Mark Kriegel’s New Book About Mike Tyson is a Must-Read

Across fifty-nine tumultuous years, Mike Tyson has been at different times a son, brother, juvenile delinquent, petty criminal, amateur boxer, youngest heavyweight champion, convicted rapist, husband, father, monologist, and businessman.

Tyson has been a curiosity item for millions of people from early in his ring career in which he displayed a flaming hot temper, a menacing persona and a keen knockout punch.

And while all of this is true of “Iron Mike,” deep down there was a profound need to be loved, a need fulfilled by his crusty trainer Cus D’Amato who became his legal guardian and D’Amato’s longtime companion Camille Ewald. They gave Tyson his first real family, something he had always longed for. (Sadly, D’Amato passed away in November 1985 and never saw Tyson become the heavyweight king.)

Countless books and magazine articles have been written about Tyson. Renowned sportswriter Gary Smith, who wrote one of the earliest profiles of Mike Tyson, a widely-cited story for Sports Illustrated that ran on March 21, 1988, offered his take on Iron Mike the man: “The contradictions in Mike were so big, the tension of opposites so hot, you could almost feel them crackling. Whoever he was in one moment, whatever he was surest of, you just had to stick around a little while and see that turn inside-out.”

Now along comes Mark Kriegel’s 448-page, must-read, page-turner “Baddest Man: The Making Of Mike Tyson,” published by Penguin Random House.

Kriegel, perhaps best known for his work as an ESPN boxing analyst, earned a master’s degree from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism and previously authored well-received biographies of Joe Namath, Pete Maravich, and Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini. In “Baddest Man,” he leans on the deep reporting skills he honed as a cityside reporter in New York beginning in the late 1980s and later as a columnist for the New York Post and the New York Daily News. What he shows the reader so skillfully is the full measure of his subject, a man both troubled and uniquely gifted. In his deft hands, Tyson’s life is laid bare, warts and all, for all to witness.

Still, Kriegel resisted writing a book about Tyson, someone he has known for decades. “It was the most daunting experience of my life,” he admitted. “I didn’t want to revisit that.”

Backed against the hardscrabble life that is Brownsville Brooklyn, once the home base of Murder Inc., no one expected Tyson to become a lawyer or a doctor.

Leave those lofty professions to the Ivy League graduates. Tyson, you see, was born to box.

But Kriegel’s book shows Tyson as layered, multi-dimensional and, like all of us, with both good and bad traits. For instance, in the prologue, Kriegel recounts Tyson watching his daughter play tennis. In this setting, the onetime Brooklyn strongboy is a full-fledged father, not this intimidating monster of his youth.

With this book, Kriegel exhibits his virtuoso skills by getting deep into Tyson’s psyche, giving us insight into how a man once so reviled is now seen as almost cuddly and is almost universally loved.

In the line of great boxing writers, Kriegel with his latest work has pushed his way toward the top of this short list that includes A.J. Liebling, W.C. Heinz and Budd Schulberg, three masters of the English language.

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I’ll leave you with this observation: I witnessed the gentler side of Tyson on April 30, 2010 at the Tropicana Hotel in Las Vegas on a card in which welterweight Robert Guerrero was featured.

Seated ringside next to me was Harold Lederman, and before the main event, I saw a young boy around the age of 12 approach Tyson, who was also ringside along with his wife, Lakiha Spicer, with a pair of boxing gloves in hand and asked him to sign, which he did.

I leaned over and said to Lederman, “that’s a sweet moment to remember,” and the onetime boxing judge and unofficial scorekeeper for HBO Boxing, nodded in agreement.

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“Baddest Man, The Making Of Mike Tyson” originally began as an essay. The book, which can be found at better bookstores everywhere and is available on Amazon, ends with the Tyson-Spinks fight in Atlantic City, a great spectacle although the fight itself lasted only 91 seconds. So, yes, there will be a second volume.

The wait will be worth it.