tony Tucker, whose only defeat was by Tyson on a decision. Lewis was a clear points winner on May 8, 1993 at Las Vegas.

In the 1980s the World Boxing Organisation was formed and gained minor credibility with recognition by the British Boxing Board of Control. In 1989 this body decided not to recognise Mike Tyson as world champion and granted recognition to Francesco Darniani, of Italy, when he knocked out Johnny du Plooy, of South Africa, at Syracuse on May 6, 1989. Damiani stopped Daniel Netto of Argentina in the second in December, 1989 but was knocked out in the ninth round by Ray Mercer (U.S.A.) at Atlantic City on January 11, 1991.

Mercer stopped Tommy Morrison (U.S.A.) at Atlantic City nine months later, but forfeited the title when refusing to defend against the unbeaten Michael Moorer (U.S.A.), the W.B.O. light-heavyweight champion. On May 15, 1992 Moorer won the W.B.O. heavyweight title when recovering from a knockdown to stop Bert Cooper in the fifth round in Atlantic City. However Moorer thought so little of this title that he gave it up in 1993 to challenge for the other versions of the crown.