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Baddest Man: The Making of Mike Tyson

ISBN 
9781529958959
Format 
Trade Paperback
Recommended Price 
R430.00
Published 
July 2025
About the book: 
On a defining evening of the 1980s, Donald Trump hosted celebrities and high rollers in a Jersey Shore town to witness 21-year-old Mike Tyson knock out Michael Spinks in just 91 seconds, earning more than the annual payrolls of the Los Angeles Lakers and Boston Celtics combined.
 
Only eight years earlier, Tyson, a troubled child from Brooklyn, was taken under the wing of boxing legend Cus D’Amato in upstate New York. Their story of mutual redemption captivated novelists, screenwriters, and the emerging cable TV industry. Tyson became HBO’s leading man long before Tony Soprano.
 
Despite the immense success, Tyson's story was more complex and darker than it appeared. Over the decades, he has been villainized, lionized, and fetishized—but never fully humanized until now. Acclaimed biographer Mark Kriegel, who first encountered Tyson as a young reporter, explores Tyson's life through what he survived rather than whom he knocked out.
 
Tyson, often compared to Jack Dempsey, was more akin to Sonny Liston— Black, feared, and expected to die young. What made Liston a pariah made Tyson a touchstone for a generation influenced by hip hop and gunfire. Kriegel captures not just Tyson’s rise but his profound impact on the American psyche.
 
About the Author

Mark Kriegel, a former sports columnist for the  New York Post  and the  Daily News,  is a boxing analyst and essayist for ESPN. He is the author of  Namath: A Biography, Pistol: The Life of Pete Maravich  and  The Good Son: The Life of Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini.  He lives in Santa Monica, California, with his wife, the screenwriter Jenny Lumet.

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