Mike Tyson (Text Only Edition). Monteith Illingworth

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СКАЧАТЬ and Cayton weren’t yet prepared to sign Tyson up. He didn’t have the experience to deal with the level of competition in the HBO series. They also had other ideas on how to earn a title shot. In one scenario, they’d match Tyson against old but well-known fighters such as former champion Larry Holmes and even Gerry Cooney, the lone white heavyweight of any reputation. That would establish Tyson’s credibility and earn him the right to then match up against the eventual winner of the HBO series.

      Both sides of the issue faced a dilemma. HBO couldn’t risk letting Tyson go off on a separate track. And yet with only seventeen victories he didn’t have the credentials, or the national following, to be justifiably included in the unification series. For their part, Jacobs and Cayton were reluctant to trail off on their own in pursuit of the title. There was no way of knowing if the eventual winner of the HBO series would agree to fight Tyson. They would have done several years’ work only to be denied the ultimate prize.

      The solution, for both parties, was to get Tyson on a separate but parallel track. In January, Jacobs and Cayton starting discussing with HBO the terms of a three-fight deal. Combined with the ABC fights, they would gain Tyson national television exposure and experience and, if it could be agreed upon, the basis for entry into the HBO series.

      There were risks. They had to give up some say over the selection of opponents. ABC and HBO were interested in good ratings, and that meant competitive matchups. It was unlikely Tyson would be scoring many more first-round knockouts. Jacobs and Cayton wondered how well he would stand up under the emotional stress of fighting more seasoned opponents on national television.

      First Tyson had to beat Jesse Ferguson in his ABC debut. Ferguson was a young, strong, quick-handed prospect ranked, like Tyson, in the second tier of heavyweights. The more convincing Tyson’s victory, the greater his value to ABC and HBO.

      Aware of those stakes, Jacobs stacked the deck in Tyson’s favor. The fight took place in Troy, New York, the heart of Tyson country. Some seven thousand local supporters would be rooting for a knockout. Jacobs also insisted that the fighters wear eight-ounce gloves rather than the more standard ten-ounce versions. That clearly favored Tyson. His fast hands would be even faster with the lighter gloves. Jacobs obtained another advantage by getting Ferguson’s manager to agree to a sixteen-foot, eight-inch ring, smaller by a few feet than standard ring sizes. That way if Ferguson decided to run instead of stand and fight, he wouldn’t have as much room.

      Tyson came out in black trunks and black shoes, no socks, and no robe. As he climbed into the ring and the crowd cheered, Tyson held up his arms at a low angle and turned the palms up in the manner of a Roman gladiator—strong, confident, but humbled by both the adulation and his own greatness. His face was expressionless. He paced back and forth, twitching his neck as if trying to remove a kink.

      To the relief of the growing group involved in his career, Tyson rose to the occasion. As usual, he came out slipping, weaving, and slugging. He hit Ferguson on both sides with vicious hooks. He doubled up on body shots, going to the ribs first, then coming through the middle with an uppercut. But Ferguson could take a punch. With his own hand speed and sense of timing, he was also able to exploit those few occasions when Tyson stopped moving. He caught Tyson on the inside with a few right uppercuts. Tyson hardly flinched. That answered an important question about his future: he had a tough chin.

      Tyson kept connecting through the second, third, and fourth rounds. Ferguson still didn’t go down, but Tyson didn’t get discouraged. He kept up his intensity and maintained nearly perfect stylistic form. It was by far the highest he had yet taken D’Amato’s “system.” Twice he hit Ferguson with low blows, and at the end of the fourth he threw a punch after the bell rang. As the referee pulled them apart, Tyson stuck his tongue out at Ferguson. He was enjoying this.

      Ferguson came out in the fifth trying to keep Tyson at bay with a pesky poking of his left jab. Tyson easily slipped away. He then backed Ferguson up against the ropes. Ferguson tried to clinch, but Tyson fought through with a series of body shots and right and left uppercuts. Ferguson still didn’t fall. In the sixth, finally, he had taken enough. He had only the energy to clinch. The referee warned him several times, but Ferguson continued to hold. He was disqualified.

      At first, Alex Wallau, the ABC boxing analyst doing the broadcast, thought that meant Tyson would be denied the knockout, thus breaking his streak. Then the referee, perhaps aware of what his decision meant, clarified the decision. He called it a technical knockout. Steve Lott climbed into the ring and kissed Tyson on the cheek. Afterwards, in a postfight interview, Tyson said to the gathering of reporters: “I tried to punch him and drive the bone of his nose back into his brain.”

      The New York papers covering the fight quoted Tyson’s remarks with relish. It was as if they’d finally seen the real Mike Tyson behind the hype and it was not a pretty sight. Maybe he was, after all, just another thug like Liston. Jacobs was flooded with calls from reporters eager to unpack this dark, new Tyson that he had obviously kept a secret. One boxing reporter even dug up Ernestine Coleman, Tyson’s Youth Division caseworker. He cited a letter she wrote to Tyson after reading his comment. Coleman advised Tyson “to be a man, not an animal.”

      Jacobs’s first reaction was to blame someone other than Tyson. He fired the publicity agent he’d retained for the fights, Mike Cohen. He also impressed on Lott, who was living with Tyson at the time, the importance of baby-sitting: “I had to watch him constantly, remind him how to behave after a fight and rehearse what he should say,” Lott recalled.

      A few days later Jacobs invited a group of boxing reporters to have dinner with Tyson at Jake’s, then a New York steak restaurant: Ed Schuyler of the Associated Press, Michael Katz and Bill Gallo from the Daily News and Phil Berger of the New York Times. Two who were shunned—Wallace Matthews and Mike Marley of the New York Post—dubbed it the “Bootlicker’s Ball.” Schuyler remembered the evening: “No notes, no interviews, just talking. Jimmy was very conscious of trying to make Mike likable, to make him seem like a decent person so that if he got in trouble we’d all say, ‘Oh, well, he’s just a kid and that’s how kids are.’”

      Thinking back, Schuyler recalled how strained it all was. “There was a desperation about it all. Like, ‘Let’s get this guy a title before he gets into serious trouble. Let’s keep him busy.’ I believe that Jimmy and Bill thought that Mike was really not a nice person, that he wasn’t responsible to anyone but himself. He gives you that little-boy voice, but he’s capable of doing anything. He’s a creature of impulse.”

      Sure enough, on February 23, the Albany Knickerbocker News reported on an incident in the Crossgates Mall. Tyson had entered Filene’s department store and come on to a white salesgirl. She declined. Tyson got angry, threw some clothes around, knocked over racks, and insulted the girl and anyone else who came by. That same day, Jacobs denied to the New York reporters that Tyson had done anything wrong. A reporter from the Times Union in Albany went back to the mall a few days later to find out the real story. The salesgirl, her managers, and the mall security personnel all refused to comment. The salesgirl implied that if she did, she’d be fired. Rumors circulated that Jacobs and Cayton had paid off people at the mall to stay mum on the incident. They no doubt also relied on the local police to turn a blind eye. “The Albany police commissioner was valuable in taking care of Mike Tyson in many ways,” admitted Cayton. “Steps were taken with the help of the police to put lids on things.” In return, Cayton made sure that the commissioner of police got ringside tickets to Tyson’s upstate fights. Moreover, twice a year he bought advertisements in the Albany Police Department’s newspaper.

      Newsday’s Matthews confronted Jacobs about the mall incident, fruitlessly. “He lied to me. You’d call him on it in stories and later he’d admit that he lied to protect Tyson. That was Jacobs for you. He held the press up to very high standards of truthfulness and accuracy—his versions of both—but he never stood up to them СКАЧАТЬ