Michael Gerard Tyson (born June 30, 1966) is an American former professional boxer who competed between 1985 and 2024. Nicknamed “Iron Mike“[4] and “Kid Dynamite” in his early career, and later known as “the Baddest Man on the Planet“,[5] Tyson is regarded as one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of all time.[6] He reigned as the undisputed world heavyweight champion from 1987 to 1990.
Tyson won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 12 of them in the first round. Claiming his first belt at 20 years, 4 months, and 22 days old, Tyson holds the record as the youngest boxer ever to win a heavyweight title.[7] He was the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the World Boxing Association (WBA), World Boxing Council (WBC), and International Boxing Federation (IBF) titles, as well as the only heavyweight to unify them in succession. The following year, Tyson became the lineal champion when he knocked out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds of the first round.[8] In 1990, Tyson lost the undisputed heavyweight championship when he was knocked out by underdog Buster Douglas, making it one of the biggest upsets in boxing history.[9]
In 1992, he was convicted of rape and sentenced to six years in prison. He was released on parole after three years.[10] After his release in 1995, he engaged in a series of comeback fights, regaining the WBA and WBC titles in 1996 to join Floyd Patterson, Muhammad Ali, Tim Witherspoon, Evander Holyfield and George Foreman as the only men in boxing history to have regained a heavyweight championship after losing it. After being stripped of the WBC title in the same year, Tyson lost the WBA title to Evander Holyfield by an eleventh round stoppage. Their 1997 rematch ended when Tyson was disqualified for biting Holyfield’s ears. In 2002, Tyson fought for the world heavyweight title, losing by knockout to Lennox Lewis. In November 2024, his bout against Jake Paul, which he lost via unanimous decision, became the biggest boxing gate in US history outside of Las Vegas.[11][12]
Tyson was known for his ferocious and intimidating boxing style as well as his controversial behavior inside and outside the ring, which he explained was inspired by Sonny Liston, a boxer who is widely regarded as the most intimidating man in the history of boxing.[13][14] With a knockout-to-win percentage of 88%,[15] he was ranked 16th on The Ring magazine’s list of 100 greatest punchers of all time,[16] and first on ESPN‘s list of “The Hardest Hitters in Heavyweight History”.[17] Sky Sports described him as “perhaps the most ferocious fighter to step into a professional ring”.[18] He has been inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame and the World Boxing Hall of Fame.
Outside his boxing career, Tyson has appeared in various popular media. He appeared in the well-received movies Rocky Balboa (2006) and The Hangover (2009)
Early life
Michael Gerard Tyson was born in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York City, on June 30, 1966.[19][20] He has an older brother named Rodney (born c. 1961)[21] and had an older sister named Denise, who died of a heart attack at age 24 in February 1990.[22] Tyson’s mother, born in Charlottesville, Virginia,[23] was described as a promiscuous woman who might have been a prostitute.[24] Tyson’s biological father is listed as “Purcell Tyson”, a “humble cab driver” (who was from Jamaica) on his birth certificate,[25][26] but the man Tyson had known as his father was a pimp named Jimmy Kirkpatrick. Kirkpatrick was from Grier Town, North Carolina (a predominantly black neighborhood that was annexed by the city of Charlotte),[27] where he was one of the neighborhood’s top baseball players. Kirkpatrick married and had a son, Tyson’s half-brother Jimmie Lee Kirkpatrick, who would help to integrate Charlotte high school football in 1965. In 1959, Jimmy Kirkpatrick left his family and moved to Brooklyn, where he met Tyson’s mother, Lorna Mae (Smith) Tyson. Kirkpatrick frequented pool halls, gambled and hung out on the streets. “My father was just a regular street guy caught up in the street world,” Tyson said. Kirkpatrick abandoned the Tyson family around the time Mike was born, leaving Tyson’s mother to care for the children on her own.[28] Kirkpatrick died in 1992.[29]
The family lived in Bedford-Stuyvesant until their financial burdens necessitated a move to Brownsville when Tyson was 10 years old.[30] Throughout his childhood, Tyson lived in and around neighborhoods with a high rate of crime. According to an interview in Details, his first fight was with a bigger youth who had pulled the head off one of Tyson’s pigeons.[31] Tyson was repeatedly caught committing petty crimes and fighting those who ridiculed his high-pitched voice and lisp. By the age of 13, he had been arrested 38 times.[32] He ended up at the Tryon School for Boys in Johnstown, New York. Tyson’s emerging boxing ability was discovered there by Bobby Stewart, a juvenile detention center counselor and former boxer. Stewart considered Tyson to be an outstanding fighter and trained him for a few months before introducing him to boxing manager and trainer Cus D’Amato.[28] Tyson dropped out of high school as a junior.[33] He was later awarded an honorary Doctorate in Humane Letters from Cen
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