Featured Image Credit: Relentless Upstarts via YouTube
Topics: Boxing, Mike Tyson, Heavyweight Boxing
Chris Byfield
Topics: Boxing, Mike Tyson, Heavyweight Boxing
Footage of a teenage Mike Tyson crying before an amateur fight has re-emerged.
Tyson has been back in the headlines over the past month, after a fight between him and Jake Paul, a Youtuber-turned-boxer 30 years his junior, was announced with the bout scheduled for July 20.
While Tyson will be 58 when he takes on Paul in Texas, he was once the most ferocious heavyweight in the world and the first ever to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles.
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But Iron Mike wasn’t always destined for greatness, having endured an immensely difficult upbringing. He was raised by a single mother, who died when he was just 16.
Moreover, by the age of 13, Tyson had already been arrested 38 times for a variety of minor offences and in turn, ended up at a juvenile detention centre. Coincidentally, this is where his boxing talent was spotted.
The youngster was introduced to trainer Cus D'Amato, who took him in and coached him alongside Kevin Rooney and Teddy Atlas.
By 1981, when he was just 14, Tyson became America’s national Junior Olympics Champion.
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The following year while looking to defend his crown, however, Tyson nearly pulled out of the final due to nerves, with footage of the incident having been caught on camera.
In the clip, Atlas tells a crying Tyson: "Don't leave Denver now, come on.
"Just relax, Michael, relax. Just relax, all it is is another boxing match, you've done it already 20 times.
"You've done it in the gym with better fighters than you're gonna fight here.
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"It's always hard, but I mean you always have confidence because it always comes off on your side.
"You're always better than everybody you get in there with, right?
"Alright, let's go get ready for a fight, come on."
Tyson ultimately went into the ring and secured a first-round knockout over Kelton Brown.
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Just three and half years later, Tyson made his professional debut. By the age of 20, in his 28th professional fight, he was named the youngest heavyweight champion in history when he beat Trevor Berbick in his first title fight in November 1986.