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Mike Tyson

"Iron" Mike Tyson is a former American heavyweight boxing champion.

On America

  • "I'm just a dark guy from a den of iniquity. A dark shadowy figure from the bowels of iniquity. I wish I could be Mike who gets an endorsement deal. But you can't make a lie and a truth go together. This country wasn't built on moral fiber. This country was built on rape, slavery, murder, degradation and affiliation with crime." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2002/05/01/sotys02.xml


On Boxing



  • To a reporter in 2002: "It's interesting that you put me in the league with those illustrious fighters [Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis, Jack Johnson], but I've proved since my career I've surpassed them as far my popularity. I'm the biggest fighter in the history of the sport. If you don't believe it, check the cash register." http://espn.go.com/boxing/news/2002/0503/1377497.html














  • "I just don't have the desire no more, I don't have the stomach to do it no more. I don't even kill insects in my house. I just don't kill anything no more. I used to kill pigeons, rip their heads off, 'You dirty rat pigeon!' I don't even have the heart to kill an animal no more. I just changed my whole life in general. That probably could have changed the way I fight." http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2083509&type=story

  • "This is a weird feeling in my life I have to deal with, not being a violent man anymore when my whole life's reputation was built on being extremely violent. I just don't know how to deal with that right now. I don't even go to strip clubs no more. I don't know who I am sometimes, but I am not the guy I used to be. I'm not an angel or anything. I'm still lascivious, periodically. I'm just looking for some balance in my life." http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2083509&type=story

  • "I don't know that person anymore, that guy in '86, '87. I don't know that guy no more. I don't have no affinity for that guy no more. I have no affinity for the guy who said, 'I am the greatest fighter God produced.' I have no affinity for the guy who said he would try to push his [opponent's] nose bone up into his brain. I just don't know that guy. I don't know who he is. I don't know where he came from. I don't have no kind of connection with him no more." http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2083509&type=story


On Himself



  • "There's no one perfect. ... Jimmy Swaggart is a lascivious creature, Mike Tyson is lascivious - but we're not criminally, at least I'm not, criminally lascivious. You know what I mean. I may like to fornicate more than other people - it's just who I am. I sacrifice so much of my life, can I at least get laid? I mean, I been robbed of my most of my money, can I at least get a blowjob without the people wanting to harass me and wanting to throw me in jail?" http://espn.go.com/boxing/news/2002/0503/1377497.html



  • In a 1988 Sports Illustrated interview: "Real freedom is having nothing. I was freer when I didn't have a cent. Do you know what I do sometimes? Put on a ski mask and dress in old clothes, go out on the streets and beg for quarters." http://www.boxing-monthly.co.uk/content/0008/three.htm













  • "I've been a prima-donna. I was taken care of since I was 13. That's why I am the way I am today. I was spoiled, like a brat. I had anything I wanted. That's crazy to be that way all your life. Everybody's taking care of you, but manipulating you at the same time. Very few people have a life like that. Most people have to work like slaves their whole lives. I've never had a job in my life. What I know how to do is hurt big, tough men — in the street and off." http://www.usatoday.com/sports/boxing/2005-06-02-tyson-saraceno_x.htm

  • "People say 'Poor guy.' That insults me. I despise sympathy. So I screwed up. I made some mistakes. 'Poor guy,' like I'm some victim. There's nothing poor about me." http://jco.usfca.edu/boxing/rape.html



  • "People are trying to force me to redeem (myself) — certain women, certain mentors. Nobody's going to change me. I'm going to fight that. You can't change me; you can't tame me. When you say that, I'm going to bite you even harder. I'm more ferocious, more complicated. I'm not going to let anybody win a popularity contest off my conduct. You have to understand. It is a pervasive (belief) that I'm an animal — undomesticated as well. But regardless of the bizarre (stuff) I've done, I'm a very rational individual. But everybody still thinks I'm crazy and stupid because that's what they want to believe." http://www.usatoday.com/sports/boxing/2005-06-02-tyson-saraceno_x.htm




  • "I'm not too interested in these swan songs I'm continuing to hear. I'm just Mike. I'm a peasant. I'm here to entertain the people. I'm no elite person. At one stage in my life, I had my little jewelry and all my little girlfriends and my big cars and things. At one point, I thought life was about acquiring things. But as a I get older life is totally about losing everything. As life goes on, we lose more than we acquire. I don't want the finest girl in the world anymore. I'm just trying to stay balanced, basically." http://www.usatoday.com/sports/boxing/2005-06-12-tyson-retire-talk_x.htm






  • "I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian"

On his Family


  • "If it weren't for that old, Italian white guy, I would've been a bum. Cus D'Amato was a physical person like I am. He was impulsive and impetuous like me. If somebody upset him, he would just go after them — even at 75. God, the psychologists would've had a field day with him." http://www.usatoday.com/sports/boxing/2005-06-02-tyson-saraceno_x.htm



  • At 20, reflecting on Cus D'Amato: "Cus was my father but he was more than a father. You can have a father and what does it mean?—it doesn't really mean anything. Cus was my backbone . . . . He did everything for my best interest . . . . We'd spend all our time together, talk about things that, later on, would come back to me. Like about character, and courage. Like the hero and the coward: that the hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It's the same thing, fear, but it's what you do with it that matters." http://www.usfca.edu/~southerr/boxing/tyson.html



  • "I'm not going to tell you I am a good father. I have to contribute to the world. I have to teach [my children] how to contribute to the world. That’s our whole existence – to contribute to the world and make it a better place in some way. In my life I contributed to make it a bad place.” http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/print?id=2083509&type=story

On his Fans




  • To a question on whether he feels support from the common fan: "I don't feel love from them because there's no love. They don't know me as an individual; they know me for what I actually do. Because they pay to see me smash anybody. If they're white they pay, [it's] because the only thing they have respect for is my ability as an athlete. But if I was in court and I had to use them to testify against me on my character, they wouldn't testify positively against me and they would think I'm a cad..." http://espn.go.com/boxing/news/2002/0503/1377497.html






On Lennox Lewis


  • "I don't like his lack of respect for me. The way he talks about me. He calls me an actor. If you're a true fighter you don't accept anyone calling you anything other than a fighter. I was with my wife in a restaurant called Crustacean once, and Monica says, `Go and say hi to Lennox'. So I did, and he looks at me as if to say, `Who you lookin at?' I wanted to punch him right there. He made a punk out of me. Stared me down like a mad dog." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2002/05/01/soboxx02.xml)

  • "Lennox is a conqueror? No. I'm Alexander, he's no Alexander! I'm the best ever! There's never been anybody as ruthless. I'm Sonny Liston, I'm Jack Dempsey, there's no one like me - I'm from their cloth. There's no one that can match me! My style is impetuous, my defense is impregnable, and I'm just ferocious! I want your heart! I want to eat his children! Praise be to Allah!" [Lennox Lewis had no children at the time of this quote.] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4l0ZyKmeNE

On Literature


  • "I like the hip writers: Fitzgerald, the guy who committed suicide, Hemingway, all those guys. Some of them were alcoholics and drug addicts but they had fun. They were real people. They formed the culture of American literature. Hemingway admired Tolstoy, Tolstoy admired Pushkin, and Mailer admired Hemingway. It all flows down. The greats are all connected. One day I'm gonna write a book myself. The first chapter will be about what a rough deal my momma got. She believed in you guys and your society." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2002/05/01/sotys02.xml

On the Media



  • "I'm just like you. I enjoy the forbidden fruits in life, too. I think it's un-American not to go out with a woman, not to be with a beautiful woman, not to get my dick sucked ... It's just what I said before, everybody in this country is a big fucking liar. [The media] tells people ... that this person did this and this person did that and then we find out that were just human and we find out that Michael Jordan cheats on his wife just like everybody else and that we all cheat on our fucking wife in one way or another either emotionally, physically or sexually or one way." http://espn.go.com/boxing/news/2002/0503/1377497.html



  • "Sometimes you guys have no pride, so no matter what I say, you guys ... it doesn't affect you because you don't care about nothing but money. So every now and then I kick your fucking ass and stomp on you and put some kind of pain and inflict some of the pain on you because you deserve to feel the pain that I feel." http://espn.go.com/boxing/news/2002/0503/1377497.html



On Religion

  • "I feel like sometimes that I was born, that I'm not meant for this society because everyone here is a fucking hypocrite. Everybody says they believe in God but they don't do God's work. Everybody counteracts what God is really about. If Jesus was here, do you think Jesus would show me any love? Do you think Jesus would love me? I'm a Muslim, but do you think Jesus would love me ... I think Jesus would have a drink with me and discuss ... why you acting like that? Now, he would be cool. He would talk to me. No Christian ever did that and said in the name of Jesus even ... They'd throw me in jail and write bad articles about me and then go to church on Sunday and say Jesus is a wonderful man and he's coming back to save us. But they don't understand that when he comes back, that these crazy greedy capitalistic men are gonna kill him again." http://espn.go.com/boxing/news/2002/0503/1377497.html

Miscellaneous





  • In a 2003 interview with Fox News legal expert Greta Van Susteren, Tyson denounces Desiree Washington as "no i didnt rape that slimy bitch. because shes really a bad person . I just hate her guts. She put me in that state where, I don't know, I really wish I did now. Now I really do want to rape her and her fucking mama." http://espn.go.com/boxing/columns/graham_tim/1560938.html




  • ESPN reporter: There were reports, Mike, that you were out partying in Vegas. Is that, in fact, the case? Tyson: This is not true. This is not true at all. Um, one day, I went out one day - because when somebody trains, you just get crazy and bored - and I went to a strip club because I gave a dancer a lap dance. Reporter: You gave HER a lap dance? Tyson: That's just what I like to do. I do what I want to do. http://youtube.com/watch?v=zd0_VgK8DU4&mode=related&search=

  • On Don King: "I found out that someone I believed was my surrogate father, my brother, my blood figure turns out to be the true Uncle Tom, the true nigger, the true sellout. He did more bad to black fighters than any white promoter ever in the history of boxing." http://www.espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/King_Don.html
 
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