Mike Tyson - I Couldn't Change the Channel

While flipping channels before the Monday night football game, I caught the Mike Tyson interview on Oprah. I don’t care if you watch boxing or not, you need to watch any interview with Mike Tyson. He has to be one of the most fascinating people of my entire lifetime. How many people can you think of, that have dominated their chosen profession so thoroughly, that people would pay just to find out how they’ll win next? The only ones I can say I’ve watched in my life are Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Roger Federer and Wayne Gretzky.

When you factor in the jail time and the Holyfield bite, he makes Mike Vick look tame. Imagine if Tiger Woods clubbed Ernie Els over the head with his nine iron during the Masters and then went to jail for dealing ecstasy. Iron Mike is in a tier of his own.

I don’t know if they had him sedated or if Tyson has finally mellowed out, but he was quite calm and incredibly candid. He even spoke his mind when it was obvious that the answers wouldn’t make him look good. You couldn’t have pried the remote from my hand with a tire iron.

When Oprah asked him about his marriage to Robin Givens, he spoke as if she locked him in the basement for weeks at a time. He seemed defeated. Despite admitting that it was a violent relationship, he spoke of it going “both ways”. This blows my mind. How could Givens be so imbedded into Tyson’s head, even 10-15 years later?

Mike admitted that he didn’t like himself much when he left prison. He talked about the sheer amount of hatred that fills a penitentiary and how it made him a more hateful person.

As Oprah brought up the Holyfield incident, it was plain to see that Tyson was embarrassed. When asked about the reason for the bite, his answer showed the competitive fire and borderline insanity that made him such a force for so many years. He talked about how mad he was that Holyfield kept head-butting him and how he just wanted to inflict some pain back. He also added that he was just frustrated with losing to so badly to Holyfield. He even admitted that he hadn’t felt any guilt, whatsoever, when he bit him. That said, it was easy to see the guilt on his face as he described his desire to apologize to Evander and make things right.

Probably the highlight of the interview, for me, was Tyson’s answer to Oprah’s question about how much he hated his opponents. He alluded to the fact that there was “no room for emotion as a professional athlete” and he agreed with her when she asked if his opponents were mere objects in his way. Even in retirement, Iron Mike had the mentality of a stone cold killer and I couldn’t help but wish he was still fighting.

If you can find a video of the interview, I would strongly recommend watching it and I’ll definitely be getting my hands on the documentary, merely titled “Tyson”.