Cus was mad because he thought that I didn’t deserve it. It wasn’t like I had come home with a gold medal. But he took me to a local dealership. Cus was trying to steer me to an Oldsmobile Cutlass because it didn’t cost much.
“Nah, I want the Cadillac, Cus,” I said.
“Mike, I’m telling you …”
“If it’s not the Cadillac, I don’t want no car.” I stood my ground.
I got the car and we drove it back to the house and stored it in the barn. I didn’t have a license and I didn’t know how to drive, but when Cus got on my case, I’d grab my car keys, run out to the barn, get in the car, lock myself in, and play music.
In September of 1984, I signed two contracts, one with Bill Cayton and one with Jimmy Jacobs. Cayton owned an advertising agency, and he signed me to a seven-year personal management contract representing me for commercials and product endorsements. Instead of the usual 10 or 15 percent, Cayton was taking 331/3 percent. But I didn’t know the terms, I just signed it. A few weeks later, I signed a contract with Jimmy and he became my manager. Standard four-year contract, two-thirds for me, one-third for Jimmy. And then they agreed to split the income from the contracts with each other. Cus signed my management contract too. Under his signature it read, “Cus D’Amato, Advisor to Michael Tyson who shall have final approval of all decisions involving Michael Tyson.” Now I had an official management team. I knew that Cayton and Jimmy were very savvy guys with the media, and I knew that they knew how to organize shit. And with Cus making all the boxing decisions and handpicking my opponents, I was ready to begin my professional career.
Until about a week into training, when I vanished for four days. Tom Patti finally tracked me down. I was sitting in my Caddy.
“Where have you been, Mike?” Tommy asked.
“I don’t need this shit,” I vented. “My girlfriend Angie’s father is a manager at J.J. Newberry’s department store. He can get me a job making a hundred thousand dollars. I got this Caddy. I’m going to split,” I said.
The truth was, I was just nervous about fighting as a professional.
“Mike, you’re not going to make a hundred grand a year because you’re dating his daughter,” he said.
“I can do a lot of things,” I said.
“Man, you don’t have a lot of options. Get back in the gym, win your fight, and move on.”
I was back in the gym the next day. Once I got over my nerves, I was proud that I was going to be a professional fighter at just eighteen years old. I had a great team in my corner. Besides Kevin Rooney, there was Matt Baranski. Matt was a wonderful man who was a methodical tactician. Kevin was more “Aarrrgggghhh” in-your-face.
We discussed giving me a nickname. Jimmy and Bill didn’t think it was necessary, but Cus wanted to call me the Tan Terror, as an homage to Joe Louis, the Brown Bomber. I thought that was cool, but we never ran with it. But I paid homage to other heroes of mine. I had someone put a bowl over my head and go around it with an electric shaver and give me a Jack Dempsey haircut. Then I decided to go with the Spartan look that all my old heroes had, no socks, no robe. I wanted to bring that look back into the mainstream of boxing.
My first professional bout was on March 6, 1985, in Albany. My opponent was a guy named Hector Mercedes. We didn’t know anything about him, so the morning before the fight Cus got on the phone with some trainers and boxing gym owners in Puerto Rico to make sure that Mercedes wasn’t a sleeper. The night of the fight, I was nervous, but I knew I could beat the guy as soon as I saw him in the ring. I knew that Cus would match me up against a weaker opponent for my first few fights to build up my confidence.
I was right. They stopped the fight in the first round when I pummeled Hector to a kneeling position in the corner of the ring. I was excited, but back in the locker room, Cus pointed out all my flaws. “You gotta keep your hands up more. Your hands were playing around,” he said.
My next two fights were also in Albany, which was practically my hometown. A month after Mercedes, I fought Trent Singleton. I entered the ring and bowed to all four corners of the arena, then I raised my arms to the crowd like a gladiator. It didn’t take long for me to knock him down three times. The referee stopped the fight. Then I sauntered over to his corner, kissed him, and rubbed his head.
I was due to fight again in a month, so in between fights all I did was run, train, and box. That’s all Cus wanted me to do. Box, box, box, spar, spar, spar.
I fought Don Halpin on May twenty-third, and he was a much more experienced opponent. He lasted for three rounds while I was switching back and forth from a conventional stance to southpaw, experimenting and getting some ring experience. In the fourth round, I tagged him with a left and a right and he was on his way down when I hit him again with a right hook. He was on the canvas for a good amount of time before they finally got him up. Cus, of course, thought I didn’t go to the body enough and I didn’t move laterally. But Jacobs and Cayton were thrilled with the way I looked so far.
I started attracting my own following at these fights. They began showing up with little signs like they do at baseball games. One sign read GOODEN IS DOCTOR K BUT MIKE TYSON IS DOCTOR KO. I also started attracting groupies, but I wasn’t taking advantage of their advances. I was too in love with myself to think about anybody else. Actually, Cus thought I was going a little bit overboard. He thought I should go out more. So I’d go up to Albany and hang out with some of my friends there.
I hardly made any money from those early fights. My first fight lost money for the promoter, but Jimmy gave me $500. Then he took $50 from that to give to Kevin and he put $350 in the bank for me, so I walked away with $100. They were more concerned with spreading my name around than making money on these early fights. Jimmy and Cayton were the first fight managers to make highlight reels of all my knockouts and send VHS tapes to every boxing writer in the country. They were very innovative that way.
I was performing sensationally, but it seemed that Cus was getting grumpier and grumpier. Sometimes I thought that Cus thought I was an Uncle Tom. I would try to be polite to the people I’d meet and give them “Yes, ma’ams” and “No, sirs” and Cus would get on my case.
“Why are you talking to them like that? You think they’re better than you? All those people are phonies,” he’d say. Then when I acted like the god that he kept telling me I was, he’d look at me with disgust.
“You like people looking up to you, huh? Guys like Cayton and them telling you how great you are.”
I think he just needed someone to tear into. My day depended on what side of the bed Cus woke up on. By then, I had gotten my license and I would drive him to various meetings and conferences.
On June twentieth, shortly before my nineteenth birthday, I fought Ricky Spain in Atlantic City. This was my first pro fight outside of Albany, but Cus had sent me to watch big fights in cities all over the country to get me acclimated to the arenas.
“Make this your home, know this arena, know this place with your eyes closed,” he’d tell me. “You are going to be living here for a long time, so get comfortable.” He also took me along when he hung out with big-time fighters. He had me sit with them around a dinner table and get familiar with them so I’d never get intimidated by a fighter.
I was really excited to be fighting in Atlantic City and for it to be broadcast on ESPN. My opponent was unbeaten too, with a 7-0 record with five knockouts. They introduced me as “the Baby Brawler” and I don’t know about the “Baby” part, but I floored Spain twice in the first round and the ref stopped the fight.
Jimmy