Mike Tyson

Brief History of Mike Tyson

 
 Mike Tyson is a well known Heavyweight boxer. He became the youngest Heavyweight Champion in history, winning the title at the age of twenty. The boxer was best known for his first round knockouts. His popularity soon became international. Because of his celebrity, video game developer Nintendo created a boxing game for their video game console. Called Mike Tyson's Punch Out, the game is currently recognized as one of the best boxing video games in history.

Fall of a Champion

 

Mike Tyson's moment on top wouldn't last. It all began with his wife Robin Givens. During Mike Tyson and Robins interview with Barbara Walters, Robin shocked the world when she described her husband as a controlling, abusive, and cruel man. During the whole confession, Mike Tyson was sitting right by his wife completely humiliated. After a major fall out between the two, Mike Tyson divorced his wife. The rain continued to pour when during a mandatory title defense, he was defeated by a boxer many people thought wouldn't stand a chance named Buster Douglas. Buster exposed Tyson as a one dimensional fighter who was only good in the early rounds of a fight. If this wasn't bad enough, soon after the loss, a young eighteen year old model named Desiree Washington accused Mike Tyson of rape. Even though many people were on his side, the history Mike Tyson had being sexually aggressive around women, and the fact that the eighteen year old turned out to be a virgin prior to the indecent, Mike Tyson was convicted and sentenced to prison.

After Prison

After Mike Tyson was released from prison, he attempted to make a comeback in boxing. At first, it looked like the old Tyson who can knock people out in one round was back. He won the WBA Heavyweight Title becoming Heavyweight Champion for the second time. Mike Tyson soon faced off against Evander Holyfield . Holyfield defeated Mike Tyson by stopping him in the 11th round. A rematch was made not long after his loss. In this fight, Mike Tyson fell from grace again. Out of frustration, he bit the ear of Evander Holyfield ripping a piece of flesh off. A huge outrage from the public happened because of his actions.  Mike Tyson was fined and suspended from boxing for a year. After the suspension, Mike Tyson tried to win the Heavyweight Championship for the third time. He faced off against Heavyweight Champion Lennox Lewis who Mike made cruel comments about.  He was most famously known for saying he wanted to eat Lewis's children. Mike Tyson also got into a public fight with Lewis during a press face off. During the struggle, Tyson bit Lennox Lewis leg. In the Title fight, Lennox Lewis completely dominated Mike Tyson before knocking him out. Mike Tyson's downward spiral as a boxer was complete.

Mike Tyson in Video Games

Mike Tyson also fell from grace in the video game world. Nintendo removed all Mike Tyson's Punch Out games from stores, and soon replace them with Punch Out: Featuring Mr. Dream, the replacement character for Mike Tyson. In professional boxing games by various developers, Mike Tyson was usually not included in the roster of historic and popular fighters. Video game developer Atomic Planet, did make two official Mike Tyson games. The first game was Mike Tyson Boxing for the Playstation. Despite poor reviews, the developer released a sequel called Mike Tyson's Heavyweight Boxing for the Playstation2. The sequel  had Mike Tyson facing off against other popular Heavyweights that fought in the 1990's. Just recently in 2009, developer Electronic Arts has announced that they would put Mike Tyson back into their boxing video game roster for Fight Night: Round 4. A voting campaign between him and Muhammad Ali was made to decide which character would be featured on the box art. However, in the end, Electronic Arts decided to put both fighters on the games box art.
 

Mike Tyson and Capcom

When making the game Street Fighter II, the developers made a character based on Mike Tyson as their boxer character. They called him Mike Bison. When they decided to bring the popular arcade game to the states, Capcom feared a lawsuit from the sue happy Mike Tyson. At the time of the games release, Mike Tyson was suing many people he felt ripped him off, including his own promoter Don King. So they changed his name to Balrog, whom the character now known as Vega was originally called. They changed Mike Bison to M. Bison and used the name for the final boss who was originally known as Vega. If this sounds confusing, they basically switched the names around.