Mike Tyson’s first experiences of in-ring fighting came in illegal New York gym fights, watched by gangsters and dealers – the first of which ended with a teenage ‘Iron Mike’ standing on his floored opponent’s chest in celebration.
The young Tyson got himself into hundreds of street brawls and was arrested multiple times as a tearaway kid. However, when he was first discovered by Bobby Stewart, who recommended him to legendary trainer Cus D’Amato, there was a real lack of boxing experience.
By the summer of 1981, Tyson was competing in licensed amateur contests at the Junior Olympics. But before then, D’Amato knew that sparring and tutoring in the gym alone wasn’t going to help Tyson catch up – he had to know what it felt like to compete in a real, competitive boxing bout.
So when Tyson was around 13 or 14, Cus began sending him and coach Teddy Atlas to take part in unlicensed ‘smokers’ – so called because the air was so thick with cigarette smoke that it made it hard to even see the opponent across the ring for you. Unsurprisingly, none of these fights were approved by any pro or amateur board, nor did they appear on any official records.
“Smokers were unsanctioned bouts, which basically meant they were lawless,” Tyson explains in his autobiography, Undisputed Truth. “There weren’t any paramedics or ambulances waiting outside. If the crowd didn’t like your performance, they didn’t boo, they just fought one another to show how it was done.”
The first of these fights for Tyson came in a ‘hellhole’ gym in the Bronx, owned by an ex-fighter D’Amato knew. Surreally, considering Tyson would soon become one of the most intimidating heavyweights of all time, he was so frightened before his first fight that he almost pulled out.
“I was so scared that I almost left,” Tyson later reflected. “Even after all the sparring, I was still totally intimidated with fighting somebody in the ring.”
The problem Tyson faced is that all his street fights had come with provocation and beef involved. Now he was going into the ring ice-cold against someone he’d never met. In fact, it turned out to be a hefty Puerto Rican who at around 18 years old was significantly older than Tyson in his early teens.
After collecting himself and stepping into the ring for the first time in a competitive match-up, Tyson recalled: “We fought hard for two rounds, but then in the third round I knocked him into the bottom rope and followed with another shot that literally knocked his mouthpiece six rows back into the crowd. He was out cold.”
However, the punishment and humiliation did not end there for Tyson’s beaten opponent. “I didn’t know how to celebrate, so I stepped on him,” said the ecstatic victor. “I raised my arms in the air and stepped on the prone motherf****r.”
Naturally this did not go down well with the referee, as even unlicensed boxing contests have some limits. The ref admonished Tyson: “Get the hell off him! What the f*** are you doing stepping on this guy?”
However, the young teen had at least pleased the one person he most wanted to impress. Atlas was able to phone D’Amato and tell him the good news that his heavyweight protege had won by stoppage.
Cus knew that the raw novice required much more in-ring seasoning however – not least on how to celebrate a victory without standing on an opponent’s chest – and the smokers kept coming, alongside Tyson’s official amateur bouts.
The famously hot-headed Atlas and the budding teenage demolitions expert drove all across the northeastern US, competing in unsanctioned bouts in front of local crowds betting on the action in front of them.
Tyson was always short but he was remarkably muscular and powerful even at a young age, so the pair would lie about how old he was in order to make a competitive fight against an older opponent. “There weren’t many 200lb 14-year-olds around,” Tyson reasoned.
The Brooklinite’s official amateur career was more of a mixed bag. His seek-and-destroy style – honed by D’Amato in the gym and under Atlas’s eye in the unlicensed bouts – was always better suited to the professional ranks.
Tyson did win two Junior Olympic gold medals, a New York Golden Gloves title and once scored a barely believable eight-second KO along the way. However he was outpointed twice by Henry Tillman (who he’d crush in one round when they met as professionals) and was immensely frustrated at failing to qualify for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Yet Tyson made his pro debut a year later aged 18, then became the youngest ever heavyweight world champion by 20. At age 21, he became the division’s lineal and undisputed ruler when he annihilated Michael Spinks in 91 seconds in 1988.
As Tyson recalls, however, his devastating transition to professional boxing would not have gone anywhere near as smoothly if he hadn’t been dropped into the shark tank of those unauthorised gym wars, where he honed his style and built his confidence against taller, older foes.
“Those smokers meant so much to me, a lot more to me than the rest of the kids,” he said after his career had ended. “The way I looked at it, I was born in hell and every time I won a fight, that was one step out of it.
“If I hadn’t had those smokers, I probably would have died in the sewers.”
This introduction to boxing is a far cry from the relative glamour his next opponent, Jake Paul, has enjoyed.
Facing Tyson in the ring in the plush AT&T Stadium is a coup. “F*** yeah I’m nervous for my son – he’s fighting the baddest man on the planet,” Greg Paul told the Impaulsive podcast.
It’s harder to move around and be as nimble as you get older, especially when your opponent is 31 years younger, but many experts are still backing the former champion to win.
Lennox Lewis said: “I was thinking that Jake Paul was going to be in trouble, because Mike Tyson knows how to throw great body punches, great head shots. We just have to see if he’s going to do them in the ring – I’m hoping that he’ll do that.”
Paul has won 10 out of his 11 previous fights, with his only loss coming in a split-decision defeat against Tommy Fury.
Tyson, though, represents the 27-year-old’s biggest test even if he hasn’t fought professionally since 2005 barring the exhibition against Roy Jones Jr in 2020.
As Iron Mike once said: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.”
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