I knew a little about his family with regards to his mother (Lorna) and sister (Denise). Bedstuy was a regular working-class neighborhood during the time that Tyson lived there. When Tyson quit fighting in 2005, it was barely a blip on my radar as I felt it was probably the best thing for him as he seemed to be spiraling.īefore Undisputed Truth, I knew that Tyson had grown up in Brownsville before he relocated to Catskills but I didn’t know that he’d spent his early years in Bedford-Stuyvesant. I was in elementary school when Tyson bit Holyfield and by junior high, he was in the news more often for nonsense than he was for his fights. To see this guy from my borough, from an even rougher neighbor, with a far worse upbringing, become rich and famous meant that anything was possible.īut Mike Tyson is also a deeply flawed individual which is something that I think he would also say about himself. Brooklyn then was not gentrified like it is now and had a reputation for being gritty and grimy, the home of stickup kids. Not so much for him as a person but what he represented to me as a kid growing up in Brooklyn at that time. So there’s a certain nostalgia that I’ll most likely always feel about him. I saw him a few times during summer vacation when he would ride down Flatbush or park on my block. Media YouTube VideoĪs a kid growing up in Brooklyn during the 1990s, Mike Tyson was the man.

At one point “Iron Mike” was regarded as the baddest man on the planet but addiction and poor business management would lead to his downfall.

It charts his rise and training to become the youngest heavyweight champion in the history of boxing. The book begins with Mike’s life as a poor and troubled child growing up in Brooklyn. Undisputed Truth is an in-depth autobiography that tells the story of Mike “Iron Mike” Tyson.

Undisputed truth book