Details magazine interviews the new, mature, vegan Mike Tyson — but he clearly remembers his past:
Details: Your opponents always seemed to weaken before the opening bell. Proud fighters in peak condition—Trevor Berbick, Michael Spinks, Donovan “Razor” Ruddock, Frank Bruno, even Larry Holmes—just seemed to get smaller the moment they made eye contact with you. It was like witchcraft.
Mike Tyson: No doubt about it. Intimidation is crucial to the art of warfare, and it’s totally legit. It’s allowed to be used. It must be used.
Details: But how did you do it? All these guys had spent lifetimes thriving on that same intimidation.
Mike Tyson: I just had to believe it. And if I didn’t, I just had to make myself believe it.
Details: Believe what?
Mike Tyson: That I had to kill this man. And you can’t fake it, not even one tenth of one hundredth percent. You have to believe it so strongly that you can impose that belief, that will, on him. And that’s another realm altogether.
Details: Because every fighter has to have that same will, that same need, that same drive… to impose their will on another man.
Mike Tyson: Every fighter in the history of fighting. But none like me. And, believe me, I’m not being immodest. None like me. I studied every fighter in history, at my manager’s house up in Catskill, ’cause he had all the greatest fights on film, he had every last one of them, and I watched them all, every night. They were all so vicious, man. Jake LaMotta, Henry Armstrong, Carmen Basilio. Sugar Ray — God, he was vicious. But Jack Dempsey more than anyone. All these guys let you know they wanted to murder you, and they’d take shots from you, over and over and over, get beat senseless, just so they could get theirs in. Sugar Ray maybe most of all. But Jack Dempsey? He wanted to maim you. He didn’t want you dead. He wanted you to suffer. He wanted to shatter your eye socket, destroy your cheeks, your chinbone. That’s what I learned from Mr. Dempsey, and I believe I learned it well.
Details: And what did you learn from Mr. Ali?
Mike Tyson: Believe it or not, with all that poetry and the butterflies, what I learned from Ali was meanness. He was the meanest fighter of all time. He’d be in there with Foreman, hardest puncher of all time, he’d be in there with Frazier, another hardest puncher, and he’d be taking it, boom, getting pounded, and then he’d turn, when it was his time, and you’d look at that face, and he’s screaming. [Does an Ali impression] “I’m not [Throws a punch] scared [Throws a punch] of you, you fucking faggot. [Throws two punches] You fucking punk. I’m fucking God, and worship me. I’m the greatest. [Throws two punches] You’re a little fucking boy, cocksucker.” Nobody at ringside reported it, but nobody shit-talked like Ali.