To stump Jamie Foxx? That takes a lot of work. But Mike Tyson pulled it off. The two celebrities have been connected for nearly 30 years, the boxer being a frequent and willing muse for Foxx. But recently they were discussing the actor’s long-anticipated, Martin Scorsese-directed biopic of the mercurial pugilist.
During the conversation, Tyson, who finished his career with 50 wins (44 by knockout) and six losses, looked to be in pure bliss. But how could a man once worth $300 million, who went bankrupt for many reasons (likely including legendary splurges and Don King’s crippling influence) find happiness in such straits? “Nobody can take anything from me anymore,” is what Foxx said Tyson told him. “I’m happy. I don’t have any money. I don’t have any devils. I don’t have any demons.” And he has said as much before.
Tyson, today, is a married father of eight. He’s a motivational speaker, actor and author. A man who, in his 50s, lives in the suburbs and is guided far more by experience than the flash, intimidation, controversy, violence and recklessness that defined his 20s. “I didn’t think,” he admitted last year, “I’d make it through my 30s.”
Twenty-three summers ago, the biggest story in sports, and one of the biggest stories in America, was the comeback of Mike Tyson. He’d served three years in an Indiana prison after being convicted of the 1991 rape of then-18-year-old Miss Black Rhode Island Desiree Washington. It’s a crime he denied then, as well as now. It’s one he says he’ll never apologize for.
The crime has followed Tyson even as he has attempted to redeem himself (some say the boxer has been chasing redemption since he was a very young man, for varying reasons). How does one commemorate, or even think about, the moral labyrinth that is Tyson?
And when he was released from prison, again a free man, excitement about the former champ’s return reverberated in the boxing community, and among some in black communities. But could Mike Tyson return to the form that made him the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history, the man who won 12 of his first 19 fights via first-round knockout and the first heavyweight to hold and unify the WBA, WBC and IBF titles?
Would he be able to adjust to the world around him? And would society, given the nature of his conviction, welcome him? All this was is play. And it’s not like Tyson was even the sole cultural or sports headline of the wild summer of ’95.