The Year 1988 Was a Fateful Year in the Lives of Mike Tyson and Steve Lott

Published

3 years ago

September 8, 2021

The-Year-1988-Was-A-Fateful-Year-in-the-Lives-of-Mike-Tyson-and-Steve-Lott

PART TWO OF A TWO-PART STORY — The year 1988 was a fateful year in the life of Mike Tyson. On Feb. 7, Mike married Robin Givens. On March 23, two days after he knocked out Tony Tubbs in Tokyo, his co-manager Jim Jacobs died. Mike greatly admired Jacobs and the two were very close friends. On June 27, Tyson blew away Michael Spinks in 91 seconds before a star-studded crowd of 21,785 at the Atlantic City Convention Center, aka Boardwalk Hall. The event was a blockbuster, shattering all existing records for fight revenue.

Mike and Robin Givens were a strange match. Mike was a high school dropout who was 11 years old when he was first remanded to a reformatory. Robin, 17 months older than Mike, had attended an exclusive private high school in the ‘burbs, graduating at age 15, had majored in drama at Sarah Lawrence College, and was a cast member of “Head of the Class,” a TV sitcom set in the classroom of a high school for the academically gifted. When Mike married Robin, he inherited her 44-year-old mother Ruth Roper, a twice-married and twice-divorced businesswoman who made the papers herself in 1988 when she sued the married baseball star David Winfield for giving her an unspecified venereal disease. (The suit was settled out of court.)

The femme fatale is a stock character in literature. There’s an old saying that an alluring woman (I’m paraphrasing) can sink a battleship. Robin Givens came to be seen as the quintessential femme fatale. Iron Mike Tyson was the battleship.

Steve Lott subscribes whole-heartedly to this portrait of Ms. Givens. “She conned Mike into marrying her by saying she was pregnant,” says Lott, a remonstration made by many others. As to her insistence that she wasn’t a gold-digger, Lott cites the purchase of the Malcolm Forbes estate in New Jersey.

Within days after they were married, Mike flew to Tokyo to promote his fight against Tony Tubbs. “A few days later,” says Lott, “he received a phone call from Givens who informed him that she had just purchased the Malcolm Forbes mansion in New Jersey for $4.3 million. She never told Mike that she was going to do that. I could see that Mike was very unhappy when he heard the news.”

Only hours before Mike Tyson stepped into the ring to fight Michael Spinks, Robin Givens slapped Bill Cayton with a lawsuit seeking to terminate his contract on the grounds of stealing money from Mike’s purses and, moreover, make it retroactive so that Cayton couldn’t collect his share of the purse for the Tyson-Spinks fight. “Mike had no idea that Robin was doing that,” says Lott. “In fact, Mike had actually met with Cayton the day before the fight to ask Bill’s advice about starting a new merchandise business with a friend of his.”

The lawsuit triggered a Price Waterhouse audit of Cayton’s books. The examiners found that Mike had actually been overpaid.

“Robin didn’t have the assets to sue Cayton,” says Steve Lott. “Donald Trump jumped in to help her. He made his resources available to her, his attorneys and his accountants. Since Robin could not prove that money was missing, Tyson and Cayton renewed the fighter/manager agreement without going to trial. Trump then sent Robin a bill for $3 million.”

Cayton was still legally Mike’s manager, but he was kicked to the sidelines as others muscled in to exert sway over Tyson’s career. Two weeks after the Tyson-Spinks fight, Donald Trump announced that he planned to set up a corporation to manage Mike’s affairs and that he was doing it as a friend of the family. The announcement came in the ballroom of a swanky Manhattan hotel at a formal press conference orchestrated by Trump’s press agent Howard Rubenstein. Trump had ponied up an $11 million site fee to host the Tyson-Spinks fight (Boardwalk Hall was tethered to Trump’s hotel-casino) and it proved to be a smart investment as the casino drop was enormous.

In seeking to woo Tyson away from Bill Cayton, Trump was thought to be in cahoots with Don King who would pick up the cudgel from Robin Givens, suing Bill Cayton for underpaying Mike, an allegation he could not substantiate. It was no coincidence that Givens was seated next to Don King at the fight.

As we all know, Mike Tyson fell into the clutches of Don King. Steve Lott, trainer Kevin Rooney, and cut man Matt Baransky, all of whom had been with Tyson from the very beginning, going back to his amateur days, were kicked to the curb.

The Tyson-Givens marriage was short-lived. She filed for divorce in October of 1988 on grounds of irreconcilable differences and Tyson counter-sued a week later, seeking an annulment. In his suit, Tyson accused Givens of “waging a campaign to publicly humiliate him, strip him of his manhood and his dignity.”

The catalyst was the Sept. 30 edition of the popular ABC show “20/20” wherein Givens and Tyson were interviewed by Barbara Walters. On the show, Givens said that although she still loved Michael, their marriage was a “living hell” because Mike was manic-depressive and prone to acts of domestic violence. She said this as Mike was meekly sitting next to her looking as if he taken some Valium.

BAWA

“The charge that Mike was manic-depressive was BS,” says Steve Lott. “Bill Cayton hired the top psychiatrist in New York (Abraham Halpern) to examine Mike and he determined that Mike wasn’t and had never been manic-depressive.”

Six weeks before his appearance on “20/20,” Mike cracked a bone in his left hand in a street fight with former opponent Mitch “Blood” Green. The altercation happened at 4:30 am on a Tuesday morning in front of Dapper Dan’s, an all-night boutique and after-hours nightclub in Harlem.

In June of the previous year, Mike scuffled with a 20-year-old parking lot attendant after attending a rap concert at the Greek Theater in Los Angeles. The charges of assault and battery were dismissed by a municipal court judge but the parking lot attendant, whose nose and lip were bloodied, purportedly received a $105,000 settlement.

This incident is at odds with the narrative that Tyson didn’t become a loose cannon until after the last remnants of his original team were purged from his life. The feral child that Cus D’Amato and Jim Jacobs had supposedly molded into a solid citizen was still very much a work in progress.

Lott demurs. “When I was with Mike, he never did anything inappropriate,” he says. “Don King and his people undid all the great things that Cus did.”

Lott notes that before the separation Tyson was raking in big money in commercial endorsements. He had deals with Pepsi and Nintendo and Kodak and was a poster boy for the New York Police Department (“It takes a bigger person than me to be a New York City cop,” read the poster which was designed as part of a recruiting campaign). Tyson even did a public service announcement for the FBI encouraging kids to stay off drugs.

All those endorsements dried up in a hurry after Givens, Trump, and King entered his life and there was no going back even before he was convicted of raping an 18-year-old beauty queen in an Indianapolis hotel during the 1991 Miss Black America pageant. The conviction begat a six-year prison sentence that was cut in half for good behavior. He was released on March 23, 1995. Future co-managers, John Horne and Rory Holloway, old friends from his Catskill days who were now in the employ of Don King, were waiting at the gate. Lott believes that King had an inside man at the prison hired to keep Tyson in line. He was now a free agent as the legal wrangling between King and Bill Cayton stopped when Tyson was packed off to prison as the antagonists decided that it was better to reach a private settlement than to continue to spend thousands on legal fees when there was a possibility that Tyson might never fight again.

Looking back at his end days as Mike Tyson’s co-manager, Lott says, “we didn’t realize how vulnerable Mike was.”

“Vulnerability” is about as far as Lott will go in touching on the flaws in Tyson’s character. “He showed me many kindnesses when we were together. He will always be my friend.” And as for writing a memoir, Steve says that won’t happen: “A lot of stuff would be personal.”

Lott wrote Tyson hundreds of letters when Mike was incarcerated at the Indiana Youth Correctional Center and visited him there three times. “I told Mike, you don’t have to go back to Bill Cayton, but please don’t sign with Don King.” Lott regards King as the greatest con man of all time, an opinion likely shared by Mike Tyson who filed a one hundred million dollar lawsuit in federal court against King in 1998 to capture money skimmed from him.

Lott hasn’t seen Tyson in several years but they were reunited in 2014 when Lott became a consultant to Iron Mike Productions, a boxing promotional firm that was almost as short-lived as Tyson’s first marriage, going belly-up when Mike’s partner, the money man, ran out of cash.

Mike Tyson, who once seemed destined to die a sordid death at a young age, has reinvented himself and is doing well. All of his misdeeds and tribulations from his fighting days have been swept under the rug and now the erstwhile Baddest Man On The Planet is almost cuddly (if one can get past the marijuana haze). And Steve Lott is also doing well.

Big Fights Inc. owned the rights to more than 17,000 boxing films, including many antiquarian films that were rescued and restored. Cayton sold the library to ESPN for $73 million but with the stipulation that he or his heirs could continue to display the films, but only within the confines of a Boxing Hall of Fame.

Cayton died on Oct. 4, 2003. His son Brian became the beneficiary of Cayton’s largess. In 2010, Steve Lott was named the President of the Boxing Hall of Fame Las Vegas and began to concentrate on social media to bring the Hall to the attention of the boxing world.

For a time, the World Boxing Hall of Fame Las Vegas had a brick-and-mortar location inside the Luxor Hotel on the Las Vegas Strip where it was part of an attraction called Score!, a multi-sports interactive exhibit with memorabilia associated with legends of various sports provided by various sports’ Hall of Fame and by private collectors. Score! opened in December of 2012 but its lease wasn’t renewed and Lott’s “Hall” now exists as a web site on key social media sites such as Facebook, youtube, linkedin, twitter, and Instagram.

Lott says that the Boxing Hall of Fame Las Vegas gets more views on Facebook than all the other sports’ Hall of Fame combined. So much for the notion that boxing is a dying sport.

Editor’s Note: The Boxing Hall of Fame – Las Vegas is working with a new high-end social media company named Official Boxing Odds that specializes in boxing media and will be integrating the entire Boxing Hall of Fame library of video and photographs in all of their social media platforms.

Tyson/Lott photo compliments of Steve Lott

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Arne K. Lang

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Skylar Lacy Blocked for Lamar Jackson before Making his Mark in Boxing

Published

2 days ago

January 19, 2025

Arne K. Lang

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Skylar Lacy, a six-foot-seven heavyweight, returns to the ring on Sunday, Feb. 2, opposing Brandon Moore on a card in Flint, Michigan, airing worldwide on DAZN.

As this is being written, the bookmakers hadn’t yet posted a line on the bout, but one couldn’t be accused of false coloring by calling the 10-round contest a 50/50 fight. And if his frustrating history is any guide, Lacy will have another draw appended to his record or come out on the wrong side of a split decision.

This should not be construed as a tip to wager on Moore. “Close fights just don’t seem to go my way,” says the boxer who played alongside future multi-year NFL MVP Lamar Jackson at the University of Louisville.

A 2021 National Golden Gloves champion, Skylar Lacy came up short in his final amateur bout, losing a split decision to future U.S. Olympian Joshua Edwards. His last Team Combat League assignment resulted in another loss by split decision and he was held to a draw in both instances when stepping up in class as a pro. “In my mind, I’m still undefeated,” says Lacy (8-0-2, 6 KOs). “No one has ever kicked my ass.”

Lacy was the B-side in both of those draws, the first coming in a 6-rounder against Top Rank fighter Antonio Mireles on a Top Rank show in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and the second in an 8-rounder against George Arias, a Lou DiBella fighter on a DiBella-promoted card in Philadelphia.

Lacy had the Mireles fight in hand when he faded in the homestretch. The altitude was a factor. Lake Tahoe, Nevada (officially Stateline) sits 6,225 feet above sea level. The fight with Arias took an opposite tack. Lacy came on strong after a slow start to stave off defeat.

Skylar will be the B-side once again in Michigan. The card’s promoter, former world title challenger Dmitriy Salita, inked Brandon Moore (16-1, 10 KOs) in January. “A capable American heavyweight with charisma, athleticism and skills is rare in today’s day and age. Brandon has got all these ingredients…”, said Salita in the press release announcing the signing. (Salita has an option on Skylar Lacy’s next pro fight in the event that Skylar should win, but the promoter has a larger investment in Moore who was previously signed to Top Rank, a multi-fight deal that evaporated after only one fight.)

Both Lacy and Moore excelled in other sports. The six-foot-six Moore was an outstanding basketball player in high school in Fort Lauderdale and at the NAIA level in college. Lacy was an all-state football lineman in Indiana before going on to the University of Louisville where he started as an offensive guard as a redshirt sophomore, blocking for freshman phenom Lamar Jackson. “Lamar was hard-working and humble,” says Lacy about the player who is now one of the world’s highest-paid professional athletes.

When Lacy committed to Louisville, the head coach was Charlie Strong who went on to become the head coach at the University of Texas. Lacy was never comfortable with Strong’s successor Bobby Petrino and transferred to San Jose State. Having earned his degree in only three years (a BA in communications) he was eligible immediately but never played a down because of injuries.

Returning to Indianapolis where he was raised by his truck dispatcher father, a single parent, Lacy gravitated to Pat McPherson’s IBG (Indy Boxing and Grappling) Gym on the city’s east side where he was the rare college graduate pounding the bags alongside at-risk kids from the city’s poorer neighborhoods.

Lacy built a 12-6 record across his two seasons in Team Combat League while representing the Las Vegas Hustle (2023) and the Boston Butchers (2024).

For the uninitiated, a Team Combat League (TCL) event typically consists of 24 fights, each consisting of one three-minute round. The concept finds no favor with traditionalists, but Lacy is a fan. It’s an incentive for professional boxers to keep in shape between bouts without disturbing their professional record and, notes Lacy, it’s useful in exposing a competitor to different styles.

“It paid the bills and kept me from just sitting around the house,” says Lacy whose 12-6 record was forged against 13 different opponents.

As a sparring partner, Lacy has shared the ring with some of the top heavyweights of his generation, e.g., Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte. He was one of Fury’s regular sparring partners during the Gypsy King’s trilogy with Deontay Wilder. He worked with Joshua at Derrick James’ gym in Dallas and at Ben Davison’s gym in England, helping Joshua prepare for his date in Saudi Arabia with Francis Ngannou and had previously sparred with Ngannou at the UFC Performance Center in Las Vegas. Skylar names traveling to new places as one of his hobbies and he got to scratch that itch when he joined Whyte’s camp in Portugal.

As to the hardest puncher he ever faced, he has no hesitation: “Ngannou,” he says. “I negotiated a nice price to spend a week in his camp and the first time he hit me I knew I should have asked for more.”

Lacy is confident that having shared the ring with some of the sport’s elite heavyweights will get him over the hump in what will be his first 10-rounder (Brandon Moore has never had to fight beyond eight rounds, having won his three 10-rounders inside the distance). Lacy vs. Moore is the co-feature to Claressa Shields’ homecoming fight with Danielle Perkins. Shields, basking in the favorable reviews accorded the big-screen biopic based on her first Olympic journey (“The Fire Inside”) will attempt to capture a title in yet another weight class at the expense of the 42-year-old Perkins, a former professional basketball player.

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Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce

Published

4 days ago

January 18, 2025

David A. Avila

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Japan’s Mizuki Hiruta smashed through Mexico’s Maribel Ramirez with ease in winning by technical decision and local hero Omar Trinidad continued his assault on the featherweight division on Friday.

Hiruta (7-0, 2 KOs), who prefers to be called “Mimi,” made her American debut with an impressive performance against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez (15-11-4) and retained the WBO super flyweight world title by unanimous decision at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

The pink-haired Japanese southpaw champion quickly proved to be quicker, stronger and even better than advertised. In the opening round Ramirez landed on the floor twice after throwing errant blows. On one instance, it could have been ruled a knockdown but it was not a convincing blow.

In the second round, Ramirez again attacked and again was met with a Hiruta check right hook and down went the Mexican. This time referee Ray Corona gave the eight-count and the fight resumed.

It was Hiruta’s third title defense but this time it was on American soil. She seemed nervous by the prospect of getting a favorable review from the more than 700 fans inside the casino tent.

For more than a year Hiruta has been training off and on with Manny Robles in the L.A. area. Now that she has a visa, she has spent considerable time this year learning the tricks of the trade. They proved explosively effective.

Though Mexico City’s Ramirez has considerable experience against world champions, she discovered that Hiruta was not easy to hit. Often, the Japanese champion would slip and counter with precision.

It was an impressive American debut, though the fight was stopped in the eighth round after a collision of heads. The scores were tallied and all three saw Hiruta the winner by scores of 80-71 twice and 79-72.

“I’m so happy. I could have done much more,” said Hiruta through interpreter Yuriko Miyata. “I wanted to do more things that Manny Robles taught me.”

Trinidad Wins Too

Omar Trinidad (18-0-1, 13 KOs) discovered that challenger Mike Plania (31-5, 18 KOs) has a very good chin and staying power. But over 10 rounds Trinidad proved to be too fast and too busy for the Filipino challenger.

Immediately it was evident that the East L.A. featherweight was too quick and too busy for Plania who preferred a counter-puncher attack that never worked.

“He was strong,” said Trinidad. “He took everything.”

After 10 redundant rounds all three judges scored for Trinidad 100-90 twice and 99-91. He retains the WBC Continental Americas title.

Other Bouts

Ali Akhmedov (23-1, 17 KOs) blasted out Malcolm Jones (17-5-1) in less than two rounds. A dozen punches by Akhmedov forced referee Thomas Taylor to stop the super middleweight fight.

Iyana “Roxy” Verduzco (3-0) bloodied Lindsey Ellis in the first round and continued the speedy assault in the next two rounds. Referee Ray Corona saw enough and stopped the fight in favor of Verduzco at 1:34 of the third round.

Gloria Munguilla (7-1) and Brook Sibrian (5-2) lit up the boxing ring with a nonstop clash for eight rounds in their light flyweight fight. Munguilla proved effective with a slip-and-counter attack. Sibrian adjusted and made the fight closer in the last four rounds but all three judges favored Munguilla.

More Winners

Joshua Anton, Tayden Beltran, Adan Palma, and Alexander Gueche all won their bouts.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Published

5 days ago

January 16, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Best wishes to the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires that took place last week and are still ongoing in small locales.

Most of the heavy damage took place in the western part of L.A. near the ocean due to Santa Ana winds. Another very hot spot was in Altadena just north of the Rose Bowl. It was a horrific tragedy.

Hopefully the worst is over.

Pro boxing returns with 360 Boxing Promotions spotlighting East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad (17-0-1, 13 KOs) defending a regional featherweight title against Mike Plania (31-4, 18 KOs) on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

“I’m the king of L.A. boxing and I’ll be ready to put on a show headlining again in the main event. This is my year, I’m ready to challenge and defeat any of the featherweight world champions,” said Trinidad.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the Hollywood Night fight card that includes a female world championship fight and other intriguing match-ups.

Tom Loeffler heads 360 Promotions and once again comes full force with a hot prospect in Trinidad. If you’re not familiar with Loeffler’s history of success, he introduced America to Oleksandr Usyk, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the brothers Wladimir and Vitaly Kltischko.

“We’ve got a wealth of international talent and local favorites to kick off our 2025 in grand style,” said Loeffler.

He knows talent.

Trinidad hails from the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. near the Los Angeles riverbed. Several fighters from the past came from that exact area including the first Golden Boy, Art Aragon.

Aragon was a huge gate attraction during the late 1940s until 1960. He was known as a lady’s man and dated several Hollywood starlets in his time. Though he never won a world title he did fight world champions Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Carter and Lauro Salas. He was more or less the king of the Olympic Auditorium and Los Angeles boxing during his career.

Other famous boxers from the Boyle Heights area were notorious gangster Mickey Cohen and former world champion Joey Olivo.

Can Trinidad reach world title status?

Facing Trinidad will be Filipino fighter Plania who’s knocked off a couple of prospects during his career including Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer and Giovanni Gutierrez. The fighter from General Santos in the Philippines can crack and hold his own in the boxing ring.

It’s a very strong fight card and includes WBO world titlist Mizuki Hiruta of Japan who defends the super flyweight title against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez. It’s a tough matchup for Hiruta who makes her American debut. You can’t miss her with that pink hair and she has all the physical tools to make a splash in this country.

Mizukii Hiruta

Two other female bouts are also planned, including light flyweight banger L.A.’s Gloria Munguilla (6-1) against Coachella’s Brook Sibrian (5-1) in a match set for six rounds. Both are talented fighters. Another female fight includes super featherweights Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) versus Lindsey Ellis (2-1) in another six-rounder. Ellis can crack with all her wins coming via knockout. Verduzco is a multi-national titlist as an amateur.

Others scheduled to perform are Ali Akhmedov, Joshua Anton, Adan Palma and more.

Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

Boxing and the Media

The sport of professional boxing is currently in flux. It’s always in flux but no matter what people may say or write, boxing will survive.

Whether you like Jake Paul or not, he proved boxing has worldwide appeal with monstrous success in his last show. He has media companies looking at the numbers and imagining what they can do with the sport.

Sure, UFC is negotiating a massive billion dollar deal with media companies, as is WWE, both are very similar in that they provide combat entertainment. You don’t need to know the champions because they really don’t matter. Its about the attractions.

Boxing is different. The good champions last and build a following that endures even beyond their careers a la Mike Tyson.

MMA can’t provide that longevity, but it does provide entertainment.

Currently, there is talk of establishing a boxing league again. It’s been done over and over but we shall see if it sticks this time.

Pro boxing is the true warrior’s path and that means a solo adventure. It’s a one-on-one sport and that appeals to people everywhere. It’s the oldest sport that can be traced to prehistoric times. You don’t need classes in Brazilian Jiujitsu, judo, kick boxing or wrestling. Just show up in a boxing gym and they can put you to work.

It’s a poor person’s path that can lead to better things and most importantly discipline.

Photos credit: Lina Baker

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