The Baddest Man on the Planet

Michael Gerard Tyson, nicknamed Iron Mike, The Baddest Man on the Planet, Kid Dynamite and The Baby Bull holds the record as the youngest boxer to win the WBC, WBA and IBF world heavyweight titles. He won the WBC title when he was 20 years, 4 months and 22 days old.


Born in Brooklyn, New York, he honed his instinctive survival skills as a wild kid running the streets. Throughout his childhood, Tyson lived in and around high-crime neighborhoods. By the age of 13, he had been arrested 38 times. Tyson's emerging boxing ability was discovered by Bobby Stewart, a juvenile detention center counselor and former boxer. Understandably, Tyson became a boxer.


He often knocked down his opponents before the spectators were fully seated at the boxing arena. He had 15 bouts in his first year as a professional and won 26 of his first 28 fights by KO/TKO - 16 in the first round. The first few seconds of the first round was often sufficient to seal his wins with amazing speed and accuracy - a flurry of perfectly timed knockout punches that were sometimes too quick for even the audience to follow.


But The Baddest Man on the Planet bit more than he could chew in his fight against Evander Holyfield. Billed spectacularly as the Holyfield-Tyson II fight, The Sound and The Fury, the professional boxing match took place on 28 June 1997. The fight would eventually end in one of the most controversial endings ever in sports history - also known as The Bite Fight.


Holyfield dominated Tyson and won the first and second rounds. In round two, Holyfield came forward with his head; their heads clashed opening a large cut over Tyson's right eye. Tyson had repeatedly complained about head-butting in the first bout between the two. This set off a chain reaction as Tyson developed what appeared to be a cannibalistic interest in Holyfield's ears.


He bit a one-inch piece of cartilage from the top of Holyfield's right ear during the third round of their fight. He however spat out the piece of ear on the ring floor as it didn't taste quite right. And when the right ear doesn't taste right you naturally go for the left.


Holyfield, clutching his bleeding ear, complained that he had been bitten to the match referee, Mills Lane but Tyson insisted that the injury to Holyfield's ear was the result of a punch.
It was determined by the ringside doctor that Holyfield even without his ear could continue the match and all he needed for a professional boxing fight were his gloved fists and mouthpiece. Ears are not really an important or deciding factor in boxing.


Buoyed by this declaration and during a clinch, Tyson took a more determined and ferocious bite of Holyfield's left ear. This tasted slightly better than the right ear.


It was salty from the dripping blood but that was how Tyson liked his meat - salty and crunchy. He gave it a good chewing. While Tyson masticated on the piece of cartilage, the match continued uninterrupted as the ring doctor had determined that chewed ears were part of the work hazards in the life of any professional boxer. All a boxer needs are gloved fists and mouthpiece.

The match was however stopped at the end of this round as both Holyfield's ears were well-bitten and Tyson was now beginning to stare at the referee's ears with speculative interest.

Tyson's boxing license was revoked for this biting episode and possibly for his seeming interest in the ears of the officiating referee.

It was not however the first time that Tyson had reached for a human body part. He had reached out a hand for Sandra Miller's breast in 1988.

Tyson was alleged to have grabbed Miller's breasts and buttocks after she refused his advances at Bentley's Disco on Dec. 10, 1988. He was probably considering if it was worth a bite or not. A jury decided that the former heavyweight champion fondled the woman at a Manhattan dance club in 1988 and awarded her $100 in compensatory damages.

In 1997, a group of well wishers gathered at Mike Tyson's birthday party hoping to grab a bite and a drink. They waited until 3 a.m. the following day but the celebrant never showed up. It wasn't clear if he was out hunting for ear cartilages - the jury is still out on that.