In June 2005, Tyson appeared at a Phoenix City Council meeting to advocate for pigeons.

“They don’t bother no one,” he reportedly told city officials.

A few days later, to promote an upcoming fight with Kevin McBride in Washington, D.C., Tyson granted a slew of pre-fight media interviews. This time, he did not offend reporters. This time, he used them as father confessors.

“My whole life has been a waste,” he told USA Today. “I’ve been alone all my life with my secrets and my pain…. I’m a really sad, pathetic case.”

This is not exactly an ideal state of mind for a boxer about to enter the ring, but Tyson was getting $5.5 million for the fight, win or lose. Some of that money would go to Tyson, the rest would go to the bankruptcy estate.

In early June 2005, more than 15,000 violence voyeurs crowded into the MCI Center in Washington, D.C., to see Tyson clobber McBride. Tyson’s friend, Hamilton, sat ringside. The plan was for Tyson to knock out McBride quickly, but the plan failed. Instead, McBride knocked Tyson to the canvas in the sixth round, after which Tyson sat on his stool and refused to fight. No more boxing, he said. His career had ended. He didn’t have it in him anymore.

Hamilton’s heart broke as he watched Tyson sitting on the stool, head hung low, refusing to finish the match.

In post-fight interviews, Tyson said maybe he would become a missionary.

Zoloft, Marijuana, Cocaine
Instead, he became an addict.

“I’m an addict,” Mike Tyson told J.K. McKnight, the Buckeye police officer who stopped Tyson in Scottsdale in the early morning of December 29, 2006. McKnight was in Scottsdale participating in a task force of law enforcement officers intent on keeping the streets free of impaired drivers. And the black BMW weaving through Scottsdale certainly seemed to have an impaired driver at the wheel.

Tyson got out of the car and politely submitted to several tests. He said he’d been at the Pussycat, but had not been drinking. McKnight found two baggies of cocaine in Tyson’s pockets and a police dog named Marco found cocaine in the car.

At the police mobile command unit, Tyson said he’d slept seven hours the night before and had eaten egg whites and fruit for lunch. He’d also had several glasses of tea and water. That day, he’d taken his prescription antidepressant, Zoloft. He said he used cocaine whenever he could get his hands on it; he sometimes stuffed cocaine into Marlboro cigarettes and smoked them. He liked to take cocaine with marijuana, he said. Sometimes, he took extra Zoloft to mellow himself out.

“I am fucked up,” Tyson told McKnight.

Then he started laughing.

Redemption
At this writing, Tyson’s Paradise Valley house had been sold for an undisclosed price and is in escrow, according to real estate agent Kris LaCroix. At some point, he moved out his possessions, and by January, a cleaning crew had swept through the rooms, throwing the detritus of his life in the garbage: wire hangers; a Dolce & Gabbana Pour Homme cologne box; an empty CD case for Anita Baker’s Rhythm of Love; an empty CD case for The Hollywood Affiliated DJ CD; a child’s diaper; a take-out box from Applebee’s; a Psychology 101 homework sheet, due 3-06-06 – How we use our cognitive abilities and accumulated knowledge to think, solve problems, and use language are all key dimensions of: Perception? Sensation? Intelligence? Memory?

As one American gladiator struggled to put together the shambles he’d made of his life, another moved to Paradise Valley. Muhammad Ali, now 65, had barely settled in before he learned he was a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Ali is living out his last years in triumph.

We don’t know how Tyson will live out his last years.

The money is gone. The titles are gone. The fans are gone. The blacking out is gone. Tyson is now into his greatest struggle – understanding and accepting himself. If prison is in his future, he might confront those secrets and that pain he alluded to in the USA Today interview. He might learn the reasons his “whole life has been a waste.” He might figure out why he told Officer McKnight he is “fucked up.” In other words, prison might force Tyson to come to terms with who he is.

If that’s the case, the Baddest Man on the Planet might finally redeem himself.