Mike Tyson will forever be known as one of the greats of boxing, and one of the best-known sportsman of all time.
Like most successful men, Tyson had a lot of ups and downs in his career. At some point, he was declared bankrupt before ending up with a net worth of $3 million.
Born in a notorious part of Brooklyn famous for crimes like drugs, his father abandoned his mum shortly after he was conceived, leaving her to cater for him alone. It didn’t take long for his mum to get into another relationship and marry again, but like the first marriage, it didn’t last long.
The Early Days
At the age of 16, Mike lost his mother, and his boxing manager took him under his wings. Even though he ran into trouble a lot of times, his manager saw his boxing skills, and this made him believe in his talent. Thus he encouraged the youngster to keep going.
His ability became obvious for all to see when he won gold medals in the junior Olympics for consecutive years, and professionals in the game agreed that he has a huge future ahead of him. Soon after that, he had his professional debut and won the match by knocking out his opponent in just the first round.
Entering into the first year of Tyson’s professional career, he fought in 28 matches, winning 26 of them through knockouts, and more interestingly, 16 of the 26 were won in just the first round.
This made him the talk of the town, and he got a lot of attention. Soon after he won his first heavyweight championship by defeating Trevor Berbrick, in a match that brought him more fame all over the world due to the manner of victory. He was popular for boxing skills like speed, power, perfect timing, as well as accuracy.
Tyson Begins to Make a Lot Of Money
All these successes paved the way for him to make a lot of money and he also got endorsement and collaboration deals.
A notable one was with Nintendo, a popular gaming company. With this collaboration, they included him one of their new game, and over millions of copies were sold upon release. This made him more money and Tyson became very wealthy overnight.
Fast forward to 1989 when he had to face Michael Spinks who was a well-known ruthless boxer at that time. The fight was dubbed the most expensive fight of boxing history at that time. The stakes and expectation were really high, and Tyson won in the finest way by knocking out his opponent after just 91 seconds
How He Went Broke And Turned His Fortune Around
Soon afterward, he began to face a lot of personal life issue like failed marriages and relationships, a conviction and jail time, and all of this led to him being severely bankrupt, leaving a man who had an estimated worth of $300 million to become broke.
Tyson, however, turned his fortune around by publishing books with stories of his career success, as well as making several appearances on TV shows and movies. Now he is married with two kids and lives comfortably in his own mansion. He presently has an estimated net worth of $3 million.