How Mike Tyson became the youngest ever heavyweight world champion, just 20 years old

Now 53 years old, Mike Tyson is best known to the modern public for his controversial quotes, eccentric behavior and film appearances.

His prowess in the ring will forever be affected by his 1992 rape conviction, and to a lesser extent his shameful biting off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear in the ring in 1997, before his career failed with a series of defeats in the early 2000s.

But long before all that, ‘Iron’ Mike Tyson took the world by storm as he made his way to a world heavyweight title of just 20 years – the youngest fighter to do so in a record that still exists.

November 22, 1986. Jamaican-Canadian fighter Trevor Berbick – who defeated an elderly Muhammad Ali in 1981 – faces Tyson at the Las Vegas Hilton in the first defense of his WBC title he won in March of that year.

The fight was billed as “ Judgment Day, ” the night we would find out if the most exciting heavyweight prospect since Ali about what it took to win a world title. He did – and with the terrifying ease that had marked his career so far. Tyson won via TKO in the second round, Berbick failed to get up from his second knockdown.

The way of victory would come as no surprise to anyone who had followed Tyson’s career. This was his 28th fight and victory in just 20 months as a professional fighter, and the 26th knockout. The first 16 of those knockouts had entered the first round, so besieged Berbick had actually fared better than most.

Tyson’s reputation as a brutal knockout specialist was forged from the cameras in a pre-internet era, and his first broadcast on TV didn’t come until February 1986 when he was recording companion Jesse Ferguson in New York – and live on ABC.

Victory was relatively tame by Tyson’s standards – Ferguson’s nose broke in the fifth round before the fight was stopped in the sixth – but he would announce himself with a bang at his next ABC appearance.

Tyson took on Marvis Frazier, a former world title challenger and his toughest opponent yet on paper, steaming in from the first bell, beating Frazier after just 38 seconds in America first live show of its scary power.

However short the fight was, images clearly show the ‘peek-a-boo’ style Tyson used. The style was developed by his trainer and mentor Cus D’Amato, who died of pneumonia in November 1985 at the age of 77.

While D’Amato wouldn’t live to see Tyson become world champions, it was his concern that had brought the young heavyweight to the brink of glory.

The pair first met when Tyson was ’12 or 13 ‘after being introduced by former boxer and trainer Bobby Stewart, a youth counselor who had seen Tyson’s potential.

Growing up in underprivileged neighborhoods around Brooklyn, New York, Tyson never met his birth father, who was from Jamaica, and the man he knew when his father left his mother and her three children around the time he was born.

Tyson had already been arrested 38 times at the age of 13 and regularly had arguments at school – where he would drop out – and on the street. He started to rise with the junior and amateur ranks in his teens D’Amato, who has been training fighters since the 1930s, improved Tyson’s natural ability at his Catskill Boxing Club in New York.

When Tyson’s mother died at the age of 16, D’Amato – who had become a father figure to the troubled youngster – became his guardian.

Utilizing the peek-a-boo style – with his hands in front of the face, elbows tucked in and back pressure from a squatting position – Tyson would win gold at the 1981 and 1982 Olympics.

He was also trained at Catskill by D’Amato’s protégé Kevin Rooney, who would take up his training full-time when D’Amato died, and occasionally by Teddy Atlas – now a well-known boxing commentator and expert.

Remarkably, when Tyson became the youngest ever heavyweight world champion, he broke a record since 1956 with Floyd Patterson – also trained by D’Amato.

With such a mentor gone, it’s no wonder Tyson attributed many of his problems later in life to D’Amato’s death. While Rooney was a brilliant trainer, he couldn’t replace what D’Amato did for Tyson outside the ring.

Tyson says he developed his ferocious skill by telling D’Amato to “punch him badly” and “your opponent, not him,” admitting he was “petrified” by the Italian-American – something he couldn’t say about anyone else in the world.

Write in his 2017 book Iron Ambition: My Life with Cus D’Amato, Tyson explained, “I was petrified when I was alone with him … (and) I knew I could be embarrassed to anyone if I spoke out of line. So I learned pretty quickly not to say anything while he was taking unless he invited me. ‘

He added: ‘When he was happy, talking, laughing with the press, I knew that could happen at any time … people see the public celebrations of my sensational knockouts, but they don’t hear Cus talk to me after the fight! … I quickly learned to walk on eggshells when I was near Cus. ‘

Tyson would add the WBA title to his next fight after defeating Berbick in March 1987, before becoming an IBF champion later that year.

He became the undisputed world champion in 1988, adding The Ring and the linear titles to his roster after knocking out Michael Spinks in the first round.

Tyson would remain the undisputed champion for two years before being defeated by Buster Douglas in February 1990.