You got to fight back, baby.
- Fight back! - (speaks indistinctly)
I know, he's a bum, champ.
Let's go get him.
Let's go get him, champ, right now.
We got to have it right now.
- And fight!
No, no, no. Fuck that shit.
- We're not gonna start here.
Listen, there's a lot of fucked-up shit we'll get to.
But right now...
I've got a show to do.
Listen, listen, listen.
So this is interesting.
So I was in prison, right?
I was on the phone talking to my car dealer, like you do,
and he's discussing how he's gonna get him some horses.
I say, "Horses? You can get horses?"
I mean, I'm from Brooklyn, you know, I didn't know.
He's like, "Yeah, man, I can get you anything.
I can get cougars, lions, tigers."
That's a picture of me and my tiger.
It's crazy.
That's how you know you're not in Brownsville anymore.
That's when I was, you know, insane.
I'm not gonna lie about anything in this show.
I'm gonna tell you guys everything.
I'm gonna be completely honest with you guys, you know.
You know, sometimes I think of myself back then.
I took all those trips to the psych ward and stuff.
What was wrong with me back then?
I was really disturbed back then.
I was a really strange kid back then.
You know, who am I?
Then I come out here.
I'm who you guys want to see.
Who am I?
I'm the most brutal, the most vicious,
ruthless champion that's ever been.
There's no one like me. There's no one can match me.
My style is impetuous. My defense is impregnable.
I'm just ferocious. I want your heart.
I want to eat your children.
Praise be to Allah!
Is that who I am?
Yes.
No.
Well, I'm just scratching the surface, man.
I'm Iron Mike.
You mess with my bro, you mess with me, ugly.
Go tell your friends.
You a worthless, weak, crybaby piece of shit,
Michael Gerard Tyson.
You always gonna be that fat fuck
- that everybody fucks with. - Why?
- Unless you fight back. - I don't want to fight.
You fight, or you die, so what you gonna do about it?
Run?
Shit, Mike. Where?
Where you gonna run to? Ain't nowhere to run.
I grew up in Brownsville, New York.
Back in 1971,
they had the highest murder rate in the country.
There was hookers and drugs and murders
on every street corner.
Now, you put a little fat fuck like me in that environment,
I get up in the morning, get my ass whupped.
I go to school, get my ass whupped.
I go home from school, and I get my ass whupped.
That's all I knew. I'm not gonna lie.
- A quarter? - Cheap-ass pussy, bro.
I had some issues.
Used to talk to myself out loud.
I was just a weird little kid.
But my mom, she took me to see some doctor.
He's retarded... your son.
So you'll need to be prepared for that.
No.
You sure?
I saw him kill any dreams she had for me
in that one moment.
I never saw her believe in me after that.
So I was a retarded fat fuck with a lisp.
So, yeah, I took a beating.
But the way I saw it,
everyone took a beating at some point.
That was my new gold tooth, motherfucker.
Mike, help me in the kitchen.
Denise, Rodney, under the quilt.
Now!
Time for bed.
I want you to stay out of the way, Mike.
Hmm?
We ain't got nowhere else to go.
But that don't mean we got to take his shit, right?
You want some soup, Eddie?
Yeah, baby.
Yeah. Thank you.
Oh, now, this move's gonna surprise you, Mike.
Mike, come here. Come here. Now, watch.
When he does this right here?
Watch this.
Now, when he gets up on that rope--
They used to beat the hell out of each other,
then have sex.
And that was normal to me.
I think they loved each other.
Probably when they weren't stabbing each other.
Before Brownsville, she lived a nicer kind of life.
She'd been a nurse and dietitian,
was in college studying to be a teacher
before she met the man who was probably my dad.
She always had terrible taste in men.
The last one took all her money,
and we were put out on the street.
Now, there are three types of poor.
There's poor, there's dirt poor...
And there's fucked-up poor.
When a Black single mom with three kids
falls into fucked-up poor, there's no way out.
And she knew it.
We lost our whole community.
It was a life sentence.
We moved from one abandoned building to another.
Every time we moved, it got worse.
Any dreams she had died.
She did things she had to do.
That shit would fuck any kid up.
I stopped going to school because of the bullying.
I was in second grade,
and that was the end of my education.
I'd show up to school with my sister and leave.
I'd show up again for lunch, and then I'd leave.
- You got any money? - No.
Anything we find, we keep.
Man, he's trying to steal our birds.
You got birds?
We got lots of birds. Shit.
Looks hungry.
I never saw birds like that up close.
Those birds, they were the only things
I loved that loved me back.
They could fly anywhere, but they'd always come back home.
I got to know each one of them.
I learned to love them.
Hey, shorty, go downstairs to the pet store
and get us some birdseed.
I had names for each one of those 30 pigeons.
The guys still picked on me.
Jesus, shorty. You a stinky motherfucker.
Don't you know how to wash yourself?
But I didn't give a shit.
I was happy...
until Gary Flowers fucked with my pigeon Georgie.
That's the day I became a fighter.
And that's the fucking truth.
Come on, man, give me my bird back.
What bird?
Please, man.
What are you gonna do about it?
What the fuck are you gonna do about it, Mike?
Tell me, why should I give him to you?
'Cause by the looks of it, he--he's mine.
- Maybe--
maybe I'll eat this fucking bird.
Yeah!
I-I bet he tastes like chicken.
Come on, what do you want?
- Here, I'm sorry.
Oh!
Everything Tyson does is intimidating.
He doesn't wear a robe. He's worked up a full sweat.
He's got a scornful look on his face that says,
"Let's get this going. Let's get it over with."
The heavyweight champion of the world
comes into the ring.
This is why we are all here.
It's Tyson all the way here in round one.
Vicious shot to the body.
Down he goes!
That was a body shot that brought him down.
Five. You good? Let's go.
Here comes Spinks again.
Down he goes!
I don't think he'll get up from this.
Spinks is laying flat on his back.
Six, seven, eight, nine.
It's all over. Mike Tyson has won it.
A dramatic first-round knockout.
And now the question is,
who in the world has any chance against this man?
That's when things started to change.
Barkim introduced me to these guys.
We'd steal anything we can get our hands on--
money, clothes, jewelry.
I chose them over family.
My mom fell into a system rigged to make us powerless.
With these guys, I had power.
I was 8. They were maybe 12.
We called ourselves the Rutland Road Crew.
We only went to school for lunch.
It didn't even have to be our school.
We were just poor Black kids no one cared about.
Hey! Give me that purse back!
By the time I was ten, this is what I knew.
Whoo! Yeah!
The badder you were, the better.
You live big and fast and hard,
'cause no one's gonna live for long.
I figured it was just a matter of time
until it was my brains on the sidewalk.
All these lying, smiley street hustlers said I was great.
Those are the people I surrounded myself with.
I felt at home there.
It's a pattern I fell back to all my life.
Mike Tyson, my brother, my brother.
Let me introduce myself, please.
I'm Don King.
Oh, if only.
Michael.
Nettie and Sal from upstairs was over here drinking,
and somebody robbed their place--
stole the money and the baby's food, everything.
Mom, look around. It wasn't me.
Don't you look me in the eye and lie to me.
I know it was you.
I was here the whole time. I didn't go anywhere.
Your brother and sister stay out of trouble.
Denise gets good grades. Rodney does science and shit.
- Rodney's a freak. - Rodney has a future.
As what? A mad scientist?
Science don't mean nothing out here.
Rodney became a surgeon.
Why you do this shit?
Walking around here with your nice clothes,
you thief?
I never stole nothing in my life.
- You'd rather beg. - Than be a fucking
low-life thief, you piece of shit.
Got to do to get through to you?
You take the money I give you fast enough,
and you never pay me back.
I never have to pay you back,
you cheap-ass motherfucker.
I gave you life.
Now you're gonna spend that life in jail.
- I don't care. - Keep not caring.
What kind of bird don't fly?
Jailbird.
You need to listen, or you gonna die.
I ain't never been arrested.
What ten-year-old says that?
It ain't nothing to brag about.
You heading down the path of a doomed child.
It's coming, Mike.
It's coming.
You don't know shit.
First time I got arrested?
Yeah, ten.
Oh, and that whole Sal and Nettie thing...
Okay, it was me.
Oh, you can never understand the action and excitement of it.
I mean, being able to outsmart somebody...
it's a rush.
Being in someone's home, and...
There's so much luxury there...
And it's yours...
it gives you power.
You're the man. You're in charge.
I started to get a reputation on the street
that I would fight anyone.
I didn't think I'd make it to 20,
so why not go out swinging?
But I was so ashamed, man.
I didn't go to school, so I couldn't read or write good.
I was just a lying piece of shit back then.
And, you know, when you hate yourself like that,
you can't love nobody.
Is it harder being called a convicted rapist,
or is it more nerve-racking for you to box?
Oh, well, it's more nerve-racking
to be talking to a rat piece of shit like you.
Oh, come on, Mike.
Nah, because you're a piece of shit.
We're on live TV here.
What do I care? You're a piece of shit.
We're gonna wrap up this interview.
Thank you for coming in.
Fuck you.
Yeah, we'll talk about that later.
Man, we out of here.
Why should I have compassion?
I didn't have a future.
(vocalizing)
I was more interested in getting revenge
on bullies from my past.
Yo, what's the matter, Mike? What'd you stop for?
Before I was born,
my mother worked as a prison matron,
so she saw Black faces behind bars firsthand.
It scared her.
She was trying to scare me too.
When I started getting arrested...
she'd come down to the police station...
And do the only thing she knew how to do.
It was a regular occurrence.
Once, she came and beat me so bad,
the police didn't even charge me.
Now, a white family would see that violence and disapprove.
I see you shaking your head. Am I right?
But, now, no.
A Black family would see a woman
who's just trying to keep her child alive.
How many times I--
She didn't know how to get through to me.
I didn't make it easy.
I think the harder she hit me, the more afraid she was.
She died before she could see any of the success I had.
She never knew.
I never got to do anything good for her.
My sister and brother never got in trouble like me.
I just wish she knew I was gonna be okay.
She tried, but she could never keep me out of prison.
Yo, you ever been to Spofford before?
My cousin said some guys held him down,
shaved him his first night there.
It's a freak show, man.
And young ones like you, well...
freaks really like 'em ripe.
Yo, Mike, what up, baby?
Yo! Barkim.
Yo, chill. All your boys is here, baby.
It's like a fucking class reunion.
Except we ain't never go to class.
After that, Spoff became a second fucking home to me.
- I was in group homes,
special ed, some facility on Staten Island.
By the time I was 13,
I was too much for all five boroughs.
So I got sent up to the Tryon Juvenile Facility upstate.
You know, I don't even think
my mom said goodbye at that point.
At Tryon, I was always in trouble and shit,
but I was like, "Fuck you, I'm from Brooklyn."
- Hey! - Hey!
Man, I almost had him,
if he hadn't fucked my teeth up.
Man, fuck you. Look what he did to my fucking ribs.
Shit, he didn't even know you were there.
Hey, what happened to you guys?
Mr. Stewart, that's what happened.
- He a guard? - Nah, man.
Guidance counselor.
He was, like, a boxing champ-- amateur champ or some shit.
I could take him.
Okay, buddy.
Fuck you.
I heard about you.
Suit up.
Whoo!
I figured the only thing standing in the way
of everyone sucking up to me was this little white guy.
I'm gonna fuck his shit up.
Come on, go!
Ooh!
- ♪ I'm a man, yeah ♪
I remember I thought I was dying...
literally dying.
But I also thought if I learned how to punch like that,
I'd be able to knock anyone out and steal everybody's shit.
- Excuse me, sir.
Could you teach me to punch like that?
No.
Sir, I'd really like to learn.
No, you wouldn't. Get out of here.
- I want to be a fighter. - Oh, yeah?
Well, so do the rest of these guys.
But none of you have the balls to work to be a fighter.
I heard about you.
You're a badass motherfucker, right?
You were sent to the hole second night you're here?
Nah, you don't want to work for anything.
I'm not teaching you shit.
I do.
Please, I'm not conning you, man.
- I need you. - Well, I don't need you.
You know, you need credits to train with me anyway.
Maybe if you straighten up your act,
stop being such an asshole, show some respect,
I'll work with you.
Until then, get the fuck out of my way.
So I started applying myself.
Eventually I made the honor roll.
Me, right?
I always thought I was the stupidest guy in the world.
Turns out, I'm smarter than stupid.
So I started training with Bobby Stewart.
Months in, turns out--
well, I guess you all know this part.
Turns out, I'm pretty good at this shit.
It was the first time I was good at something
that wasn't totally illegal.
- Come on, man, call her. -
- Call her. - All right.
I want my mom to know that I'm good at something.
Okay.
She'll believe it if a white man tells her.
All right, all right. Come on, come on.
Mike, I want to talk to you for a second, seriously.
- I didn't do anything. - No. No, I know. I know.
There's someone I want you to meet.
Cus D'Amato. He's a big-time boxing trainer.
He could take you to the next level.
Why? What did I do?
- What do you mean? - I train with you, man.
No, Mike.
Look, he trained Floyd Patterson.
He made him a champion.
He trained José Torres.
All right? Come on, trust me on this.
I'll do better. I promise.
No, Mike.
- Mike, this is a good thing. - Come on, man.
What did I do? What did I do?
No, Mike, Mike, you didn't do anything.
Look...
You're gonna be paroled soon.
I don't want you going back to Brownsville,
getting into trouble.
Mike, I'm doing this for you, not to you.
All right?
- - Hey, come on, Mike.
Come on, cheer up. This is good news.
Okay.
Cus D'Amato trained not one but two world champions.
He was a legend.
But Cus only had a small gym in Catskill, New York,
when I met him.
He'd fallen into obscurity.
Fighters thought he was old-timey.
I was his last Hail Mary...
All right, that's enough.
His golden meal ticket back.
Here's the truth.
This is the heavyweight champion of the world.
I made Floyd Patterson the youngest champion of the world.
If you listen to me,
I can make you the youngest champion of all time--
a beast, a terror, a monster.
What do you think about that?
I thought he was a pervert.
Back home, right, when people say that shit,
they're about to perv out on you.
I can't believe you're just 13 years old.
Yes, sir.
You have a natural talent, Mike.
You looked splendid.
In time,
you will be the greatest fighter that has ever lived.
Do you believe that?
I didn't know what to think about that.
I was honestly just thinking how I was gonna rob his house.
- I don't know what to say. - It's the truth.
Everyone thinks I'm finished. I'm not finished.
I've been waiting,
and I think you're the one I've been waiting for.
Now I'm glad I lived as long as I did.
So you up for it? You gonna work together?
What do you think, Mike?
Are those roses?
What?
Roses.
I never seen them in real life before...
only on television.
You okay, Mike?
Hey.
What you thinking?
I think I'm gonna be somebody.
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