Tyson retired from professional boxing in 2005 due to a combination of physical decline, mental and emotional challenges, and financial troubles. After a series of losses that highlighted his decreasing ability to compete at a top level, Tyson acknowledged that he no longer had the heart to fight. His physical capabilities had diminished with age, and he struggled with motivation and focus, which were compounded by significant financial difficulties. These factors led him to conclude his boxing career after a defeat to Kevin McBride.
Mike Tyson grew up poor and troubled and he wound up rich and famous. His mother died when he was 16 and he was taken in by his legendary trainer Cus D’Amato. Before Tyson was 13 years old, he had been arrested more than 30 times. He needed boxing and, as we later found out, boxing needed him.
Pros use body punches for many reasons. Throwing punches to the body can make their opponents drop their elbows and expose the head. Body punches can damage their opponent’s core making it painful to move around (great for slowing down running fighters). Body punches can severely hurt a fighter and take out his wind, removing power from his punches. Body punches can be very painful and mentally crippling to an opponent. A perfectly placed body punch can actually cripple an opponent and knock him out. He’ll fall to the floor in so much pain and his legs will be so paralyzed that he can’t get up (even if he has the heart to continue).
He is remembered for his attire of black trunks, black shoes with no socks, and a plain white towel fit around his neck in place of a traditional robe, as well as his habit of rapidly pacing the ring before the start of a fight. In his prime, Tyson rarely took a step back and had never been knocked down or seriously challenged. According to Martial Arts World Report, it gave Tyson an Honorable Mention in its Ten Greatest Heavyweights of All Time rather than a ranking because longevity is a factor and the peak period of Tyson’s career lasted only about 5 years.
Competitors wear protective headgear and gloves with a white strip or circle across the knuckle. There are cases however, where white ended gloves are not required but any solid color may be worn. The white end is just a way to make it easier for judges to score clean hits. Each competitor must have their hands properly wrapped, pre-fight, for added protection on their hands and for added cushion under the gloves. Gloves worn by the fighters must be twelve ounces box in bing.com weight unless the fighters weigh under 165 pounds (75 kg), thus allowing them to wear ten ounce gloves. A punch is considered a scoring punch only when the boxers connect with the white portion of the gloves. Each punch that lands cleanly on the head or torso with sufficient force is awarded a point. A referee monitors the fight to ensure that competitors use only legal blows. A belt worn over the torso represents the lower limit of punches – any boxer repeatedly landing low blows below the belt is disqualified. Referees also ensure that the boxers don’t use holding tactics to prevent the opponent from swinging. If this occurs, the referee separates the opponents and orders them to continue boxing. Repeated holding can result in a boxer being penalized or ultimately disqualified. Referees will stop the bout if a boxer is seriously injured, if one boxer is significantly dominating the other or if the score is severely imbalanced. Amateur bouts which end this way may be noted as «RSC» (referee stopped contest) with notations for an outclassed opponent (RSCO), outscored opponent (RSCOS), injury (RSCI) or head injury (RSCH).
Once he saw that I kept coming back even though he was beating my ass, he started to teach me. Mr. Stewart would stand there and throw punches at me and I’d move then we’d reverse it. I’d never had any goals in my life except for robbing but Bobby gave me something to focus on. I turned the same desire I had for robbing into fighting. I know that Stewart was impressed with my work ethic and he had a good feeling that what we were doing was going to help me outside of the ring.
Joyce said, «I’m just disappointed with my performance. The hand kept hitting me, and I couldn’t get out of the way. So, respect to Zhilei Zhang. It was a good fight, but I think I could have done better.
Tyson has an original tattoo of Mao Zedong on his right arm, the founder of the Chinese People’s Republic. The great leader was credited with ending civil unrest, which Tyson read about in prison. In 2006 Tyson visited the Chairman Mao Memorial Hall, with the Chicago Tribune in tow, to pay respects.
UPDATE: Annnnd I’ve been duped. That’s what happens when you let your guard down on April Fools. As @ticketscore pointed out on Twitter, Tyson later tweeted that he was joking and the tattoo is with him forever. Darn.
Down a warehouse-lined stretch of Paterson, New Jersey, a heavyweight boxer pounds the punching bag in an otherwise quiet gym. Boxers aren’t an unusual sight in this small town just a few miles from Manhattan; most notable among homegrown products are former WBO junior welterweight titleholder Kendall Holt and Rubin «Hurricane» Carter, the hard-hitting middleweight contender who was the only man to stop Emile Griffith.