Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson

by Mark Kriegel

"Remarkable . . . Do not think of this as a boxing book, but boxing does make a colorful and primal backdrop for a uniquely American book, filled with enough mentors and monsters to do any Dickens novel justice.” —Chicago Tribune

From the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author whose coverage of Mike Tyson and his inner circle dates back to the 1980s, a magnificent noir epic about fame, race, greed, criminality, trauma, and the creation of the most feared and mesmerizing fighter in boxing history.

On an evening that defined the "greed is good" 1980s, Donald Trump hosted a raft of celebrities and high rollers in a carnival town on the Jersey Shore to bask in the glow created by a twenty-one-year-old heavyweight champion. Mike Tyson knocked out Michael Spinks that night and in ninety-one frenzied seconds earned more than the annual payrolls of the Los Angeles Lakers' and Boston Celtics' players combined.

It had been just eight years since Tyson, a feral child from a dystopian Brooklyn neighborhood, was delivered to boxing’s forgotten wizard, Cus D’Amato, who was living a self-imposed exile in upstate New York. Together, Cus and the Kid were an irresistible story of mutual redemption—darlings to the novelists, screenwriters, and newspapermen long charmed by D’Amato, and perfect for the nascent industry of cable television. Way before anyone heard of Tony Soprano, Mike Tyson was HBO’s leading man.

It was the greatest sales job in the sport’s history, and the most lucrative. But the business of Tyson concealed truths that were darker and more nuanced than the script would allow.

The intervening decades have seen Tyson villainized, lionized, and fetishized—but never, until now, fully humanized. Mark Kriegel, an acclaimed biographer regarded as “the finest boxing writer in America,” was a young cityside reporter at the New York Daily News when he was first swept up in the Tyson media hurricane, but here he measures his subject not by whom he knocked out but by what he survived. Though Tyson was billed as a modern-day Jack Dempsey, in truth he was closer to Sonny Tyson was Black, feared, and born to die young. What made Liston a pariah, though, would make Tyson—in a way his own handlers could never understand—a touchstone for a generation raised on a soundtrack of hip hop and gunfire.

What Peter Guralnick did for Elvis in Last Train to Memphis and James Kaplan for Sinatra in Frank, Kriegel does for Tyson. It’s not just the dizzying ascent that he captures but also Tyson’s place in the American psyche.

Genres: Sports, Biography, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Biography Memoir, History, New York

Audible Audio

Published June 3, 2025

Reviews

[Left Coast Justin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The swath of my GR friends who are interested in this book is bound to be narrow. I would like to point out, though, that while Iron Mike certainly appears in these pages, the book is less about him than an attempt to place him in the context of the sleazy business of sports celebrities, and before that, the world of the poor in Brooklyn, New York. The longed-for karma does not occur – the nasty people surrounding Tyson in his heyday, not excluding Donald Trump, continued to reap rewards far in excess of their contribution, while the people doing the early-morning workouts and getting their faces pounded to pudding were continuously screwed out of their earnings.

Kriegel was an excellent man to take on this assignment. He’s been a sportswriter covering boxing for 30 years and knows the sport inside and out, and also knows how to write to his audience. Trevor Berwick, in the second round of a heavyweight championship fight

survived until, with forty-five seconds remaining in the round, Tyson began his signature combination, sinking a right hand behind Berwick’s left elbow into the kidney. The uppercut missed this time. But the third punch, an impossibly short hook to the temple, did not.

Berwick seemed to wait a moment before toppling backward.

He tried to raise himself immediately again, but found himself tumbling into the ropes on the other side of the ring. He bounced off the bottom rope, which sent him reeling back, cartoon-like, to the spot where he had first fallen. He dropped again. And rose again, a moment that seemed to call for animated tweeting birds.

Tyson’s prize money for beating Michael Spinks was greater than “the combined payrolls of the two highest-salary NBA teams that year.” He became world champion at age 20, and women, to put this delicately, responded warmly to his success. I don’t think many people would want to swap lives with him, though.

John Barthes’ Giles Goat-Boy, a big hit among 1960’s intellectuals, featured a black athlete brought to campus to help the school earn money. This athlete spent the rest of the book beating the shit out of anyone who crossed his path, violating women at will and, due to his status, being immune from the normal rules. For many people, Tyson embodies this Big Scary Black Guy. The truth is more nuanced and definitely more complicated.

Kriegel’s book will be considered a classic, I believe.

[Philip Girvan · Rating 4 out of 5]

One questions the need of yet another book about Mike Tyson. Nonetheless this expertly researched origin story illuminates and horrifies.

The author explicitly describes the brutality of the projects, the devastating force of a Mike Tyson hook, the dreams of dying men, the hype machine, the corrupting influence of money, and the abundance of large personalities that enter the orbit of the young heavyweight champion.

One comes away with an appreciation of Tyson’s mettle and resilience. It’s a helluva read

[Allyson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mix of reading and listening. This book was incredibly well researched and I learned a lot. I’m not a big boxing guy but Mike Tyson is bigger than that, so I enjoyed reading about him.

[Kaleb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! There’s so many thoughts going through my mind as I’m typing this out. This book makes me very angry knowing more about these fighting sports such as boxing and MMA. My overall summary of this book is that this dude wanted nothing more than people such as parental figures who could give him that unconditional love that all of us want. INSTEAD, this dude from around 13 years old on got people who seen the potential for his future successes/fame and did whatever they could to get a cut of what Mike was bringing to the table. The majority of the people in this book are despicable to me. I’m struggling trying to figure out who from this story that I actually like. Mike Tyson, very problematic in his own right. The fact that he’s still alive to me is insane. The sports ball originally drew me into this story and I enjoyed the hell out of the boxing highlights. This is best read with the YouTube Time Machine ready to go, with his highlights and interviews able to be relived at a moment’s notice. Filled with stories from many different people that made me say, what the fuck... I liked this book a lot and I would be interested in a second part of the Mike Tyson life story as this book ends with him fighting Michael Spinks. GREAT BOOK!

[Agris Fakingsons · Rating 4 out of 5]

..Taisons ir viens tāds vecis, no kura 90-tajos nevarēja nebaidīties. arī grāmatā ir par viņa varenību, bet arī to sirsnīgo cilvēku aiz visa tā.

[Steve McFarland · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book that is about so much more than Tyson, Don King was a real gangster that's interesting and so is how HBO used Tyson to build their cable network that man should own a percentage or two.

This book made me go back to watching boxing matches in the way I used to with my grandfather.

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mike Tyson is probably the most talked about boxer in the history of the sport aside from Muhammad Ali. His life has taken so many twists and turns. Despite all that has been already said and written about him, this book by bestselling author Mark Kriegel is excellent in not only its portrayal of Tyson, but also in its ability to make even those readers who think they can’t read anything new about him will find something they didn’t before.


While the book is about his life from his childhood in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn to his 91-second knockout of Michael Spinks in 1988 to unify the heavyweight championship of boxing, the prologue will grab a reader right away. Kriegel writes about Tyson, the father who is watching his daughter at a tennis match. From just this passage, it will be clear to readers that this will not be a typical sports biography.


From there, Kriegel takes the reader on a journey that will not only reveal much about Tyson, but also provide in-depth looks at a variety of topics: poverty, crime, gang activity, the media’s love of celebrity issues, the crookedness of the boxing business and its characters, the greed of the 1980’s and so much more. None of these topics will be new to anyone, but the depth to which Kriegel writes about these topics, especially the business side of the sport, is excellent. It should be noted that Kriegel was a long time boxing writer for the New York Daily News, so his knowledge of this side of the sport is well-grounded.


While the fights Tyson had in the ring as an amateur, his failed attempt at making the 1984 U.S. Olympic team, and those as a professional are well covered (including the famous bout with Spinks), the work on Tyson’s life outside the ring is what makes this book so good. Kriegel writes about the myths on Tyson, especially in his days in Brownsville and those when he was taken in and mentored by Cus D’Amoto. Also noteworthy is Kriegel’s accounts of Tyson’s marriage to actress Robin Givens, his relationship with her mother Ruth Roper , his lack of business acumen when dealing with Jim Jacobs, Bill Clayton and especially Don King. If one remembers this time as a tangled, salacious time for what Tyson was doing, the reader will find out even more twists as Kriegel navigates then through all of the lies, deception, stories and craziness.


But one conclusion that one will make, no matter their view on Tyson as a person, is that it’s very clear that he was a person who lacked the love and support he wanted and would accept it from whomever would provide it. Nearly every person mentioned in the previous paragraph was doing that in some way and Tyson was always seeking it, no matter what it would do to him later.


Since this book only covers Tyson’s life up to that June 1988 night in Atlantic City and the anticipation that accompanied it, I am hoping Kriegel writes a sequel covering some of the other events that made Tyson such a compelling character. This book is highly recommended for any reader who wants to read about any aspect of Mike Tyson’s first 22 or so years of life.

https://sportsbookguy.blogspot.com/20...

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a book this was.

Kriegel has accomplished so much here. Not only did he humanize a monster, he penned a part biography/part cultural history book and one of the most compelling and scandalizing sports books I've ever read. The corruption and criminality involved in boxing is jaw-dropping.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great bio, doesn’t try to be comprehensive of Tyson’s entire life, sticks to its angle and is successful because of this.

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Kriegel sticks to telling Tyson's story, this is an excellent biography. Kriegel has a knack for explaining the intricacies of the fight game--for example describing the mechanics of a Tyson left hook and why it was so devastating. He does a great job describing Tyson's early fights, short as many of them were. Also done well is detailing the less-than-savory elements at play as people Tyson trusted seemed more concerned with cashing in than with Tyson's actual well-being, including Mike's vaunted surrogate dad Cus D'Amato.

As solid as the portion dedicated to Tyson is, this book isn't the "masterpiece" Wright Thompson claims in the praise printed on the dust jacket. On top of the Tyson story, Kriegel also makes this book his ode to New York, newspapers, and old newspapermen. To honor this legacy, he tries to show off his literary chops. This results in allegories, long-winded back stories, and Kriegel inserting himself into the story. Some of it was insightful, but large parts of this homage were dreadfully boring. A couple portions were laughably inaccurate. A boxing journalist writes that Joe Frazier's title defense against George Foreman took place in 1972? Also, there was not a presidential election in 1985.

With a sharper focus, this book could have been excellent. Instead, it's just good.

[James Koenig · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book captured my interest from start to finish. I’ve read Tyson’s autobiography, so I did not learn that much more about him, but the author provided more details about the inner workings of Tyson’s various trainers, handlers and managers. There’s some interesting stories about the calculating Ruth Roper and her daughter, Robin Givens, and how they may have planned to get at Tyson’s wealth through marriage. Don King comes off as the vile villain he is, as he deftly moves in to steal Tyson from his manager, Bill Cayton.

The first portion of the book details Mike Tyson’s upbringing as a feral child in Brooklyn. The second portion deals with Cus D’Amato adopting Tyson and his race against time to make him the heavyweight champion. The final part of the book begins after Cus’s death, Tyson winning all three title belts, and ends after Tyson demolishes Michael Spinks in what was then the biggest boxing event of 1980’s.

Since the book ends with Tyson’s one round victory over Spinks, I have to believe the author will pen volume two if this book sells well. And I’ll probably buy it and read it because I enjoy well-written boxing bios.

James Koenig.

[CHAD HADEN · Rating 5 out of 5]

an excellent read on a problematic person, I can't wait for the next volume

[Umar Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Kriegel didn't wanna write this book, and I didn't think I needed to read anything more about Mike Tyson. I'm glad Kriegel changed his mind, and I gave the book a read. This is a holistic look at Tyson's family, early life, and beginning of his professional boxing career. Is this the beginning of a Tyson trilogy?

[Jared · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Fear is a part of life,” D’Amato began. “You just have to learn how to deal with it. If you weren’t scared, you’d walk straight into traffic. Why do you think a deer jumps twenty feet when he hears a gunshot? Fear. What you have to realize is the other guy is as scared as you. It’s the fighter who goes out there and handles it the best who wins.”

WHAT’S THIS BOOK ABOUT?
- From the acclaimed New York Times bestselling author whose coverage of Mike Tyson and his inner circle dates back to the 1980s, a magnificent noir epic about fame, race, greed, criminality, trauma, and the creation of the most feared and mesmerizing fighter in boxing history.

- (Covers Tyson’s life from the beginning until fight with Spinks in 1988)

BOOK TITLE
- On South Street, in Lower Manhattan, the presses begin to roll with a fresh proclamation, the new emperor’s title, an edition of the New York Post declaring Tyson “the baddest man on the planet.”

MOST FIGHTERS END UP RUINED
- Glory is a long shot in any boxing story. I cover fighters, and all but the rarest of them feel as though they were born to be destroyed. They tend to get used up—physically, neurologically, financially, and spiritually. I don’t know if it’s because they’re typically born into violence or because their craft itself is violence, albeit an artful form. Whatever the case, fighters who end up ruined seem the rule, not the exception.

TYSON’S HEROES
- Among Tyson’s selections was a Kindle book, Alexander the Great: The Macedonian Who Conquered the World. “Everyone thinks Alexander was this giant, but he was really a runt,” wrote Tyson,

- “Alexander, Napoleon, Genghis Khan, even a cold pimp like Iceberg Slim—they were all mama’s boys,” wrote Tyson. “That’s why Alexander kept pushing forward. He didn’t want to have to go home and be dominated by his mother.”

- They have but one trait in common: an authentic belief in the self or, if you want to get Macedonian about it, one’s destiny.

TYSON AND HIS MOTHER
- “My mother would do whatever she had to do to keep a roof over our heads,” recalled Tyson. “That often meant sleeping with someone that she didn’t really care for…. This is what I hate about myself, what I learned from my mother—there was nothing you wouldn’t do to survive.”

- “Mike had no family,” says Lloyd. “Mike’s family was the street.”

- But the worst of the beatings, at least in his telling, were from his own mother…To this day I glance at the corners of any room I’m in and I have to look away because it reminds me of all the beatings my mother gave me.”

TYSON EXPOSED TO TRAUMA EARLY IN LIFE
- For Mike, it all became part of the same nocturnal soundtrack: “I knew what it was like to hear people scream in the middle of the night, getting mugged. I saw people get shot. I heard my mother get fucked a lot. So I knew about the world.”

- Tyson stated more clearly, “I was molested as a child” and allowed that the experience was a seminal source of his rage. As for his attacker, he never saw him before or since. No idea who he was or where he came from.

HE TURNED TRAUMA INTO SOMETHING USEFUL
- One didn’t become the Baddest Man on the Planet despite being traumatized but because of it. “I always imagined that the people I was fighting were the people who had bullied me when I was younger,” he said.

LACK OF ABILITY TO TRUST OTHERS
- He has made himself clear. You could never really trust anyone. “Right,” says Kato. “Listen to me: From your women to your brothers to your cousins. Everything and everyone.” They were all capable of fucking you.

SOLACE THROUGH PIGEONS
- There was a box of captive pigeons on the roof. The thugs were building a coop, and Mike had just been drafted into servitude as their lackey: cleaning pigeon shit, finding errant birds on adjacent roofs, and going to the store for feed. He loved it. He loved the pigeons.

- “On the roof, none of my insecurities mattered,” Tyson would write. “As I watched the birds soar above me, in that moment I was free just like them…. I didn’t have to worry about the other kids trying to bully me or make fun of me.” The birds, he went on, “were totally dependent on me for food and shelter, and I felt honored to be needed.”

REPUTATION
- Fear went toward your reputation, and reputation—more than gold chains, Cortefiel coats, sheepskin jackets, and Pumas, even cash money—was the most precious commodity on the street.

- In time, guys—many of them grown men—would come from other neighborhoods to fight him for money.

CRIME
- Then there’s Dirty Mike’s crew. They do it all. They pick pockets. They rob. They stick up. Everything.”

TYSON GETS DISCOVERED
- “He told me a million times he got sent there on purpose. He wanted to fight, to train. He asked the staff at Briarwood, ‘How do I get to Elmwood?’ They said, ‘Just keep acting like an idiot.’ So supposedly, the next day he started some trouble and assaulted a kid.”

- “He’s fine,” the counselors reported. “Everything’s ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, sir.’ Says all he wants to do is talk to Mr. Stewart.”

SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED SOMEONE WHO BELIEVES IN YOU
- “I see the heavyweight champion of the world,” said Cus. “He’ll be the youngest heavyweight champion of all time.”

FEAR
- “Nothing is as bad as your imagination will have you believe. Not even death.”

- “The more pleasures you get out of living, the more fear you have of dying.”

- “We discuss my favorite subject, fear,” D’Amato told Sports Illustrated. “Jimmy is one of the few people who have a good grasp of fear. Like me, he feels that fear is necessary for the success of an athlete.”

TURNING FEAR INTO SOMETHING USEFUL
- For all the wise talk about how a fighter should deal with his fear, this fourteen-year-old boy was internalizing another lesson: how to project his fear, how to use it as a weapon. “As my career progressed,” Tyson would recall, “and people started praising me for being a savage, I knew that being called an animal was the highest praise I could receive.”

A FIGHTER AND HUMILIATION
- It’s not a beating that the fighter fears. It’s humiliation. It’s shame.

- “I think that within me, within every human being, there is a certain weakness. It is a weakness that exposes itself more when you’re alone. And I have figured out that part of the reason I do the things I do, and cannot seem to conquer that one word—myself—is because…is because…I am a coward.” Pause. “I am a coward.” Patterson’s acknowledgment affirms again that what fighters fear most is not pain but humiliation.

- Like Patterson, Tyson has called himself a coward many times…They’re opposites, even in the nature of their self-loathing. Patterson’s was directed inward, but Tyson, per D’Amato’s tutelage, would unleash his onto the world…There’s another way of looking at it, though: At long last, D’Amato had his Sonny Liston.

TYSON GETS A HOME
- On September 2, 1980, Tyson was released from Tryon to a supervised parole under D’Amato’s care.

- As he told Camille, “This is the one I’ve been waiting for all my life.”

ENVISION THE FUTURE YOU DESIRE
- Before long, D’Amato had adapted Coué’s central affirmation as a mantra for his would-be prodigy. “The best fighter,” Tyson would repeat to himself. “Nobody in the world could beat me.”

TYSON WAS SCARED BUT DECIDED TO TRAIN
- “I sat on the steps leading up to the elevated line and thought that maybe I should hop on that car, get out at Rockaway Avenue, and walk three blocks to my mom’s house,” he writes in Iron Ambition. “I was scared of getting beat up, I was scared of letting people down, but it all came down to the fact that I didn’t want to be humiliated.”

- “It was a watershed moment for him, a real defining moment,” Atlas concludes. “Because if he had quit then, he might never have become Mike Tyson.”

DOUBT
- “The theory is to help the mind work to its greatest potential,” she says. “Self-doubt is a large part of what defeats you. You have to do everything you can to erase it. You have to learn to work on a different plane mentally.”

- “That’s why you erase all doubt,” she says. “You can’t let that be. It’s like getting knocked out; think of it as a road. But it’s a road that’s not open to you. It’s a road you cannot go down. Your mind cannot know it even exists as an option.”

INSECURITY
- “The most insecure young man I’ve ever met,” said Halpin, echoing Bobby Stewart’s first impression.

- Tyson, on the other hand, for all his diligence…was pathologically insecure. D’Amato knew that full well, yet he persisted with the desperate elation of a mad scientist, trying to create something that was all but impossible. He was trying to create a fighter who didn’t fear.

TYSON FELT THAT PEOPLE WOULD LOVE HIM AS LONG AS HE WON
- But Tyson isn’t playing. The truth has dawned on him, an epiphany, like Aquinas divining faith from reason. I’m Mike Tyson. Everybody loves me. As long as you win, sure. As long as you give the people a place to consign their fear. Like a circus. Or a zoo. Or a jail. Give people a safe space to ooh and aah. Just don’t lose. He might as well have said, If I don’t win, nobody will love me. That’s why he was weeping. It was the truth.

TYSON’S MOM DIED AND HIS TRAINER, D’AMATO, BECOMES HIS FATHER
- After decades of hard drinking, Lorna Mae died of cancer the first semester of Tyson’s freshman year and was buried in a plot she had purchased in Linden, New Jersey.

- Tyson welcomed the new arrangement and asked if he could call Camille his mother.

- D’Amato created a world in which Tyson never seemed to hear the word no.

TYSON THINKS SONNY LISTON WAS THE BEST FIGHTER
- Of all the fighters, or ghosts of fighters past, it was Liston, even more than Dempsey, who ramped up Tyson’s senses.

- “But I do fight him,” Tyson sniffled. Gordon didn’t understand. “Up here,” said Tyson, touching his temple with an index finger. “All the time.” “Do you ever beat him?” asked Gordon. “Never,” said Tyson, his voice breaking. “I could never beat him.”

LIKE D’AMATO PREDICTED, TYSON BECAME THE YOUNGEST CHAMPION IN THE WORLD
- Floyd Patterson had been five weeks shy of his twenty-second birthday when he won the title in 1956. Tyson was twenty, plus five months.

- “I’m the youngest champion in the history of the sport. My record will last for immortality.”

TYSON BECAME THE MAIN PRIZE
- Quite suddenly, Tyson had become a prize unlike any the game had ever seen. So valuable, arousing such greed, such ambition,

…BUT TYSON HAD TO HAVE A MARKETABLE IMAGE (AND PERHAPS BEING SOMEONE THAT HE WASN’T)
- “For all his reserve, his odd, even eerie combination of shyness and aggression, his is a wonderfully marketable image.”

- Perhaps, then, Tyson’s true meaning had to do with his value as a commercial touchstone. But playing the pitchman—at least as his handlers had scripted the role for him—required some image scrubbing.

- “But Brownsville was who I was…. Everyone knew I was a criminal. I had come from a detention home. Now all of a sudden I was a good guy?”

- “They wanted me to be a hero,” recalls Tyson, “but I wanted to be a villain.”

YIN AND YANG
- DiBella says. “But I always knew there’s this yin and yang with him: this sensitive, decent soul fighting with an angry, depressed, kind of unstable person.”

- those closest to Tyson recognized a very distinct kind of follower—suggestible and easily led, but with a great ego and corresponding insecurities.

YOUNG TYSON WAS TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF BY BUSINESSMEN
- Of course, the entire proceeding was only slightly less kosher than a bacon milkshake. In actuality, this was a Torres fix: essentially willing an absent, lawyer-less twenty-one-year-old fighter to his dying manager’s widow and partner.

- Nor was there anything unusual about the fact that he didn’t have a lawyer. He’d been signing documents this way for years, whatever and however Jacobs and Cayton instructed him. “I paid very little attention,” he would recall, “because I was young and I trusted them.”

REMAINING UNDISCOURAGED
- What beats a fighter are the punches he doesn’t expect. Take enough and they’ll diminish one’s spirit. Still, Tyson took them all, without any hesitation or perceptible sag, and kept coming. Tyson himself would say later that night, “I refuse to be hurt, knocked down, or knocked out. I can’t lose. I refuse.”

- But he wasn’t bullshitting. It’s a great talent, the ability to get hit by a big man and remain undiscouraged.

TYSON HAD WEALTH TO FILL A HOLE WITH THINGS HE NEVER HAD
- By 1988, with the new HBO deal and several especially lucrative endorsements taking effect, Tyson’s taste for the finer things had become ever more conspicuous.

- Tyson wanted to be adored, even worshipped, and, by his own later admission, to fill an emptiness within.

- I know good things, because I never had them and I always wanted them.”

TYSON STILL DESIRED LOVE AND PROTECTION
- For all the fear Tyson evoked, he remained in many respects a needy child—wanting to be acknowledged, accommodated, indulged, and loved.

FIGHTERS AND THE LIE OF INVINCIBILITY
- The bigger the fight, the more the fighter is obliged to lie, as the vocation itself requires the maintenance of a profound falsehood, the illusion of invulnerability.

HE FACED SPINKS IN A TITLE FIGHT UNDER GREAT MENTAL STRAIN
- One can argue, quite reasonably, that he faced Spinks in the midst of a breakdown.

- “I can handle chaos,” says Tyson. “I’ve had chaos all my life.”

*** *** *** *** ***

FACTOIDS
- “peekaboo” style he had developed—gloves held tight against the face, elbows tucked to protect the torso, constant head movement.

- fighters bound by managerial or promotional affiliations are referred to as a “stable”—no, not unlike a pimp’s stable.

*** *** *** *** ***

BONUS
- ESPN top 10 Tyson knockouts: https://youtu.be/1ee-NU7Lp5Y?si=jwiDs...

- Mike Tyson quotes song: https://youtu.be/-0jVJ0z67N8?is=905i5...

- Tyson says he wants to eat Lennox Lewis’ children: https://youtu.be/O2FnsUFD_hU?is=6laeS...

- Tyson gets discovered: https://youtube.com/shorts/QO0TnG_lXg...

- Tyson talks about his trainer Cus D’Amato: https://youtu.be/G92242a3JE4?is=wKxQ5...

- Floyd Patterson knockouts: https://youtu.be/o1Pq6RmpgaA?is=yJw1O...

- Boxers talk about Sonny Liston: https://youtube.com/shorts/KOC4Hu5llW...

- Tyson’s ‘Peek-a-boo’ boxing style: https://youtu.be/34VfvQcl1II?is=rMDK2...

- 15-year-old Mike Tyson wins back-to-back Junior Olympics Heavyweight titles (1982): https://youtu.be/FkZhrmkmrK4?is=iXL_F...

- Tyson on the power of fear: https://youtu.be/5R2T-r6bUx4?is=UP-JL...

- ‘Making Fire Out of Fear’ news piece on Tyson and D’Amato before Tyson’s pro debut (1984): https://youtu.be/qWGloCmCCM4?is=8dB1r...

- Don King bio: https://youtu.be/6TuJJ3J08C4?is=NNJdz...

- Tyson vs Berbick Heavyweight title fight (1986): https://youtube.com/shorts/aelB6Qy5D-...

- Tyson vs Pinklon Thomas for WBA and WBC titles (1987): https://youtu.be/_vbsgSm0BEo?si=i3VGK...

- Tyson vs Spinks (Jun 1988): https://youtu.be/Pzy3eJQ8u2g?is=dMshL...-

- Tyson’s wealth: https://youtu.be/9OK0X8sWYM8?is=nqk0y...

[Brian Shott · Rating 5 out of 5]

What is there to write about Mike Tyson that hasn’t already been written? Plenty, it would seem from this absolutely brilliant and exhaustively researched work by Mark Kriegel.

I don’t ordinarily care for Kriegel’s work on television broadcasts, but I realize now that that is more a function of the medium rather than the messenger. Given the space that a book affords, Kriegel tells a story that’s been told before, in a new and profoundly distinct way that might not seem possible on first glance.

This book takes us from Tyson’s childhood through his 1988 fight with Michael Spinks, leaving us at a crossroads that suggests an obvious sequel which I eagerly anticipate.

One leaves this work feeling, frankly, awful about everyone involved to some degree, and awful FOR nearly everyone. I can spare no sympathy for the most overtly and brazenly exploitative, Donald Trump and Don King among them.

This is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in Tyson, boxing, or the money and celebrity obsessed culture of 1980s America that inevitably led to where we are today.

[Jason Weber · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book 33 of 2025.

4.5 stars.

I’ll start off by stating that I’m a huge Tyson fan, especially 80’s Tyson in the ring!

This book is 5 stars worthy, but I knocked it down to a 4.5 for stopping the story the night of KO’g Spinks in 91 seconds.
I don’t know if there is a book 2 in the works??? But I thought that was a weird place to stop.

That being said, the book itself, and the research that into this book was GREAT!

A MUST read for any Tyson/boxing fan!

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's OK. I enjoyed Namath and Maravich more. Mark Kriegel's vocabulary expanded in this book, as did his pop culture references, and oedipal theories, distancing himself more from the reader like a helium balloon leaving earth.
I would say go back to a clearer and simpler use of language.

[Jeff Wait · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a great introduction to the boxing world. Tyson is possibly the sport’s most interesting character, and when coupled with the kooky stylings of the author, it creates an extra unique (unique squared?) narrative full of awesome research and the occasional cussing. I was enraptured. It ends when he really gets huge, and now I gotta go down the Tyson rabbit hole. For someone who has never really got into boxing, I found myself pleasantly surprised.

[Shayla Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read alot of conflicting stories about Mike Tyson but this one was by far the most put together profile of him. This book spans the time of his rise from a scared, timid kid to a ferocious world champion. You can tell throughout the story that Tyson was in desperate need of a person in his corner who truly cared about his well-being but he had none of that (only leaches who made money of him and his persona). This does not excuse his boorish, dangerous behavior toward various people (especially women) but it does not go into the later parts of his journey to highlight that. The book stops at his fight with Michael Spinks in Atlantic City in 1988 but it was a solid read for a bio.

[Tie Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an impressively researched book that splits focus between Tyson (especially his complex relationship with his trainer Cus D’Amato) and the wider boxing ecosystem. Only about half of the 450 pages is devoted to Tyson with detours into promoters, commissioners, and predecessor boxers occupying half the pages.

While published this year (2025) notably skips any mention of Tyson’s stunning loss to Buster Douglass and his thoughts leading up to and following the landmark fight.

[Lance · Rating 5 out of 5]

Much like his earlier book about Pete Maravich, Kriegel's wordsmithing is splendid and makes for an enjoyable read. Narrative nonfiction at its finest.

[Joe O'Donnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

It has almost become a truism to say that Boxing is the discipline that generates the finest, most compelling sportswriting. But Mark Kriegel’s high-octane, intense biography of Mike Tyson’s deeply troubled early years could justifiably hold one’s own in the company of your Mailers, Kimballs and Hausers.

“Baddest Man” takes us from the squalor and trauma of Tyson’s childhood in Brownsville, Brooklyn, his supposed ‘salvation’ through the legendary boxing trainer Cus D’Amato, and on to his meteoric rise through the heavyweight ranks to become the youngest champion in the history of the division. Kriegel’s book concludes a mere three days before Tyson’s twenty-second birthday, with the newly crowned champion one of the most famous – and perhaps notorious – people on the face of the earth.

“Baddest Man” is driven by Mark Kriegel’s kinetic, propulsive prose style, and – without too much obvious foreshadowing – he is able to convey the impending doom of Tyson’s utterly chaotic life. Kriegel is assisted in this regard by being able to draw on a cast of characters worthy of James Ellroy at his most baroque. This ensemble ranges from the vulpine promoter Don King, a certain orange-tinged, narcissistic future president, the previously-revered D‘Amato, and the New York press pack – all of whom to varying degrees enabled Tyson’s worst, basest instincts so that they could more freely profit off the fledgling fighter.

Kriegel is sympathetic to Tyson, taking time to explain his vulnerabilities and insecurities, while recognising that the ghetto kid was almost certainly doomed from the start; especially when the newly famous Mike Tyson became Middle America’s designated villain and a vessel through which it could direct so much of its fearful hate and racism.

Reading his ominous, incredible origin story, one considers it a miracle that Mike Tyson reached the age of 22, never mind his late fifties. Mark Kriegel has succeeded in retelling that story in a thrilling and mesmeric fashion. Even within an arena overflowing with stunning sportswriting, “Baddest Man” is a classic in the making.

[Jason M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was a teen in the mid '80s and Tyson was THE big deal. I didn't watch his early fights but followed him through the back page of Newsday, the Long Island tabloid which was much better for its sports section than its op-ed page. And Tyson was from Brownsville, where I was born and where my father and his parents used to live. So I felt an early kinship. But my first Tyson fight on TV was in fact the title fight with Michael Spinks in June 1988... which is where this book ends. If you want to know when Tyson's marriage ended or who he fought next or what happened with the lawsuit against Bill Cayton, well, the book will leave you dangling and you'll need to consult Wikipedia.

Plenty of books have been written by or about Tyson, and Mark Kriegel (himself an alum of New York tabloid sports pages) has read all of them for Baddest Man. This is not a straight-up bio -- again, there have been plenty -- but Kriegel does assemble a timeline of what happened when, and sort out truth from dishonesty or dissembling. The author makes his disdain for Trump quite clear, which I enjoyed, but let that serve as a trigger warning if you're one of those people who wants Trump's face on your passport.

As a teen, I bought into the white sportswriters' narrative that Tyson's original sin was casting off his white managers and trainers and falling into Don King's orbit. That's a false narrative and Kriegel does his best to explode it. Not that King is treated like a saint, but Kriegel perhaps more than anyone explores the influence of Robin Givens and her mother on Tyson's psyche and actions. Tyson's misdeeds are explored in depth but Kriegel isn't out to tear down, merely explain and contextualize, and he's clearly fond of the man that Tyson has become (fortunately the book came out before the infamous Tyson Super Bowl MAHA commercial in which he inexplicably cackles while chomping an apple as if it were Evander Holyfield's ear). There are few bad factual errors that escaped the editor, but this is a lively read and worth a look if you ever followed any part of Tyson's career.

[Taylor Brystol · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t follow boxing. I have never read a book on the sport before. I probably could have recognized the names of 5 boxers growing up and could only identify pics of 2. Ali of course, due to that iconic photo of him standing over… someone. And Tyson. As much from his Nintendo game being only one of like 6 we owned a from the tabloid covers in the checkout line. How my Mormon mother allowed Mike Tyson’s Punch Out in our house is a mystery to this day.

All of that to underscore how much I don’t know about boxing.

But over the years Tyson transcended boxing to become someone whose journey became so odd how could a psychology/sociology nut like me not be curious? How do you become a dude who bites someone’s ear off and then tattoos his face?

I still don’t know.

Because this book reads like so many other stories. Traumatic childhood creates attachment and abandonment issues. Instead of getting the kid help, adults exploit these issues and turn him into a payday.

And then the book ends. In mid-1988. He is getting backlash over his marriage and his wife had a miscarriage, but it almost a decade would pass before he really went off the rails.

And somehow, I came away with nothing more than a bunch of unsurprising details which totally fit the theme.

Oh the kid was abused? Shock. Grew up rough? Yep. Did crime to survive? Sure. Embraced prison ethos for street cred? Lots did. The adults took advantage? Huh. Boxing was full of cheats, rivalries, and underhanded dealing? You don’t say.

The only thing that felt new or interesting was the comparison of boxers and prostitutes. But a quick google search revealed I would have been familiar with this common analogy if I followed boxing at all.

Oh well. It counted towards my reading goal, so I got something out of it.

Your mileage may vary.

[Zach Koenig · Rating 4 out of 5]

In some ways, Mark Kriegel's "Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson" is not a great biography. It is over-written, it focuses as much on promoters as pugilists, and it has an utterly arbitrary endpoint (concluding after Tyson/Spinks).

At the same time, Baddest Man is one of the most unique bios you'll ever crack open. Because so much has been written about Iron Mike already, I respect Kriegel's approach of breaking down the legends to try and get to the facts. Basically, this takes the form of challenging the long-held line that Tyson was a "street kid civilized/reformed by Cus D'Amato". While not dismissing such characterizations out of hand, Kriegel lends them a lot more nuance and reality here.

Via meticulous research and interviews, Kriegel shines a light on the streets-of-Brownsville environment in which Tyson was molded. He then explains how Cus used Tyson to get back at the "boxing establishment" as much as anything benevolent towards the young man. Finally, after a run of knockout fame, Kriegel concludes with Tyson besting Spinks to become the youngest unified heavyweight champion of the world--but of course his personal life (relationship with Robin Givens, intrusion by Don King, poor management from his handlers/trainers) is set in motion to become the downfall-figure that would emerge soon enough.

A number of years ago, author Charles Leerhsen did a similar thing with Dead Ball-era baseball superstar Ty Cobb--challenging the stories/legends with cold, hard facts. That is exactly what Kriegel does with Tyson, and even despite the foibles described in my first paragraph it mostly works out for the best.

[Steve Eubanks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Kriegel and I were former colleagues at Fox Sports. We sat next to each other ringside at several UFC fights and I watched him corner fighters with hard questions and a stare that said he wasn't leaving until he got answers. I also loved his book on Maravich, "Pistol" and on Joe Namath. But this is his best work yet. "Baddest Man" is more than a look at the early days of Mike Tyson - birth until age 22, before Holyfield and prison and the face tattoo - this book is close to poetry, a literary dive into a world few understand and too many dismiss out of hand.

Even if you think you know the story, you will learn a lot. The background, the characters, the lifestyle, the streets, the smarmy, greedy, ridiculously overt corruption, the hangers on, the D-list celebrity reptiles desperate for the warmth of another spotlight: Kriegel shares all with unflinching honesty.

If there is one area where my own biases got in the way, I am an old-school nonfiction writer who believes the author should avoid inserting himself. Voice and point of view are vital, but the first-person pronoun "I" jarred my noggin more than once, especially as this insertion appeared in almost every chapter. But a third of the way through, Kriegel's intentions became clear and I got over it. The work was too good not to overlook one niggling hangup.

Put this one in the category with the greats. I can't recommend it enough.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

MARK KRIEGEL - BADDEST MAN, THE MAKING OF MIKE TYSON.

My rating: 8/10.

The book dives into Mike Tyson’s world, from Brownsville’s streets to Cus D’Amato’s discipline, from the rise to champion to the chaos that came after.

What stands out is the contradictions: vulnerability and violence, genius and recklessness, discipline as both salvation and prison. Kriegel doesn’t give us a caricature, he gives us a man who could be unstoppable in the ring but undone by life outside it.

Tyson once said: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” The book shows what that really means, not just for boxing, but for life.

For leaders, the lesson is clear. Talent without structure unravels. Drive without direction burns out. And the hardest fights are rarely with competitors, they’re with ourselves.

Reading Tyson reminds me: strength isn’t just about force. It’s about channeling chaos into discipline, a fight we all face in different ways.

#LeadershipLegacySeries #Leadership #Books #Reflection

[Mario · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well-written and well-researched, this really is a wonderful partial-biography of one of the most famous and notorious athletes of the last hundred years. I say "partial" because this takes us up to the conclusion of the Michael Spinks fight on June 27, 1988 just before Tyson had turned 22. There were so many more chapters to the Tyson story post-this date but Kriegel chose to end it there with ominous foreshadowing of things to come.

At first, I didn't think there was need for another biography; I'd read Tyson's autobiography Undisputed and there has been so many articles, books, interviews and podcasts over the years there didn't seem to be anything else to add to the Tyson story, at least not from the 80's. But this changed my mind. It was not just about Tyson; it was about the sport of boxing, about Cus D'Amato, about Don King and other major players in the sport that all wanted a piece of Tyson and who helped create this 'monster' to further their own careers and bank balances even when Tyson was spiralling psychologically throughout this period.

[Cameron Archibald · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many were tough on this book. I am little more forgiving. I think what happened here is he did a lot of research and had new information and feel pressure to add that in there but much of that information just wasn't as intersting. There was a lot of detail that was uncessary and perhaps even boring. I am so fascinated with Tyson I still was able to get through the book no problem. The way Tyson was raised and his upbringing made sense that he had so many issue and demons. I really enjoyed the way Kriegel framed the treatment of Tyson—not as a hero, but rather as a flawed, tragic figure who was ultimately a victim of both his environment and his own uncontained impulses. The biography does a nice job of looking past the caricature of the monster we saw in the ring to find the actual human being underneath. It forces you to look at the massive system that built him up just to watch him burn out.

Quotes:

"This is what I hate about myself, what I learned from my mother—there was nothing you wouldn't do to survive."

"Of course. He was a monster, not just ours but his own, too."

[Marian · Rating 5 out of 5]

You don't need to be a fan of boxing or of Mike Tyson to appreciate this well-written book. Kriegel has covered Mike Tyson and his inner circle since the 1980s and begins the book with a statement about Mike's mom who was a prison guard when she was carrying him. The prologue begins with his daughter playing tennis, a dad looking on from the bleachers. The author presents the multi-faceted sides of Tyson, monster in the ring, scared boy with a childhood that many wouldn't survive, and includes the machine and industry that exploited the champion fighter. The author compares boxers to prostitutes - people pay to watch two bodies being used. It's a long book but I was never bored as the author brings humanity to Tyson and his life story.