Mike Tyson

By the end of 1987, Tyson was being hailed as the most exciting champ since Muhammad Ali, an example for ghetto kids, and indeed all kids, to aspire toward. Interestingly, he was surrounded by white men, including his co-managers Jim Jacobs and Bill Cayton, and so he seemed to embody racial harmony and a "we can all get along" spirit that only added to the allure of the "reformed" delinquent. In 1988, it all began to go wrong.

As if sleep-walking in a film noir, Tyson soon found his femme fatale, Robin Givens. The beautiful star of ABC's "Head of the Class," Givens represented class and sophistication to the newly crowned champ. To Givens, or at least to her mother, Ruth Roper, Tyson represented money—a lot of money. Tyson had earned millions of dollars in fight purses and television contracts, including a $26 million deal with HBO for a series of seven fights, signed in 1987. More unusually for a prize-fighter, he had honest management that had allowed him to keep the lion's share of that money. After a whirlwind courtship, Tyson married Givens on February 7, 1988. Soon, she and her mother began to do a little house cleaning, banishing many of Tyson's friends and closely questioning others about the state of his finances.

A month later, Tyson's co-manager, Jim Jacobs, died. While Tyson was at the funeral, his wife Robin was at the bank, demanding to know the whereabouts of "her money." Shortly thereafter, they confronted Tyson's surviving manager, Bill Cayton, demanding a full accounting and ultimately reducing his share of the champ's earnings from one-third to 20 percent. Tyson's behavior became increasingly erratic, ramming cars into trees, getting into a street brawl with boxer Mitch Green and, on a disastrous trip to Russia, chasing Robin and her mother through the hotel corridors in a drunken rage. In a nationally televised interview with Barbara Walters, Givens told America of her "life of horror" with a manic-depressive Mike Tyson, while the heavyweight champ sat meekly at her side, looking to some observers like a tranquilized pit bull. Shortly after the interview Tyson smashed up furniture, glassware, and windows at their mansion in Bernardsville, N.J., and Givens fled to Los Angeles, where she filed for divorce. At the time, she was generally seen as the villain. Her image was splashed across the tabloids with the simple caption: Most Hated Woman in America.