‘I must’ve had three or four street fights a day’
Mike Tyson has opened up about his challenging childhood that helped transform him into one of the greatest boxers of all time.
Tyson became the youngest person to become heavyweight champion of the world, a record he still maintains, in his career but he recalled how fights on the street were the catalyst for his love of boxing.
“I must’ve had three or four street fights a day,” he told ValuEntainment. “From like age nine… I was 200lbs at age 12.
“I was fighting the kid, then fighting their fathers. They were crying, went home and got their fighter. Then I would fight their father.”
His interest came at a price however as he often ended up in trouble. By the time he was 13, the Brooklyn-born champion had been arrested 38 times.
“I saw guys on the corner and I realised on the corner, nobody f***** with those guys. If they had fights, they fought on the corner among themselves, whatever- but I knew nobody outside of that crew messed with those guys on the corner. So I wanted to be a street guy, so bad,” he added.
“I was always getting beaten up and bullied and people were taking stuff from me. I didn’t feel safe at home.”
The 57-year-old recalled his first fight after he got into an altercation with a boy who had stolen one of his beloved pigeons.
” I said ‘please, give me my bird back.’,” Tyson said.
“He was an older guy, I must have been 9… he was a teenager. He took my bird’s head off and hit me with the f****** bird. And some guy who used to bully me said ‘yo man, fight him back’. I fought back. I’d never fought nobody before.
“And you know what- I can fight real good. So after that, everybody would bring other kids from different neighbourhoods to fight me for money. I’m not showing off or bragging… I was just really a good fighter.
“My whole life has been violent and I’m not a violent person. Isn’t that crazy?”
