- Tyson had an exceptionally rough upbringing
- Admitted to crimes during his troubled childhood
Mike Tyson has been confronted by a man who accused the boxing icon of robbing him in his youth – and the former baddest man in the world showed he’s come a long way from his troubled, crime-filled childhood as he responded to the news .
Tyson – who was the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world from 1987 to 1990 – will face YouTuber Jake Paul in Texas on Friday evening.
It will be Iron Mike’s first professional fight in 19 years and the 58-year-old has spent most of this year training hard in the gym for his return to the ring.
During a Netflix show previewing the fight, Tyson returned to his hometown of Brownsville – one of New York’s roughest neighborhoods in the 1980s – and encountered a man who wanted to take a picture with him.
“You robbed me when I was eight years old on Amboy and Pitkin,” the man said, referring to the corner of Pitkin Avenue and Amboy Street in Brooklyn.
Tyson was shocked by the comment and asked, “I robbed you?” before turning to the camera and saying: ‘Now he blames me for robbing him.’
58-year-old Mike Tyson (left) will fight Jake Paul, 27, on Friday night in Arlington, Texas
The man fired back, “He robbed me when I was a kid, man. At the Woolworth’s store. Do you remember Woolworth’s?’
Tyson smiled and apologized to the man.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
The man smiled back, without holding a grudge, and said, “No, don’t worry about that, honey.”
Tyson opened up about his troubled childhood in his 2013 autobiography, Mike Tyson: Undisputed Truth.
Born in 1966 at Cumberland Hospital in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, Tyson never really knew his father, Percel.
And his mother’s husband, Lorna Mae, who told him he was his “biological father,” Jimmy “Curlee” Kirkpatrick Jr., was a rare presence in both of their lives.
Boxing trainer Cus D’Amato transformed the young Mike Tyson (pictured together) into a boxing phenomenon
‘Iron Mike’ is widely regarded as one of the most fearsome heavyweights of all time
Tyson became the undisputed world champion in 1988, adding The Ring and the Lineal Titles to his collection after knocking out Michael Spinks in the first round (pictured as Trevor Berbick was demolished in 1986)
By the time Tyson was seven, his mother had lost her job as a matron at the Women’s House of Detention in Manhattan, and she and her children had been deported.
The future champion began a career in petty crime at the age of seven, climbing into houses through windows where older boys were too big to fit through and stealing whatever he could get his hands on.
His early childhood had a relentless rhythm of crime sprees, during which he was taken in by the police only to be taken home and brutally beaten by his desperate mother.
By the time he was twelve, he was an “exhausted zombie” on Thorazine and regularly attended reformatory school, the “specialized mad school.”
Tyson can’t remember many bright spots from his childhood, but one notable event occurred during a period at reformatory school in Sporford.
He once recalled, “We were watching a movie called ‘The Greatest’ about Muhammad Ali. When it was over… we were shocked when Ali himself walked onto the stage.
‘I thought: I want to be that guy.’