Mike Tyson Was Helpless as He Saw His Childhood Partner Make the Deadliest Mistake of His Life

Eight years after losing the last bout of his professional career to Kevin McBride, Mike Tyson sat down with Larry “Ratso” Sloman to pen his life story.

Iron Mike went through the ebb and flow from his childhood to where he stands today, and it is widely known. Before he took up boxing, the phase abounded with incidents, happenings, and stories. Only those who had been through his memoir would understand the hardships, challenges, and misery young Mike Tyson had to go through. So often, as it happens with kids growing up in similar circumstances, it ends up in an awful tragedy.

The twenty-fifth page of his book “Undisputed Truth’s,” the first chapter, might give the readers a glimpse of the life a young Tyson led as a gang member.

When Mike Tyson and his companion broke into a residence

In 1976, barely ten, Tyson joined Rutland Road, a Brooklyn-based gang. It was a group of guys, mainly from the Caribbean. They used to call themselves The Cats. Theirs was a gang with expertise in the burglary.

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Iron Mike talks about one particular day when he and his friend Curtis broke into a house. It was dark inside. Now it happened that the house owners, like his friend, were from the Caribbean. Soon Tyson heard, “Who’s that? Is that you, honey?”

Tyson thought it was his friend Curtis speaking, so he told him to check out the safe while he went for the money and a gun. Again he heard someone shouting, “What, baby?”

He realized it wasn’t his friend this time. So, like greased lightning, he frantically rushed to exit and called out to his friend, “Curtis, this sh*t don’t look right. Let’s get out of here; somebody is in here.”

The tough life of a young Mike Tyson

However, Curtis, who Mike Tyson described as a ‘perfectionist,’ had other plans. Instead of making himself scarce, the former decided to lock the door before leaving. 

Tyson got away, but his pal didn’t have such good luck. By then, the homeowner had come racing out and given Curtis a solid blow to the head. The future King of the Ring was under the impression that his friend was no more.

Once a year had passed, Tyson finally ran into him again. Though Curtis was alive, the beating had all but crushed his face. 

When Tyson was thirteen, police had already taken him into custody about thirty-eight times. Then, he met former boxer Bobby Stewart at Johnston, New York’s Tryon Scholl for Boys. Stewart, a counselor at the center, spotted Iron Mike’s boxing talent and took him to legendary coach Cus D’Amato. The rest, as they say, is history.

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