Prison, the bite and Memphis: Tyson's long way down

Four months after Buster Douglas knocked him out in Tokyo, Mike Tyson was back in the ring. On 16 June 1990 at Caesars Palace he knocked out Henry Tillman, the 1984 Olympic champion who had beaten him twice as an amateur, with a right hand at 2:47 of the first round. Don King led him round the ring. "He's back," King said.

In December he stopped Alex Stewart in the first round in Atlantic City, putting him down three times. "I'm a champion," Tyson said. "Being a champion is a frame of mind."

Ruddock, and a fight that did not happen

Then came Donovan "Razor" Ruddock. They met at the Mirage on 18 March 1991. Ruddock went down in the second and third rounds, and Tyson was rocked in the sixth. In the seventh, after a flurry drove Ruddock to the ropes, the referee Richard Steele stopped it with Ruddock still on his feet. The ring filled, a melee broke out, and Steele was escorted out by six security guards. "The guy was hurt," he said. "There was no need for me counting him out." Tyson said of Ruddock: "He punches like a mule kicks."

The rematch, on 28 June 1991, went 12 rounds. Tyson put Ruddock down twice and lost points for fouls, and won a unanimous decision, 113–109, 114–108 and 114–108. Ruddock left with a broken jaw.

Next was to be Evander Holyfield, the undisputed champion, at Caesars Palace on 8 November 1991. On 18 October it was postponed: Tyson had damaged cartilage in his left rib cage in training. By then he had a trial date in Indianapolis. The fight did not take place for five years.

Indianapolis

In July 1991 Tyson met Desiree Washington, an 18-year-old contestant in the Miss Black America pageant, at a rehearsal in Indianapolis. She was Miss Black Rhode Island. What happened in Tyson's room at the Canterbury Hotel in the early hours of 19 July was the subject of the trial that followed. Tyson said the sex had been consensual.

He was tried before Judge Patricia Gifford from late January 1992, and on 10 February the jury found him guilty of one count of rape and two of criminal deviate conduct. On 26 March he was sentenced to ten years, with four suspended, and fined $30,000. "Something needs to be done about the attitude you displayed here," Gifford told him. Tyson said: "I've been convicted but I didn't rape anyone." Bail was refused, because Gifford judged he was a risk to flee.

He was held at the Indiana Youth Center in Plainfield and was released at 6.16am on Saturday 25 March 1995. King was there to meet him. He went straight from the prison to a mosque less than three miles away.

The comeback

His first fight back was against Peter McNeeley at the MGM Grand on 19 August 1995. McNeeley went down twice and got up both times. After the second knockdown his manager, Vinny Vecchione, climbed into the ring, and the referee Mills Lane disqualified McNeeley. It had lasted 89 seconds. "People paid a lot of money," said Sugar Ray Leonard. "They're not here to see a bizarre ending."

In December Tyson knocked out Buster Mathis Jr in the third round in Philadelphia, and on 16 March 1996 he took the WBC title back from Frank Bruno. Bruno was cut over the left eye in the first round and stopped 50 seconds into the third. "I feel a little bit broken-hearted," Bruno said. "He is a little bit better than I thought."

Lennox Lewis was the WBC's mandatory challenger. King paid him $4 million to step aside so Tyson could fight Bruce Seldon for the WBA title instead. On 7 September 1996 Tyson put Seldon down twice and the fight was stopped at 1:49 of the first round, with the crowd booing and chanting "fix". "I did not train 12 weeks to come here and take a dive," Seldon said. Later that month, rather than defend the WBC title against Lewis, Tyson gave it up. "I thought he was a warrior," said Lewis's promoter, Dino Duva. "I was wrong."

On 9 November 1996, Holyfield stopped him in the 11th round and took the WBA title.

The bite

The rematch was at the MGM Grand Garden Arena on 28 June 1997. Holyfield was paid $35 million and Tyson $30 million. Mills Lane was the referee.

In the second round a clash of heads opened a cut over Tyson's right eye. The referee ruled it accidental. In the third, Tyson bit Holyfield's right ear, tore off a piece about an inch long and spat it onto the canvas. Lane took two points from him, the ringside doctor said Holyfield could go on, and they went on. Then Tyson bit the left ear. At the end of the round he was disqualified.

"The first bite was a foul," Lane said. "The doctor said Holyfield could continue so I let them go. But then he bit him on the other ear. You have to take a position sometime and that was it."

It did not end with the bell. Tyson tried to throw more punches at Holyfield before security got hold of him. Holyfield's ear needed stitches. "I guess he thought it was the only chance he had," Holyfield said. "He is a coward." Tyson blamed the butts. "He butted me in the first round and then the second round and he was going to butt me again," he said. "No one warned him and no one took any points off."

Two days later he read a statement. "Evander, I am sorry," he said. "You are a champion and I respect that." He asked that it not be "a penalty for life for this mistake", and said he had asked medical professionals "to tell me why I did what I did".

On 9 July the Nevada State Athletic Commission voted 5–0 to revoke his licence and fined him $3 million, the maximum, ten per cent of his purse. "We must take the most stringent action available to us," said its chairman, Elias Ghanem. Tyson could reapply after a year. In October 1998 the commission gave him his licence back on a 4–1 vote. "Please don't torture me any longer, sir," Tyson told them. "I made a mistake."

The wilderness

In January 1999 he knocked out Frans Botha in the fifth round. The next month a court in Maryland sent him to jail for a year after he pleaded no contest to assaulting two motorists after a traffic accident. "The court views this as a tragic example of potentially lethal road rage," said the judge, Stephen Johnson. Tyson was freed in May.

Few of the fights that followed went more than a couple of rounds. Against Orlin Norris in October 1999 he punched after the bell at the end of the first round; Norris did not come out for the second, and it went down as a no contest. In Manchester in January 2000 he put Julius Francis down five times and stopped him in the second round. In Glasgow in June he beat Lou Savarese in 38 seconds, and kept punching after the referee stepped in. Afterwards, according to Salon, he said of Lewis: "When I'm ready I'm going to rip out his heart and feed it to him." Andrew Golota quit on his stool in October 2000, and in Copenhagen in October 2001 Brian Nielsen did the same after six rounds.

Lewis

The Lewis fight was announced at the Hudson Theatre in New York on 22 January 2002. Tyson walked towards Lewis as soon as he appeared, and the two camps brawled. "Mike Tyson bit through my trousers and took a significant piece of flesh out of my thigh," Lewis said. Tyson denied it at the time. He later paid Lewis $335,000 over the bite.

A week later Nevada refused Tyson a licence, 4–1. Other states would not have him either. On 25 March the fight was finalised for the Pyramid in Memphis, on 8 June 2002, for Lewis's WBC and IBF titles, with each man guaranteed $17.5 million. The crowd was 15,327, and the referee was Eddie Cotton.

Tyson came out hard and won the first round. After that, Lewis's jab took over. In the fourth Tyson went down, but it was not ruled a knockdown, and Lewis was docked a point for pushing. By the seventh Tyson was cut over both eyes and bleeding from the nose, and all three judges had Lewis ahead 68–64.

Early in the eighth a left uppercut buckled Tyson, and he was given a count. Then a right hand to the side of the face put him on his back, and he was counted out at 2:25. Lewis landed 193 of 328 punches and Tyson 49 of 211.

"He's a magnificent, a prolific fighter and he should continue fighting," Tyson said. "I love him and respect him too much to do something to him." And: "There's no way I could ever beat him. He's just too big and too strong." In the ring he had asked for a rematch anyway. "I think I could beat you if we tried it one more time," he told Lewis.

"Some of those punches that I caught him on," Lewis said, "he took them like a man."

Afterwards

In August 2003 Tyson filed for bankruptcy in New York, having earned about $300 million in the ring. In July 2004 Danny Williams knocked him out in the fourth round in Louisville. On 11 June 2005, in Washington, he stayed on his stool after the sixth round against Kevin McBride, and said he no longer had the stomach to fight and did not want to disrespect the sport he loved. He was ahead on two of the judges' cards when he quit.