Mike Tyson

Michael Gerard Tyson was born in Brooklyn, New York City on 30 June 1966.¹² Known as Iron Mike and Kid Dynamite, he won his first 19 professional fights by knockout, 12 of them in the first round.¹ On 22 November 1986 he beat Trevor Berbick to become, at 20 years and 4 months, the youngest heavyweight champion in history, and he went on to hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles simultaneously.¹ He knocked out Michael Spinks in 91 seconds in 1988 to become lineal champion, and lost his titles to Buster Douglas in February 1990.¹ Convicted of rape in 1992, he served three years of a six-year sentence, regained the WBA and WBC titles in 1996, lost to Evander Holyfield that November, and was disqualified in the June 1997 rematch for biting Holyfield's ears.¹ He retired in 2005 and returned for a comeback bout against Jake Paul on 15 November 2024; his career record is 59 fights, 50 wins (44 by knockout) and 7 losses.¹

Tyson was trained by Cus D'Amato and turned professional in 1985.¹ After his release from prison in 1995 he regained world titles against Frank Bruno and Bruce Seldon in 1996 before the two Holyfield bouts.¹ He lost to Lennox Lewis in June 2002 and retired after a loss to Kevin McBride in June 2005.¹ The Arabic article notes his two Junior Olympic gold medals of 1981 and 1982 and his 1984 national Golden Gloves gold medal as an amateur.³

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum. The English article records that Tyson was raised Catholic, was baptized as a Baptist in 1988, and later converted to Islam, stating that he converted before entering prison and made no effort to correct media reporting.¹ The English and Arabic articles both state that it was falsely claimed that he converted in prison and adopted the Muslim name Malik Abdul Aziz, that some sources report the name as Malik Shabazz, and that he never changed his given name to an Islamic one.¹³ The Urdu article instead asserts that he took the name Malik Umar bin Abdul Aziz after accepting Islam; Wikidata also lists Malik Abdul Aziz among his aliases. On the name, the museum follows the English and Arabic articles and does not carry the name in its data.⁴² The English article records his Umrah journeys of July 2010 and December 2022 and his December 2013 statement that he was very grateful to be a Muslim and needs Allah in his life.¹ No source names a school for him, so his school is recorded in the museum's data as unknown.¹³⁴

• Mike Tyson — English Wikipedia¹
• Mike Tyson — Arabic Wikipedia³
• Mike Tyson — Urdu Wikipedia⁴
• Mike Tyson — Wikidata Q79031²