Netflix’s Mike Tyson documentary series offers an incomplete portrait of a troubling character | Documentary

MIke Tyson never imagined old age. And yet here he is, having outlived his parents, the disreputable Brooklynites who died when he was a teenager, and the tough guys from Brownsville who teased him for being skinny and having a lisp. Here he is after going through tough times due to rape in his prime, after winning and losing great fortunes, and struggling with addiction to alcohol, drugs, and fame. There he still is, 60 and a grandfather now, mingling with Jake Paul in the ring, opening up to manosphere-adjacent podcasters, launching into an impromptu White House press briefing — a Maori face tattoo unmistakably in the frame — during a visit to Washington to cheer up his old pal as his party faces bleak midterm predictions. “I don’t need to exist,” the champion says in Tyson, the latest four-part vanity project about his turbulent life and times. “A reason, something allowed me to exist.”

At his peak, Tyson was a fascinating sporting event in his own right – the ruthless knockout machine who scared opponents at first sight, felled them in seconds, and watched the carnage with cool nonchalance. His darkest episodes – the contentious relationship with actor Robin Givens, the six-year prison sentence for rape, the biting off Evander Holyfield’s ear – only deepened the public’s fascination with him, adding to the story of the baddest man in boxing. In the winter of his life, Tyson’s introspection, so deep that it veers into self-parody, is now the thrilling spectacle. And if generations of black comedians have proven anything, it’s that the appetite for Mike Tyson impersonations is inexhaustible.

This new Netflix documentary series isn’t the first rehab project featuring the disgraced heavyweight champion: in 2008, there was the HBO documentary he produced with since #MeToo-d director James Toback; in 2012, the one-man Broadway show starring Tyson and director Spike Lee. In between, there were cameos from Tyson in The Hangover, which reframed his erratic behavior as campy mischief. But even though the kinder, gentler Iron Mike was invited back onto the chat show circuit to promote his latest ventures, after being dropped as a major pitchman following abuse and rape allegations, the charm offensive could never gloss over his ugliest moments on camera – like the time he threatened to eat Lennox Lewis’s children.

Tyson biting Holyfield’s ear during their 1997 title fight remains one of the most bizarre incidents in sport, a forever freeze-frame of a completely unhinged competitor. “I was horrified by it,” Bill Clinton said at the time, “and I think the American people are, too.” When reminded of this joke in the Netflix doc, Tyson took offense, asking what Clinton — of all presidents — knew about the scandal.

Donald Trump promoted a number of Tyson’s fights at his Atlantic City casino and fought for him in the press after Tyson split with manager Don King. Director Floyd Russ, who previously made a forensic documentary about OJ Simpson, sits down with Trump at the White House for the Netflix documentary, but the interview isn’t exactly a coup. Most of the time, Trump looks old and tired and does interviews about himself. “The media was hard on Mike, but that only made Mike sexier,” he says. “They’re tough on me and I’m president!” » Assault allegations are not discussed – perhaps because they might hit too close to home.

Givens and Desiree Washington are the glaring omissions from Netflix’s Tyson — but it’s not for lack of effort, the documentary is quick to note. In the case of the pageant contestant — who was 18 when she accused Tyson, then 25, of rape — all Russ has to remember is the 1992 interview Washington gave to Barbara Walters, in which she said she was offered $1 million to recant. “Just a lying, reptilian, monstrous young woman” is how Tyson characterized Washington in a 2003 interview with Fox’s Greta Van Susteren, adding that, with his reputation as a rapist already established, he might as well “rape her and her motherfucking mama.”

Ultimately, Tyson – who even outlasted fellow thugs Simpson and Tupac, an ardent supporter the boxer still remembers for visiting him in prison – sees Washington in the documentary as another adversary he defeated. “No matter how much harm she tried to do, she lost,” he tells Russ. “What did she get, a million and a half dollars? I got out of prison with $400 million, so tell me. I’m invincible.”

Of course, longtime Tyson watchers might be inclined to view this as tougher talk, given how ingrained his vulnerabilities are in the media canon. Over the years, Tyson has spoken at length about how his poor, black childhood in Brownsville, amid violence at home and bullying on the streets, followed him into adulthood. The death of Cus D’Amato, the legendary boxing trainer who nurtured his talent and brought stability to his life, continues to cast a long shadow. The timing of that defeat, when Tyson was on the verge of becoming the youngest heavyweight champion in history, remains a source of enormous pain. In 2009, her four-year-old daughter was playing on a treadmill when she became entangled in the machine’s emergency stop and accidentally strangled herself. In these difficult times, we really feel for this guy.

And yet there’s something unsettling about Tyson’s frankness, his willingness to revisit the darkest chapters of his life with the same openness as his triumphs — like sitting down with a storybook monster and finding him eager to explain the horrors without having to take any responsibility for them. And while the Netflix documentary captures Tyson seemingly unassuming — listening in on his therapy sessions and participating in his hallucinogenic Toad -venom 5-MeO-DMT journey — the fighter is never completely unguarded. He knows the cameras are there and Netflix is ​​going to chill with him. Tyson, also a producer on this project, eventually invited them. On the contrary, the doc clearly states Tyson lives for the camera and redemption is never the question – And that onlookers will continue to appear, even though most already know what awaits them. “To me, this camera is amazing,” he says. “I’m so overwhelmed and overpowered by this narcotic that I’m going to make a fool of myself. It’s simply addictive.”