A rich history awaits the fight against Jake Paul

by Junna Base November 6, 2024

Left hooks. Right hooks. Uppercuts.

Mike Tyson unleashed a barrage of punches, including a left hand punch to the body that sent Hector Merced to his knees. The referee sent Tyson to a neutral corner and then began counting.

It was March 6, 1985.

Tyson, then 18 years old, made his professional boxing debut at the Empire State Plaza Conventional Hall in Albany, NY. One minute and 47 seconds after the opening bell, with Merced on his right knee and appearing in no hurry to get up, the referee paused the bout.

Tyson won by TKO and a celebrated but turbulent career began.

Almost four decades later, Tyson is 58 years old and preparing to fight 27-year-old Jake Paul. Of the millions of viewers who want to watch the heavyweight fight on Netflix on November 15th, a portion will know most about Tyson’s knockouts. There were 44 during a career that ended with a record of 50-6.

“This is a guy with tremendous talent, but is there a problem?” said Mike Silver, a boxing historian and author of “The Arc of Boxing: The Rise and Decline of the Sweet Science.” “Yes, there is a problem.”

The problem would arise later in the ring.

Mike Tyson’s Boxing Career: How It Began

Tyson began his professional career wearing white boxing trunks with a red waistband. But even without the menacing black trunks that later characterized him, he was devastating.

He scored knockouts against his first 19 opponents, including 12 in the first round. Almost as amazing: These 19 fights took place over the course of a year, meaning Tyson fought on average once every 20 days.

The pace was part of a plan formulated by Tyson’s first trainer, Cus D’Amato. The goal: to help Tyson become the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history. The record belonged to Floyd Patterson, also trained by D’Amato, who won the heavyweight title in 1956 at 21 years, 10 months, three weeks and five days.

Of his first 19 victims, Tyson knocked down two three times each and broke at least one nose. But only five of those fighters ended their careers with record wins, allowing Tyson to prove he could beat elite boxers.

Youngest heavyweight champion

On November 22, 1986, Tyson entered the ring at the Hilton Hotel in Las Vegas at the age of 20 with a record of 27-0. His opponent was Trevor Berbick, 32, the WBC heavyweight world champion, who seemed determined to get under Tyson’s skin.

Fighters are not allowed to wear trunks of the same color, and as champion, Berbick was allowed to pick first. He chose black – the same color Tyson famously began wearing in his 20th fight. Tyson still wore his black trunks and was fined $5,000.

Then Tyson made Berbick pay.

Tyson knocked Berbick down from the start and knocked him down twice in the second round. Berbick fell twice after the second knockdown, prompting referee Mills Lane to stop the fight with 25 seconds left in the second round.

This made Tyson the youngest heavyweight champion at the age of 20 years, four months and 22 days – more than a year younger than Patterson when he defeated Archie Moore for the world heavyweight title in 1956. D’Amato’s plan had worked, but he wasn’t there to see it come to fruition.

D’Amato, Tyson’s beloved trainer, died on November 4, 1985. But the grieving student continued his rise.

Mike Tyson’s knockouts

Thirty seconds.

That’s how long it took Tyson to knock down Marvis Frazier with brutal uppercuts on July 26, 1986, prompting referee Joe Cortes to stop the fight. It remains the fastest knockout of Tyson’s career.

In general, Tyson wasted little time with his victims.

Tyson recorded 22 of his 44 knockouts in the first round. This included a knockout of Michael Spinks, who entered the fight in 1988 with a record of 31-0 and lasted just 91 seconds.

Of his knockout victims, Tyson defeated seven in the second round, four in the third round, two in the fourth round, three each in the fifth and sixth rounds, two in the seventh round and one in the tenth round. Silver, the boxing historian, said this was evidence of the emerging problem.

“If a decent fighter took him past the fourth or fifth round, he wasn’t as effective as a knockout brawler,” Silver said. “The great knockout hitters can score knockouts in the later rounds, like (Rocky) Marciano did, like Joe Louis did. The problem with Tyson is that he was frustrated.”

The frustration was palpable when he bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear during their rematch in 1997 and was disqualified. And before that, Tyson’s invincibility was shattered.

On February 11, 1990, Buster Douglas defeated Tyson in the 10th round of their fight in Tokyo – still one of the most shocking upsets in sports history.

Holyfield stopped Tyson by TKO in the 11th round of their fight in 1996. Lennox Lewis also defeated Tyson in the eighth round of their fight in 2002, as did the less-than-legendary Danny Williams in 2004.

Tyson retired in 2005 shortly after refusing to fight Kevin McBride in the seventh round.

Is Mike Tyson the best boxer of all time?

In a recent post on Tyson’s Instagram account, Tyson wore a t-shirt that read, “I’m still the best of all time.”

At his peak, Tyson was perhaps the most fearsome boxer in the history of the sport and his feats were impressive. He defended the WBC title, which he won against Berbick in 1997, nine times in a row and defended the IBF title, which he won against Tony Tucker in 1997, six times in a row. After a four-year absence from boxing while in prison following his rape conviction, Tyson won the WBC title again.

But the best thing ever? Perhaps the most feared.

“He was a tyrant with enormous power,” Silver said. “He wasn’t a fighter in the sense of an Evander Holyfield or a Marciano or even an Arturo Gotti, where you literally had to kill them to beat them.”

But Gene Kilroy, who managed Muhammad Ali, had a different opinion in a recent conversation with Tyson.

Kilroy said: “The only one who beat Mike Tyson was Mike Tyson.”

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