Mike Tyson is said to have made it a habit to knock out on his training partners as quickly as possible, not to make him feel superior and great, but to get home in time to watch his favorite Tom & Jerry.
According to Rudy Gonzales, Tyson’s former bodyguard and chauffeur, the boxer would often shorten his five-hour sparring session into an hour for him to watch the said cartoons.
“When we trained in Vegas, his sparring sessions went from 12 to 5pm,” Gonzales wrote in his book The Inner Ring, which is being made into an animated feature film.
“He would be the nicest guy beforehand asking the sparring partners: ‘How you doing today, how’s the family?’
“Then he would just knock out five guys all out within an hour so there was nobody left.
“I saw him punch the heavy bag so hard it broke a few times from the chains and the other boxers would just leave saying: ‘We are not f*****g with you today. I do not care how much money you pay me’.
“Anyone who felt they were up for taking him on, he would hit them and they’d just snap. Soon after they would pack their bags.
“So one day I asked: ‘Boss I am confused, isn’t this about working on techniques?
“He replied: ‘If I keep it going we will miss Tom & Jerry cartoons.'”
Still, Tyson has a history of expressing his love and appreciation of cartoons, even going so far as helping and creating his own animated series.
Mike Tyson Mysteries follows the former heavyweight champion as he embarks on a journey throughout the world, correcting wrongs and solving mysteries and enigmatic situations. It was a surprising smash and aired on Adult Swim for four seasons before it was put to a halt in September 2020.
In a recent interview with The Sun, Gonzalez stated that during Tyson’s glory days, he was afraid of killing his opponents in the ring that he had to have sex with groupies before fights to ‘diminish his power’ and calm down.
“His biggest fear was that he would kill someone in that ring,’ Gonzalez said.
“He knew he could do it. So I had girls tucked away in bathrooms and changing rooms.
“Sometimes he’d go in with them for a minute, bang the s**t out of them, snap his neck and say: ”Okay this guy is going to live tonight.”’
