Mike Tyson Hates The Man He Used To Be

When I interviewed him he said he had become someone new

It’s strange to see Mike Tyson slide back into fighter mode for this Jake Paul fight because when I met him, in 2009, it was clear that he needed to distance himself from the person he had been in order to save his life. His particular fighting mentality had made him depressed and, at times, suicidal. He spent years in therapy, working on himself, growing away from the warrior he once was. By the time I met him he was so far from and so repulsed by that old self that he grew visibly irritated when I referred to him as having been a warrior. “I despise being called a warrior now,” Tyson said. “I had the wrong perception of a warrior and everybody else did, too. When a guy fights, they just wanna watch somebody being defeated or destroyed. I never thought about a warrior, I just thought about demolishing the guy, dehumanizing the guy, breaking his spirit, make everything hurt and all that kinda stuff. And that’s not what fighting is all about and that’s definitely not what a warrior’s all about. I was just a walking movie character so to speak. And it’s nobody’s fault but mine. I sold myself as that. And I despise that person.”

Tyson told me, “If I was around that guy that I used to be, that guy would make me nervous. I’d be uncomfortable because he’s sporadic, impulsive, and unpredictable. That guy is just such a far person from who I am now. I’ve become more filtered now than I used to be in my life.” 

He was once the most feared lion in the global jungle but when I met him he was philosophical, well-versed in therapy-speak, and too at peace with himself to provoke fear. He said, “I don’t look for satisfaction from the outside anymore. It’s all an inside job. I try to work within myself because I had it all before and I didn’t get satisfaction. So you don’t get it being the highest paid athlete in the world, havin all the beautiful women in the world, havin all the cars, havin all the houses, and still you don’t get it.  It’s an inside job: it has to come from within. Sometimes you get distracted believing that you’re gonna get the inner peace from the outside world but that never happens.”

On that day Tyson was hanging out in a Beverly Hills mansion that wasn’t his, sitting by the pool, wearing a dark gray suit that was a teeny bit too big for him. He looked like a kid wearing an older brother’s suit that he’s almost grown into. The suit was a little oversized because Tyson had a belly then, but his face was clean, the muscles there were sharp, not scarred or flattened-looking like on some ex-fighters.

Tyson didn’t look punched out because he didn’t get hit that much. He’s got hands like catcher’s mitts that seem a bit too large for his body. He also had a salt and pepper beard, with some of the grays popping out like springs escaping from an old mattress. Before we started talking, he quickly sucked down a cigarette, another reminder that he was, at that moment, a fighter.

Tyson told me he became great because he came from nothing. “I had skill but that had nothin to do with it. To get success you have to put your nose to the grindstone and do everything you can so I just said I’ma die to get this. This is what I’ma die for. I’m gonna dedicate my whole life to get this. 2^nd place is not gonna do it, being champion is not gonna do it. I have to be the champion that no one will ever forget until we leave this planet. I wanted to be the guy of the era.” He was.

His mind seemed like a turbulent place—at one point he said, “My mind is not my friend,”—but at the same time he seemed at peace with himself even if he did not totally understand himself. “I’m just a guy tryin to find myself and just learn from the great deal of mistakes I made in life. People say to me, you were on top of the world then, how you must’ve felt then. You’d never know I was totally uncomfortable with myself. I was addicted to drama at one particular time in my life. I couldn’t focus without it. I’m pretty content at this moment in my life.”

This week Paul expressed frustration that Tyson wasn’t showing rage to help promote the fight. He wanted the old, wild Tyson back but Tyson has no interest in bringing back those old feelings because they were so deeply destructive to his mental health. I think he feels like he can fight Paul without sliding back into the person he never wants to be again. I pray he’s right.