What was your first impression of Mike Tyson?

There was another fighter around at that time called Mark Tyson and I got them confused at first.
No one remembers Mark Tyson now.

 

ITV showed an early morning replay of his win over Berbick
Like everyone else i instantly thought he was a bad mofo and unbeatable

 

Rended ear cartilage is my first conscious memory of Michael Gerard Tyson.

 

I'd read about him before I saw him. The first time I watched him live was against Jesse Ferguson. He looked good. He wasn't amazing or anything. The big deal that day was Mike Weaver knocked out Carl Williams. That was an upset and grabbed the headlines. When Ferguson was disqualified for refusing to break, I believe, and then Jose Torres and the gang started badgering the ref, and the result was changed to a TKO, it just seemed like shady business - Weaver knocked out Williams but Tyson needed help getting a TKO over Ferguson, type of thing.

The second time was when he fought Quick Tillis. It was a good fight, but it went to a decision. So the knockout streak had ended, anyway. He looked good. He was just young. With short heavyweights like that, even then, it's difficult to immediately buy into the hype. Because you know really big heavyweights are coming.

The third time was against Mitch Green. Honestly, by that point, I was starting to think Tyson was just a good heavyweight. He was a breath of fresh air, but he wasn't dominating anymore. But he was young.

Then I didn't see him again until he fought Marvis Frazier. That was a spectacular win. Then I saw him when they put him on the Michael Spinks-Tangstead card to help sell tickets. And they announced that night he was in the heavyweight tournament.

I was in college, so when he beat Berbick for the title, the school paper talked about how he was basically the age of most of us and look at what he'd accomplished already. And he had everyone's interest that I knew with that win.

But history has sort of been rewritten that he was this STAR from the beginning. He wasn't. He became a HUGE international star as champ, without question. And he did it really quickly, looking back. But it wasn't until he beat Berbick in a highlight-reel fashion that his reputation really took off outside of the East Coast.

At least that's how it looked to me at the time.

 

I dunno, he has a licensed NES game before he won the belt so he must have been some kind of star surely?

 

Pretty sure that came out about a year after he won the title.

He was heavily marketed before he won the title. He got national TV dates (which is how I saw him). He got a lot of national magazine articles (which is also how I read about him before I saw him). But a lot of people who were popular in New York in the mid 80s got press coverage. That didn't mean everyone saw them or were particularly impressed by them.

I was just posting my impressions when I first saw him. The first three times I saw him, he was good.

 

I used to subscribe to a magazine called "The Amateur Boxer" in the early- to mid-eighties. In 1983 or 1984 Tyson was featured on the cover of the magazine. From what I can recall, he'd just won a tournament by beating much more experienced, older guys. So I guess my first impression of him was reading about him and thinking, "Wow, this guy must be good. He's pretty young, too. I'll bet he has a future."

 

First saw him against McNeeley and was in awe of his power I was very young at the time but he was the first boxer I ever supported and he got me into the sport I’ll always have mad love for Mike Tyson

 

It was dad again. Can just remember him talking to my uncle about Tyson being on at the weekend. No first name, just this monster called Tyson. Yeah, dad was obviously well impressed. I was still a bit too young. Pretty sure the first time I got to see him was against Frank Bruno.

Then those sky sports promo packages for their rematch years later amused me. ''There's no way he's going to beat me. NO way. No way.'' hahah Come on Frank, you are not fooling anybody. OK, maybe my dad placed one of his £1 or £2 bets on him.

 

I never saw him fight, only heard about how fearsome he was around 2000. Then I watched him against Lewis.

 

It was watching a near-live rerun [repeatedly, since my dad used to VCR a lot of the big fights] of the Tyrell Biggs or Pinklon Thomas fight, I forget which, this visual detail doesn't show up well on YouTube, but as a kid I remember being really struck by the pinkish [from blood spray] hue of other guy's previously white shorts before a mid-rounds stoppage and thinking something along the lines of 'the stories are true - Tyson is a monster'.

 

Yea i think you may be right

Im getting confused with how when the rights came up to renew the licence, Nintendo said no to the new price

 

Aginst Brian Nielsen first live boxing match i saw.

They showed clips of his 80's highlights and i became huge fan, he beat Nielsen who did not fight back, years later rewatched it and he really was shot at that point.

Was very upset as kid when he was demolished by Lewis.