On this day in 1985, in Albany, New York, one of the most electrifying, most celebrated, and ultimately most hugely controversial boxing careers got underway. Mike Tyson, aged just 18, wiped out a guy named Hector Mercedes, who was 0-3, in a round. The then “Kid Dynamite,” later “Iron Mike,” would very quickly become a global superstar – a genuine phenomenon.
The legendary Cus D’Amato had “discovered and uncovered” the teenage tearaway who had been sent to Tryon School for Boys for acting out, with former boxer Bobby Stewart and of course Kevin Rooney and Teddy Atlas also serving as part of the team that would ultimately produce the youngest heavyweight champion ever.
Tyson’s rise was to prove meteoric. Maintaining a fast pace, in and out of the ring, with Tyson fighting pretty much once a month, his speed of hand in the ring matched only by his brutal power, Tyson was regularly producing must-see entertainment. It wasn’t long before Tyson was looked at as world championship material. After an explosive 1985, during which he had 15 fights, all won by KO, Tyson fought 13 times in 1986, with two men – James “Quick” Tillis and Mitch “Blood” Green – managing to go the full 10 rounds with him.
By now a top contender as well as a star, Tyson had lost his father figure Cus, who sadly died from pneumonia on the 4th of November in 1985, this when Tyson was 11-0, but as he said himself, the job had to continue being done. And so it was on November 22 of 1986 that Tyson, with Cus “looking down, telling all the heavyweight greats that his boy did it,” annihilated Trevor Berbick inside two violent rounds to win the WBC heavyweight title.
Tyson had taken Mercedes out with an unrelenting body attack, while against the unfortunate Berbick, Tyson showed how lethal he could be to both body and head. The 1986, 1987, 1988 version of Tyson, these his prime years, may well have been just about unbeatable. Maybe.
Certainly, during those years, the thought of Tyson losing to another man was all but unthinkable. 40 years ago today, Tyson’s pro career began, and to this day, so many boxing fans hold “Iron Mike” in the highest esteem. Ultimately, Tyson did of course lose – some seven times, in fact – and he badly tarnished his image when he suffered a complete meltdown and tore a chunk out of Evander Holyfield’s ear in their second ring encounter. But even here, the Tyson diehards did not desert their hero.
All of this was of course a long, long way away on the evening of March 6, 1985. When Tyson fought Mercedes before a pretty sparse crowd of fans.
