“THIS is not a tough man’s world; it’s a thinking man’s world.” So tweeted Mike Tyson recently with words to live by from a man who knows. 

The third act of Mike Tyson’s life has been fascinating to watch. From harrowing times that have included a very ugly divorce from Robin Givens, excessive cocaine use, the frittering away of his fortune, being convicted and imprisoned for rape, and plus and perhaps most notably the accidental death of his four-year-old daughter Exodus in 2009, Tyson has re-emerged to attain the status of entrepreneur with his cannabis farm and brand in California, boxing guru with his Instagram videos of him teaching the sweet science, podcaster, broadcaster and public speaker. He’s even taken part in an exhibition bout with fellow ring legend Roy Jones Jr.

So, yes, the former heavyweight champion’s life has been a study in redemption and reinvention. However not everybody is impressed. In a recent Guardian piece on Tyson, Frank Warren, who once promoted Mike Tyson in the UK — and who was once physically assaulted by him — left no doubt when it comes to what he thinks about the man: ‘“He is a compelling character, and he’s one of those fellas who gets you to feel that he’s misunderstood but, when you get into it, he is what he is, which is a thug and a bully and a misogynist.”

Regardless of Warren’s scathing opinion, which doubtless many will share, Mike Tyson continues to occupy an important place not just in sporting culture but in Western culture overall; his life, personality, and legacy an enduring subject of fascination and discourse. 

This is confirmed by the controversial miniseries about his life that’s currently being aired on US streaming channel Hulu. 

Mike Tyson has gone public with his criticisms of the Hulu miniseries, the producers of which he alleges were dishonest in interviewing people from his life to gain information and insight on him, claiming they were doing so with Tyson’s permission and sanction. “Someone should get fired from Hulu,” he tweeted recently. “Producers were lying to my friends saying I supported the unauthorised series about my life.”

Even more stridently, Tyson also tweeted: “Hey @Hulu I’m not a n….r you can sell on the auction block.”

The Hulu miniseries, “Mike”, goes deep into Tyson’s spectacular fall from grace, which involves his 1991 rape of Desiree Washington, played by Li Eubanks, being told almost entirely from her perspective, thus making a strong statement. Tyson it should be noted has always maintained his innocence of this crime and no doubt has been negatively impacted by it being dredged up again in the way that it has. At least he has a platform from which to denounce it. Desiree Washington has no such luxury, so who knows how it has impacted her?

Playing Tyson in the series is Trevante Rhodes, with BJ Minor playing him as a teenager growing up on the mean streets of Brownsville, New York. Playing his legendary trainer Cus D’Amato, meanwhile, is Harvey Keitel.

Much of Tyson’s anger towards the Hulu miniseries and its producers is largely over the fact he wasn’t paid for the privilege, and also because the series has served to dampen much of the hype around the movie biopic of his life that is currently in development and will star Jamie Foxx in the role. This project is in development with Tyson’s full support and co-operation.   

In his prime as a fighter, during which at 21 he became the youngest heavyweight champion in history, the aura of menace and violence Mike Tyson emitted was primordial in its intensity. Here was a fighter who climbed into a boxing ring not just looking to win against his opponents but to destroy them. He was unapologetically politically incorrect and violent both in word and in deed. Per the line from the classic Curtis Mayfield track, “Pusherman,” Tyson was the archetypal “nigga in the alley” so feared by white America. He was his generation’s Sonny Liston and equally fearsome. He was the recalcitrant slave who’d left the plantation and was in no mind to go along to get along. Like Liston, Tyson left the ghetto but the ghetto never left him.

It remains the case that the sport has never produced a more frightening exponent of boxing as an exercise in legalised violence. Tyson’s style, perfected by D’Amato, utilised his small-for-a-heavyweight 5’10” stature to its fullest advantage. This involved him coming forward low while bobbing and weaving to get inside his opponent’s jab and right crosses, before unleashing vicious body-head combinations with ferocious speed. The result was 44 KOs from 56 fights, which, during the late ’80s and on into the ’90s, were must-watch events. 

Tyson today extols the supposed merits of cannabis and is clearly enjoying being feted by a new generation of fans. He is a man who has sought to educate himself, purportedly reading and studying the works of Mao and Che Guevara while in prison and carrying tattoos of both on his body. 

Yet despite having softened with age, his image as a brooding outlaw remains entrenched. In this, Tyson’s legacy continues to tap into the long-held intrigue with those who march to the beat of their own drum. This in a society tightly controlled within the narrow parameters of corporate values, which dictate that the vast majority exist as mere appendages to the machine.

Iron Mike Tyson, shaped by a childhood of violence and malevolence in Brownsville, New York, is representative of the other America, one in which a war of all against all defines the country far more accurately than any guff about opportunity, freedom and liberty.

An icon for all the wrong reasons in the eyes of many, Mike Tyson’s early life confirms the truth that monsters are made not born. Without a test there is no testimony, they say, and whatever anyone may say about the man, Mike Tyson has throughout his life been thoroughly tested.

As to his testimony, both in and out of the ring there’s been more than enough drama to go round.