Baddest Man: The Making Of Mike Tyson

From the acclaimedNew York Timesbestsellingauthor whose coverage of Mike Tyson and his inner circle dates back to the1980s, a magnificent noir epic aboutfame, race, greed, criminality,trauma, and the creation of the most feared and mesmerizing fighter in boxinghistory.

On an evening that defined the Greed is Good 1980s, Donald Trump hosted a raftof celebrities and high rollers in a carnival town on the Jersey Shore to baskin the glow created by a 21-year-old heavyweight champion. Mike Tyson knockedout Michael Spinks that night, and in 91 frenzied seconds earned more than theannual payrolls of the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics combined.

It had been just eight years since Tyson, a feral child from a dystopianBrooklyn neighborhood was delivered to boxings forgotten wizard, Cus DAmato,living a self-imposed exile in upstate New York. Together, Cus and the Kid werean irresistible story of mutual redemptiondarlings to the novelists,screenwriters and newspapermen long charmed by DAmato, and perfect for thenascent industry of cable television. Long before anyone heard of Tony Soprano,Mike Tyson was HBOs leading man.

It was the greatest sales job in the sports history, and the most lucrative.But the business of Tyson concealed truths that were darker and more nuancedthan the script would allow.

The intervening decades have seen Tyson villainized, lionized, andfetishizedbut never, until now, fully humanized. Mark Kriegel, an acclaimedbiographer regarded as the finest boxing writer in America, was a youngcityside reporter at the New YorkDaily Newswhen first sweptup in the Tyson media hurricane, but here measures his subject not by whom heknocked out, but by what he survived. Though Tyson was billed as a modern-dayJack Dempsey, the truth was closer to Sonny Liston. Tyson was Black, feared,and born to die young. What made Liston a pariah, though, would make Tysonin away his own handlers could never understanda touchstone for a generationraised on a soundtrack of hip hop and gunfire.

What Peter Guralnick did for Elvis inTrain to MemphisandJames Kaplan for Sinatra inFrank, Kriegel does for Tyson. Its notjust the mesmerizing ascent that he captures, but Tysons place in the Americanpsyche.

About the Author

Mark Kriegel, a former sports columnist for theNewYork Postand theDaily News, is a boxing analyst andessayist for ESPN. He is the author ofNamath: A Biography, Pistol: TheLife of Pete MaravichandThe Good Son: The Life of Ray BoomBoom Mancini.He lives in Santa Monica, California, with his wife,the screenwriter Jenny Lumet.