haircut. Then I decided to go with the Spartan look that all my old heroes had, no socks, no robe. I wanted to bring that look back into the mainstream of boxing.
My first professional bout was on March 6, 1985, in Albany. My opponent was a guy named Hector Mercedes. We didn’t know anything about him, so the morning before the fight Cus got on the phone with some trainers and boxing gym owners in Puerto Rico to make sure that Mercedes wasn’t a sleeper. The night of the fight, I was nervous, but I knew I could beat the guy as soon as I saw him in the ring. I knew that Cus would match me up against a weaker opponent for my first few fights to build up my confidence.
I was right. They stopped the fight in the first round when I pummeled Hector to a kneeling position in the corner of the ring. I was excited, but back in the locker room, Cus pointed out all my flaws. “You gotta keep your hands up more. Your hands were playing around,” he said.
My next two fights were also in Albany, which was practically my hometown. A month after Mercedes, I fought Trent Singleton. I entered the ring and bowed to all four corners of the arena, then I raised my arms to the crowd like a gladiator. It didn’t take long for me to knock him down three times. The referee stopped the fight. Then I sauntered over to his corner, kissed him, and rubbed his head.
I was due to fight again in a month, so in between fights all I did was run, train, and box. That’s all Cus wanted me to do. Box, box, box, spar, spar, spar.
I fought Don Halpin on May twenty-third, and he was a much more experienced opponent. He lasted for three rounds while I was switching back and forth from a conventional stance to southpaw, experimenting and getting some ring experience. In the fourth round, I tagged him with a left and a right and he was on his way down when I hit him again with a right hook. He was on the canvas for a good amount of time before they finally got him up. Cus, of course, thought I didn’t go to the body enough and I didn’t move laterally. But Jacobs and Cayton were thrilled with the way I looked so far.
I started attracting my own following at these fights. They began showing up with little signs like they do at baseball games. One sign read GOODEN IS DOCTOR K BUT MIKE TYSON IS DOCTOR KO. I also started attracting groupies, but I wasn’t taking advantage of their advances. I was too in love with myself to think about anybody else. Actually, Cus thought I was going a little bit overboard. He thought I should go out more. So I’d go up to Albany and hang out with some of my friends there.
I hardly made any money from those early fights. My first fight lost money for the promoter, but Jimmy gave me $500. Then he took $50 from that to give to Kevin and he put $350 in the bank for me, so I walked away with $100. They were more concerned with spreading my name around than making money on these early fights. Jimmy and Cayton were the first fight managers to make highlight reels of all my knockouts and send VHS tapes to every boxing writer in the country. They were very innovative that way.
I was performing sensationally, but it seemed that Cus was getting grumpier and grumpier. Sometimes I thought that Cus thought I was an Uncle Tom. I would try to be polite to the people I’d meet and give them “Yes, ma’ams” and “No, sirs” and Cus would get on my case.
“Why are you talking to them like that? You think they’re better than you? All those people are phonies,” he’d say. Then when I acted like the god that he kept telling me I was, he’d look at me with disgust.
“You like people looking up to you, huh? Guys like Cayton and them telling you how great you are.”
I think he just needed someone to tear into. My day depended on what side of the bed Cus woke up on. By then, I had gotten my license and I would drive him to various meetings and conferences.
On June twentieth, shortly before my nineteenth birthday, I fought Ricky Spain in Atlantic City. This was my first pro fight outside of Albany, but Cus had sent me to watch big fights in cities all over the country to get me acclimated to the arenas.
“Make this your home, know this arena, know this place with your eyes closed,” he’d tell me. “You are going to be living here for a long time, so get comfortable.” He also took me along when he hung out with big-time fighters. He had me sit with them around a dinner table and get familiar with them so I’d never get intimidated by a fighter.
I was really excited to be fighting in Atlantic City and for it to be broadcast on ESPN. My opponent was unbeaten too, with a 7-0 record with five knockouts. They introduced me as “the Baby Brawler” and I don’t know about the “Baby” part, but I floored Spain twice in the first round and the ref stopped the fight.
Jimmy and Cayton were trying to get me a regular slot on ESPN, but Bob Arum, who was promoting the fights, told them that his matchmakers didn’t think much of my talent. That really pissed Cus off. Cus hated Arum’s matchmakers and after my next fight, they never worked with Arum again.
But all this political stuff didn’t interest me. I couldn’t wait for my next fight. It was in Atlantic City again on July eleventh. I was fighting John Alderson, a big country guy from West Virginia who also had a 4-0 record. This fight was on ESPN and I dropped him a few times in the second round and the doctor stopped the fight after he went back to his corner.
I ran my record to 6-0 in my next fight against Larry Sims, but I really pissed Cus off in doing so. Sims was really slick and awkward, one of those cute fighters. So in the third round, I turned lefty and I knocked him out with a resounding punch. In the dressing room later, Cus confronted me.
“Who taught you that southpaw crap? It might be hard to get you fights now,” he said. “People don’t want to fight southpaws. You’re going to ruin everything I created.” Cus hated southpaws.
“I’m sorry, Cus.” Ain’t that a bitch. There I was apologizing for a spectacular knockout.
I was back in the ring a month later and dispatched Lorenzo Canady in one round, and three weeks later I faced Mike Johnson in Atlantic City. When we lined up for the instructions, Johnson looked so arrogant, like he hated my guts. Within seconds he was down from a left hook to the kidneys and then when he got up, I threw a spectacular right hand that hit him so hard his front two teeth were lodged in his mouthpiece. I knew it would be a long time until he came to. Kevin jumped into the ring and we were laughing and high-fiving like two arrogant little kids. I was, like, “Ha, ha. Look at this dead nigga, Kevin.”
Now I was 8-0 with eight knockouts and Jimmy and Cus were using all their contacts in the press to get me recognition. I’d go down to New York to go to lunch with Jimmy and his newspaper friends. We really courted the press. I also started getting mentioned in the gossip columns because I started hanging out at the New York City hot spots like the restaurant Columbus on the Upper West Side. I became friendly with the great photographer Brian Hamill, and him and his brother Pete, who was a world-famous writer, started introducing me to all these celebrities. Pete would bring me to the bar and we’d sit with Paulie Herman, one of the owners. Paulie was the man in New York at that time. It seemed to me that he was a bigger celebrity than the celebrities themselves. Everybody wanted to be around Paulie, sit at his table, ask him for favors. I thought that he was a Mafia boss or something.
You never knew who you’d meet at Columbus. Sometimes Pete would leave me there with Paulie. Next thing I knew, David Bowie, Mikhail Baryshnikov, and Drew Barrymore, this little kid, would be sitting at the same table with us. I’d think to myself, This is deep. You better keep your composure. Then Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci walked in and sat down. We were sitting and talking and the next thing I knew, Paulie said, “Hey, Mike, we all gotta go somewhere.” And, boom, five minutes later I’m at Liza Minnelli’s house sitting on the sofa chilling with Raul Julia.
Eventually
