Mike Tyson admitted he used to be terrified of confrontation and only got into fighting after beating up a man who killed his pet pigeon.
Ring legend Tyson was one of the most feared knockout artists in his prime and still holds a record for being the youngest heavyweight champion in boxing history, accomplishing the feat at the age of 20. And speaking on The Pivot podcast. Tyson revealed his early experiences of altercations and how the death of his pet pigeon introduced him to boxing.
"This is no bad***, I was a baby and a guy would be picking on me. My right hand to god, I'd be like 'stop', I was so scared and didn't know what to do," he said. "Then one guy said to me 'you better f****ng fight him back' and I started fighting. This guy killed my pigeon and it was a wrap. That was the first fight ever in my life because of a pigeon."
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"I then got locked up some place as a kid and met some guy who used to be a fighter. He introduced to somebody who was a great trainer [Cus D'Amato] and I just wanted more and more and more. I wanted to crush the world to my feet. I have a big deep hole in me, but I had to have everything, all of it. Even when I was a young kid, I wasn't balanced. It was either everything or nothing.”
'Iron Mike' is well known for his love of pigeons. The legendary boxer used to keep the birds as pets during his upbringing in New York. Tyson even dumped one of his ex-girlfriends after she killed and boiled one of his pets.
The former heavyweight champion even knocked out a bin man after he threw a crate containing the remains of his favourite pigeon, Julius, following its death. "One morning I woke up and found my favourite pigeon, Julius, had died. I was devastated and was gonna use his crate as my stickball bat to honour him," Tyson told the WBC.
"I left the crate on my stoop and went in to get something and I returned to see the sanitation man put the crate into the crusher. I rushed him and caught him flush on the temple with a titanic right hand! He was out cold, convulsing on the floor."
