Rolling with the punches

The response is instant.

It is almost as if he has been asking himself the same thing for years. The question has barely been delivered before he fires back with his unequivocal reply. “No. Absolutely none,” Mike Tyson says, his dark eyes unflinching. “If I had any regrets I wouldn’t have the purity of happiness I have now.”

Pound for pound, it is fair to say boxing throws up more reformed characters than any other sport. But the transformation of Iron Mike, the self-proclaimed Baddest Man on the Planet, is arguably the most remarkable since The Marquess of Queensbury publicly endorsed the rules little short of 150 years ago.

“What I know now is that if you’re not humble in this world, this world will thrust humbleness upon you,” he continues. “That is what I know now.

“I looked down on people my whole life but now I’ve realised you become what you always mock. I wasn’t ready to learn that back then, I just wasn’t ready. I’m ready now.”

Mike Tyson is barely recognisable now to the almost mythical figure he cut back in the 80’s. He was a New York hoodlum, fresh out of jail, whose adolescent fury had been harnessed to world-beating effect. There was a hint of comic-book baddie about him too: a short, squat chunk of rage with a high-pitched voice and lisp. A teenager who admitted he was most happy among the homing pigeons he kept.

That well-worn anecdote that his first real fight had started when a boy, one of those who had regularly bullied him, climbed the ladder to the cage and broke a bird’s neck in front of him. It was his first glimpse of the violence which would ultimately engulf his life, in one way or another, for the next 30 years.

He was only 12 when he bought his first gun as the archetypal life of crime began to unfurl before him. That was before he found boxing at the Tryon School for Boys in Johnstown, New York. The sport turned him into one of the biggest icons on the planet — and the youngest world heavyweight champion in history.

But Kid Dynamite, another of his early monikers, was as explosive outside the ring as he was in. And, in February 1992, at the height of his powers, he was convicted of raping Desiree Washington and served three years in an Indiana prison.

In his own words, few of his childhood friends are ‘functioning adults’ now, and despite his personal success, Tyson, thought this tendency to self-destruct, would mean he’d eventually end up like his peers from Brownsville, Brooklyn.

“Anything that I got from going to prison and having fights, if there was a lack of that, my life would be miserable because I’m happy now,” he said. “But I never thought I’d make it to this age.

“I knew I’d be the champion of the world and all of that other stuff — but old age? Nope. Ok it’s not really old age yet but I have realised I’m older and I think differently to how I did when I was younger. Life is not just about me. I’m just small in the grand scheme of my life. My children are big and I’ve got to watch the kids now. It’s not like ‘hey, get my maid’ now... I’ve just got to watch the kids until my wife comes back.”

As he speaks, it’s difficult to picture Tyson back in his prime, in his trademark uniform of black shorts and black boots, which was in stark contract to the garish satin preferred by his rivals. The only colour he included back then was the blurring red of his gloves.

Today, aged 46, he wears a pair of ill-fitting jeans and a grey, double-breasted duffel coat done up to the top, slightly exposing the scar on his neck sustained from recent surgery. He looks almost normal, the Maori tattoo across his face notwithstanding.

He’s a family man now, at ease with life outside of the ring. He has even turned to acting, with a highly successful one-man show directed by Spike Lee delighting Broadway crowds. He is in London for yet another venture, publicising his very own clothing range, featuring that Maori tattoo, which is on sale at Lillywhites sports shop in Piccadilly Circus.

But it was no easy task to fill the gaping void left by boxing, the thing that turned his life around, that arguably kept him alive. “This is a hard high to get, it’s hard to replace this stuff,” Tyson explains. “Drugs are not going to do it, but you don’t think that until you find out for yourself.

“This high, this adrenaline, even if you’re on the losing end you can’t replace it. You have to come to grips with yourself and be truthful to yourself. Let’s start something else, let’s start becoming a better person. Let’s work on that.

“Let’s start on becoming a better family man, it sounds so cliché and full of shit but this is the way I’ve done it.”

One man who is not yet ready to turn his back on boxing is Ricky Hatton. The Hitman is set to return on November 24, bringing an end to his three-year hiatus from the ring, after admitting his devastating, two-round knock-out defeat by Manny Pacquaio left him feeling suicidal. It’s no surprise he gets an understanding nod from Tyson, who flashes an infectious grin on hearing about the comeback. But he warned Hatton he may be looking in the wrong place for his redemption.

“Well, listen,” Tyson explains. “Only he can know when it’s time to retire. Some people will be like ‘Retire? Retire? What are you thinking? Are you crazy?’ And the next thing you know, he hits the champ on the chin and he’s champion again. So what do we know? They have to find that out.

“We saw him get knocked out by Pacquaio but this is boxing, this is the hurt game. To have a defeat like that, but not be discouraged and come back — that’s what boxing is about. Boxing is a metaphor for life. I’m not saying I wasn’t a good champion but what I was doing, knocking people out in one or two rounds, that’s not fighting. That’s sensationalism. Fighting is about how much you can endure, how much you can take in life before you throw in the towel. That’s what Ricky is doing, he still has more in the system.

“This is what I realised in my life. I thought that way at one time. I was trying to get some kind of redemption. But there won’t be any kind of redemption in the ring, it’s about forgiving yourself. In my life, getting redemption was more about fighting myself than fighting an opponent.”

Tyson himself is a veteran of ring comebacks, with varying levels of success. He added: “It’s really difficult. You have to be consistent; this is a sport where you have to be consistent.

“My advice for him would be just take it very easy. You don’t have to go in over your head to prove that you’re the tough guy. He has to go in there, take easy fights, get the confidence back up, get comfortable with being back in the ring.

“It’s all about having your pride and ego in check and these are the proper procedures we have to do to reach the destination that we claim to want. You have to take small steps. It’s like anything in life.”

He points at the dictaphone lying on the table in front of him, recording his every word. “Even if you’re a writer,” he went on. “You want to become a great writer but you have to start small, you can’t jump into the main scene. You start small and if you’re scared everyone will be right at you. He must start small too.”

It is only in the past year that talk of a Tyson comeback completely subsided, so strong is the widespread craving for a heavyweight with his box-office allure. That the most famous of his old foes, Evander Holyfield, only officially retired last week is testament to the lack of sparkle among boxing’s biggest guns.

Many lay the blame squarely with the Klitschko brothers, Vitali and Wladimir, who have monopolised the division. You have to go back to April 2004 for the last time one of them lost and they currently hold all the titles between them.

They are often criticised for their mechanical styles, but Tyson argues: “I think the Klitschkos are very exciting, they’re fighting very often as well. They don’t do well probably in England or in America but when they go over to the Balkans or Germany they sell out and do very well.

“The division is probably not as exciting as people are used to. They’re used to it being exciting, they’re used to a lot of drama. It was almost like a soap opera when we were fighting. Now it’s very calm, it’s very serene because the champions are that way. The Klitschkos are great fighters and you can’t take that away from them. You can’t blame them.

“We all need a new look on everything. This is the same way people talked [in the 1920s] when Gene Tunney was the champion, believe it or not. We’re just used to rambunctious fights, we want action, we want passion but they’re very sophisticated fighters. They’re stand-up boxers and it’s just what the people are getting used to now, you know?”

It is precisely their dominance inside the ring which has led to the claims that they are boring. Their upright, orthodox style is not always easy on the eye either. It is in huge contrast to Tyson, who would have stood a whole 10 inches shorter than Vitali, the taller of the brothers, had they ever met in the ring.

But it was often like that for Tyson, whose trademark was to start low, before delivering his devastating combination to the body, which whipped from side to side like a bull terrier shaking a pigeon to death. He could also administer one-punch knockouts to the head with either hand.

So would he have walked through the Ukrainian brothers had they met during Tyson’s prime? “They would be tough for anybody to fight,” he replied without a second’s hesitation. “I know people hate to believe it but these guys would be tough for anybody.

“We don’t want to believe it because sometimes we get stuck on apple pie. We like Chuck Berry, Elvis and the Supremes but that’s not how it works. People get better, we are supposed to get better. From the 80s to now, we get better.

“There is more technology, more people, more money. We become better so the Klitschkos would have been difficult for anybody that have come before them. Ask Lennox Lewis — he’ll tell you that Vitali is hard to beat. The Klitschkos have changed the face of boxing and deserve respect.

“They inspire people, they’ve inspired American kids to conduct themselves in that way. It’s just what you are able to do when you’re the champion. You can touch people from all walks of life, white, black, Ukrainian, Russian. You have the power to do that. Whether you want to or not, people talk about you and know who you are. That’s just what the belt does.”

It’s easy to forget that before Tyson swept into boxing, the heavyweight division had fallen into a similar lull as a string of mediocre champions swapped the belts for the best part of a decade. Instead, boxing’s gaze had turned more toward the middleweight division, where the ‘Four Kings’, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard, continued to thrill.

But the emphasis was back on the heavyweights almost as quickly as it took Tyson to knock out Trevor Berbick to win his first world title, which was five and a half minutes to be precise.

It has been suggested that Tyson might just be the last great American heavyweight, with the nation’s big, strong, athletes preferring the less lethal pursuits of American football or basketball. But Iron Mike thinks a similarly swift turnaround in the division’s fortunes could occur at anytime.

“Yes the heavyweight division is minus a guy who can give fans what they want — blood, knockouts, stretchers and guys going to hospital,” he said. “But we’ll find a guy that’s exciting like that, it never stays dull like this for long. This has probably been the longest period but we’ll always find somebody that they’re going to like, who’ll be exciting.”

America’s two leading heavyweights, Deontay Wilder and Seth Mitchell, are the closest thing the country has to a new superstar in the division, and the pair remain unbeaten. But Tyson said, flatly: “They can’t beat the Klitschkos, that’s all you need to know right now.

“Can they beat the champion right now? That’s all I’m after. The Klitschkos are the only people that matter. If anybody else wants to matter, they’ve got to beat the people that matter.”

Tyson is slightly more optimistic on David Haye, who lost his WBA title in his one and only shot at a Klitschko, when Wladimir, the younger of the two, beat him on a unanimous points decision in 2011.

“I know David Haye, he’s a very good fighter,” Tyson said. “He impressed me during the Klitschko fight. I thought Klitschko was going to beat him really easily but he put up a really good fight. I was impressed with that and I had more respect for David Haye as time went on — and watched as he progressed to a mature fighter. I think if he keeps fighting and getting more experienced I think, yeah, he can be the champion again.

“Fighting is a tough business. More than being good and talented, you have to be a hard man to be in this business. They last longer than the talented ones. As time goes on that’s just what is going to happen, the guys who want it the most, who are most determined, are the ones who succeed.”

It’s funny to think that Tyson’s stay at the top was fleeting, in comparison to other heavyweight greats, including the Klitschkos. Sometimes his reign is criticised because of the standard of opponents he faced, particularly in his early career. He features on none of the numerous all-time great lists and some do not even place him among the top 10 heavyweights in history. But few have electrified a sport, through good and bad means, like Tyson did. He is still a draw whether on stage or flogging sportswear. The reason, for Tyson, is obvious. “It’s confidence,” he says. “Confidence breeds success and success breeds confidence.

“You could take a guy who has all the qualities of success, he’s good looking, has great sexual organs, brains, everything. But if you take away his confidence and put him out in the world he’s nothing.

“That’s just how it is.”