SAN FRANCISCO, CA — My first encounter with Mike Tyson was when he was an amateur trying to get on the 1984 Olympic Team. Making it to the final elimination match aka the Box Offs, Tyson would lose to eventual Gold Medalist Henry Tillman.
EVERYBODY AWARE OF TYSON’S “PROVOCATIVE VERBIAGE”
If you have any real “street” in your soul you know that the “Art of Capping” or the “Verbal Denouncing of Another” is part of your vernacular. Picture this, there are maybe 15 boxers in the Hot Tub at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs.
PERNELL WHITAKER WAS “BEST CAPPER”
Although this is about Mike Tyson, I would be remiss if I didn’t hale eventual Olympic & World champion Pernell Whitaker’s brutal supremacy when it came to “Verbal Putdowns.” Also present was a skinny guy I knew nothing about in Michael Nunn who was being guided by the late-great USA Boxing Official Bob Surkein.
TYSON’S LOOSE LIPS “FRONT & CENTER”
This “friendly” capping session came to an abrupt and almost violent end when the then 200 lb. Tyson uttered in the direction of middleweight (165 lb) Nunn. “I knew your Mama when she was hoeing.”
5-7 SECONDS CAN BE A LONG-LONG TIME
It got so silent that if the Jacuzzi wasn’t on, you could have “heard a mouse pissing in the corner of the room.” 12-15 guys, all fighters in a hot tub the size of a swimming pool AND the 6’2 Nunn stands up and takes two steps towards a seated 5’9 Tyson with semi-clinched fists and says “Mother F*cker, get up!”
DID TYSON “FREEZE OR WISE UP?”
That wasn’t a question, Michael Nunn was about to “light” Mike Tyson up. For the record, as rough as Tyson was growing up in Bensonhurst, Michael Nunn was himself something of a Davenport, IA “Street Urchin” the likes of which “Tyson wasn’t gonna scare, not even slightly!
NUNN & LATER BUSTER DOUGLAS
Seeing the again 165 lb. Michael Nunn “stand over the seated” future World heavyweight champion is something one wouldn’t witness again until James “Buster” Douglas stood over a knocked out Mike Tyson in Japan some 68 months later!
“SCARED OR WISE” TYSON DEFUSES
And while Tyson was trying to muster a smile, his tone took a dramatic turn when he meekly responded, “You know I was only kidding.” The reality Mike Tyson learned was that joking about Michael Nunn’s mother “almost” got him hurt!
WOULDA’ BET NUNN OVER TYSON?
At that point, the 4-inch taller Nunn who is Tyson’s elder by 3 turns of the Roman calendar, Michael Nunn is standing over a “seated” Tyson with fists semi-clinched and challenging him to stand up. Again, what I found most interesting was that Michael Nunn wasn’t scared of Mike Tyson, “not even a little.”
The meltdown OR in the minds of his detractors, the “comeuppance” of Mike Tyson took place February 11, 1990. AND this time Tyson wasn’t looking up at Michael Nunn in a hot tub, it’s a Tokyo ring and Buster Douglas just put a brutal end to Tyson’s aura of invincibility.
NUNN COULDA’ CHANGED HISTORY Had Nunn destroyed Tyson that day in Colorado Springs, I don’t think he would have ever become World heavyweight champion. At every opportunity, the Media would be asking, “Did Michael Nunn really beat you up in a hot tub?”
RINGSIDE STANK LIKE SPIT WITH AN “H”
“Scaring people” won Tyson a lot of fights. Ringside in Atlantic City for the Tyson KO of Alex Stewart, an obviously nervous Stewart cut “a wet fart” that did NOT go unnoticed by this ringside observer. It was true, Mike Tyson “scared the shit” out of a good number of his opponents.
TYSON COMEBACKS & “MIXED” RESULTS
The “Bite Fight” sorta’ said a lot about who and what Mike Tyson really was in 1996 as he blamed Evander Holyfield for his twice “chomping” on Holyfield’s ear. Mike Tyson was at that point finished as a fighter and yet he continues to “appear” in boxing rings both here & abroad.
TYSON-MCBRIDE IN WASHINGTON D.C.
When I ventured to the nation’s capital in 2005, not only was President George W. Bush not taking Pedro’s calls, Leila Ali, the daughter of Muhammad Ali and I would engage in a nasty “tit for tat” that ended when I said “You are afraid of Ann Wolf” to which Laila replied “Who?” Not only did it irk me, but it exposed what a “real fraud” Muhammad Ali’s daughter was as a fighter.
ANN WOLF WAS BEATING UP MEN “THAT COULD FIGHT”
For the record, I might’ve been a lil’ bit scared of Ann myself seeing she “habitually” beat up guys MUCH bigger than me in the gym!
LAILA HAD “A LOT OF BE-ATCH” IN HER
Can you imagine Muhammad Ali responding with “WHO” if I had brought up Joe Frazier or George Foreman? Hailed for greatness that I never saw, and she never had. If Laila were not Muhammad Ali’s daughter, nobody would’ve ever heard of Laila Smith, if that were her name.
To Be Continued…
Pedro Fernandez
Note: Pedro hosts “Ring Talk Worldwide”, a syndicated radio talk show airing on the Sports Byline USA Network that has been on the air 41 years! You can watch it Sat & Sun @ 11:06 AM PT on YouTube or Twitch.TV via the Sports Byline USA channels.
In addition, Pedro is a multi-award winning writer whose career in journalism has taken him to 34 countries. He is also a former San Francisco Policeman and a Nationally Ranked 4-time Golden Gloves boxing champion. Find Pedro on Facebook as RINGTALK