Iron Mike
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The youngest world champion in heavyweight history, Mike Tyson has been the king of his category for a long time. Seen by the entire world as a real killing machine, he seems completely invincible. After his well-deserved retirement in 2005, he left behind one of the best records of all time. 50 victories, of which 44 were won by KO, against 6 losses.
Iron Mike is also known to be quite an emotional man, especially during interviews. During an interview with HBO in 2009, for the first time ever, he mentioned the death of his daughter after she had been in an accident in the home. A chilling story.
The death of his daughter
The scene took place in Mike’s house, whilst in the middle of an interview with a journalist. His emotions quickly caught up with him when the journalist was asking him questions about his four-year-old daughter who had died on 26th May 2009 after being accidentally strangled by a cord attached to a treadmill.
Journalist: Something happened in your life.
Mike Tyson: This is my best thinking at the time. Get my gun, automatic, and just go crazy.
Journalist: Who were you gonna hurt?
Mike Tyson: Regardless, that was just my first thought. But when I went to the hospital, the people that were there, they were up there because their kids were dead too, or about to die. So who the hell am I thinking of dying too? I don’t know, it’s… something happened that day. I don’t know what happened that day.
Journalist: But whatever happened that day, was there a new Mike Tyson that came the next day?
Mike Tyson: No, I did some cocaine for a week. I had to get high. I had to… I couldn’t handle it at all… You have to go, you understand right. Thank you. Can we take this stuff off?
Afterwards, the journalist apologised to the boxer, who explained that he didn’t want to break down while he was being filmed and preferred to stop. The look on his face when he made that decision says a lot about all the emotion that had been weighing down on him. Awful.
