'There's nothing nice about me, I'm not a nice person'

Mike Tyson, once known as 'the baddest man on the planet', talks to The Independent ahead of his fight with Jake Paul

- ALEX PATTLE

Mike Tyson is not a nice guy, and he is not at peace. Those are his words. The words of a former world heavyweight champion. The words of a brutal fighter once proclaimed (fairly) as the “baddest man on the planet”. The words of a fighter who chewed a chunk out of an opponent’s ear. The words of a father, husband, podcaster and convicted criminal.

There was a time when Mike Tyson was a simple being – 40 years ago, perhaps. So purely violent and destructive was the boxer that he was arguably as one-dimensional as he was singleminded. Nowadays, things are more complicated. For a long time, he has been a genuine enigma.

The American, who still holds the record for being boxing’s youngest-ever world heavyweight champion, is older now. The 58-year-old did his time in prison – from 1992 to 1995 after being convicted of rape, plus nine months in 1999 for assaulting two motorists – and served his ban for biting into Evander Holyfield’s ear.

Despite his troubling and troubled past, Tyson is loved by many boxing fans for the memories he gave them during his prime; he is treasured for the sense of wonderment he drilled through their TV screens and into their living rooms with vicious, merciless strikes in the Eighties and Nineties. Punches that altered the lives of Tyson’s opponents and audiences, in different ways.

Watching Tyson at that time might have been akin to staring at fire up close, finding yourself absorbed by the flames. You wouldn’t want to touch them, of course, but their power speaks to something primal. Mike Tyson spoke to something primal in other humans. So, it feels as though there was always an urge to forgive him for his mistakes: the immoral and criminal. In many ways, he is a changed man. In others, maybe not. There has long been a desire to see him as changed, at least.